A riveting investigation of inflammation—the hidden force at the heart of modern disease—and how we can prevent, treat, or even reverse it.
Shortlisted for the 2023 Phi Beta Kappa Award in Science
Inflammation is the body’s ancestral response to its greatest threats, the first line of defense it deploys against injury and foreign pathogens. But as the threats we face have evolved, new science is uncovering how inflammation may also turn against us, simmering underneath the surface of leading killers from heart disease and cancer to depression, aging, and mysterious autoimmune conditions.
In A Silent Fire, gastroenterologist Shilpa Ravella investigates hidden inflammation’s emerging role as a common root of modern disease—and how we can control it. We meet the visionary 19th century pathologist who laid the foundation for our modern understanding of inflammation, the eccentric Russian zoologist who discovered one of the cells central to our immune system, and the dedicated researchers advancing the frontiers of medical and nutritional science today. With fascinating case studies, Ravella debunks common myths about “anti-inflammatory” lifestyles and reveals how we can reform our relationships with food and our microbiomes to benefit our own health and the planet’s.
Synthesizing medical history, cutting-edge research, and innovative clinical practice, Ravella unveils inflammation as one potential basis for a unifying theory of disease. A paradigm-shifting understanding of one of the most mysterious, buzzed about topics in medicine and nutrition, A Silent Fire shows us how to live not only long, but well.
Read an excerpt in the Wall Street Journal and a related original article in TIME Magazine. For media highlights, click here. For continued updates on inflammation, lifestyle and disease, visit the blog.
“[a] fascinating, case-oriented story of inflammation, diet and disease.”
“Ravella’s writing style keeps even the most dense page engaging. She breathes life into biological functions…the book is perfect for those looking to delve deeper into the history and intricate workings of immunology, diet and disease.”
“Ravella’s prose is clear, nuanced, and restrained. Readers fascinated by the science behind her assertions will be satisfied, while those more interested in the takeaways can access them easily…[her] ability to connect the concrete and the abstract makes this a worthwhile study of a complex process.”
“A spellbinding tale taking us from the early Greek physicians to the COVID-19 pandemic…The insights Ravella reveals point to a pathway that can enhance both our personal well-being today and that of the planet we pass on to our grandchildren.”
“Compelling, thoughtful and rigorously researched…Ravella fuses scientific history with something more in the line of a self-help guide…if your new year’s resolution involves a promise to take care of yourself, this book might just help it stick too”
“Ravella has a gift for writing about science in a way that anyone could understand yet from a position of deep authority and knowledge and with the human empathy of a medic. As gripping as a mystery story and as useful as a self-help book.”
–Bee Wilson, author of The Way We Eat Now
“Ravella’s fascinating, poetic, exploration of the body, food, and history, will sweep you up sentence by sentence. A book that could not only reshape readers’ understanding of their own systems and choices, but possibly medicine itself.”
“Inflammation is a double-edged sword that heals and destroys; it has already saved your life, but most likely will contribute to ending it…Shilpa Ravella takes us on a grand tour of the medical science and the personal cases that have advanced our understanding of the whys and ways of this fundamental process.”
Shilpa Ravella is a gastroenterologist and author. She treats a range of general gastrointestinal ailments and has unique experience in managing complex rare diseases, including intestinal failure and intestinal or multiple-organ transplantation. She is an expert in the field of nutrition and is particularly interested in the interactions between lifestyle, the microbiome and the immune system.
A Silent Fire: The Story of Inflammation, Diet & Disease (W.W. Norton) is her debut book. Her writing has appeared in The Atlantic, New York Magazine, Slate, The Wall Street Journal, TIME, Salon, Discover and USA Today, among other publications. She has appeared as an expert on national media, including ABC’s Good Morning America and NPR, and in print media outlets, including The Telegraph, CBS, The Times, New Scientist, Nature, Forbes, The Guardian, Cosmopolitan, Food and Wine and Glamour. Her Ted-Ed lesson, ‘How the Food You Eat Affects Your Gut,’ has garnered over six million views. Ravella earned her B.S. in Biology from MIT and an M.D. from the University of Pittsburgh. She holds an adjunct faculty appointment at Columbia University Medical Center and splits her time between mainland and Hawai’i Island, a “blue zone” where she works in rural healthcare.