100 books like Mastering Diabetes

By Cyrus Khambatta, Robby Barbaro,

Here are 100 books that Mastering Diabetes fans have personally recommended if you like Mastering Diabetes. Shepherd is a community of 12,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.

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Book cover of Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease: The Revolutionary, Scientifically Proven, Nutrition-Based Cure

Glen Merzer Author Of Own Your Health: How to Live Long & Avoid Chronic Illness

From my list on healthy cooking, eating, and lifestyle.

Why am I passionate about this?

Heart disease ravaged both sides of my family. When I was a teenager, my mother developed heart disease and her two brothers died of heart attacks. In response, at the age of seventeen, I gave up meat. Now, after a career writing comedy for the stage and television, I write books on health, and all my extensive research on nutrition has vindicated my instincts from the age of seventeen but taught me that there is far more to a healthy diet than just avoiding flesh foods. I have authored or co-authored eleven books that, in different ways, make the case for the health benefits of plants. 

Glen's book list on healthy cooking, eating, and lifestyle

Glen Merzer Why did Glen love this book?

Dr. Caldwell B. Esselstyn, Jr., is a soft-spoken giant of modern medicine who has revolutionized the treatment of heart disease. The studies he has conducted on the role of diet in reversing heart disease, reported on within the book, are the most significant heart studies of our time. Esselstyn writes simply and clearly; when you finish reading his book, you understand everything you need to know in order to nurture and protect, through diet, a healthy heart. 

By Caldwell B. Esselstyn,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Reading books is a kind of enjoyment. Reading books is a good habit. We bring you a different kinds of books. You can carry this book where ever you want. It is easy to carry. It can be an ideal gift to yourself and to your loved ones. Care instruction keep away from fire.


Book cover of How Not to Die: Discover the Foods Scientifically Proven to Prevent and Reverse Disease

Marta Zaraska Author Of Growing Young: How Friendship, Optimism, and Kindness Can Help You Live to 100

From my list on reads if you don't want to die (any time soon).

Why am I passionate about this?

I’m a science journalist published in The Washington Post, Scientific American, The Atlantic, etc., and the author of bestselling Growing Young: How Friendship, Optimism and Kindness Can Help You Live to 100. I’m also a slightly obsessive parent who really cares about her family’s health—that’s how “Growing Young” was born. To write the book, I’ve read over 600 scientific studies, talked to dozens of scientists and had some experiments conducted on myself (some a bit painful, some rather fun)—and ended up changing my own outlook on what it means to live healthily. 

Marta's book list on reads if you don't want to die (any time soon)

Marta Zaraska Why did Marta love this book?

While friendship, ikigai and optimism are important for our health and longevity, diet and exercise still matter—a lot. For me, How Not to Die is a go-to book when I want to check the science on what works—and what doesn’t—in terms of nutrition, physical activity, supplements, etc.

By Michael Greger, Gene Stone,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked How Not to Die as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

'This book may help those who are susceptible to illnesses that can be prevented with proper nutrition' - His Holiness the Dalai Lama

The international bestseller, Dr Michael Greger's How Not To Die gives effective, scientifically-proven nutritional advice to prevent our biggest killers - including heart disease, breast cancer, prostate cancer, high blood pressure and diabetes - and reveals the astounding health benefits that simple dietary choices can provide.

Why rely on drugs and surgery to cure you of life-threatening disease when the right decisions can prevent you from falling ill to begin with?

Based on the latest scientific research,…


Book cover of Diet for a New America: How Your Food Choices Affect Your Health, Happiness and the Future of Life on Earth

Glen Merzer Author Of Own Your Health: How to Live Long & Avoid Chronic Illness

From my list on healthy cooking, eating, and lifestyle.

Why am I passionate about this?

Heart disease ravaged both sides of my family. When I was a teenager, my mother developed heart disease and her two brothers died of heart attacks. In response, at the age of seventeen, I gave up meat. Now, after a career writing comedy for the stage and television, I write books on health, and all my extensive research on nutrition has vindicated my instincts from the age of seventeen but taught me that there is far more to a healthy diet than just avoiding flesh foods. I have authored or co-authored eleven books that, in different ways, make the case for the health benefits of plants. 

Glen's book list on healthy cooking, eating, and lifestyle

Glen Merzer Why did Glen love this book?

This is a truly spiritual look at health. It is bolstered by a ton of science, but what stays with you is the instinctive decency of the author, appealing to the instinctive decency of the reader to embrace what it means to be human, and apply that lesson to diet. It’s hard to imagine that anyone could read this book and not be moved and changed by it. This book has undoubtedly improved the lives and health of millions.

