A Cure Within

A Cure Within PDF Author: Neil Canavan
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781621822172
Category : Cancer
Languages : en
Pages : 277

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Book Description
Cancer. There are few words in the English language having such a visceral, personal impact. Cancer patient. Cancer survivor. Pretty much anyone over the age of 30 knows one. A family member. A friend. Someone lost too soon. Someone forever changed. But we don't really like to talk about it, because there's really not much we can do. We fight cancer, sure, but we rarely win. Defeating cancer is one of medical science's greatest challenges. So when a novel approach to treatment seems promising, there is an intense interest in its progress and those who are making it. This book is about both - the progress and the pioneers - and its focus is the revolutionary science of something called cancer immunotherapy. This medical marvel, cancer immunotherapy - also called immuno-oncology - is still in its infancy. Yet, mobilizing the immune system to recognize and attack cancer has long been imagined, and occasionally attempted, for more than 100 years: It is only just recently that significant - in fact, unprecedented - progress has been made. With the use of newly approved immunotherapy treatments, there are now reports of hundreds, if not thousands of cancer patients with advanced disease living years beyond all prior expectation. Some of these once-terminally ill patients are now called "cured." This has never happened before. As Dr. Jill O'Donnell-Tormey comments in the Foreword, "It has taken decades of basic research and billions of dollars of investment to build the foundation upon which today's lifesaving treatments are based. This book offers a uniquely entertaining yet inspiring glimpse into the lives and minds of the academic and industry pioneers who forged this new field. It is a story of how an obscure and oft-derided field of cancer research - and the tenacious few scientists who refused to abandon it - came from behind to become the new 'darling of oncology.'" The book's author, Neil Canavan, is an experienced commentator on new developments in medical science. His portraits of 25 of the pioneers in immunotherapy are the culmination of two years of travel to laboratories, offices, and conferences around the world and countless hours of conversation with individuals immersed in a vitally important, promising assault on a dread disease that kills more than eight million people each year worldwide. -- from dust jacket.

A Cure Within

A Cure Within PDF Author: Neil Canavan
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781621822172
Category : Cancer
Languages : en
Pages : 277

Get Book

Book Description
Cancer. There are few words in the English language having such a visceral, personal impact. Cancer patient. Cancer survivor. Pretty much anyone over the age of 30 knows one. A family member. A friend. Someone lost too soon. Someone forever changed. But we don't really like to talk about it, because there's really not much we can do. We fight cancer, sure, but we rarely win. Defeating cancer is one of medical science's greatest challenges. So when a novel approach to treatment seems promising, there is an intense interest in its progress and those who are making it. This book is about both - the progress and the pioneers - and its focus is the revolutionary science of something called cancer immunotherapy. This medical marvel, cancer immunotherapy - also called immuno-oncology - is still in its infancy. Yet, mobilizing the immune system to recognize and attack cancer has long been imagined, and occasionally attempted, for more than 100 years: It is only just recently that significant - in fact, unprecedented - progress has been made. With the use of newly approved immunotherapy treatments, there are now reports of hundreds, if not thousands of cancer patients with advanced disease living years beyond all prior expectation. Some of these once-terminally ill patients are now called "cured." This has never happened before. As Dr. Jill O'Donnell-Tormey comments in the Foreword, "It has taken decades of basic research and billions of dollars of investment to build the foundation upon which today's lifesaving treatments are based. This book offers a uniquely entertaining yet inspiring glimpse into the lives and minds of the academic and industry pioneers who forged this new field. It is a story of how an obscure and oft-derided field of cancer research - and the tenacious few scientists who refused to abandon it - came from behind to become the new 'darling of oncology.'" The book's author, Neil Canavan, is an experienced commentator on new developments in medical science. His portraits of 25 of the pioneers in immunotherapy are the culmination of two years of travel to laboratories, offices, and conferences around the world and countless hours of conversation with individuals immersed in a vitally important, promising assault on a dread disease that kills more than eight million people each year worldwide. -- from dust jacket.

