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Cured: The Power of Our Immune System and the Mind-Body Connection
'Ground-breaking. Everyone should read this book' Bessel van der Kolk, author of The Body Keeps the Score
When it comes to understanding the connection between our mental and physical health, we should be looking at the exceptions, not the rules.
Dr Jeff Rediger, a world-leading Harvard psychiatrist, has spent the last fifteen years studying thousands of individuals from around the world, examining the stories behind extraordinary cases of recovery from terminal illness.
Observing the common denominators of people who have beaten the odds, Dr Rediger reveals the immense power of our immune system and unlocks the secrets of the mind-body connection. In Cured , he explains the vital role that nutrition plays in boosting our immunity and fighting off disease, and he also outlines how stress, trauma and identity affect our physical health.
In analysing the remarkable science of recovery, Dr Rediger reveals the power of our mind to heal our body and shows us the keys to good health.
'In an era of incurable chronic diseases causing 60% of all deaths worldwide, this book provides one potential way out ' Dr Mark Hyman, author of The Blood Sugar Solution
'Seasoned with the author's penetrating insights about healing, clearly articulated science and illuminating case histories, Cured opens genuine vistas of transforming illness into health' Gabor Maté, author of When the Body Says No
When it comes to understanding the connection between our mental and physical health, we should be looking at the exceptions, not the rules.
Dr Jeff Rediger, a world-leading Harvard psychiatrist, has spent the last fifteen years studying thousands of individuals from around the world, examining the stories behind extraordinary cases of recovery from terminal illness.
Observing the common denominators of people who have beaten the odds, Dr Rediger reveals the immense power of our immune system and unlocks the secrets of the mind-body connection. In Cured , he explains the vital role that nutrition plays in boosting our immunity and fighting off disease, and he also outlines how stress, trauma and identity affect our physical health.
In analysing the remarkable science of recovery, Dr Rediger reveals the power of our mind to heal our body and shows us the keys to good health.
'In an era of incurable chronic diseases causing 60% of all deaths worldwide, this book provides one potential way out ' Dr Mark Hyman, author of The Blood Sugar Solution
'Seasoned with the author's penetrating insights about healing, clearly articulated science and illuminating case histories, Cured opens genuine vistas of transforming illness into health' Gabor Maté, author of When the Body Says No
386 pages, Paperback
Published March 19, 2020
54 people are currently reading
2102 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 32 reviews
November 16, 2022
This book explains a lot of the reasons why my chronic fatigue recovery worked, and how spontaneous remission has worked for so many: diet, activating the parasympathetic nervous system, radical lifestyle changes, and working on new neural pathways that lead to an identity shift. It is refreshing to read a book that does not shy away from saying: the way you are living your life is making you sick. On the other side of illness, it is remarkable to me how many people are living with huge amounts of stress, and do not want to acknowledge that it is bad for them. Their bodies are in pain or fatigued, and they push on. We are so separated from our bodies that we aren't even willing to listen to it when it's screaming. This book, backed by science, asks some bold questions and I hope will change many minds.
January 14, 2024
Anyone interested in health, mind- body connection and the history of medicine, this book throws a light on all these aspects, through the stories of spontaneous remissions and hope for a better well being
November 21, 2025
awesome book about holistic healing that doesn’t discount the validity of science or the need for modern medicine but discusses how the two must work in conjunction for maximum health outcomes!!!!
January 11, 2023
I was recommended this book by a fellow Long Covid sufferer, and I'm so glad I acted on their recommendation. It is a fascinating look at spontaneous remission and the life changes that people made which may have contributed to their remission. Although it has not given me the 'magic bullet' which will cure my Long Covid, it has given me a lot to think about and has changed the way I view my ongoing recovery.
