Eric Topol

Professor of Molecular Medicine, Scripps Research Institute

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Book Recommendations:

Recommended by Eric Topol

Janelle Shane has hit the trifecta--the most hilarious, most educational, and overall best explanation of artificial intelligence ever written (and drawn). (from Amazon)

“A deft, informative, and often screamingly funny primer on the ways that machine learning can (and often does) go wrong.” —Margaret Harris, Physics World “You look like a thing and I love you” is one of the best pickup lines ever…according to an artificial intelligence trained by the scientist Janelle Shane, creator of the popular blog AI Weirdness. Shane creates silly AIs that learn how to name colors of paint, create the best recipes, and even flirt (badly) with humans—all to understand the technology that governs so much of our human lives. We rely on AI every day, trusting it for matters both big and small, from unlocking our phones to hospital care. But how smart is AI really…? Shane delivers the answer to every AI question you’ve ever asked, and some you definitely haven’t—such as: How can a computer design the perfect sandwich? What does robot-generated Harry Potter fan fiction sound like? And is the world’s best Halloween costume really “vampire hog bride”? In this smart, often hilarious introduction to the most interesting science of our time, Shane shows how these machines learn, fail, and adapt—and how they reflect both the best and worst of humanity. "I can't think of a better way to learn about artificial intelligence, and I've never had so much fun along the way." —Adam Grant, New York Times bestselling author of Originals

Recommended by Eric Topol

In this outstanding book, Taubes presents a manifesto challenging the energy balance dietary dogma of the medical and nutritional authorities, along with a repudiation of Michael Pollan’s plant food principles. A compelling case is made for low-carb, high-fat eating—towards ‘nutritional ketosis’—for people who fatten easily (most of us), while addressing the potential risk and unknowns. (from Amazon)

After a century of misunderstanding the differences between diet, weight control, and health, The Case for Keto revolutionizes how we think about healthy eating—from the best-selling author of Why We Get Fat and The Case Against Sugar. Based on twenty years of investigative reporting and interviews with 100 practicing physicians who embrace the keto lifestyle as the best prescription for their patients' health, Gary Taubes gives us a manifesto for the twenty-first-century fight against obesity and diabetes. For years, health organizations have preached the same rules for losing weight: restrict your calories, eat less, exercise more. So why doesn't it work for everyone? Taubes, whose seminal book Good Calories, Bad Calories and cover stories for The New York Times Magazine changed the way we look at nutrition and health, sets the record straight. The Case for Keto puts the ketogenic diet movement in the necessary historical and scientific perspective. It makes clear the vital misconceptions in how we've come to think about obesity and diet (no, people do not become fat simply because they eat too much; hormones play the critical role) and uses the collected clinical experience of the medical community to provide essential practical advice. Taubes reveals why the established rules about eating healthy might be the wrong approach to weight loss for millions of people, and how low-carbohydrate, high-fat/ketogenic diets can help so many of us achieve and maintain a healthy weight for life.

Recommended by Eric Topol

A remarkably talented physician-author and humanist elegantly tells the stories of his patients. (from Amazon)

A leading cancer specialist tells the compelling stories of three adult leukemia patients, shedding new light on the disease itself and the drugs developed to treat it When you are told that you have leukemia, your world stops. Your brain can’t function. You are asked to make decisions about treatment almost immediately, when you are not in your right mind. And yet you pull yourself together and start asking questions. Beside you is your doctor, whose job it is to solve the awful puzzle of bone marrow gone wrong. The two of you are in it together. In When Blood Breaks Down, Mikkael Sekeres, a leading cancer specialist, takes readers on the journey that patient and doctor travel together. Sekeres, who writes regularly for the “Well” section of The New York Times, tells the compelling stories of three people who receive diagnoses of adult leukemia within hours of each other: Joan, a 48-year-old surgical nurse, a caregiver who becomes a patient; David, a 68-year-old former factory worker who bows to his family’s wishes and pursues the most aggressive treatment; and Sarah, a 36-year-old pregnant woman who must decide whether to undergo chemotherapy and put her fetus at risk. We join the intimate conversations between Sekeres and his patients, and we watch as he teaches trainees. Along the way, Sekeres also explores leukemia in its different forms and the development of drugs to treat it—describing, among many other fascinating details, the invention of the bone marrow transplant (first performed experimentally on beagles) and a treatment that targets the genetics of leukemia. The lessons to be learned from leukemia, Sekeres shows, are not merely medical; they teach us about courage and grace and defying the odds.

Recommended by Eric Topol

In recent years, we’ve learned so much about the primacy of circadian rhythm. Satchin Panda, one of the field’s most influential scientists, takes us from the knowledge base to practical impact in our day to day lifestyle in The Circadian Code. (from Amazon)

When we eat may be as important as what we eat. Discover how to reset your body’s natural clock—from an award-winning circadian rhythm and aging researcher “A complete program to recalibrate your day/night activities, optimize sleep, lose weight, learn/work, and exercise.”—Valter Longo, PhD, internationally bestselling author of The Longevity Diet Most people typically wake up, get hungry for meals, and doze off in bed around the same time every day. But if you’ve ever experienced jet lag or pulled an all-nighter, you know that this schedule can easily be thrown off kilter. For some people, that imbalance—difficulty sleeping at night, hunger at odd times, or sudden fatigue at noon—is a constant. Dr. Satchin Panda, one of the leading researchers on circadian rhythms, has a plan to reset your body clock. Beginning with an in-depth explanation of the circadian clock—why it’s important, how it works, and how to know it isn’t working—The Circadian Code outlines lifestyle changes to make to get back on track. It’s a concrete plan to enhance weight loss, improve sleep, optimize exercise, and manage technology so that it doesn’t interfere with your body’s natural rhythm. Dr. Panda’s life-changing methods show you the keys to avoiding and alleviating chronic ailments like diabetes, cancer, and dementia, as well as digestive conditions like acid reflux, heartburn, and irritable bowel disease. In short, knowing your circadian code might just be the secret to turning back the clock and slowing down the aging process.

