The Book
Corrections & Additions
Last revised 2026-09-05
Research moves. Books don't.
This page carries everything I have found, been told, or changed my mind about since Heal Psoriasis was finished. It exists because I would rather be corrected than be trusted incorrectly, and because a book that cites hundreds of studies has no business pretending it got every one of them right.
If you find something that looks wrong, tell me: hello@healpsoriasis.org. Corrections from readers are credited here unless you'd rather they weren't.
Additions — things that should have been in the book
These are not errors in what the book says. They are gaps in what it doesn't say, and two of them matter enough that I would not want you to run the protocol without reading them.
If you take a blood thinner, do not add high-dose fish oil without asking first
Chapter 18 prescribes omega-3 at a high dose, and elsewhere the book discusses low-dose aspirin. It does not anywhere warn that the combination raises bleeding risk. It should have.
High-dose omega-3 has a mild antiplatelet effect of its own. Stacked on aspirin, clopidogrel, warfarin, or a DOAC, that effect adds up, and it matters again before surgery or dental work. If you are on any antiplatelet or anticoagulant, take the dose to your prescriber or pharmacist before you start. This is a five-minute conversation, not a reason to abandon the protocol.
If you take a blood pressure medication, be careful with potassium
The book suggests supplemental potassium. It does not mention that potassium supplements combined with an ACE inhibitor, an ARB, or a potassium-sparing diuretic such as spironolactone can push blood potassium to dangerous levels.
The common ones end in -pril (ramipril, lisinopril) and -sartan (losartan, valsartan). If you take one of those, this needs a blood test rather than a guess. Ask your doctor.
Some medications cause psoriasis, and the book never says so
This is a genuine omission, and for a minority of readers it is the whole answer.
A number of widely prescribed drugs are recognised triggers of psoriasis, or make existing psoriasis substantially worse. The best-documented are beta-blockers (propranolol, atenolol, metoprolol — often prescribed for blood pressure, migraine, or anxiety), lithium, antimalarials such as hydroxychloroquine, and withdrawal from systemic corticosteroids, which can trigger a severe rebound.
If your psoriasis started or sharply worsened within weeks to months of starting a new medication, that timing is worth raising with the prescriber. It may be coincidence. It may also be the root cause, and no amount of diet work will fix a problem the pharmacy is renewing every month.
Do not stop any of these on your own. Several are treating something serious, and stopping a beta-blocker abruptly is dangerous in its own right. This is a conversation about alternatives, not a decision to make alone.
The site has a free tool that walks through the common classes and helps you prepare that conversation.
The book never mentions moisturiser
Not once, in twenty chapters. That is an odd gap in a book about a skin disease, and it is worth saying plainly: emollients don't address any root cause, and nothing in this book's argument changes if you use them.
But they reduce scaling, cracking, and itch while everything upstream is still being sorted out, and cracked skin is an entry point for infection. The protocol is a long game. There is no reason to be uncomfortable while you run it.
If you are considering going gluten-free, get tested for coeliac disease first
Chapter 3 notes that people with psoriasis have significantly raised odds of coeliac disease. Chapter 18's Phase 1 removes gluten.
Those two facts collide in a way the book doesn't flag: coeliac blood tests only work while you are still eating gluten. Go gluten-free first and the test returns a false negative, and you lose the ability to get a diagnosis without weeks of deliberately reintroducing gluten to make yourself ill enough to test.
If coeliac disease is a possibility for you, test before Phase 1, not after.
CRP and hs-CRP are not the same test
Chapter 3 refers to CRP; Chapter 18 refers to hs-CRP. They measure the same protein at different sensitivities, and the numbers are not interchangeable for tracking.
For following low-grade inflammation over a year, ask for hs-CRP, and stay with that one test so your numbers stay comparable.
Which chapter covers which root
Chapter 5 introduces all fifteen roots and tells you, in passing, which chapter takes each one further — "Chapter 9 walks through how to identify and address…", and so on. Two of the fifteen lose that thread, so here is the full map.
