Nikki Stamp Livres

The revealing, compelling memoir of one of Australia's foremost cardiothoracic surgeons, Dr Nikki Stamp.

When actress Debbie Reynolds died a day after her beloved daughter, Carrie Fisher, the world diagnosed it as 'heartbreak.' But what's the evidence? Does emotional upheaval affect the heart? Can love, or chocolate, really heal our heart problems? And why do we know so much about heart attacks in men, when they are more fatal in women? Heart and lung surgeon Dr Nikki Stamp takes us into the operating theatre, explaining what she sees in patients with heart complications and how a life-saving transplant works. Stamp fell in the love with the heart as a child and continues to be fascinated by its workings and the whole-of-life experiences that affect it. Rich with anecdotes, and insights for maintaining heart health, Can You Die of a Broken Heart? is a blockbuster from a uniquely positioned young specialist.

Why are we obsessed with wellness, but our health is getting worse? How have we messed up our relationship with food and exercise so badly? We are more obese, less active and more stressed than ever before and it's killing us. Today, we're more likely to die from a lifestyle disease than any other cause, and many of these would be preventable if we took better care of our health. Enter a vast wellness industry that has emerged in recent years, making big money promoting 'healthy' lifestyles. Except the aim isn't to make your body work better: it's to make your body look better. Equipped with Instagram accounts or wellness blogs, each health advocate leads an army of people towards what is labelled 'health' but might actually be far from it. We are obsessed with body transformation and fitspiration, but the wrong advice is making us poor, tired and pretty unhealthy instead. Pretty Unhealthy is a call to reclaim the definition of true health: to aim for bodies that are resilient to disease and can do everything we need them to do; and for us to feel emotionally happy in those bodies.