Recommended by Eric Topol

As artificial intelligence has moved into the era of deep learning, it behooves all of us to learn as much as possible about how it works. Deep Learning for Coders provides a terrific way to initiate that, even for the uninitiated, achieving the feat of simplifying what most of us would consider highly complex (from Amazon)

Deep learning is often viewed as the exclusive domain of math PhDs and big tech companies. But as this hands-on guide demonstrates, programmers comfortable with Python can achieve impressive results in deep learning with little math background, small amounts of data, and minimal code. How? With fastai, the first library to provide a consistent interface to the most frequently used deep learning applications. Authors Jeremy Howard and Sylvain Gugger, the creators of fastai, show you how to train a model on a wide range of tasks using fastai and PyTorch. You’ll also dive progressively further into deep learning theory to gain a complete understanding of the algorithms behind the scenes. Train models in computer vision, natural language processing, tabular data, and collaborative filtering Learn the latest deep learning techniques that matter most in practice Improve accuracy, speed, and reliability by understanding how deep learning models work Discover how to turn your models into web applications Implement deep learning algorithms from scratch Consider the ethical implications of your work Gain insight from the foreword by PyTorch cofounder, Soumith Chintala

Recommended by Eric Topol

Over the course of decades, American health care lost the 'care' component and devolved to a big, wasteful business. In his new book, Marty Makary undertakes an extensive listening tour and astutely deconstructs how this occurred and what we need to do about it. (from Amazon)

New York Times bestseller Business Book of the Year-Association of Business Journalists From the New York Times bestselling author of Unaccountable comes an eye-opening, urgent look at America's broken health care system-and the people who are saving it. "A must-read for every American." -Steve Forbes, editor-in-chief, FORBES One in five Americans now has medical debt in collections and rising health care costs today threaten every small business in America. Dr. Makary, one of the nation's leading health care experts, travels across America and details why health care has become a bubble. Drawing from on-the-ground stories, his research, and his own experience, The Price We Pay paints a vivid picture of the business of medicine and its elusive money games in need of a serious shake-up. Dr. Makary shows how so much of health care spending goes to things that have nothing to do with health and what you can do about it. Dr. Makary challenges the medical establishment to remember medicine's noble heritage of caring for people when they are vulnerable. The Price We Pay offers a road map for everyday Americans and business leaders to get a better deal on their health care, and profiles the disruptors who are innovating medical care. The movement to restore medicine to its mission, Makary argues, is alive and well-a mission that can rebuild the public trust and save our country from the crushing cost of health care.

Recommended by Eric Topol

Stress unequivocally affects the immune system and susceptibility to diseases. In The Healing Self, Chopra and Tanzi provide both a holistic and scientific perspective to understand this complex relationship and promote health. (from Amazon)

After collaborating on two major books featured as PBS specials, Super Brain and Super Genes, Chopra and Tanzi now tackle the issue of lifelong health and heightened immunity. We are in the midst of a new revolution. For over twenty-five years Deepak Chopra, M.D. and Rudolph E. Tanzi, Ph.D. have revolutionized medicine and how we understand our minds and our bodies—Chopra, the leading expert in the field of integrative medicine; Tanzi, the pioneering neuroscientist and discoverer of genes that cause Alzheimer's Disease. After reaching millions of people around the world through their collaborations on the hugely successful Super Brain and Super Genes books and public television programs, the New York Times bestselling authors now present a groundbreaking, landmark work on the supreme importance of our immune system in relation to our lifelong health. In the face of environmental toxins, potential epidemics, superbugs, and the accelerated aging process, the significance of achieving optimum health has never been more crucial—and the burden to achieve it now rests on individuals making the right lifestyle choices every day. That means you. You—not doctors, not pharmaceutical companies—are ultimately responsible for your own health. Chopra and Tanzi want to help readers make the best decisions possible when it comes to creating a holistic and transformative health plan for life. In The Healing Self they not only push the boundaries of the intellect to bring readers the newest research and insights on the mind-body, mind-gene, and mind-immunity connections, but they offer a cutting-edge, seven-day action plan, which outlines the key tools everyone needs to develop their own effective and personalized path to self-healing. In addition, The Healing Self closely examines how we can best manage chronic stress and inflammation, which are immerging as the primary detriments of well-being. Moreover, Chopra and Tanzi turn their attention to a host of chronic disorders such as hypertension, heart disease, type 2 diabetes, and Alzheimer’s Disease, known to take years and sometimes decades to develop before the first symptoms appear. Contemporary medical systems aren’t set to attend to prolonged low-grade chronic inflammation or the everyday infections and stresses that take their toll on the body and can lead to disease, aging, and death. Thus, learning the secrets of self-healing is not only urgent but mandatory for optimum health. The Healing Self then is a call to action, a proven, strategic program that will arm readers with the information they need to protect themselves and achieve lifelong wellness. There is a new revolution occurring in health today. That revolution is you.