The Immune Mind: The Hidden Dialogue Between Your Brain and Immune System

by Monty Lyman

Delving into the recent discovery of the brain's immune system, Dr. Monty Lyman reveals the extraordinary implications for our physical and mental health.

Up until the last ten years, we have misunderstood a fundamental aspect of human health. Although the brain and the body have always been viewed as separate entities – treated in separate hospitals – science now shows that they are intimately linked. Startlingly, we now know that our immune system is in constant communication with our brain and can directly alter our mental health.



In The Immune Mind, Dr. Monty Lyman explores the fascinating connection between the mind, immune system and microbiome, offering practical advice on how to stay healthy. A specialist in the cutting-edge field of immunopsychiatry, Lyman argues that we need to change the way we treat disease and the way we see ourselves.



The fields of neuroimmunology and immunopsychiatry have opened up new frontiers in medicine. Could inflammation cause depression, and arthritis drugs cure it? Can gut microbes shape your behavior through the vagus nerve? Can something as simple as brushing your teeth properly reduce your risk of dementia? Could childhood infections lie behind neurological and psychiatric disorders such as tics and OCD?



For the first time, we have a new approach to understanding ourselves that does not just medicate the body or mind, but treats the whole human being.

Genres: Nonfiction, Health, Science, Psychology, Medicine, Ebooks, Brain

305 pages, Paperback

Published September 24, 2024

Reviews

[K.J. Charles]

Non fic about the brain's immune system, with a lot on the subject of inflammation. Interesting as far as it goes (though you'll be amazed to learn the answer is to get more sleep, exercise, eat good food et al et seq.)

[Miglė · Rating 5 out of 5]

it often seems that culture trumps science, and in this deeply engrained tradition of separating minds and bodies we struggle to accept the idea that an ailing mind implies an ailing body, and an ailing body implies an ailing mind. stress is an impressing - and terrifying - mediator here. and so is inflammation.

this book elegantly connects the focus on gut and brain, immunity system and mind, and shares some fascinating new research helping us see ourselves - and fellow humans - more holistically.

it's easy to read, it treats the reader with respect, and most importantly, it brings new perspectives and angles, for beginners and fans of the field alike.

[Grace Wade · Rating 5 out of 5]

Transforming neuroimmunology into a page-turner is a remarkable feat, and this book does just that. An absolute delight to read with clear, accessible prose even for those of us without science degrees. Yet I think most doctors would benefit in reading this, too. Lyman does a fantastic job citing cutting-edge evidence to support his arguments. Even I, someone whose full-time job entails scouring newly published research articles, learned some astonishing new things in this book. Hats off to Lyman!

[Mircea Petcu · Rating 5 out of 5]

Până recent, sistemul nervos și sistemul imunitar erau considerate compartimente separate. Privilegiul imunitar însemna că țesutul cerebral este prea prețios pentru a permite să fie afectat de deteriorarea colaterală a inflamației; prin urmare el nu posedă celule imunitare rezidente și nici nu permite acestor celule să pătrundă în țesuturile sale.

S-a descoperit că țesutul cerebral conține celule numite microglii care funcționează ca celulele imunitare: captează și înghit (prin fagocitoză), emit substanțe proinflamatorii numite citokine (proteine mesager asemănătoare hormonilor), prezintă antigenele (substanțele pe care celulele imunitare le pot identifica). Microglia comunică cu restul sistemului imunitar.
Creierul imuno-privilegiat este un mit.