June 13, 2023
such a great read. it would be interesting to see how western medicine could better combine these ideas but also intriguing to read about all these cases of spontaneous remission and how our immune system can be kickstarted to reverse disease. Honestly it's quite sad that people still dismiss lifestyle changes for the treatment of health conditions when there is so much evidence that we can prevent conditions and reduce their impact with such changes instead of just taking medication with no other changes. Of course medicines have their role in healthcare and we still need them but we should still be less reliant on them.
Overall what i will take away from this is to believe that the "impossible" can happen and that meditation, yoga, exercise, nutrition, beliefs about yourself and others as well as relationships are of vital importance in keeping our immune system strong. Also, the link between trauma and illness was very interesting to read about, and also the whole story about how germ theory came to be and why society began to see any bacteria or microbes as pathogenic and needing to be destroyed instead of considering the microorganisms living om and within us that can help us maintain immunity to diseases.
Overall what i will take away from this is to believe that the "impossible" can happen and that meditation, yoga, exercise, nutrition, beliefs about yourself and others as well as relationships are of vital importance in keeping our immune system strong. Also, the link between trauma and illness was very interesting to read about, and also the whole story about how germ theory came to be and why society began to see any bacteria or microbes as pathogenic and needing to be destroyed instead of considering the microorganisms living om and within us that can help us maintain immunity to diseases.
September 20, 2024
A brilliant book by this American psychiatrist. It is based upon his investigations over the past 20 years into so-called 'spontaneous remissions' - people diagnosed with officially incurable, often terminal, conditions who have recovered. He points out that all the statistical data and research upon which prognoses are based tend to hide the many cases of recovery and ultimately prevent proper investigation. The book is full of detailed case studies of individuals who have defied all expectations, the 'heroic outliers' who have refused to accept their medical prognoses. This book has a similar aim and perspective as the excellent 'Radical Remission' by Kelly Turner. But it goes into more detail in terms of both scientific / medical enquiry and of speculation concerning the mind-body link. Like the other book, it suggests that there is no single, simple list of actions that people should follow in order to overcome serious illness, although there are themes that many survivors share. A hopeful, wonderful book, with lessons for all of us about how to live well.
November 2, 2024
“…it's only once we get to the end of our road that we realize we haven't had a chance to think about not only what kind of death we want but what kind of life we want.”
I’d give it six stars if I could. Easily one of the most important books I’ve read. The book highlights how profound healing can arise from shifts in mindset, purpose and lifestyle.
The book includes numerous inspiring case studies that resonated with my own experience. Each of these case studies inspired me to make a radical change in my life.
Takeaway: achieving spontaneous healing is often hindered not by the body but by limiting beliefs.
I’d give it six stars if I could. Easily one of the most important books I’ve read. The book highlights how profound healing can arise from shifts in mindset, purpose and lifestyle.
The book includes numerous inspiring case studies that resonated with my own experience. Each of these case studies inspired me to make a radical change in my life.
Takeaway: achieving spontaneous healing is often hindered not by the body but by limiting beliefs.
July 16, 2024
What an amazing read. So easy to follow and such remarkable stories of remission and recovery. Brilliantly written it’s a page turner. I have learnt so much from this book. I highly recommend you read it if you want to know more about how to heal and look after yourself and your wellbeing.
March 31, 2022
So informative and I love how finally, doctors are looking at other forms of therapy than drugs.
December 10, 2023
A book of wonder, interesting and thought provoking, a must read for anyone with a chronic or life threatening illness.
Loved it.
Loved it.
December 14, 2025
Dr Jeff Rediger brings us along his mind-bending journey investigating real life stories of cancer patients who have experienced spontaneous remissions (rare, unexplained phenomenons of patients who recover from “incurable” terminal diseases without conventional medical treatment). In doing so, he brings a new perspective to the traditional medical approach, uncovering the underlying four pillars of the mind-body connection that trigger biological responses in our body - both positive and negative: our diets, immune systems, stress responses, and identities. Even love and connection.
