Book Review

Dirty Genes
by Ben Lynch
Reviewed date: 2022 Aug 1
371 pages
cover art

A naturopathic "doctor" peddles his snake oil. I can't believe I wasted time reading this.

A cursory internet search for reviews before I bought the book didn't turn up anything too alarming. As I actually read the book, it became increasingly apparent that it is the same old junk: toxins are bad and are everywhere, the government is lying to you, the medical and pharmaceutical establishment has their heads up their asses, and you really, really need to eat organic food and also buy all these supplements. Also, I kid you not, he tells you specifically not to get tested for any of the gene mutations he talks about in his book. Instead, he has you take a short quiz (that is almost guaranteed to give you a positive result for at least one of the genes he identifies) and then, regardless of your results, he recommends you follow his entire program. After all, all genes are connected, so you can't just treat one in isolation.

That's when I went looking into the author a bit more and found out he's not a medical doctor, there is no evidence for most of the things he's saying, and it turns out he's got a company that sells the supplements he recommends in his book. He appears to make most of his money teaching other people how to treat patients with his program.

Not everything he says is bad. His basic program (or at least the initial part before he directs you to supplements) is just eating healthful foods, getting enough sleep, and reducing stress. But man, I don't need a book full of lies about gene science to tell me I need to eat right, sleep more, and reduce stress.

Here are some other articles about Ben Lynch.

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