Un mod în care sistemul imunitar influențează creierul este așa-numita "depresie inflamatorie". Se știe că circa o treime dintre pacienții care primesc trataament cu interferon-alfa (o citokină) împotriva virusului hepatitei C devin depresivi. De asemenea, medicii au descoperit că blocarea citokinelor în artitra reumatoidă a ameliorat depresia indiferent de starea fizică.
Acum cunoaștem mecanismul. Triptofanul este un aminoacid care în mod normal se descompune în serotonină, unul dintre
nerotransmițătorii vitali ai creierului. S-a demonstrat că citokinele inflamatorii activează enzima IDO care transformă triptofanul în acid chinolinic care exercită efecte depresive și toxice asupra sistemului nervos. În plus, citokinele pot reduce sinteza și eliberarea dopamniei, un neurotransmițător important în dorință.
Trebuie spus că depresia este o boală "eterogenă", în care depresia inflamatorie este doar un subtip. Medicația anti-inflamatoare a funcționat doar în cazul depresiei inflamatorii, ce reprezintă circa 25% din cazurile de depresie.
A fost descoperit chiar și-un caz de "schizofrenie autoimună", în care sistemul imun produce anticorpi împotriva receptorilor NMDA aflați în număr mare în cortexul prefrontal (cu rol important în controlul impulsurilor și în luarea deciziilor).

Domeniile imunologiei și psihiatriei s-au combinat pentru a forma domeniul inovativ al imunopsihiatriei.

Recomand

[Debby Binns · Rating 5 out of 5]

A BBC Abridged version - that was so interesting! I might have to read the book now!

[Jessica · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is about the bidirectional communication between your mind, body and microbes and how they are affected by the big 3 factors of mental health and wellbeing: diet, sleep and exercise. These are concepts that have been on my mind for many years now so I was a captive audience.

The author starts with a review of the immune system followed by a review of the brain's immune system. Much of the brain info was new to me. Despite what we may have decided about the brain being separate from the body, it appears that the brain does have a way to communicate with the immune system through CSF fluid that washes through the neurons of the brain and presents information about the brain's health to immune cells. I was also introduced to microglia, immune cells that prune neurons and leave others alone. Schizophrenia can occur when this pruning goes wrong.

The brain is trying to predict the world, and if the brain forms a model of the world that is maladaptive, mental illness occurs. What is really fascinating to me is that a high level of infections early in life is a predictor for mental illness including schizophrenia, and early life psychological stress leads to chronic inflammation which leads to physical illness. It's a circle.

The microbiome is also part of this circle. There were references to mice studies, some of which I had heard of before, in which researchers found that germ free mice were more stressed and had lower levels of brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), a protein critical for learning and memory formation. If that's not bad enough, these germ free mice were also loners.

"There is some evidence that a disrupted gut microbiome (dysbiosis) is associated with psychotic disorders such as schizophrenia." Autoimmune diseases also seem to stem from a combination of infections and an unbalanced gut microbiome. Isn't it curious that a physical disease (autoimmune) and a mental disease (schizophrenia) seem to have infection and dysbiosis in common? Alzheimer's disease also has a link with dysbiosis and infection.

Inflammation is a term that will come up over and over in this book. The author asks if inflammation can cause depression could treating inflammation cure depression? I hope so!

If communication between the mind, body and microbes becomes unbalanced, inflammation is the result. This is heavily affected by the SAD diet of western culture (my area of study as a nutritionist) and a chronic lack of exercise and sleep.

The last chapters of the book give you some hope for taking back your health by taking advantage of the things you can control, namely diet, sleep and exercise. There were a few things of note here. We use movement to test our environment. Therefore a lack of movement could be a causal factor to psychological distress. The author notes that dance is a perfect way to provide the brain with information about the outside world and it often has a social component as well which is important. Poor sleep is associated with low microbial diversity and an unbalanced immune system. "Even one night of four hours’ sleep wipes out 70 per cent of natural killer cells in circulation."

I could go on as my kindle tells me I have made 181 highlights in this book, but I cannot because it's time for me to go to sleep. Goodnight!

[Hannah Daniels · Rating 4 out of 5]

A really good read that should be given to anyone suffering chronic ill health. The take home message is simple. Eat and drink the nutrients your body needs, eat less processed crap, exercise more and get some fresh air.

[Noorilhuda · Rating 2 out of 5]

Dr. Lyman (The Painful Truth: The new science of why we hurt and how we can heal, 2022) cites extensive studies done by medical professionals and scientists to make the compelling, albeit not widely accepted, medical argument that brain, immune system and gut microbiome are the human body’s inter-connected “defense systems” against mental and physical diseases [pg. 183].

