The End of Illness [Hardcover]

David B. Agus (Author)

Book Description

Release date: January 17, 2012

Can we live robustly until our last breath? Do we have to suffer from debilitating conditions and sickness? Is it possible to add more vibrant years to our lives? In The End of Illness, David B. Agus, MD, one of the world’s leading cancer doctors, researchers, and technology innovators, tackles these fundamental questions, challenging long-held wisdoms and dismantling misperceptions about what “health” means. With a blend of storytelling, landmark research, and provocative ideas on health, Dr. Agus presents an eye-opening picture of the human body and all of the ways it works—and fails—showing us how a new perspective on our individual health will allow each of us to achieve that often elusive but now reachable goal of a long, vigorous life.

When Dr. Agus decided to pursue a career in oncology, many of his mentors questioned his choice. Why, they asked, would a promising young doctor want to enter a field known for its inescapably grim outcomes? But it was precisely the lack of progress that inspired Dr. Agus to join the war on cancer. He moved away from the modern methods of the medical establishment, which aim to reduce our afflictions to a single point. Instead, as he does in this book, Dr. Agus argues for the adoption of a systemic view—a way of honoring our bodies as complex, whole systems. This outlook informs how we can avoid all illnesses—not just cancer. Dr. Agus empowers us to take charge of our individual health in personal, customized ways we could not have imagined before.

This indispensable book is not only a manifesto—a call for revising the way we think about health—it’s also filled with practical but impossible-to-ignore suggestions, including:

• How taking multivitamins and supplements could significantly increase our risk for cancer over time.

• Why sitting down most of the day, despite a strenuous morning workout, can be as bad as or worse than smoking.

• How sneaky sources of daily inflammation—from high heels to the common cold—can lead to a fatal heart attack, and even rob us of our sanity.

• How three inexpensive medications—aspirin, statins, and an annual flu vaccine—can substantially change the course of our health for the better.

• How taking shortcuts to health via blending fruits and vegetables, and sometimes even by purchasing what we think is “fresh,” could be shortchanging our health.

• The single most important thing we can do today to preserve our health and happiness that costs absolutely nothing.

Dr. Agus also offers insights and access to breathtaking and powerful new technologies that promise to transform medicine in our generation. In the course of offering recommendations, he emphasizes his belief that there is no “right” answer, no master guide that is “one size fits all.” Each one of us must get to know our bodies in uniquely personal ways, and he shows us exactly how to do that so that we can individually create a plan for wellness.

The End of Illness is a bold call for all of us to become our own personal health advocates, and a dramatic departure from orthodox thinking. This is a seminal work that promises to revolutionize how we live.

Editorial Reviews

Review

“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 health--and the impact will be profound. I’ve 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 people's lives. A tour de force in its delivery and message.” —Lance Armstrong, 7-time Tour de France winner and Founder and Chairman, LIVESTRONG

“David Agus is one of America’s 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 health—a 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. 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

“David Agus's The End of Illness is a brilliant blend of enlightening manifesto and practical how-to in the realm of our most important ingredient to a long and happy life: health. Filled with unorthodox ideas backed with hard science, it simplifies for the reader the complexity of vital developments happening in medicine today and teaches us how to make the most of what's available, as well as what's soon to come.” —Michael Dell, Founder, Chairman, and Chief Executive Officer of Dell, Inc.

“Dr. David Agus is surfing the crest of two great waves of innovation -- in 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 nation's 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

“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 everyone—showing 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

"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

About the Author

David B. Agus, MD, is a professor of medicine and engineering at the University of Southern California and heads U.S.C.’s Westside Cancer Center and the Center for Applied Molecular Medicine. He lives in Beverly Hills, California.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 352 pages
• Publisher: Free Press; 1 edition (January 17, 2012)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1451610173
• ISBN-13: 978-1451610178
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.4 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (199 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #45,304 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #63 in Books > Health, Fitness & Dieting > Alternative Medicine > Holistic

More About the Author

Dr. David B. Agus is a professor of medicine and engineering at the University of Southern California Keck School of Medicine and Viterbi School of Engineering and heads U.S.C.'s Westside Cancer Center and the Center for Applied Molecular Medicine. He is one of the world's leading cancer doctors, and the co‐founder of two pioneering personalized medicine companies, Navigenics and Applied Proteomics. Dr. Agus is an international leader in new technologies and approaches for personalized healthcare and chairs the Global Agenda Council on Genetics for the World Economic Forum. He has received numerous awards, including the 2009 Geoffrey Beene Foundation's Rockstar of Science Award. Dr. Agus' first book called "The End of Illness" was published in January, 2012 by the Free Press Division of Simon & Schuster and is a New York Times #1 best seller. A PBS documentary called "The End of Illness with David Agus" aired nationwide in the fall of 2012.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

624 of 637 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Decent Book, Brilliant Marketing! February 8, 2012

By AppleTexts

Format:Hardcover

I got this book after seeing some of the five-star reviews, and watching the author's January 9 pre-publication interview with Connie Chung. I've now read it, and I found it provocative and engaging. The author describes the relevant studies in an easy, conversational manner, and he presents convincing cases for several different life-style changes:

(1) Taking a baby aspirin a day might well save your life.

