Ravella, Shilpa

Shilpa Ravella is a transplant gastroenterologist with expertise in nutrition. Her writing has been published by The Atlantic, New York Magazine, Slate, Discover, and USA Today, among other outlets, and she has appeared on ABC’s Good Morning America and in print media outlets including Forbes, Cosmopolitan, Food & Wine, Glamour, and Women’s Health. Her TED-Ed lesson, “How the Food You Eat Affects Your Gut,” has garnered more than 5 million views. In A Silent Fire: The Story of Inflammation, Diet and Disease (W. W. Norton & Company), Ravella investigates hidden inflammation’s emerging role as a common root of modern disease – and how we can prevent, treat, or even reverse it. Inflammation is the body’s ancestral response to its greatest threats, the first line of defense it deploys against injury and foreign pathogens. But as the threats we face have evolved, new science is uncovering how inflammation may also turn against us, simmering below the surface of leading killers – from heart disease and cancer to depression, aging, and mysterious autoimmune conditions. With fascinating case studies, Ravella reveals how we can reform our relationships with food and our microbiomes to benefit our health and the planet.