Overdiagnosed : making people sick in the pursuit of health / H. Gilbert Welch, Lisa Schwartz, Steven Woloshin.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Genesis : people become patients with high blood pressure -- We change the rules : how numbers get changed to give you diabetes, high cholesterol, and osteoporosis -- We are able to see more : how scans give you gallstones, damaged knee cartilage, bulging discs, abdominal aortic aneurysms, and blood clots -- We look harder for prostate cancer : how screening made it clear that overdiagnosis exists in cancer -- We look harder for other cancers -- We look harder for breast cancer -- We stumble onto incidentalomas that might be cancer -- We look harder for everything else : how screening gives you (and your baby) another set of problems -- We confuse DNA with disease : how genetic testing will give you almost anything -- Get the facts -- Get the system -- Get the big picture -- Conclusion : pursuing health with less diagnosis.

Examining the social, medical, and economic ramifications of a health care system that unnecessarily diagnoses and treats patients, Welch makes a reasoned call for change that would save us from countless unneeded surgeries, debilitating anxiety, and exorbitant costs.