(2) If you spend a lot of time sitting down on the job, get up every once in a while and walk around. Take the stairs when possible. That could add years to your life.

(3) Frozen fruit is probably better for you than "fresh" fruit. As a result, making smoothies is probably better than juicing.

(4) As the costs of whole genome sequencing come down (and patent issues are resolved), people would be well advised to get their genome read and diagnosed - whether by this author's company or another's. While genes don't tell the whole story, they can be very indicative of preventable problems. And prevention is far preferable to treatment.

(5) Do whatever you can to avoid the release of stress hormones - those can cut your life short too. Obviously stay clear of stressful situations (or develop coping mechanisms); less obviously, try to eat your meals on a regular schedule, and keep a regular sleep schedule.

(6) Do what you can to avoid inflammation generally - inflammation can have long-term effects. Taking a daily aspirin is a good start; getting a regular flu shot might be another.

A bit more controversial are his recommendations regarding statins and nutritional supplements. He says that taking statins when you turn forty will reduce your chances of inflammation and cancer, and he points to studies that suggest that in some cases, taking nutritional supplements can do more harm than good - specifically that taking large amounts of vitamin D or vitamin E has been linked to prostate cancer, and that tumors tend to feed on vitamin C. I see that other reviewers consider these studies biased (apparently they were paid for by pharmaceutical companies), or simply wrong (was the study vitamin D, or its metabolite calcitriol?), but I think the author makes a valuable contribution by bringing them to our attention. If in fact the studies he relies on are flawed, people will come forward with the studies and books that refute them.

I'm giving the book four stars because it taught me some things I didn't know and because I think it makes a real contribution. I'm not giving it the fifth star, because I don't think it's that much better, or that much more of an eye-opener, than any number of health and fitness books I have read. All of them have the same basic message about taking care of the entire organism, yet the author here acts like he's the first one who thought of that. And didn't Aristotle recommend moderation in all things?

On top of that, I'm disturbed by the way this book was marketed, and the route it took to the top of all the best-seller lists. I see from Beowulf's review that all of the big-name reviewers (Al Gore ["dramatic, new way of thinking about our own health"], Lance Armstrong ["tour de force"], Dean Ornish ["brilliant new model of health"], Steve Case ["shatters the myths"], etc.) turn out to be friends or investors of the author's, and that most of the five-star reviews are probably fake. I also recently learned that Connie Chung - whose interview with the author convinced me to buy the book in the first place - is actually the author's mother-in-law (or step-mother-in-law, to be more accurate - he's married to Maury Povich's daughter). I don't think it's fair to customers not to disclose all of these connections, and I'm concerned that all of these undisclosed connections have contributed disproportionately to the popularity of this book.

1,351 of 1,423 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Save Your Money - Get this at your local library January 22, 2012

By LuvUrPets

Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase

For once, I fell for the hype surrounding a book but after reading "The End of Illness" I realized I should have stuck with my original plan to check it out from my library. There is absolutely nothing groundbreaking or particularly significant about anything contained in this book. So why give it three stars? It does contain basic, medically supported info that some older person who has had no tv, no internet, no newspaper, and no radio access for the last 30 years and refuses to go to the doctor or listen to his doctor would need to know. As for the rest of us, all this book does is confirm what you already knew or suspected.

I am assuming though that you're interested in this book because you want to: (a) avoid an illness, particularly a life threatening illness or (b) you already have an illness and think this book will give suggestions on how to improve your life and get control of your illness. Learning about new advances in medicine which may or may not lead to anything that will help you during your lifetime is just a bonus but not high on your list of priorities. To be truthful, even if you read the book for that last purpose, you'd still be disappointed. I'm one of those unlucky people who was diagnosed with a chronic illness at the tender age of 13. Before then, nothing major happened in my life to kick start the illness - no drug use, no past illnesses/accidents, no lack of exercise, no atrocious diet, no lack of sleep habits, not a genetic disease. Sometimes $%&@ happens. As a mid 30s person, I'm pretty well versed in health matters but not an expert by far. I suspect many people my age and slightly older already know about the "tools" Dr. Agus "details" in this book and probably have been using them for years. It's the same "tools" you can learn about in any of the pithy little "Live to be 100" yahoo health articles the site spouts off every few weeks - and today.