He believes that an imbalance in or damage to any one of these systems leads to chronic inflammation. This, he writes, is the root cause of various mental and physical ailments [185]. This evidence-based knowledge, he says, can help expand treatment options for various mental illnesses (depression, seizures and schizophrenia) [101, 113, 114, 137], autoimmune disorders (rheumatoid arthritis) [116, 128,129], neurodegenerative diseases (dementia, Alzheimer’s) [121, 172, 173, 175], atherosclerotic disease (heart attacks and strokes) metabolic disease (diabetes and obesity), and cancer [186-187].

He takes readers through the three meningeal lymphatic vessels (that exist between skull and brain, [23] which act as gatekeepers and “connect the borders of the brain to the rest of the body’s immune system”) [25], microglia (“brain’s resident immune cells”) [31], and vagus nerve (“a long nerve from brain stem that communicates with most of our internal organs, including the gut“) [34, 74].

Then he focusses on the gut which is the largest immune organ in the body and has its own (“enteric”) nervous system and is connected to the brain by four primary pathways: neural, endocrine, metabolic and immune [81]. He theorizes that a microbial imbalance in gut flora can lead to a dysfunctional prefrontal cortex (which is “implicated in most mental health conditions”) [76]. He believes that "mind is moulded and manipulated by the trillions of microbes that live within us." [69] An addiction to fast food, he suggests, may be due to abundance of fat-and-sugar-loving microbiome in gut [80]. Inflammation, caused by virus, bacteria, parasite or environmental factors, affects mood molecules (serotonin and dopamine) [121] and slows down neurogenesis of the hippocampus (part of brain that helps remember short-term and long-term memory, and has a key role in mood and emotion). This slowdown, in turn, leads to depression [121-122].

He encourages readers to look for the treatment of depression outside the brain and in the gut, lymph nodes, bone marrow or the spleen [113]. He mentions the case study of a woman who was diagnosed first with anxiety disorder, then epilepsy and ultimately schizophrenia, whose symptoms completely vanished after she received therapies of steroid, plasma exchange and IVIG (intravenous immunoglobulin). [101] In fact, he quotes trials that reveal people with high inflammation markers (C-Reactive Protein, cytokines such as IL-6) who do not respond well to traditional anti-depressants [118] and heal better with biologics (new lab-made protein, such as an antibody) [114]. In one such trial, a new antibody drug 'sirukumab' relieved rheumatoid arthritis by targeting cytokines for IL‐6, and 'ustekinumab' treated psoriasis by blocking the cytokines for IL‐12 and IL‐23. [128-129]

He encourages readers to be proactive and develop healthy lifestyle to reduce or eliminate inflammation in the body. These include diverse plant-based and fermented food diet, regular movement and exercise, good sleep cycle and mindfulness [190-234]. In fact, he proposes good dental care to reduce chance of dementia [174-175].

Since this is an emerging science, time and continued lab-based research, will confirm this book’s place in the field of integrated medicine as either controversial or revolutionary.

Memorable Quotes / Theories:

xvi: More and more people are experiencing – and more and more doctors are witnessing – conditions that cannot be neatly associated with specific organs, symptoms or specialties.
The reality is that there is no mental disorder that is not also physical, and most physical diseases have some mental element to them.
It is my contention that your mind and your immune system are not simply linked, but can be viewed as part of the same system: I will call this the ‘defence system’.
There had long been clues in Greek, Hebrew and early Islamic texts that humans could directly spread disease to each other, but even by Hooke’s time, ‘contagion theory’ had never really caught on. However, probably around the time Hooke identified the first cell, another revolution in the history of infection and immunity was taking place. This revolution did not emerge in a European metropolis, but instead a village in India or China that has long been lost to history. Someone had realized that smallpox could be prevented.
Variolation’s first scientific test came in 1721. Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, wife of the British ambassador to the Ottoman court in Constantinople, returned from the East as a fervent advocate of this mysterious treatment. In the Ottoman Empire, she spent extensive time with local women to explore and record their customs, and came upon the practice of variolation.
31:Microglia (your brain’s resident immune cells) are not just the brain’s equivalent of macrophages, they are the sculptors of our brains.
33: One brain‐immune connection has been termed the ‘inflammatory reflex’. Following the triggering of inflammation in the body, inflammatory cytokines are detected by the vagus nerve.
34: Today it is clear – and this is no overstatement – that the brain is an immunological organ. It has multiple lines of communication with the body’s immune army, has a powerful immune garrison in the skull and meninges, and even has its own specialized mercenary force of microglia. The brain and the immune system are tethered together by vessels (lymphatic and blood) and nerves. They speak the same language. You could even say that they are part of the same system. There is a part of us that feels this brain‐body link on a deep, instinctive level, but the human mind’s need for compartmentalization – which has influenced the development of separate scientific fields and the ordered progression of medical education – has blinded us.
56: Lisa Feldman Barrett is one of the main proponents of this theory. She describes emotion as ‘your brain’s creation of what your bodily sensations mean, in relation to what is going on around you in the world’. She argues that emotions are a ‘prescription for action’, specifically for behaviours that will keep our body in balance. Emotions are goal‐directed, the ultimate goal being the minimization of uncertainty and a balanced state of homeostasis in the body......Looking at the extremes, psychiatric diseases can be seen as disorders of inference. Over‐predicting and attributing excessive salience to sensory data results in hallucinations and delusions – the fantasies that our brains are constantly generating are not kept in check by the sensory evidence that should temper them. The opposite can result in dissociation – the experience of detachment from your emotions, your body or the world.
58: Our perceptions are a product of both the bottom‐up (sensations brought about by a bacteria or virus) and the top‐down (our brain’s predictions of the body and the world).
76: ...a 2016 study, was that microbe‐deficient mice have very strange prefrontal cortices....Such is its importance to the working of the mind – including decision‐making, planning, personality and behavioural control – that a dysfunctional prefrontal cortex is implicated in most mental health conditions.
79: The gut is our largest reservoir of microbes and it is our largest immune organ;
80: Different microbes have different tastes – Bacteroidetes love fat, Prevotella have a penchant for carbs and Bifidobacteria are addicted to fibre – so the makeup of our gut microbiome probably both reflects and influences our food choices. An addiction to fast food might partly be down to fat‐ and sugar‐loving microbes in your gut making persistent delivery requests. As behaviour – including willpower – is partly microbial, if you want to change your diet to improve your health, perhaps altering the microbial environment is better than simply relying on willpower.
81: There are four primary pathways between the gut microbiome and the brain: neural (relating to the nervous system), endocrine, metabolic and immune. Our gut is sometimes termed our ‘second brain’, as it has its own nervous system (the ‘enteric nervous system’) that contains more nerves than the human spinal cord. Its most well‐known role is unconsciously and rhythmically squeezing food down the pipe of the intestines, but – as we’ve seen – the gut is also directly linked to the brain via the vagus nerve. The vagus has long ‘feet’ that dig into the lining of the gut, and in 2015 it was discovered that these feet contain ‘neuropod cells’ that taste the environment of the gut and directly pass signals up to the brain.
98:In 2005 Dr Josep Dalmau, a Catalan neurologist working at the Uni‐ versity of Pennsylvania, had his curiosity piqued by some mysterious cases. He had identified four young women who, despite the attention of legions of medical specialists, had a seemingly undiagnosable disease.1 They all presented with a relatively rapid onset of similar symptoms: hallucinations, delusions, memory problems and seizures. ...They all appeared to have encephalitis: inflammation of the brain. This is most commonly caused by a viral or bacterial infection, but in these four cases multiple investigations found no infectious cause.
First, spinal taps did indeed reveal signs of inflammation in the cerebrospinal fluid. Second, all four patients happened to have benign, congenital tumours on their ovaries, called teratomas.
99: Dr Dalmau hypothesized that all four of these women must have had some brain tissue form within their teratomas, and that the immune system of each woman’s body had detected this alien growth. Antibodies were then produced against the tumour, sticking to the abnormal tissue and flagging it for destruction by immune cells. This is all well and good, but once these women’s immune systems had started to produce antibodies against brain tissue found in the tumours, these new antibodies also homed in on the same targets in their own brain.
After almost a year of trial‐and‐error tinkering in the lab, dropping samples of the women’s spinal fluid on to frozen sections of rat brain, he found that the antibodies bound to one specific receptor: the NMDA receptor.
Through what Dr Dalmau describes as ‘a product of serendipity and effort’, a new disease had been discovered: anti‐NMDA receptor encephalitis.
NMDA (N‐methyl‐D‐aspartate acid) receptors reside on the sur‐ face of synapses – the tiny gaps between nerve cells in the brain.They are found all over the brain, but in particularly high concentrations in the hippocampus (the seat of memory formation) and the frontal lobe (crucial for the development and regulation of personality, emotions and problem‐solving). NMDA receptors are activated by a molecule called glutamate, which is critical for our brain’s ability to change and adapt to the constant barrage of stimuli pouring in from the outside world. We’ve seen that the brain is a remarkable, predictive machine that is constantly refining its model of the outside world by comparing external stimuli to the brain’s internal predictions. This process is dependent on properly functioning NMDA.