The Cure Within: A History of Mind-Body Medicine

The Cure Within: A History of Mind-Body Medicine PDF Author: Anne Harrington
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 9780393071085
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 354

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Book Description
"A splendid history of mind-body medicine...a book that desperately needed to be written." —Jerome Groopman, New York Times Is stress a deadly disease on the rise in modern society? Can mind-body practices from the East help us become well? When it comes to healing, we believe we must look beyond doctors and drugs; we must look within ourselves. Faith, relationships, and attitude matter. But why do we believe such things? From psychoanalysis to the placebo effect to meditation, this vibrant cultural history describes mind-body healing as rooted in a patchwork of stories, allowing us to make new sense of our suffering and to rationalize new treatments and lifestyles.

Racing to a Cure

Racing to a Cure PDF Author: Neil Ruzic
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
ISBN: 0252056256
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 268

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Book Description
Racing to a Cure is not a cancer memoir. It is a cancer cure memoir. In 1998 Neil Ruzic was diagnosed with mantle-cell lymphoma, the deadliest cancer of the lymph system, whose spread is reaching epidemic levels in the U.S. and Europe. Instead of following recommended courses of chemotherapy and radiation, he took control of his treatment by investigating cures being developed in the nation's cancer-research laboratories. Although chemotherapy harms the immune system and is increasingly demonstrated to be an ineffective long-term cure for the vast majority of cancers, it remains the standard treatment for most cancer patients. Ruzic, a former scientific magazine publisher and originator of a science center, refused to accept this status quo, and instead plunged into the world of cutting-edge treatments, exploring the frontiers of cancer science with revolutionary results. Ruzic went on the offensive: visiting scores of laboratories, gathering information, talking to researchers, and effectively becoming his own patient-care advocate. This book presents his findings. A scathing critique of the chemotherapy culture as well as unscientific "alternative" therapies, the book endorses state-of-the-art molecularly based technologies, making it an illuminating and necessary read for anyone interested in cancer research, especially patients and their families and physicians. Neil Ruzic was expected to die within two years of his initial diagnosis. Five years later he has been declared cancer-free and considers himself cured.

The Breakthrough

The Breakthrough PDF Author: Charles Graeber
Publisher: Twelve
ISBN: 145556849X
Category : Health & Fitness
Languages : en
Pages : 298

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Book Description
Follow along as this New York Times bestselling author details the astonishing scientific discovery of the code to unleashing the human immune system to fight in this "captivating and heartbreaking" book (The Wall Street Journal). For decades, scientists have puzzled over one of medicine's most confounding mysteries: Why doesn't our immune system recognize and fight cancer the way it does other diseases, like the common cold? As it turns out, the answer to that question can be traced to a series of tricks that cancer has developed to turn off normal immune responses -- tricks that scientists have only recently discovered and learned to defeat. The result is what many are calling cancer's "penicillin moment," a revolutionary discovery in our understanding of cancer and how to beat it. In The Breakthrough, New York Times bestselling author of The Good Nurse Charles Graeber guides readers through the revolutionary scientific research bringing immunotherapy out of the realm of the miraculous and into the forefront of twenty-first-century medical science. As advances in the fields of cancer research and the human immune system continue to fuel a therapeutic arms race among biotech and pharmaceutical research centers around the world, the next step -- harnessing the wealth of new information to create modern and more effective patient therapies -- is unfolding at an unprecedented pace, rapidly redefining our relationship with this all-too-human disease. Groundbreaking, riveting, and expertly told, The Breakthrough is the story of the game-changing scientific discoveries that unleash our natural ability to recognize and defeat cancer, as told through the experiences of the patients, physicians, and cancer immunotherapy researchers who are on the front lines. This is the incredible true story of the race to find a cure, a dispatch from the life-changing world of modern oncological science, and a brave new chapter in medical history.

