“Visceral.”—Wall Street Journal “Illuminating.”—Publishers Weekly “Heroic.”—Science The immune system holds the key to human health. In The Beautiful Cure, leading immunologist Daniel M. Davis describes how the scientific quest to understand how the immune system works—and how it is affected by stress, sleep, age, and our state of mind—is now unlocking a revolutionary new approach to medicine and well-being. The body’s ability to fight disease and heal itself is one of the great mysteries and marvels of nature. But in recent years, painstaking research has resulted in major advances in our grasp of this breathtakingly beautiful inner world: a vast and intricate network of specialist cells, regulatory proteins, and dedicated genes that are continually protecting our bodies. Far more powerful than any medicine ever invented, the immune system plays a crucial role in our daily lives. We have found ways to harness these natural defenses to create breakthrough drugs and so-called immunotherapies that help us fight cancer, diabetes, arthritis, and many age-related diseases, and we are starting to understand whether activities such as mindfulness might play a role in enhancing our physical resilience. Written by a researcher at the forefront of this adventure, The Beautiful Cure tells a dramatic story of scientific detective work and discovery, of puzzles solved and mysteries that linger, of lives sacrificed and saved. With expertise and eloquence, Davis introduces us to this revelatory new understanding of the human body and what it takes to be healthy.

A heartwarming memoir of a family that refused to give up When twenty-two-year-old Susan Stachler was diagnosed with cancer, her mother, Laura, was struck by déjà vu: the same illness that took her sister's life was threatening to take her daughter's too. Heartbroken but steadfast, Laura pledged to help Susan through the worst of her treatments. When they discovered that Laura's homemade ginger cookies soothed the side effects of Susan's chemo, the mother-daughter duo soon found themselves opening Susansnaps and sharing their gourmet gingersnaps with the world. Told with admirable grace and infinite hope, The Cookie Cure is about more than baked goods and cancer—it's about fighting for your life and for your dreams.

"One of our most lauded scientist-writers shows how astonishing breakthroughs in medical science are changing previously immutable aspects of humanity. Welcome to a revolution in the science of human health. This book takes us to the frontier of medical research and reveals stunning recent advances that are changing our understanding of how human body works, how we combat and prevent disease and how we understand what it means to be human. We see how super-resolution nano-scopes are revealing hitherto hidden operations within our cells and opening up new new ways of manipulating the immune system; how human embryos can now be preserved alive long enough to see how genetic abnormalities can be corrected during the early stages of foetal development; how light is being used to excite pathways in the brain allowing us to understand and manipulate thoughts and feelings; how our rapidly increasing understanding of the microbiome is radically changing every aspect of human biology. These and many more astonishing discoveries are related as gripping dramas of discovery by an award-winning scientist at the very forefront of this adventure"--Publisher's description.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The bestselling author of Everything Happens for a Reason (And Other Lies I’ve Loved) asks, how do you move forward with a life you didn’t choose? “Kate Bowler is the only one we can trust to tell us the truth.”—Glennon Doyle, author of the #1 New York Times bestseller Untamed It’s hard to give up on the feeling that the life you really want is just out of reach. A beach body by summer. A trip to Disneyland around the corner. A promotion on the horizon. Everyone wants to believe that they are headed toward good, better, best. But what happens when the life you hoped for is put on hold indefinitely? Kate Bowler believed that life was a series of unlimited choices, until she discovered, at age thirty-five, that her body was wracked with cancer. In No Cure for Being Human, she searches for a way forward as she mines the wisdom (and absurdity) of today’s “best life now” advice industry, which insists on exhausting positivity and on trying to convince us that we can out-eat, out-learn, and out-perform our humanness. We are, she finds, as fragile as the day we were born. With dry wit and unflinching honesty, Kate Bowler grapples with her diagnosis, her ambition, and her faith as she tries to come to terms with her limitations in a culture that says anything is possible. She finds that we need one another if we’re going to tell the truth: Life is beautiful and terrible, full of hope and despair and everything in between—and there’s no cure for being human.

A leading expert explains how discoveries about the immune system are leading the way to a revolution in beating cancer and other diseases. The immune system holds the key to human health. The scientific quest to understand how it works--and how it is affected by stress, diet, sleep, age, exercise and our state of mind--is now unlocking a revolutionary new approach to medicine and well-being. The body's ability to fight disease and heal itself is one of the great mysteries and marvels of nature, but within the last few years, painstaking research has resulted in major advances in our understanding of the immune system, revealing an inner world of breathtaking sophistication, complexity and beauty. Far more powerful than any medicine ever invented, it also plays a crucial role in our daily lives. Already we have found ways to harness these natural defences to create break-through drugs and therapies that can beat cancer, diabetes, arthritis and many age-related diseases, and we are starting to understand how activities such as mindfulness might play a role in enhancing our physical resilience. Written by an expert at the forefront of this adventure, The Beautiful Cure tells a dramatic story of detective work and discovery, of puzzles solved and of the mysteries that remain, of lives sacrificed and saved, introducing the reader to this revelatory new understanding of the human body and what it takes to be healthy.

Richard Mabey is the author of numerous books on Britain's ecology, including the best-selling Flora Britannica and the Whitbread Prize-winning Gilbert White (Virginia).