101: Susannah was bounced between specialists, collecting a sticker book of misdiagnoses: bipolar disorder, schizo‐affective disorder, alcohol withdrawal and, to quote one neurologist, ‘partying too hard, not sleeping enough and working too hard’...... Dr Najjar suggested a ‘three‐pronged attack’. This began with steroids, a crude tool to reduce inflammation in the short term. She then underwent plasma exchange: a dialysis‐like procedure in which her rogue immune cells were washed out of her blood and replaced. Finally, she would come back to hospital on a monthly basis to have intravenous immunoglobulin (IVIG), an infusion of donor anti‐ bodies that ‘mop up’ autoreactive antibodies in the blood. Susannah made a full recovery.
113: If I asked you to name a body part, outside of the skull, that holds the key to the treatment of depression, what would you choose? Having read the book so far, perhaps you might have chosen the gut, or even an immune organ such as lymph nodes, bone marrow or the spleen. I came to this left‐field answer after speaking with Professor Iain McInnes, a Glasgow‐based world‐renowned rheumatologist.
114: A brand‐new class of drugs, called biologics, had recently entered the clinical world. A biologic is essentially a lab‐made protein, such as an antibody, that has been designed to target a very specific molecule in the body. Biologics represented a new generation of anti‐inflammatories: if aspirin and steroids are shotguns, biologics are laser‐guided rifles.
116: Perhaps, for some people at least, depression and arthritis both resulted from the same root cause: inflammation.
118: Around a quarter of people living with depression have mildly raised levels of a commonly measured inflammatory marker called C‐reactive protein (CRP) in their blood, suggestive of low‐level, chronic inflammation. Other inflammatory molecules are also raised in the blood of individuals with clinical depression, and a 2022 study found robust evidence for increased numbers of numerous types of immune cells in the blood of sufferers. This group of people – who are both depressed and have raised inflammatory markers – is a particularly curious one. They tend to respond particularly poorly to conventional antidepressant medications.8 It also appears that inflammation is more strongly associated with some depressive symptoms than others: alongside the core symptoms of persistent low mood and anhedonia, individuals with raised inflammatory markers in the blood tend to experience greater fatigue, an increased need for sleep and more changes in appetite compared to the uninflamed. Clinicians have long known about this group of symptoms, which has historically been termed ‘atypical depression’, but it is only recently that we have seen clear evidence that this condition may be caused by inflammation. Could roughly a quarter of people diagnosed with depression – which would account for around 70 million people worldwide – be living with a whole‐body inflammatory disorder?
118-119: We always need to be careful not to assume that correlation means causation
128-129: One study, carried out in 2020, was able to look at very detailed patient data from eighteen clinical trials and factored in patients’ physical improvements. These trials had used a range of new anti‐ inflammatory drugs designed to target the inflammation behind various autoimmune diseases. Two drugs in particular demonstrated an improvement in low mood, regardless of improvement in physical symptoms. These were both antibody drugs that specifically targeted pro‐inflammatory cytokines: sirukumab relieves rheumatoid arth‐ ritis by targeting IL‐6, and ustekinumab treats psoriasis by blocking the cytokines for IL‐12 and IL‐23. Here we have data to back up Iain McInnes’s observations in his arthritis clinic: anti‐inflammatory medication treating the psychological symptoms of depression, regardless of the state of physical symptoms. This doesn’t just help to strengthen an argument for inflammation causing some forms of depression; it offers hope of a treatment.
129-130: In the first few years of the 1990s, researchers at the University of Bristol recruited around 14,000 pregnant women into the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC) study, and have since been monitoring them, their children and partners over the past three decades. Khandaker found that among this treasure trove of physical, mental and social data, ‘they had measured the inflammatory markers CRP and IL‐6 in around 5,000 children when they were aged nine. This meant that we could look at these children when they were eighteen and see if inflammation in child‐ hood predicted depression later on. And indeed it did: kids with higher inflammatory markers in their blood aged nine were more likely to have depression when they were eighteen.’ This was still the case when Khandaker’s team statistically removed the effects of potential confounding factors such as sex, age, ethnicity, body mass index, past psychological problems and social class.
133: In 2020, researchers at the University of Cambridge, alongside a consortium of experts from across the United Kingdom, published some exciting findings. They analysed a range of immune cells taken from blood samples from around two hundred patients with depression and three hundred healthy controls. Individuals with depression generally tended to have considerably more peripheral inflammation than healthy controls, but researchers were also able to clearly identify a specific ‘inflamed depression’ subgroup, comprising around a third of those with depression.30 Alongside raised CRP and inflammatory cytokines – something already well established from other studies – they also found raised numbers of both innate and adaptive immune cells circulating in the blood of these patients. This subgroup also had more severe depression than others, reflecting other findings showing that those with inflamed depression tend to be those who don’t respond to conventional antidepressants. Perhaps we are not too far away from a future in which you present to your GP with symptoms of depression, are given a quick blood test and – if you’re identified as having inflamed depression – are offered a cure.
174: There is plenty of evidence to suggest a correlation between dementias such as Alzheimer’s disease and excessive, long‐term inflammation in the body, known as chronic inflammation. A 2010 meta‐analysis (an analysis of multiple papers, combining their findings) of 1,500 individuals found that those with Alzheimer’s disease tended to have raised levels of inflammatory cytokines in their blood...We also know that suffering from multiple infections increases the risk of developing dementia....An intriguing study, published by researchers at Stanford University in 2023, points the finger at one specific infectious agent: the varicella‐zoster virus.
174-175: A remarkable link between systemic inflammation and dementia was uncovered in 2016, when researchers at the University of Southampton found that those with gum inflammation (periodontitis) had a six‐fold increased risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease over a six‐month period.
183-234: [tips on food, exercise, mindfulness]

