Memory overload, a body dictionary, HMO horror stories and a guide to cutting cholesterol are among the offerings of the latest crop of new health-related books. Check out these new releases for ideas and advice on a variety of everyday ailments:

        • Female and Forgetful: A Six-Step Program to Help Restore Your Memory and Sharpen Your Mind (Warner Books; $13.95) by Elisa Lottor and Nancy P. Bruning offers a listing of herbs and botanicals, exercises, strategies, hormones, supplements, techniques and foods to help clear up that mental fog many women over 30 experience. (And no, the authors reassure, it's not just hormones.)

        • The Essential Medication Guidebook to Healthy Aging (Ballantine Books; $18.95) was edited by Les Paul and Becky Nagle. A physician and a pharmacist team up to compile this reference guide to medications taken to treat common ailments. The book is organized by ailment or condition and includes prescription information and warnings about individual medications.

        • As Sick As It Gets, (Olin Frederick; $22.95) by Dr. Rudolph Mueller, looks at the shortfalls of the American health care system, including horror stories about what insurers don't want to pay for, the shortage of physicians and nurses and the mega-bucks behind the nation's health care lobby.

        • End Your Addiction Now: The Proven Nutritional Supplement Program That Can Set You Free, (Warner Books; $25.95) by Charles Grant and Greg Lewis, claims to provide readers with a personalized program of amino acids, vitamins and other supplements that can help “rebalance” the body and break their addictive cycle to painkillers, tobacco, amphetamines, alcohol and other drugs.

        • The Oxford Companion to the Body, (Oxford University Press; $65) edited by Colin Blakemore and Sheila Jennett, is a kind of a lexicon of the body, medical and hygiene practices and medical sciences. Well-illustrated, it covers everything from abdomen to zygote, with thousands of fascinating citations in between.

        • Raising Healthy Children in a Toxic World (Rodale; $12.95) by Philip J. Landrigan, Herbert L. Needleman and Mary Landrigan looks at what toxins (asbestos, allergens, herbicides, etc.) might be present, where (school, the driveway, the garage, day care), and how to intervene to prevent your child from being contaminated.

        • Prevention's Best Stress Busters (St. Martins Paperbacks; $5.99), by the editors of Prevention magazine, looks at how to make home and work environments more serene, herbal remedies, soothing foods and stress-related illness.

        • Cholesterol Cures (Rodale; $16.95), by the editors of Prevention magazine, features more than 300 natural ways to cut cholesterol by using treats such as almonds, chocolate, garlic and wine. The book has been updated and revised to reflect federal cholesterol guidelines issued in 2001.

        • The Best Alternative Medicine (Fireside; $15), by Dr. Kenneth R. Pelletier, evaluates alternative treatment systems (Ayurvedic medicine, acupuncture, naturopathic medicine, etc.) to see which claims are, and aren't, supported by research and data. Dr. Pelletier is the former director of the Complementary and Alternative Medicine Program at Harvard University's School of Medicine.

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