For years I have watched people in their millions inflict more illness and suffering on themselves than any war has ever done. What is this biblical plague, this monstrosity of suffering? Self-inflicted illness. The fat guy smoking a cigarette. The thin woman flayed raw by alcohol. The kid jamming another fat-laden time bomb into his face. The millions and millions of couch potatoes who haven't done a minute's decent exercise since they passed puberty. And what happens to all these millions upon millions of people? Nothing for most of the time.

But then it all changes.

Sometimes suddenly – a heart attack, a stroke, cancer. Life-changing, irrevocable events that stuff their lives and the lives of everyone around them.

Or not so suddenly – the slow suffocation of emphysema, the long autumn of health-related unemployment, the desperate loneliness of congestive cardiac failure. And that doesn't half wreck the lives of everyone around them.

Is it preventable? Not all of it, no. Some diseases just happen even with the best will in the world. But is most of it preventable? Yes, absolutely yes.

If you don't like plain English don't read it. If you aren't prepared to apply it to yourself and take responsibility for your own health, don't read it. It isn't a book full of references and science. It's just a book about being healthy!