Good Energy

Summary

Good Energy by Casey Means, MD (with Cal Means, 2024) argues that the dominant chronic-disease categories of the modern era — obesity, type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, neurodegenerative disease, and many mood disorders — share a common metabolic origin in mitochondrial dysfunction and chronic metabolic stress. Means walks the reader through the biology of cellular energy production, the ways modern food and movement patterns degrade it, and the everyday levers (nutrition, sleep, movement, stress, environmental exposures, continuous glucose monitoring as a feedback tool) that can restore it. The framing is broad and applied, oriented around the question 'why is the patient in front of me metabolically stressed' rather than around a single diagnosis.

About

Casey Means is a physician trained at Stanford, founder of the metabolic-health company Levels, and co-author (with her brother Cal Means) of Good Energy (2024). Her work focuses on the metabolic drivers of chronic disease and on continuous-glucose monitoring and other tools that surface those drivers in everyday life.

Why I recommend it

Casey Means frames chronic disease through mitochondrial and metabolic function, which pairs naturally with how I think about recovery, training tolerance, and energy in clinic. The book is a useful next read for the patient who wants a clinical frame for why sleep, nutrition, and movement all sit on the same metabolic foundation.