[Sandra · Rating 5 out of 5]

Razend interessant en heel toegankelijk geschreven. Aanrader en eye-opener!

[Eleni Daniels · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5. 4* for first two parts, 3* for last part

[Jackie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very readable . Particularly helpful to understand why healing from chronic conditions like ME/CFS/LongCovid etc needs an integrated approach and not one based on mind body dualism . As he says , psychology is biology
There is no shame in using psychological or Neuroplasticity based interventions to change our biology alongside biological interventions

[Michael Doherty · Rating 5 out of 5]

best book I’ve read in years

Wow. What a well written and intelligent book. It also made me laugh a few times. It’s written with humour and a real sense of curiosity all backed up with a plethora of references to expand your understanding of you so wish. Thank you

[Laura · Rating 2 out of 5]

We are learning and publishing new things about the importance of our gut microbiome and they way our immune system interacts with the gut microbiome and the brain at incredible speed. That doesn't mean however that every publication has been verified, or proven to be correct. This book, written by a health care professional, brought in a lot of new information for me--especially detailing new pathways for the immune system and the brain to interact. It also however suffered from a severe case of over-enthusiasm that can be more harmful in the long run. I don't know if the author (who should know better), or the editors (who usually want to ensure readability) were the main culprits for the lack of nuance and over-inflated statements. Regardless, I'd say take this book with a large grain of salt in term of current scientific knowledge.

