The Great Nerve
The New Science of the Vagus Nerve and How to Harness Its Healing Reflexes
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- $18.99
Publisher Description
New science reveals the groundbreaking potential of the vagus nerve to regulate your body’s vital systems and heal a wide variety of medical conditions without drugs
The vagus nerve is fundamental to our health and vitality, coordinating critical functions from the precise heartbeat we need to exercise or rest to the balance of appetite and digestion. Made up of 200,000 fibers, the vagus nerve sends thousands of electrical signals every second between your brain and your most important organs. Yet despite its essential role in life, important vagus nerve functions have eluded centuries of scientific investigation. Now neurosurgeon and researcher Kevin Tracey has discovered the previously unknown power of the vagus nerve to reverse inflammation, balance the immune system, treat chronic illness, and keep our organs humming together in harmony.
In The Great Nerve, Dr. Tracey shows us how stimulating the vagus nerve with a tiny electrical implant has the potential to reverse life-altering diseases like rheumatoid arthritis, inflammatory bowel disease, lupus, MS, diabetes, obesity, stroke, depression, Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. If this sounds too good to believe, Dr. Tracey shares stories of patients who have gone from being nearly bedridden to running and dancing, along with the science that makes possible these recoveries. He also explains the evidence for lifestyle strategies like ice baths, meditation, exercise, and breathwork that can maintain and improve vagus nerve function.
By opening the door to the new field of neuroimmunology, The Great Nerve not only revolutionizes how we understand and treat disease, it gives us unprecedented hope for our health. This is the story of your body’s ability to heal itself.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this edifying study, neurosurgeon Tracey (Fatal Sequence) extols the health benefits of stimulating the vagus nerve, which connects the brain with various organs to coordinate breathing, digestion, and other vital functions. Tracey discusses how he found that activating the vagus nerve with pulses of electricity can suppress production of the molecule TNF (tumor necrosis factor), which "signals the mobilization of other cells that kill invaders" but sometimes also cause inflammation by mistakenly attacking the body itself. Contending that stimulating the nerve has shown promise in treating depression, epilepsy, and type 2 diabetes, among other conditions, Tracey describes how one patient's severe rheumatoid arthritis and Crohn's disease left her unable to walk or work until doctors implanted a small electronic device under her collarbone to deliver electric pulses to her vagus nerve, resolving her inflammation and other most serious symptoms. Evaluating therapies theorized to involve indirect vagus nerve stimulation, Tracey notes research supporting meditation's efficacy in lessening inflammation, even as it remains uncertain whether this is due to vagus nerve activation, as some scientists speculate. Tracey has a knack for explaining the complicated biological phenomena in an approachable style, and his measured outlook on vagus nerve therapies highlights their noteworthy potential without overselling them. The result is a robust introduction to a promising area of scientific inquiry.