By John Robbins,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Diet for a New America as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

From John Robbins, a new edition of the classic that awakened the conscience of a nation. Since the 1987 publication of Diet for a New America, beef consumption in the United States has fallen a remarkable 19%. While many forces are contributing to this dramatic shift in our habits, Diet for a New America is considered to be one of the most important. Diet for a New America is a startling examination of the food we currently buy and eat in the United States, and the astounding moral, economic, and emotional price we pay for it.
In Section I, John…


Book cover of The Starch Solution: Eat the Foods You Love, Regain Your Health, and Lose the Weight for Good!

Glen Merzer Author Of Own Your Health: How to Live Long & Avoid Chronic Illness

From my list on healthy cooking, eating, and lifestyle.

Why am I passionate about this?

Heart disease ravaged both sides of my family. When I was a teenager, my mother developed heart disease and her two brothers died of heart attacks. In response, at the age of seventeen, I gave up meat. Now, after a career writing comedy for the stage and television, I write books on health, and all my extensive research on nutrition has vindicated my instincts from the age of seventeen but taught me that there is far more to a healthy diet than just avoiding flesh foods. I have authored or co-authored eleven books that, in different ways, make the case for the health benefits of plants. 

Glen's book list on healthy cooking, eating, and lifestyle

Glen Merzer Why did Glen love this book?

Let Dr. John McDougall open your eyes about how badly most of us have been misled on the subject of nutrition, and how simple, powerful, and effective the truth can be. You have to love how the book provides plenty of stories of individuals transformed and restored to health on the starch-based diet, and how it provides recipes (by Mary McDougall) and eating plans to get the reader started on a path to optimal health.

By John McDougall, Mary McDougall,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Starch Solution as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Pick up that bread! This doctor-approved method lets you keep the carbs and lose the pounds!

"The Starch Solution is one of the most important books ever written on healthy eating."-John P. Mackey, co-CEO and director of Whole Foods Market, Inc.

Fear of the almighty carb has taken over the diet industry for the past few decades-from Atkins to Dukan-even the mere mention of a starch-heavy food is enough to trigger an avalanche of shame and longing. But the truth is, carbs are not the enemy!

Bestselling author John A. McDougall and his kitchen-savvy wife, Mary, prove that a starch-rich…


Book cover of The Carbs & Cals & Fat & Fiber Counter

Roy Taylor Author Of Life Without Diabetes: The Definitive Guide to Understanding and Reversing Type 2 Diabetes

From my list on type 2 diabetes: making sense of muddled advice.

Why am I passionate about this?

Since childhood, I’ve wanted to find out how things work. The human body is an amazing combination of mind and body. As Professor of Medicine and Metabolism at Newcastle University, I’ve been fortunate to be able to find out what goes wrong to cause type 2 diabetes. It was not the complex mystery believed by other experts, but just one simple process. A little too much fat inside the liver caused insulin not to work properly, and an overspill of fat prevented enough insulin to be made. Growing a wild idea into a proven NHS programme involves sleepless nights, disbelief of colleagues, gratitude of patients, and hugely enjoyable team-working. 

Roy's book list on type 2 diabetes: making sense of muddled advice

Roy Taylor Why did Roy love this book?

‘Counting’ calories at every meal is not a recipe for a sane or happy life. But knowing the approximate calorie content of what you regularly eat is certainly wise. This is a look-up book, not a reading book. So—how about the blueberry muffin you have been led to believe is the healthy option? What! 393 calories? But that is about a quarter of the daily calorie requirement for a smaller person. Orange juice? Ah yes, one of my five-a-day—so healthy. But at 90 calories per 250 ml glass it is easy to cut without bothering appetite. Taken in addition to a weight neutral diet, it would cause around six pounds of weight gain in a year. This is a book of information. Information useful for life. 

By Chris Cheyette, Yello Balolia,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Carbs & Cals & Fat & Fiber Counter as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

MANAGE YOUR DIET AND DIABETES THE CARBS & CALS WAY, WITH OVER 1,800 FOOD & DRINK PHOTOS!

The Carbs & Cals & Fat & Fiber Counter is the FIRST diet and diabetes book to show hundreds of photos of popular USA food and drink items in up to 6 portion sizes, with the carb, calorie, fat, and fiber values clearly displayed in color-coded tabs above each photo.

Simply compare the food on your plate with the photos in the book. With this unique book, carb and calorie counting has never been easier!