Some of the case studies and research quoted almost read like science fiction. The writing gets a little repetitive towards the end, and for this reason I’d give this book a 3.5/5.0 even if the content is 5/5.
On nutrition (Against sugar)
- Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.
- Doctors routinely find cancer by injecting radiolabeled glucose into a patient’s body and then putting him or her into a scanner to see if any part of the body is avidly sucking up the glucose
- Imagine for a moment what sugar looks like when it enters your bloodstream. At the microscopic level, it’s clear crystal, covered on all sides by sharp edges. When you consistently consume sugar and it filters into your bloodstream, those geometric particles flood through your veins, bouncing off the walls as they go, tearing little micro-cuts into the endothelium of your arteries and capillary walls. The endothelium is the one-cell-thick lining of the interior surface of all your blood vessels, and damage to the endothelium is the earliest discernible precursor to atherosclerosis (the buildup of substances on the artery walls) and cardiovascular disease.
On stress
We can either change the complexities - an unlikely event, for they are likely to increase - or develop ways that enable us to cope more effectively.
Sometimes, the difference in stress response is simply shifting our lens from threat stress to challenge stress. We can train to use stress to create opportunities for growth by turning it off an moving into healing modes, where our minds and bodies can process stress and use it as a tool for growth and healing. The point is to find the knife-edge of stress for each individual - that edge where the opportunity for growth and learning was maximal but didn’t tip over into toxic stress, which is not only harmful but also results in less learning.
Intense exercise is a form of stress on the body. It puts stress on your muscles to the point that it causes lots of tiny, microscopic rips and tears. And then, later on, when you’re resting, your body does the real work - capillaries grow farther into the muscle because of those rips and tears, the muscle is able to expand and get stronger and more flexible. It even happens with your heart - when you exercise, you put stress on that muscle and basically break it down. Then while you’re sleeping, it builds itself back up again, stronger. We need both the stress of exercise and the ability to fall back into good, solid rest, repair, and reconnect cycles. It’s for this reason that top-flight athlete use tools like heart-rate variability to know when their bodies need more of the parasympathetic. The stress put on the body while training ends up becoming good stress only because the body is allowed to rest. That’s where the growth comes from.
On connection
- Vagal tone = ability to rapidly activate the parasympathetic. The higher vagal tone you have, the more rapidly you can recover from stress and relax into healing mode.
- Positive emotions like love tone your vagus. Health and happiness derived from micro-moments of positivity resonance compound and matter more than fewer, even if deeper connections.
- It’s critical to keep the immune system healthy and honed so that its “Natural Born Killers” can efficiently find, tag, and remove mutating cells before they become full-blown cancer. One of the best ways to regulate that is to genuinely fall in love - over and over again, every day, with your spouse, your kids, your friends, your neighbors, your coworkers.
On beliefs
Your core beliefs can potentially affect your physical existence. Our minds and beliefs have the capacity to affect our bodies on both the macro and micro levels. Macro = how we experience the world around us and how that translates into stress hormones in our bodies. Micro = zooming through our cells and into the atoms that make up our bodies and see the potential for change at the subatomic level. Do what extent do we create our own reality?
New experiences outside of your daily routine = your brain exiting the DMN (default mode network) and a chance to create and reinforce new neural pathways that can override existing ones
The default mode network concept illustrates how identity is a function of neural synapses and pathways that can be edited or redrawn, the way a map can be edited or redrawn as a landscape changes over time.
Some of the case studies and research quoted almost read like science fiction. The writing gets a little repetitive towards the end, and for this reason I’d give this book a 3.5/5.0 even if the content is 5/5.
On nutrition (Against sugar)
- Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.