| | Root | Where to read it | |---|---|---| | 1 | The Disconnection Epidemic | Chapter 6 | | 2 | We Stopped Living in the Light | Chapter 7 | | 3 | The Comfort Trap | Chapter 8 | | 4 | Something in the Environment | Chapter 9 | | 5 | Your Gut is Calling the Shots | Chapter 10 | | 6 | Lost Resilience | Chapter 11 | | 7 | Cells that Rust From Within | Chapter 11 | | 8 | The Recycling Plant Shut Down | Chapter 11 | | 9 | The Wound Response that Won't Stop | Chapter 4 for the mechanism, Chapter 12 for the Koebner phenomenon | | 10 | The Nerve-Mast Cell Conspiracy | Chapter 12 | | 11 | The Fire Department that Never Arrives | Chapter 13 | | 12 | The Calming System Nobody Told You About | Chapter 14 | | 13 | The Tryptophan Detour | Chapter 14 | | 14 | Fat Tissue Fighting Your Skin | Chapter 15 | | 15 | Immune Memory, the Sleeper Cells | Chapter 4 for the mechanism, Chapter 18, Phase 6 for clearing it |
The two that lose the thread. Root 9 is sent to "the cellular chapters ahead" without naming one — the mechanism is actually back in Chapter 4. Root 15 is sent to "Chapter 22", which does not exist; that material is Chapter 18's Phase 6, "Memory Clearing".
One thing worth knowing about how to read the book. The root numbers are a device of Chapter 5. The chapters that follow discuss each mechanism by name rather than by number, so searching the book for "Root 7" will only ever return you to Chapter 5. Use the table above instead.
Where the book is inconsistent with itself, and what to do about it
The book is a synthesis of a great many papers, and in places it carries the same figure two different ways. Rather than quietly pick one, here is each case and the number to act on.
Fasting: who should not do it
The exclusions are spread across three chapters — none of them the chapter that actually prescribes the fast — and Chapter 11 and Chapter 18 disagree about eating disorders. Follow the stricter version, which is Chapter 11's: avoid extended fasting. The complete list is on the disclaimer page and built into the site's fasting tools.
How closely you have to follow it: 80%, not 90%
Chapter 18 says 90%. Chapter 20 says 80%. Use 80%. The book's own argument is that an imperfect protocol sustained for months beats a perfect one abandoned after six weeks, and holding yourself to a bar the book itself doesn't hold consistently just manufactures a sense of failure.
How fast joint symptoms need attention: assume the shortest window
Three different figures appear: six months (Ch3), two years (Ch19), and under twelve weeks (Ch19, citing a 2024 analysis). Chapter 19 also says the window is "measured in weeks, not years" eight lines after saying two years.
Act on the shortest one. If you have psoriasis and any new joint pain, stiffness or swelling, get assessed now rather than watching it. Being early costs you an appointment; being late costs you joint damage that does not reverse. This is the one contradiction in the book where the safe error and the cautious error are the same error.
Supplement doses
About eleven supplements are given at different doses in different chapters, in a couple of cases by a factor of three. Where two doses appear, start at the lower one, and take the list to a pharmacist or doctor before you start. A supplement dose is not a target to hit; the lower figure in the book is a defensible starting point and your prescriber can adjust from there.
Figures that differ but don't change what you do
- Psoriatic arthritis prevalence — 20–24% in Chapter 3, "the lucky 30%" in Chapter 19. Either way it is common enough that joint symptoms need checking.
- Diagnostic delay — Chapter 19 says both "about 2.5 years" and "over six months", citing the same source. Both describe the same problem: it takes far too long, so push.
- The cost of a biologic — figures from $12,000 to $70,000 a year appear. The real number depends entirely on your country and your insurance; the book's range is not a quote.
- Depression — Chapter 3 gives 12–19% (rising to 30% in severe cases); Chapter 19 gives 69% of people with psoriatic arthritis reporting at least mild depressive symptoms. These are not the same measurement — one is clinical depression, the other is any low mood reported on a questionnaire — so they don't contradict each other, but they are not comparable either.
Corrections — factual errors
- Cross-references to "Chapter 21," "Chapter 22," and "Chapter 31" point to chapters that do not exist. The book ends at Chapter 20 plus the Epilogue.
Three of those sit inside Chapter 18's list of who should go slower, and they matter more than a broken link normally would, so here is what those bullets should have said:
- If you are on a biologic: there is no taper chapter. Do not reduce or space out a biologic on your own. That is a conversation with the doctor who prescribed it, and rebound after stopping can be severe.
- If you have a history of an eating disorder: there is no modification chapter, and the honest answer is that extended fasting is not for you. Chapter 11's stricter instruction — avoid extended fasting — is the one to follow. The rest of the protocol does not depend on it.
- If you are under 18, or reading this for a child: there is no paediatric chapter. Extended fasting is not appropriate, and paediatric psoriasis is managed differently. This book is written for adults; take it to a paediatric dermatologist rather than adapting it yourself.
- The Bonjour case study is dated 2021; it was published in 2022.
Nothing here changes the safety rules
Whatever appears on this page, these don't move: never stop or change a prescribed medication because of something you read in the book or here, and get urgent care for the red-flag symptoms listed in the disclaimer.
Last reviewed September 18, 2026 · Medical Disclaimer · healpsoriasis.org