This revolutionary, easy-to-use guide to diet, weight loss,…


Book cover of A Liberated Mind: How to Pivot Toward What Matters

Chad LeJeune Author Of "Pure O" OCD: Letting Go of Obsessive Thoughts with Acceptance and Commitment Therapy

From my list on thoughts, and our relationship with them.

Why am I passionate about this?

As a clinical psychologist, I listen to thoughts all the time. I’m also having my own, constantly. We rely on our thoughts to help us navigate the world. However, our thoughts can also be a source of suffering. At times, they're not such reliable guides or helpers. Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) is a way of thinking about thinking. ACT captured my imagination early in my clinical career. I trained with ACT’s originator, Steven Hayes, in the early 1990’s. I’ve come to believe that being more aware of our own thoughts, and our relationship to them is key to creating positive change and living a life grounded in our values.

Chad's book list on thoughts, and our relationship with them

Chad LeJeune Why did Chad love this book?

Dr. Hayes is the originator of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, an innovative approach to addressing human suffering based on examining and changing our relationship to our thoughts. 

This book looks at the many ways that our capacity for evaluative and judgmental thought leads to suffering. Then, it offers a map for changing how we relate to and respond to those thoughts. 

It offers tools for shifting away from struggling with our internal narratives toward taking action based on our values. 

By Steven C. Hayes,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked A Liberated Mind as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

"In all my years studying personal growth, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy is one of the most useful tools I've ever come across, and in this book, Dr. Hayes describes it with more depth and clarity than ever before."-Mark Manson, #1 New York Times best-selling author of The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck

Life is not a problem to be solved. ACT shows how we can live full and meaningful lives by embracing our vulnerability and turning toward what hurts.

In this landmark book, the originator and pioneering researcher into Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) lays out the psychological…


Book cover of Bittersweet: Diabetes, Insulin, and the Transformation of Illness

Kersten T. Hall Author Of The Man in the Monkeynut Coat: William Astbury and How Wool Wove a Forgotten Road to the Double-Helix

From my list on to think differently about the history of science.

Why am I passionate about this?

The discovery of the structure of DNA, the genetic material was one of the biggest milestones in science–but few people realise that a crucial unsung hero in this story was the humble wool fibre. But the Covid pandemic has changed all that and as a result we’ve all become acutely away of both the impact of science on our lives and our need to be more informed about it. Having long ago hung up my white coat and swapped the lab for the library to be a historian of science, I think we need a more honest, authentic understanding of scientific progress rather than the over-simplified accounts so often found in textbooks. 

Kersten's book list on to think differently about the history of science

Kersten T. Hall Why did Kersten love this book?

The discovery of insulin in early 1922 was a medical milestone that has since saved countless lives–my own included. Until this moment, a diagnosis of Type 1 Diabetes was a certain death sentence. But as diabetes clinician and historian of medicine, Chris Feudtner points out, the success of insulin has distorted historical accounts of diabetes by marginalising the experience of the patient in favour of narratives that focus on the development of medical technology to treat them. And Feudtner’s diagnosis is confined not just to diabetes but to the history of medicine in general. Following a personal epiphany that patients have an existence beyond X-rays and blood tests, Feudtner set out to address this problem by writing a history of diabetes as told from the perspective of patients. He does so magnificently and offers important insights about our relationship with technology that extend well beyond the treatment of diabetes.

By Chris Feudtner,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Bittersweet as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

One of medicine's most remarkable therapeutic triumphs was the discovery of insulin in 1921. The drug produced astonishing results, rescuing children and adults from the deadly grip of diabetes. But as Chris Feudtner demonstrates, the subsequent transformation of the disease from a fatal condition into a chronic illness is a story of success tinged with irony, a revealing saga that illuminates the complex human consequences of medical intervention.

Bittersweet chronicles this history of diabetes through the compelling perspectives of people who lived with this disease. Drawing on a remarkable body of letters exchanged between patients or their parents and Dr.…


Book cover of The Discovery of Insulin

Andrew Lam Author Of The Masters of Medicine: Our Greatest Triumphs in the Race to Cure Humanity's Deadliest Diseases

From my list on the history of medicine.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’m a surgeon who loves history. I always have. I studied military history in college but decided to become a doctor because I also love helping people. In my medical training I marveled at the incredible treatments and operations we use to save lives and always felt the unsung heroes who gave us these miracles deserve to be better known. That’s why I wrote this book.

Andrew's book list on the history of medicine

Andrew Lam Why did Andrew love this book?

