Agus David B - The End of Illness

Praise for The End of Illness

[B]rings medical research and a sophisticated understanding of the complexity of human physiology to bear on explaining practical methods for preventing disease and improving health.... Agus tries to make both health and illness very personal, arguing the importance of knowing yourselfyour habits, your family history, your genetic risks, even your proteins.

The Washington Post

The End of Illness will be of interest to anyone struggling to keep track of the latest and often contradictory recommendations about optimizing his or her health. The broadly optimistic overview it provides, tempered with a dose of healthy skepticism, is one that will serve its readers well and help guide them in the right direction.

The Boston Globe

A refreshing change of pace in the medical field.

Kirkus Reviews

In this brilliant book, David Agus introduces a whole new way of looking at illness and health. Taking a cue from physics, he views the body as a complex system and helps us see how everything from cancer to nutrition fits into one whole picture. The result is both a useful guide on how to stay healthy and a fascinating analysis of the latest in medical science.

Walter Isaacson, author of Steve Jobs

Dr. David Agus has given us a remarkable peek into our healthand the impact will be profound. Ive made it my mission in life to live strong and help others do the same. The End of Illness is one more empowering piece to the puzzle of knowing how to do just that. This book will prevent illness, revolutionize treatments, and lengthen peoples lives. A tour de force in its delivery and message.

Lance Armstrong, seven-time winner, Tour de France and founder and chairman, LIVESTRONG

David Agus is one of Americas great doctors and medical researchers, a man dedicated to improving the health of as many people as he can. Written in a style and format that will truly engage readers, The End of Illness presents a dramatic new way of thinking about our own healtha way that could lead to greatly improving the quality of life for millions, starting right now.

Al Gore, 45th vice president of the United States, Nobel laureate in peace, 2007

As physician, research scientist, and friendly guide, Dr. David Agus takes his readers on a fascinating tour of ideas and facts about health and illness. They will find many of those ideas to be unconventional and thought provoking and many of the facts to be both striking and surprising. Read this book and you will very likely change at least some of your views on health and illness.

Murray Gell-Mann, PhD, Nobel laureate in physics, 1969, and distinguished fellow and cofounder of the Santa Fe Institute

Filled with unorthodox ideas backed with hard science, The End of Illness simplifies for the reader the complexity of vital developments happening in medicine today and teaches us how to make the most of whats available, as well as whats soon to come.

Michael Dell, founder, chairman, and chief executive officer of Dell, Inc.

Dr. Agus is surfing the crest of two great waves of innovationin information technology and the life sciences. His End of Illness uses Big Data to decode the personal and molecular basis of disease. And, more important, advance a new model for health where prevention is key.

John Doerr, partner, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers

David Agus, one of the nations most innovative cancer doctors, shatters the myths about health and wellness and provides us with a handbook for living a long, healthy life.

Steve Case, chairman of Revolution and The Case Foundation; cofounder America Online

In this seminal book, Dr. David Agus presents a brilliant new model of health based on the body as a complex system with an emphasis on prevention. The End of Illness may reframe everything you thought you knew about health. It is both provocative and inspiring. Highly recommended.

Dean Ornish, MD, founder and president of the Preventive Medicine Research Institute; clinical professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco

David Agus is one of the great medical thinkers of our age. The End of Illness reframes the entire discussion of sickness and health. Instead of thinking about disease, Agus thinks about the system that is the human body, and what we need to do to guide it toward health. Before you take your next vitamin, read this book.

Danny Hillis, PhD, cofounder, Applied Minds and Thinking Machines

Dr. David Agus has been disrupting medicine as we know it for his entire career. Now he brings his ideas out of the lab and exam room and into the lives of everyoneshowing us how to live long, healthy, disease-free lives. Reading this book is the best thing you can do for yourself and your loved ones. A monumental work that will change your life.

Marc Benioff, chairman and CEO, salesforce.com

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It doesnt take a hero to order men into battle. It takes a hero to be one of those men who goes into battle.

Norman Schwarzkopf, United States Army general and commander of U.S. Central Command, retired; prostate cancer survivor and advocate

To my patients throughout the years.

Its an honor and privilege to be a part of your care.

This book is as much yours as it is mine.

Thank you for being my heroes.

The part can never be well unless the whole is well.

Plato

I t has been less than a year since this book was first published, and I write this with so much more to say in response to feedback Ive received. I dont think I could have predicted the volume of comments that have rushed in. At this writing, nearly 40,000 e-mails have landed in my in-box, some of them nice, some of them, well, not so nice. It seems Ive struck a nerve on a variety of topics that provoke both members of my own medical community and the lay public alike. Statins. Aspirin. Body scans. Vitamins and supplements. DNA screening... While some have cheered me on with unwavering support, others have questioned my motives, accused me of being a shill for the pharmaceutical industry, and even gone as far as claiming that Im living under a rock. So what have I learned from all this? Were my arguments inflated, twisted, or somehow paid for by Big Pharma? And do I still believe in my recommendations?

Before I get to those answers, let me share a story that became superbly emblematic of my whole point in writing this book, as well as symbolic of the black-and-white thinking that pervades in health circles to everyones detriment. Some of you are probably familiar with it since it launched the books campaign in the media and seemingly opened the first can of worms. Its the story of Bill Weir and the assignment that saved his life.