Seeking the Cure

Seeking the Cure PDF Author: Ira Rutkow
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1439171734
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 370

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Book Description
A timely, authoritative, and entertaining history of medicine in America by an eminent physician Despite all that has been written and said about American medicine, narrative accounts of its history are uncommon. Until Ira Rutkow’s Seeking the Cure, there have been no modern works, either for the lay reader or the physician, that convey the extraordinary story of medicine in the United States. Yet for more than three centuries, the flowering of medicine—its triumphal progress from ignorance to science—has proven crucial to Americans’ under-standing of their country and themselves. Seeking the Cure tells the tale of American medicine with a series of little-known anecdotes that bring to life the grand and unceasing struggle by physicians to shed unsound, if venerated, beliefs and practices and adopt new medicines and treatments, often in the face of controversy and scorn. Rutkow expertly weaves the stories of individual doctors—what they believed and how they practiced—with the economic, political, and social issues facing the nation. Among the book’s many historical personages are Cotton Mather, Benjamin Franklin, George Washington (whose timely adoption of a controversial medical practice probably saved the Continental Army), Benjamin Rush, James Garfield (who was killed by his doctors, not by an assassin’s bullet), and Joseph Lister. The book touches such diverse topics as smallpox and the Revolutionary War, the establishment of the first medical schools, medicine during the Civil War, railroad medicine and the beginnings of specialization, the rise of the medical-industrial complex, and the thrilling yet costly advent of modern disease-curing technologies utterly unimaginable a generation ago, such as gene therapies, body scanners, and robotic surgeries. In our time of spirited national debate over the future of American health care amid a seemingly infinite flow of new medical discoveries and pharmaceutical products, Rutkow’s account provides readers with an essential historic, social, and even philosophical context. Working in the grand American literary tradition established by such eminent writer-doctors as Oliver Wendell Holmes, William Carlos Williams, Sherwin Nuland, and Oliver Sacks, he combines the historian’s perspective with the physician’s seasoned expertise. Capacious, learned, and gracefully told, Seeking the Cure will satisfy armchair historians and doctors alike, for, as Rutkow shows, the history of American medicine is a portrait of America itself.

The Cure in the Code

The Cure in the Code PDF Author: Peter W Huber
Publisher: Hachette UK
ISBN: 0465069819
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 304

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Book Description
Never before have two revolutions with so much potential to save and prolong human life occurred simultaneously. The converging, synergistic power of the biochemical and digital revolutions now allows us to read every letter of life's code, create precisely targeted drugs to control it, and tailor their use to individual patients. Cancer, diabetes, Alzheimer's and countless other killers can be vanquished -- if we make full use of the tools of modern drug design and allow doctors the use of modern data gathering and analytical tools when prescribing drugs to their patients. But Washington stands in the way, clinging to outdated drug-approval protocols developed decades ago during medicine's long battle with the infectious epidemics of the past. Peter Huber, an expert in science, technology, and public policy, demonstrates why Washington's one-size-fits-all drug policies can't deal with diseases rooted in the complex molecular diversity of human bodies. Washington is ill-equipped to handle the torrents of data that now propel the advance of molecular medicine and is reluctant to embrace the statistical methods of the digital age that can. Obsolete economic policies, often rationalized as cost-saving measures, stifle innovation and suppress investment in the medicine that can provide the best cures at the lowest cost. In the 1980s, an AIDS diagnosis was a death sentence, until the FDA loosened its throttling grip and began streamlining and accelerating approval of life-saving drugs. The Cure in the Code shows patients, doctors, investors, and policy makers what we must now do to capture the full life-saving and cost-saving potential of the revolution in molecular medicine. America has to choose. At stake for America is the power to lead the world in mastering the most free, fecund, competitive, dynamic, and intelligent natural resource on the planet -- the molecular code that spawns human life and controls our health.

The Insight Cure

The Insight Cure PDF Author: John Sharp, MD
Publisher: Hay House, Inc
ISBN: 1401953263
Category : Self-Help
Languages : en
Pages : 274

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Book Description
Every person has a story, a personal narrative that informs their life, their decisions, and their way of thinking. But did you know that it also affects the wiring of your brain? Renowned psychiatrist and professor at Harvard Medical School John Sharp, M.D., offers an eight-step process to discovering your unconscious narrative and using your new insight to eradicate the "false truth" that has been at the core of your self-sabotage. His unique approach integrates four core domains of applied psychology—control mastery theory, attachment theory, narrative therapy, and positive psychology—with his own research and professional experience to construct an insightful and soul-searching path to insight. Throughout his step-by-step process, Dr.Sharp provides: · The “Sharp Focus” to distill and emphasize important concepts · Quizzes to help you analyze your internal and external tendencies · “First Impressions” case studies from his professional practice · Awareness, insight, change, and narrative tools to facilitate your transformation · “Gut Checks” to help you figure out if you are ready to move on to the next step in the process Dr. Sharp’s approach is simple and accessible, with the power to wield profound results. Through exercises, quizzes, thorough exploration of case studies, and clear guidance, you will be able to find your false truth, rewrite your story, and transform your life. Once you have flipped the switch of insight, nothing can hold back the light that shines from within.