Bliss’s classic book is the definitive account of the discovery of insulin by Canadians Frederick Banting, Charles Best, J.R.R. Macleod, and James Collip. I share this story in my book but Bliss delves far deeper into this incredible tale full of drama and human failings.

Bliss describes Banting as a failed surgeon who had a middle-of-the-night epiphany about how to isolate the unknown product of the pancreas’s mysterious islets of Langerhans cells. Eminent scientist Macleod gives Banting a chance and some lab space, but in the end, Banting accuses Macleod of stealing credit for this discovery that turns diabetes from a death sentence into a chronic, manageable illness.

Banting loathes Macleod so much that he almost refuses his Nobel Prize because he is so angry that Macleod will also get one!

By Michael Bliss,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Discovery of Insulin as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

When insulin was discovered in the early 1920s, even jaded professionals marveled at how it brought starved, sometimes comatose diabetics back to life. In this now-classic history, Michael Bliss unearths a wealth of material, ranging from the unpublished memoirs of scientists to the confidential appraisals of insulin by members of the Nobel Committee. He also resolves a long-standing controversy that dates back to the awarding of the Nobel to F. G. Banting and J. J. R. Macleod for their work on insulin: because each insisted on sharing the prize with an additional associate, medical opinion was intensely divided over the…


Book cover of Sir Fig Newton and the Science of Persistence

Shawn Peters Author Of The Unforgettable Logan Foster

From my list on smart kids who save the day in unexpected ways.

Why am I passionate about this?

I was a smart kid myself – I even have the report cards to prove it—and I always loved reading about other smart kids. As I got older, I realized that good grades and study habits are only part of the picture, because it’s emotional intelligence that helps us navigate the complicated parts of growing up. That’s why I wrote a book about a brilliant kid who learns to be part of a super-family, and that’s also why I love middle grade novels about clever kids who have to grow something other than their “book smarts” to figure out what they need to thrive. The books I’m recommending all get an A+ in that category.

Shawn's book list on smart kids who save the day in unexpected ways

Shawn Peters Why did Shawn love this book?

I instantly became of fan of Mira, a STEM-loving pre-teen who is dealing with a lot: her best friend moving away, a very sick cat she adores, and her father’s depression after losing his job. At first, she thinks her big brain has to be the key to unlocking how to solve her troubles, but over the course of the chapters, she realizes that opening her heart to new friends and modeling true perseverance goes a lot farther. This book has so much sweetness and humor, but it's not fluff. Every page feels like a real kid dealing with real stuff and trying to use whatever she can to help her family through a really tough time. 

By Sonja Thomas,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Sir Fig Newton and the Science of Persistence as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it. This book is for kids age 8, 9, 10, and 11.

What is this book about?

From the Desk of Zoe Washington meets Ways to Make Sunshine in this heartfelt middle grade novel about a determined young girl who must rely on her ingenuity and scientific know-how to save her beloved cat.

Twelve-year-old Mira's summer is looking pretty bleak. Her best friend Thomas just moved a billion and one miles away from Florida to Washington, DC. Her dad is job searching and he's been super down lately. Her phone screen cracked after a home science experiment gone wrong. And of all people who could have moved into Thomas's old house down the street, Mira gets stuck…


Book cover of The Summer I Found You

Kate Larkindale Author Of Stumped

From my list on YA with amputee characters.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’m a YA writer who likes to tackle difficult subject matter. My books cover things like euthanasia, drug abuse, coming out, and accessing sex as someone with a disability. If my books are found by even just one person who needs to see themselves in a story, then I feel like my job is done.

Kate's book list on YA with amputee characters

Kate Larkindale Why did Kate love this book?

Perry has created two great characters in Aidan and Kate. Both are damaged in their own ways – Kate has diabetes and Aidan lost an arm in Afghanistan - and certain their problems are the only things that define them. Watching them grow and change and accept that they are so much more than their problems makes this a satisfying read.

By Jolene Perry,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Summer I Found You as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Kate's dream boyfriend has just broken up with her and she's still reeling from her diagnosis of type 1 diabetes.

Aidan planned on being a lifer in the army and went to Afghanistan straight out of high school. Now he's a disabled young veteran struggling to embrace his new life.

When Kate and Aidan find each other neither one wants to get attached. But could they be right for each other after all?


Book cover of Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease: The Revolutionary, Scientifically Proven, Nutrition-Based Cure
Book cover of How Not to Die: Discover the Foods Scientifically Proven to Prevent and Reverse Disease
Book cover of Diet for a New America: How Your Food Choices Affect Your Health, Happiness and the Future of Life on Earth

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