We’ve featured Dr. Gottfried before, as well as another of her books (“Younger”), and this one’s a little different, and on the one hand very specific, while on the other hand affecting a lot of people.

You may be thinking, upon reading the subtitle, “this sounds like Dr. Gabor Maté’s ideas” (per: “When The Body Says No”), and 1) you’d be right, and 2) Dr. Gottfried does credit him in the introduction and refers back to his work periodically later.

What she adds to this, and what makes this book a worthwhile read in addition to Dr. Maté’s, is looking clinically at the interactions of the immune system and nervous system, but also the endocrine system (Dr. Gottfried’s specialty) and the gut.

Another thing she adds is more of a focus on what she writes about as “little-t trauma”, which is the kind of smaller, yet often cumulative, traumas that often eventually add up over time to present as C-PTSD.

While “stress increases inflammation” is not a novel idea, Dr. Gottfried takes it further, and looks at a wealth of clinical evidence to demonstrate the series of events that, if oversimplified, seem unbelievable, such as “you had a bad relationship and now you have lupus”—showing evidence for each step in the snowballing process.

The style is a bit more clinical than most pop-science, but still written to be accessible to laypersons. This means that for most of us, it might not be the quickest read, but it will be an informative and enlightening one.

In terms of practical use (and living up to its subtitle promise of “cure”), this book does also cover all sorts of potential remedial approaches, from the obvious (diet, sleep, supplements, meditation, etc) to the less obvious (ketamine, psilocybin, MDMA, etc), covering the evidence so far as well as the pros and cons.

Bottom line: if you have or suspect you may have an autoimmune problem, and/or would just like to nip the risk of such in the bud (especially bearing in mind that the same things cause neuroinflammation and thus, putatively, depression and dementia too), then this is one for you.

Click here to check out the Autoimmune Cure, and take care of your body and mind!

When Hippocrates said “let food be thy medicine, and let medicine be thy food”, he may or may not have had this book in mind.

In terms of healthiness, this one’s not the very most nutritionist-approved recipe book we’ve ever reviewed. It’s not bad, to be clear!

But the physical health aspect is secondary to the mental health aspects, in this one, as you’ll see. And as we say, “mental health is also just health”.

The book is divided into three sections:

1. Comfort—for when you feel at your worst, for when eating is a chore, for when something familiar and reassuring will bring you solace. Here we find flavor and simplicity; pastas, eggs, stews, potato dishes, and the like.
2. Restoration—for when your energy needs reawakening. Here we find flavors fresh and tangy, enlivening and bright. Things to make you feel alive.
3. Pleasure—while there’s little in the way of health-food here, the author describes the dishes in this section as “a love letter to yourself; they tell you that you’re special as you ready yourself to return to the world”.

And sometimes, just sometimes, we probably all need a little of that.

Bottom line: if you’d like to bring a little more joie de vivre to your cuisine, this book can do that.

Click here to check out Small Pleasures, and rekindle joy in your kitchen!