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Connected: Love, Loss, and the Unseen Forces Behind Chronic Disease
When Martha Carlin’s husband is diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, she begins asking the questions conventional medicine could not answer.
Why this body? Why now? What had been building beneath the surface for years?
What follows is a deeply personal and intellectually ambitious journey through love, loss, scientific inquiry, and systems thinking. In CONNECTED, Carlin explores the hidden links between the microbiome, inflammation, environmental stressors, food, and the broader forces shaping chronic illness in modern life.
Part memoir, part scientific reckoning, and part challenge to medical dogma, this book traces one woman’s search to understand not only Parkinson’s but the larger chronic disease crisis affecting millions. Through the story of her husband John, her family, and her years of investigation, Carlin invites readers to see the body not as a collection of isolated problems, but as an interconnected system.
For readers drawn to root-cause thinking, health transformation, the microbiome, and personal stories with depth and conviction, CONNECTED offers a bold new lens on illness, healing, and what becomes possible when we stop reducing complex systems to simplistic answers.
This book is mesmerizing! I could not put it down. Very few books narrate a personal love story and an intense exploration of science in such a compelling way as "Connected."
Martha Carlin shares her deep love for her husband, John, and her intense search for an understanding of the Parkinson's disease that afflicts John. Not trained as a scientist, she plunges into learning all the scientific and medical findings about the disease and in the process, becomes knowledgeable of the discoveries...and flaws of contemporary science, its singularity of focus and narrowness of scientific methods.
The critical contribution of Martha Carlin's single-minded pursuit of knowledge about Parkinson's disease and ways to ameliorate, if not cure, John's affliction, is that chronic diseases are systemic diseases, that there is no "silver bullet" but rather the systemic nature of such diseases must be probed, understood, and appropriately interpreted to prevent Parkinson's and to do that will require interdisciplinary science, system science, and a new twenty-first century science.
The book is indeed a love story...the deep love for one's chosen life partner...and in the process of the search for understanding, to learn the science of being human.
Rita R. Colwell, PhD
Martha Carlin does something rare in health she follows the truth wherever it leads, even when it cuts against decades of medical dogma.
CONNECTED is part love story, part scientific reckoning, and entirely necessary. As someone who has spent years exploring why so many people remain sick despite doing everything right, I found Martha's insights on the microbiome, chronic disease, and our broken paradigm both validating and eye-opening.
This book will change how you see your body, your health, and what's actually possible.
Ben Azadi, NYT Bestselling Author of Metabolic Freedom
Why this body? Why now? What had been building beneath the surface for years?
What follows is a deeply personal and intellectually ambitious journey through love, loss, scientific inquiry, and systems thinking. In CONNECTED, Carlin explores the hidden links between the microbiome, inflammation, environmental stressors, food, and the broader forces shaping chronic illness in modern life.
Part memoir, part scientific reckoning, and part challenge to medical dogma, this book traces one woman’s search to understand not only Parkinson’s but the larger chronic disease crisis affecting millions. Through the story of her husband John, her family, and her years of investigation, Carlin invites readers to see the body not as a collection of isolated problems, but as an interconnected system.
For readers drawn to root-cause thinking, health transformation, the microbiome, and personal stories with depth and conviction, CONNECTED offers a bold new lens on illness, healing, and what becomes possible when we stop reducing complex systems to simplistic answers.
This book is mesmerizing! I could not put it down. Very few books narrate a personal love story and an intense exploration of science in such a compelling way as "Connected."
Martha Carlin shares her deep love for her husband, John, and her intense search for an understanding of the Parkinson's disease that afflicts John. Not trained as a scientist, she plunges into learning all the scientific and medical findings about the disease and in the process, becomes knowledgeable of the discoveries...and flaws of contemporary science, its singularity of focus and narrowness of scientific methods.
The critical contribution of Martha Carlin's single-minded pursuit of knowledge about Parkinson's disease and ways to ameliorate, if not cure, John's affliction, is that chronic diseases are systemic diseases, that there is no "silver bullet" but rather the systemic nature of such diseases must be probed, understood, and appropriately interpreted to prevent Parkinson's and to do that will require interdisciplinary science, system science, and a new twenty-first century science.
The book is indeed a love story...the deep love for one's chosen life partner...and in the process of the search for understanding, to learn the science of being human.
Rita R. Colwell, PhD
Martha Carlin does something rare in health she follows the truth wherever it leads, even when it cuts against decades of medical dogma.
CONNECTED is part love story, part scientific reckoning, and entirely necessary. As someone who has spent years exploring why so many people remain sick despite doing everything right, I found Martha's insights on the microbiome, chronic disease, and our broken paradigm both validating and eye-opening.
This book will change how you see your body, your health, and what's actually possible.
Ben Azadi, NYT Bestselling Author of Metabolic Freedom
333 pages, Kindle Edition
Published June 24, 2026
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
June 26, 2026
Martha Carlin's book is absolutely amazing!
She writes with such honesty and clarity as she shares the story of her husband’s journey with Parkinson’s and the winding path they walked together. Her voice is genuine, never dramatic and never self‑pitying, simply deeply human.
I also appreciated how Carlin weaves in the science behind chronic disease in a way that is accessible and eye-opening, especially her explanations of inflammation, environmental exposures, and the interconnected systems that shape long‑term health.
Connected is both a moving personal story and a thoughtful exploration of the biology behind it. It left me feeling hopeful, not just about Parkinson’s, but about the wider landscape of chronic disease and the strength people find as they navigate it.
She writes with such honesty and clarity as she shares the story of her husband’s journey with Parkinson’s and the winding path they walked together. Her voice is genuine, never dramatic and never self‑pitying, simply deeply human.
I also appreciated how Carlin weaves in the science behind chronic disease in a way that is accessible and eye-opening, especially her explanations of inflammation, environmental exposures, and the interconnected systems that shape long‑term health.
Connected is both a moving personal story and a thoughtful exploration of the biology behind it. It left me feeling hopeful, not just about Parkinson’s, but about the wider landscape of chronic disease and the strength people find as they navigate it.
August 2, 2026
Wow
Everyone should read this book! I am amazed by Martha! So powerful!, I am going to hand this out to everyone I know!
Everyone should read this book! I am amazed by Martha! So powerful!, I am going to hand this out to everyone I know!
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews