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The End of Illness
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The End of Illness
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The End of Illness
Ebook434 pages7 hours

The End of Illness

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

3.5/5

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About this ebook

The time has come for us to stop thinking about illnesses like cancer as something the body 'gets' or 'has' but rather to think of them as something the body does. In this landmark work, leading researcher and physician Dr David Agus takes readers on a journey to decode the mystery of health and the human body. Based on his groundbreaking research and clinical trials, Dr Agus has come to the realization that the best way to combat cancer is to prevent it.

For decades we've tried to whittle down our understanding of the body and its ailments to a finite point - a mutation, a germ, a deficiency or a number. But this has led us astray from a fundamental basic understanding of our bodies as systems. The End of Illness presents a system's view of the body, urging readers to begin viewing their total health as a complex network of processes that cannot be explained by any single pathway or focal point. In many instances, it does us no good to try and understand a certain disease; we just need to control it, much like an air traffic controller manages planes without knowing how to actually fly one.

This radically different perspective on health will not only change how we care for ourselves, but also how we spur the next generation of treatments, and, in some instances, cures. The book also shows readers how to personalize their self-care; much of the advice is surprisingly simple and affordable - such as wearing good shoes and eating lunch at the same time every day.
LanguageEnglish
Release dateJan 26, 2012
ISBN9781849839174
Author

David B. Agus

David B. Agus, MD, is the author of the international sensations The End of Illness, A Short Guide to a Long Life, and The Lucky Years. A professor of medicine and engineering at the University of Southern California, he is the founding Director and CEO of the Ellison Institute of Technology and a contributor to CBS News. He lives in Santa Monica, California.

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Reviews for The End of Illness

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars
3.5/5

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  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Agus defines a healthy lifestyle based on the latest scientific and technological information available. Although he throws in promo pieces for his company, there are lots of good and easy to implement tips to promote health and longevity. On the whole an empowering read. SRH
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    I didn´t get far in this book, since I discovered that the author thinks statins are a good thing, and doesn´t understand that cholesterol is invaluable for our bodies, and I didn´t want to read a book by a person with these mistaken views.It may well be that Dr. Agus presents some good suggestions at the end of the book, hence the two stars instead of just one. I don´t know, but have given him the benefit of the doubt.Also, I did not find what I read of the book particularly exciting in other respects.I absolutely cannot recommend this book.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    If David Agus’s book, The End of Illness, achieves nothing more, it has certainly stirred conversation regarding a few of the more commonly accepted health assumptions of the Western world. Dr. Agus has explained and defended his beliefs in this 336-page book clearly enough that most readers will come down hard on one side or the other of his theories. Others, like me, will find themselves straddling the fence a bit. The doctor’s critics will proclaim that he is merely a shill for the big pharmaceutical corporations or that he wrote the book only to promote his own new ventures in the medical world, ventures in which he claims to be on the cutting edge of new diagnostic technology. His proponents will embrace his beliefs about things like over-the-counter vitamins being a useless waste of money, and that everyone over 40 should be on a statin drug because of the drug’s potential to prevent cancer. Personally, I found Agus’s theory about a link between cancer and internal inflammation of the body to be an intriguing one. Because statins and aspirin both reduce inflammation in the body, the doctor theorizes that a daily dose of each might go a long way in preventing a person from developing a tumor. Since many older people already take both drugs at the direction of their doctors, this type of “side effect” would be good news for many. (Of course, others cannot take statins or aspirin because of the negative side effects they suffer.) Much of what Agus says in The End of Illness is not new, and some of it just makes good common sense. Too, the book’s title is a bit misleading because this is more a book about preventing illness than one about ending it once and for all. These are a few other interesting “takeaways” (some of which will simply reinforce what readers may already believe) I found in The End of Illness:•Frozen fruit is more nutritional than fresh fruit because it is fresher when frozen than the fruit bought in a grocery store produce department.•Eating and sleeping on a regular schedule will add years to a person’s life.•Sitting for hours at a time on a job is the “new smoking.” Standing and, even better, walking around as much as possible during the day, will allow a person to live longer and healthier.•Combining a flu shot, a low dose of aspirin, and reduced stress will greatly lessen the kind of internal inflammation that makes tumors more likely.•Tumors might actually feed on excessive doses of vitamin C.•Each of us should set our personal health baseline, from which we can measure negative changes.There is a lot of information in The End of Illness. Some of it seems to fly directly in the face of what people have been taught their entire lives and will be controversial. We may never know if all of Agus’s theories are correct – and there is always the chance that some of what he advocates here will do harm. Readers will have to decide for themselves, of course, but I do applaud the doctor for igniting a passionate conversation on the subject. Rated at: 4.0
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Very wordy. Has some good science. Odd that he sometimes uses anecdotal evidence while claiming to be an evidence-medicine based physician. Somewhat of an advertisement for his companies. It is however a fairly good read and is informative.