The Age of Scientific Wellness: Why the Future of Medicine Is Personalized, Predictive, Data-Rich, and in Your Hands

Taking us to the cutting edge of the new field of scientific wellness, a visionary biotechnologist and pathbreaking researcher in systems-based personalized medicine show how we can optimize our health in ways that were previously unimaginable.

We are on the cusp of a paradigm shift in health care. At the leading edge of this new frontier of medicine, major diseases are being challenged in fresh and unexpected ways. Using predictive technologies, applied immunotherapy, and genomically informed, target-focused disease prevention, scientists are working closely with patients to dramatically extend their "healthspan"--the number of healthy years before disease sets in. Leroy Hood, whose technological innovations made the sequencing of the human genome possible, and Nathan Price, whose work on systems biology is opening new pathways to Alzheimer's treatment and prevention, take us on a thrilling journey to our near future.

Today, most doctors wait for clinical symptoms to appear before they act. Countless patients are prescribed medication and subjected to invasive procedures from which they derive no benefit. We must move beyond this reactionary, hit-or-miss approach to usher in real precision care or "scientific wellness." Fusing information gleaned from our personal genomic profiles with data drawn from our blood, microbiomes, and hundreds of other inputs analyzed by artificial intelligence, doctors can detect the early onset of disease decades before symptoms arise, revolutionizing prevention. Current applications have already shown startling results: Alzheimer's held back, cancers found early and eliminated, diabetes avoided, and autoimmune diseases neutralized.

Genomically informed medicine is not some future fantasy: it is already happening at top medical centers, but only for a narrow band of diseases and only once they are well advanced. This book shares the insights of this exciting new science to help you chart a course to a longer, healthier life.