Chronic

Book excerpt: Autoimmune and chronic illness are a global crisis, with an estimated 50 million sufferers in the US alone. While modern medicine has drastically reduced overall mortality rates--from heart disease, stroke, HIV, and even cancer--what is fueling this twenty-first century pandemic? In this eye-opening, provocative book, Steven Phillips, MD, and his former patient, singer/songwriter Dana Parish, take on the medical establishment. Backed by a trove of published data, Chronic reveals striking evidence that a broad range of microbes, including the Lyme bacteria, cause a variety of recurrent conditions and autoimmune diseases. Chronic delves into the history and science behind common infections that are difficult to diagnose and treat, debunks widely held beliefs by doctors and patients alike, reveals how medicine got the facts patently wrong, and provides solutions that empower readers to get their lives back. Dr. Phillips was already an internationally renowned physician specializing in complex, chronic diseases when he became a patient himself. After nearly dying from his own mystery illness, he experienced firsthand the medical community's ignorance about the pathogens that underlie a range of chronic conditions--from fibromyalgia, lupus, multiple sclerosis, chronic fatigue syndrome, and rheumatoid arthritis to depression, anxiety, and neurodegenerative disorders. Parish, too, watched her health spiral after twelve top doctors missed an underlying infection that caused heart failure and other sudden, debilitating physical and psychiatric symptoms. Now, they've come together with a mission: to change the current model of simply treating symptoms, often with dangerous, lifelong drugs, and shift the focus to finding and curing root causes of chronic diseases that affect millions around the world.