A Pound of Prevention for a Healthier Life shows the connection between oxidative stress and the onset of virtually all disease and discusses the causes of oxidative stress induced disease and ways to prevent it. The book includes a unique questionnaire for predicting disease onset in seemingly healthy people, and shows how steps taken to prevent any one disease may prevent many other unrelated diseases.

Dr. Harold I. Zeliger, a chemical toxicologist who has been researching the causes of non-communicable diseases for more than 40 years, demonstrates how elevated oxidative stress is responsible for attacks on virtually all body organs and systems and how it triggers the onset of numerous diseases, including ADHD, autism, heart disease, respiratory disease, diabetes, obesity, Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, cancer and numerous others. The many sources of oxidative stress include not only exposures to toxic chemicals such as pesticides, air pollutants, PCBs and organic solvents, but also to radiation, tobacco smoke, eating some foods, pharmaceutical drug use, illnesses a person already has, emotional stress and others.

Zeliger's research shows how elevated oxidative stress need not come from a single source, but can come from multiple sources, and that it is total oxidative stress, no matter what the source or sources, that causes disease. The Oxidative Stress Index, which can be individually arrived at from the questionnaire in the book, allows the reader to determine his or her oxidative stress level, which sources are responsible for it, and what actions can be taken to reduce it and lower the likelihood of disease onset.