Here's an example of the book going from great new information, to complete aberration: the author talks about metabolites produced by our gut microbiome that seem to interact with the canabinoid receptors in nerve endings, and finally initiate a cascade of dopamine release in the brain in response to physical activity. The first paragraph is accurate and contained: this is research done in mice, we don't know how and if it works in humans. A couple of pages later however the author claims that after he started eating a fiber-rich diet he started spontaneously wanting to move more. And he says this: "When – fueled by my new-found microbial motivation – I began to get into long-distance running," Sorry what? What follows is a meandering discussion on how we always associated philosophy with movement and at this point I was begging the author to get his thoughts in order because he was rambling and over-stating emerging scientific knowledge. The lack of critical thought was staggering: the author repeated claims of 'blue zones' (geographical areas with a lot of centenarians) being associated with healthier diets when in reality it's been proven they're linked to bad record keeping and people lying (to add years) about their age; he states "There is even evidence for psychological stress increasing the ability of your immune system to benefit from a vaccine administration" even though other research concluded the exact opposite; he claims the reason why schizophrenia is more common in babies born in February is due to maternal viral infection during pregnancy, even though alternative theories (including decreased Vitamin D intake during winter months) have also been linked to the condition. It's just one over-statement over the other, which ultimately drowned out the interesting research. Don't even get me started on the lack of discussions on whether the research has been reproduced--so many 'discoveries' are not reproducible (whether due to experimental error or fraud).

And as a SIBO (small intestinal bacterial overgrowth) sufferer, who used to eat an extremely fiber-rich diet and right now I cannot due to microbiome overgrowth--I would like to beg the scientific community for an answer: why do we develop SIBO? What do we do when a fiber-rich diet becomes toxic? Nobody wants to hear SIBO sufferers, they just keep telling us we need to eat more fiber, which makes us sick! (and at least in my case this wasn't caused by too little fiber, or even antibiotic overuse). This book, like many other health care personnel, goes for the one-size-fits-all approach more often than it should.

[Helen Milner · Rating 4 out of 5]

Easy to read and with a nice balance of science theory, case studies and analogy to aid understanding. I enjoyed seeing the new developments in the years since I studied science. This book not only helped me understand more about the topic at hand but also just how much we don’t know and how fast our understanding changes and sometimes needs to change.

The book looks at the link between mind, body and gut and aligns with what appears to be a growing appreciation that we need to see the body and health conditions as a whole and does so from the perspective of immunology rather than psychiatry which is the first I’ve read like this.

I gave four stars because I couldn’t put the book down in section 1 but found section 2 slower to read. Section 3 wasn’t really my sort of thing as it was lifestyle focused and I tend to read for knowledge. I didn’t dislike it I just was reading it because it felt like I should read it for my health not because I was eager to dive in and learn new things.

[Rudi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Een vlot leesbaar boek over samenhang / verstoring immuunsysteem, microbioom , gezondheid, ziekte , ….. het maakt op een eenvoudige manier duidelijk dat het evenwicht niet zo eenvoudig is , en dat het brein waarschijnlijk geen zo een afgesloten plaats als gedacht, maar ook onderhevig is in werking aan het evenwicht immuunsysteem/ micro leven ,
Vlot geschreven boek dat me wat doet nadenken over gezondheid, en samenhang van ( veeel) verschillende factoren waarbij men misschien bij sommige zaken wat invloed kan hebben , of op andere niet , een langdurige relatie proberen op te bouwen tussen het microbioom, immuunsysteem, met kortdurende stress momenten die men liefst zelf in handen heeft , en heel veel geluk met de balans van het microleven op celniveau ,
5 sterren vlot leesbaar en leerzaam ,

[Nicole Boo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Immunology: new approaches, made fun. Reading this book felt like I was in one of those after-school aperitifs with smart people (the engaging, socially skilled kind) around me; The discussions were easy to understand and anyone in the group would definitely learn something from the next person.