Radical Remission

Radical Remission PDF Author: Kelly A. Turner, PhD
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN: 0062268775
Category : Health & Fitness
Languages : en
Pages : 336

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Book Description
In her New York Times bestseller, Radical Remission: Surviving Cancer Against All Odds, Dr. Kelly A. Turner, founder of the Radical Remission Project, uncovers nine factors that can lead to a spontaneous remission from cancer—even after conventional medicine has failed. While getting her Ph.D. at the University of California, Berkley, Dr. Turner, a researcher, lecturer, and counselor in integrative oncology, was shocked to discover that no one was studying episodes of radical (or unexpected) remission—when people recover against all odds without the help of conventional medicine, or after conventional medicine has failed. She was so fascinated by this kind of remission that she embarked on a ten month trip around the world, traveling to ten different countries to interview fifty holistic healers and twenty radical remission cancer survivors about their healing practices and techniques. Her research continued by interviewing over 100 Radical Remission survivors and studying over 1000 of these cases. Her evidence presents nine common themes that she believes may help even terminal patients turn their lives around.

Chasing My Cure

Chasing My Cure PDF Author: David Fajgenbaum
Publisher: Ballantine Books
ISBN: 1524799629
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 256

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Book Description
LOS ANGELES TIMES AND PUBLISHERS WEEKLY BESTSELLER • The powerful memoir of a young doctor and former college athlete diagnosed with a rare disease who spearheaded the search for a cure—and became a champion for a new approach to medical research. “A wonderful and moving chronicle of a doctor’s relentless pursuit, this book serves both patients and physicians in demystifying the science that lies behind medicine.”—Siddhartha Mukherjee, New York Times bestselling author of The Emperor of All Maladies and The Gene David Fajgenbaum, a former Georgetown quarterback, was nicknamed the Beast in medical school, where he was also known for his unmatched mental stamina. But things changed dramatically when he began suffering from inexplicable fatigue. In a matter of weeks, his organs were failing and he was read his last rites. Doctors were baffled by his condition, which they had yet to even diagnose. Floating in and out of consciousness, Fajgenbaum prayed for a second chance, the equivalent of a dramatic play to second the game into overtime. Miraculously, Fajgenbaum survived—only to endure repeated near-death relapses from what would eventually be identified as a form of Castleman disease, an extremely deadly and rare condition that acts like a cross between cancer and an autoimmune disorder. When he relapsed while on the only drug in development and realized that the medical community was unlikely to make progress in time to save his life, Fajgenbaum turned his desperate hope for a cure into concrete action: Between hospitalizations he studied his own charts and tested his own blood samples, looking for clues that could unlock a new treatment. With the help of family, friends, and mentors, he also reached out to other Castleman disease patients and physicians, and eventually came up with an ambitious plan to crowdsource the most promising research questions and recruit world-class researchers to tackle them. Instead of waiting for the scientific stars to align, he would attempt to align them himself. More than five years later and now married to his college sweetheart, Fajgenbaum has seen his hard work pay off: A treatment he identified has induced a tentative remission and his novel approach to collaborative scientific inquiry has become a blueprint for advancing rare disease research. His incredible story demonstrates the potency of hope, and what can happen when the forces of determination, love, family, faith, and serendipity collide. Praise for Chasing My Cure “A page-turning chronicle of living, nearly dying, and discovering what it really means to be invincible in hope.”—Angela Duckworth, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Grit “[A] remarkable memoir . . . Fajgenbaum writes lucidly and movingly . . . Fajgenbaum’s stirring account of his illness will inspire readers.”—Publishers Weekly

The Beautiful Cure

The Beautiful Cure PDF Author: Daniel M. Davis
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022637114X
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 271

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Book Description
“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.