About the Author

Dr. Shilpa Ravella is a transplant gastroenterologist and an Assistant Professor of Medicine at Columbia University Medical Center, where she oversees the care of rare-disease patients who have undergone intestinal and multiple-organ transplantation. Unlike other solid organ transplants, the intestines are not sterile - the germs that live in the gut are also transplanted - and so Dr. Ravella's expertise lies in the interactions between food, the gut microbiome and the immune system, especially the potential of nutritional therapy to prevent and treat disease. Dr. Ravella speaks and writes regularly on food, health and wellness. She has written for a variety of media, including the Atlantic, New York, Slate, Discover and USA Today and her TED-Ed lesson, 'How the Food You Eat Affects Your Gut' has garnered over two million views.

Reviews

As gripping as a mystery story and as useful as a self-help book, A Silent Fire may change the way you eat as well as opening your eyes to the hidden connections between microbes and medicine, the food we eat and the air we breathe
*Bee Wilson, author of First Bite and The Way We Eat Now*

Controlling Inflammation is the key to good health and this beautifully written and researched book is the best way to understand it
*Tim Spector, #1 bestselling author of Food for Life*

Compelling, thoughtful and rigorously researched ... Ravella fuses scientific history with something more in the line of a self-help guide ... if your new year's resolution involves a promise to take care of yourself, this book might just help it stick too
*The Times*

A beautiful and authoritative deep dive into one of the most important scientific frontiers of our time. Big new ideas in health and medicine are explained brilliantly, using case studies, history and cutting-edge research. Every page is fascinating
*Daniel M. Davis, author of The Beautiful Cure and The Secret Body*

A must read ... Shilpa Ravella, a gastroenterologist with a writer's gift for translating complex science into clean, beautiful prose, is the perfect person to tell this gripping tale
*Kathleen McAuliffe, author of This Is Your Brain on Parasites*