This book got so many blue-inked "hah!"s and plastic tabs from me. There were bouts of history, philosophical concepts, scientific studies, social commentary, and recent discoveries here and there, all woven neatly into each other—hallmarks of a book I am doomed to enjoy.

Would recommend to those who'd like to understand how they could have a little bit more control of their ultimately uncontrollable bodies, like, right now.

[Lams · Rating 4 out of 5]

Recommended! Very much enjoyed this book and learned a lot about how the slightly mysterious concept of inflammation neatly seems to explain so many of our diseases of modernity.

The fascinating interplay of immune responses in mind and body is well laid out and well written. The observation of “sickness-behavior” is a nice way to talk about this interplay and introduce the topic to friends.

All in all this made a lot of sense!

If it were just for the first two parts, I’d give five stars, as I am no big fan of the mandatory self-help way of concluding science books such as this one. Don’t let it stop you from buying the book.

[without overthinking · Rating 5 out of 5]

To me that don´t have any medical background or knowledge, it was a very interesting book to cast some light on some forgotten and not so know heroes that keep and want to push our world forward and help others with their studies and efforts, new theories and group studies.

It makes us think about how little we truly know about our bodies, the subtle but so important differences between all of us, and consequently, how wrong diagnosis can be.

It´s major focus is on the importance of microbiome, aspects of inflammation and the consequences of chronic inflammation.
Lots of information but not excessively technical, very pleasant read.

[Sjervey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Superb summary of the current revolution in medicine

This brilliantly conceived and beautifully written account of modern medical research ties together new understandings of the complex interplay of our immune system, our brain, our gut biome, and our mental health, highlighting how previously unsuspected connections are really the key to our mental and physical well-being. Moreover, Dr. Lyman provides straightforward guidelines for simple lifestyle improvements that can benefit us all.This is the rarest of books, a book I can recommend to everyone.

[George · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really good book about the connections between the mind, the immune system, and the microbiome. The main focus is about how inflammation is the root of all evil in the body.
Interesting science, not overly academic, and it ends with some solid, research-backed prescriptive ways to make our lives better.

[Kayoung Yun · Rating 5 out of 5]

Exceptional book with the latest research on the body and mind. If you’ve ever experienced chronic pain/ilness or any other mental struggles, this book will help you understand it with real research. What I loved the most was how engaging the author was. As someone with little medical knowledge, everything was easy to understand. Thank you Dr. Lyman for this book!!

[Mia Edwards · Rating 4 out of 5]

The first ‘explanatory’ part of this book was FABULOUS - I love when someone explains complicated scientific things to non-sciencey people like me and somehow make it interesting and funny. The final ‘recommendations’ section was disappointingly basic and repetitive. Still love the style and learned lots

[Maddie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book opened my eyes to a field of study I hadn’t realised existed. My only issue with it was the last chapter which more turned to a “eating well will get rid of your depression” type. But I can understand where that statement comes from now.

[Paula López · Rating 3 out of 5]

I feel like bits of it were chatgpt… and i would know about that lol interesting but doesn’t really bring anything groundbreaking to the discussion. Its a great intro on the topic though! Expected to learn more.

[Jason · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was a great insight on how so many aspects of life; including chronic inflammation from various sources, physical ailments, mental strife, gut microbiome and others lead to various chronic illnesses.

[evelynci · Rating 5 out of 5]

amazing balance between clear explanations of science and biology, while also being entertaining, unlike most nonfiction science books. super interesting, also prompted my curiosity into gut brain axis, and how i can improve my own health :)

[Molly · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well written and engaging. I am recovering from a post viral illness and found it incredibly interesting the links between inflammation and symptoms. I now have a couple of tips to help relieve my symptoms.

[Jeff · Rating 4 out of 5]

Awesome account of biology of our connected immune system. With sourced material from research old and new.

[Kathryn Gower · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fascinating new research on immunity, inflammation and the brain.

[A.g. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very up-to-date on latest research and explanation on connections between brain and immune system and microbiome. Useful read!