The Immune Mind

Superbly written with excellent insights...One of the best nonfiction books I've read!

—Dr. Rupy Aujla, author of The Doctor's Kitchen

Until a decade ago, we 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.

This has opened up a new frontier in medicine. Could inflammation cause depression, and could arthritis drugs cure it? Can gut microbes alter your mood? 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 obsessive compulsive disorder?

In The Immune Mind, Dr. Monty Lyman explores the fascinating connection between the mind, immune system, and microbiome. A specialist in the cutting-edge field of immuno-psychiatry, Lyman argues that we need to change the way we treat disease and the way we see ourselves. For the first time, we have a new approach to medicine that treats the whole human being.

Dr. Monty Lyman, an Academic Clinical Fellow at the University of Oxford, is a medical doctor, researcher, and author who specializes in relationships between the mind and the immune system. His first book, The Remarkable Life of the Skin, was shortlisted for the Royal Society Science Book Prize, was one of the Sunday Times Best Books of 2019, and was a Radio 4 Book of the Week. An Essay from his second book, The Painful Truth, won the 2020 Royal Society of Medicine's Pain Medicine Prize.