Since the table of contents is available, I don't think I'd be breaking any rules or providing any spoilers by mentioning these tools:
(1) Don't believe every health study that comes out (duh)
(2) Taking vitamins is not as good as eating healthy food (duh)
(3) Try to avoid or lessen inflammation in the body (big Duh) - doesn't really tell you how except to get flu shots and wear comfortable clothes. Basically anytime you injure yourself or get sick there is inflammation. Not really a way to avoid all that esp. if you were a rambunctious kid since apparently things that happened to you as a kid can have a long lasting effect on your health today. From the anecdotes he tells in this section, I think Monk would be the only person capable of pulling this suggestion off successfully from birth to death. Even so, he could still get an illness because $%#@ Happens!
(4) Exercise (really?!)
(5) Keep a regular schedule for eating, sleeping, exercising (you don't say)
(6) Overall theme, keep track of how you are health-wise. Find out what's normal for you (done and done)

Rest of the book is filler on historical discoveries you learned in high school and hopes for the future, particularly with proteomics. He does seem to have a love affair with statins. Not being in the age range or having the type of illness to require these meds, I have absolutely no opinion on that.

There were only two things I took away from this book - that it's better to exercise in spurts than all at once (read about that earlier somewhere but it doesn't hurt to reinforce it) and you may want to get a DNA test to show your susceptibility to certain illnesses .... tests which coincidentally are offered by a company co-founded by Dr. Agus. Imagine that. Regardless, it does sound helpful esp. the ability to tell which drugs will work best for you. My doctor would probably say it's a waste of time and money but I'll make that decision after further research.

That's the book in a nutshell. He could have just written that in a two page internet article but I guess it wouldn't get much attention or money. Oh, and although the book is called "The End of Illness," it of course does not say a thing about "ending" illness now or in the future. A more truthful title would be "The Possible Downgrading of Terminal Diseases and Chronic Diseases that Substantially Lower Your Quality of Life into Easily Manageable Minor Diseases that You'll Still Suffer From But Will Have Better Control Over than Previous Generations." Reminds me of the Chris Rock joke where he says doctors will never cure AIDS but they'll make it manageable so all you have to do is take a pill everyday. The money's in the medicine. Not the cure. Prevention is the biggest weapon we have but you don't need this book to tell you that.

286 of 318 people found the following review helpful

1.0 out of 5 stars Trashes vitamin D, promotes aspirin, statins, flu vaccinations February 12, 2012

By William B. Grant

Format:Hardcover

This book may have some good points regarding lifestyle choices, but in my field of expertise, vitamin D, misses the mark by a wide margin. Vitamin D is a natural compound that humans have required forever. Thus, much of what we know about the roles of vitamin D come from ecological (geographical or seasonal) and observational studies. Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) have provided very good evidence that vitamin D reduces the risk of cancer, hip fractures, type A influenza, pneumonia, increase survival after diagnosis of cardiovascular disease, and reduce all-cause mortality rate. A recent RCT found that pregnant and nursing women need at least 4000 IU/d and that there are no adverse effects. The reasons why there are not more successful randomized controlled trials with vitamin D reported are several: most studies used only 400 IU/d vitamin D, the benefical effects of vitamin D for many types of disease have been identified in the past few years, there are many sources of vitamin D such as food, supplements and solar UVB, and there is considerable person-to-person variability in serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D with respect to oral vitamin D intake. The author dismisses the benefit of vitamin D for reducing the risk of cancer based in part on a 2008 International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) report. The authors of that report were primarily dermatologists who consider their mission in life to keep people out of the sun in order to prevent melanoma and skin cancer. This report has been shown to be highly biased. The author also suggests that cancer rates are higher at high latitudes due perhaps to genomic effects. This idea is incorrect based on a comparison of cancer rates in Nordic countries based on occupation: those with outdoor occupations have reduced risk of 17 types of cancer compared to those with indoor occupations. The measure of UV exposure was lip cancer for males, so the finding is not related to exercise, obesity, or smoking.

As for the basic recommendations listed on the dust jacket, aspirin, statins, and annual flu shot, they have serious problems. About 5% of those taking aspirin suffer GI tract bleeding, leading to many unnecessary deaths. One of the important effects of statins is to enhance the effects of vitamin D, so why not just take vitamin D. As for flu shots, the evidence that they are effective is limited (see who sponsored the study and ask why influenza mortality rates fail to show much effect of vaccine use), and there are two RCTs showing that vitamin D greatly reduces the risk of type A influenza.

The reason Big Pharma does not like vitamin D is that it is very inexpensive and very effective at reducing risk of many types of disease. The tradeoff between protection against UV damage and vitamin D production is the reason why skin pigmentation varies from very dark in the tropical plains and very pale in northern Europe.

For more information on vitamin D, go to [...], [...]t, [...]and do your own search at [...]