- Doctors routinely find cancer by injecting radiolabeled glucose into a patient’s body and then putting him or her into a scanner to see if any part of the body is avidly sucking up the glucose
- Imagine for a moment what sugar looks like when it enters your bloodstream. At the microscopic level, it’s clear crystal, covered on all sides by sharp edges. When you consistently consume sugar and it filters into your bloodstream, those geometric particles flood through your veins, bouncing off the walls as they go, tearing little micro-cuts into the endothelium of your arteries and capillary walls. The endothelium is the one-cell-thick lining of the interior surface of all your blood vessels, and damage to the endothelium is the earliest discernible precursor to atherosclerosis (the buildup of substances on the artery walls) and cardiovascular disease.
On stress
We can either change the complexities - an unlikely event, for they are likely to increase - or develop ways that enable us to cope more effectively.
Sometimes, the difference in stress response is simply shifting our lens from threat stress to challenge stress. We can train to use stress to create opportunities for growth by turning it off an moving into healing modes, where our minds and bodies can process stress and use it as a tool for growth and healing. The point is to find the knife-edge of stress for each individual - that edge where the opportunity for growth and learning was maximal but didn’t tip over into toxic stress, which is not only harmful but also results in less learning.
Intense exercise is a form of stress on the body. It puts stress on your muscles to the point that it causes lots of tiny, microscopic rips and tears. And then, later on, when you’re resting, your body does the real work - capillaries grow farther into the muscle because of those rips and tears, the muscle is able to expand and get stronger and more flexible. It even happens with your heart - when you exercise, you put stress on that muscle and basically break it down. Then while you’re sleeping, it builds itself back up again, stronger. We need both the stress of exercise and the ability to fall back into good, solid rest, repair, and reconnect cycles. It’s for this reason that top-flight athlete use tools like heart-rate variability to know when their bodies need more of the parasympathetic. The stress put on the body while training ends up becoming good stress only because the body is allowed to rest. That’s where the growth comes from.
On connection
- Vagal tone = ability to rapidly activate the parasympathetic. The higher vagal tone you have, the more rapidly you can recover from stress and relax into healing mode.
- Positive emotions like love tone your vagus. Health and happiness derived from micro-moments of positivity resonance compound and matter more than fewer, even if deeper connections.
- It’s critical to keep the immune system healthy and honed so that its “Natural Born Killers” can efficiently find, tag, and remove mutating cells before they become full-blown cancer. One of the best ways to regulate that is to genuinely fall in love - over and over again, every day, with your spouse, your kids, your friends, your neighbors, your coworkers.
On beliefs
Your core beliefs can potentially affect your physical existence. Our minds and beliefs have the capacity to affect our bodies on both the macro and micro levels. Macro = how we experience the world around us and how that translates into stress hormones in our bodies. Micro = zooming through our cells and into the atoms that make up our bodies and see the potential for change at the subatomic level. Do what extent do we create our own reality?
New experiences outside of your daily routine = your brain exiting the DMN (default mode network) and a chance to create and reinforce new neural pathways that can override existing ones
The default mode network concept illustrates how identity is a function of neural synapses and pathways that can be edited or redrawn, the way a map can be edited or redrawn as a landscape changes over time.
February 3, 2025
Akin to Gabor Maté’ when the ‘When the Body Says No’, this book explores how our life’s circumstances and choices can impact our nervous system and inflame diseases or lead us on a path of healing.
Specifically, Rediger, a physician, explores the lives of several patients and recovered from terminal illnesses. Urging us to learn from their transformative journey’s. He explores the role that adverse childhood experiences play, chronic stress, diet, and environment play.
Biggest take-away? Slow down, try and stay in parasympathetic nervous system as much as possible, try to eat nutrient dense foods that don’t inflame your microbiome (unlike alcohol, ultra-processed food, emulsifiers,etc) and either 1) ask yourself what your illness is trying to communicate to you or 2) wage a war with your illness and use visual imagery to battle it
Specifically, Rediger, a physician, explores the lives of several patients and recovered from terminal illnesses. Urging us to learn from their transformative journey’s. He explores the role that adverse childhood experiences play, chronic stress, diet, and environment play.
Biggest take-away? Slow down, try and stay in parasympathetic nervous system as much as possible, try to eat nutrient dense foods that don’t inflame your microbiome (unlike alcohol, ultra-processed food, emulsifiers,etc) and either 1) ask yourself what your illness is trying to communicate to you or 2) wage a war with your illness and use visual imagery to battle it
July 19, 2025
Great! Many paths up the mountain, have to intuitively work out what speaks to you. What is your disease/body trying to tell you? It's a symptom, nothing more; Focus on living without expectations of the outcome; Create a biological environment to set the stage for healing - the soil/terrain (lifestyle, emotional, diet, spiritual changes). Stage had been set well before the miraculous remission occurred; The ups and downs of Daniel's aggressive cancer mirrored his psychological state at every turn; responding differently to stressful situations; Spontaneous remissions currently happen when nobody is looking - not even the patient; Michael Pollen (in Defense of Foods):" Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants." Focus on High nutritional density (Dr Joel Fuhrman). Changing food is easier than changing yourself; Treating the symptoms buys you time and allows you to tread water while you take account of this new information from your body and figure out the next steps; have to go to the root cause though; Figure out what helps you feel more energetic, more joyful; accept the diagnosis but not the prognosis; finding what's right for your body as a long process of trial and error - when you find what works for it, lean into it; ch5: we can either change the complexities of life - unlikely-or develop way to cope more effectively; Herb Benson:The relaxation Response, spontaneous healing-focus on the autonomic nervous system; she healed "I'm a different person now" - live in healing mode, don't just visit it. Ch6: Vagus nerve helps immune system; high HRV=more engaged vagus nerve; stimulated by more authenticity and compassion; "Spontaneous healing" is "years in the making"; ch 7: faith healing works if you believe it to; ch8: nocebo - you expect to feel bad and so you do; beliefs and knowing are key; ch9: as if my body said "You've been treating me like crap for years..screw you, I'm done."; What do your self-imposed negative beliefs or limitations keep you from healing?; there are no silver bullets, there is no one thing that will turn your health around - each person finds their own path to the clearing; setting boundaries is important; get out of your default mode; its perception that creates the thought that creates the feeling; what is my story? What is the story i've told myself about who i am? focus on the health of the soil - i.e. who you really are; be an "n" of 1; ch10: spontaneous healings experience a massive ground-shift in how they see themselves and the rest of the world; renal cell carcinoma is one of the more likely cancers to spontaneously remit; got his mind and body in the best possible state to receive the new drug; what is this illness holding for me/trying to communicate to me?; we can't force these flashes of insight but we can cultivate the soil so that we are ready for them; Ch11:giving people a timeframe makes them die "on schedule" as if obediently following orders; focus on the future; the median (in statistics) isn't the message; use signs of relapse as a tool for keeping yourself healthy; Choose life, don't' focus on fear. Ch12: I accepted the diagnosis not the prognosis; be invested, take responsibility for your treatment/healing; what are my triggers? What vision do i have for my life? healed their toxic and damaging beliefs about the world and what was possible; it was foremost a struggle of the mind and spirit - the body followed; Conclusion - much more than the physical - diets, stress response, immune systems and identities, spiritual; Look for the scattered dots at the far edges of the charts; pay attention to dreams - it's the way the subconscious it trying to communicate with you. Follow up books: Caryle Hirschberg & Mark Ian Barasch-Remarkable recovery; Bernie Siegel - Love, Medicine & Miracles; Kenneth Pelletier Mind as Healer, Mind as Slayer; Louise Hays - Heal Your Body
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
September 7, 2025
I wanted to like this book more than I did. It does have some great case studies of spontaneous remission and some well-researched wisdom, tips and tools on how to live your best life. As the author says, however, there is, frustratingly, no set pattern or golden ticket for why some people miraculously survive a terminal diagnosis. If there was, everyone in a similar situation would follow it. The book is quite long and I am not sure if I would have got through it reading a physical book. Fortunately I could listen to the audiobook. However, the audiobook sound and editing was not very smooth. It was easy to tell when the narrator had stopped and started again, jolting you out of the book. Overall, this is a much-needed book and I am glad it was written, it just wasn't as interesting as I hoped it would be.
July 22, 2024
This book was so interesting!
The author, a trained and practicing medic and academic, discusses instances of spontaneous remissions and illness recoveries. He highlights the importance of the mind body connection, and the intrinsic power we each hold to change our actions and impact our physiology. He also respects the holistic approach to medicine and healing, as opposed to traditional biomedical isolating approaches.
The ending and conclusive reflections really resonated with me. Rediger discusses how to implement the healing tactics he has observed in cases of remission and healing. He provides a lot of clarity, optimism, and inspiration, and I hope his vision for future medicine becomes an actuality.
The author, a trained and practicing medic and academic, discusses instances of spontaneous remissions and illness recoveries. He highlights the importance of the mind body connection, and the intrinsic power we each hold to change our actions and impact our physiology. He also respects the holistic approach to medicine and healing, as opposed to traditional biomedical isolating approaches.
The ending and conclusive reflections really resonated with me. Rediger discusses how to implement the healing tactics he has observed in cases of remission and healing. He provides a lot of clarity, optimism, and inspiration, and I hope his vision for future medicine becomes an actuality.
January 31, 2023
Insightfully awesome
Loved it but struggled to finish.
I must say I am just beginning to develop a reading habit though.
What stood out for me is how the book has helped give rationale reasons for a rationale mind to love and be loved. It has also answered a lot of questions regarding the variations of a good diet, our immune system and the/our relationship to stress particularly in this modern day.
Loved it but struggled to finish.
I must say I am just beginning to develop a reading habit though.
What stood out for me is how the book has helped give rationale reasons for a rationale mind to love and be loved. It has also answered a lot of questions regarding the variations of a good diet, our immune system and the/our relationship to stress particularly in this modern day.
September 29, 2024
One of the best books I read in a while… this should be an obligatory literature not only for doctors (yes, doctors!!!) but also to the general public, there is so much information that needs to be shared, spreaded, taught and understood. I am so frustrated by the modern medicine, by the current procedures, omitting the basics… I wish well to all the patients who decide to act on their own against the odds and the “average”. I will distribute it among my friends now, because it is a true gold…
June 1, 2023
A book I’ve finished in a day, it’s part memoir, part study this book is based mainly on curing disease through meditation, the power of the mind, yoga, exercise, a healthy plant based diet and a willing to live beyond anything, to enjoy life and to promote positive thinking through prayer.
Loved it.
Loved it.
May 25, 2022
Absolutely brilliant book! Engaging, fascinating and scientific as well as truly ground breaking and inspiring. Everyone should read this book!!
July 3, 2022
Excellent book that gives hope on what the mind and body, when well nourished, in balance and nurtured, can overcome.
August 2, 2022
Full of interesting studies and personal recovery stories that help to gain a bigger picture about how our thinking and beliefs actually impact so much more than we think. A must read.
June 16, 2024
I really enjoyed this book and recommend it to everyone. There was lots if useful information which I have learnt and trying to put in place. It was easy to read.
November 28, 2024
The most influential book I’ve read in my life! Life changing in so many levels, but most importantly- it brings you closer to understanding different layers of “health”. Highly recommend!
December 1, 2024
A must read for anyone trying to not only understand the mind body connection but also to use it on order heal oneself.
December 10, 2024
Somewhat insightful however I found it difficult to get into it and finish with the authors writing style
January 3, 2025
Powerful
March 29, 2025
Changes my perception on things!
April 3, 2025
Without doubt a book I will be re-reading down the line.
May 17, 2025
Beautiful and vital
May 27, 2025
Amazing book, so full of wisdom, research, life examples.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 32 reviews