SINGAPORE – Having trouble loving your body? Why not see a couple’s therapist? German doctor and best-selling author Giulia Enders did that to build a better relationship with her organs and write about them in her second book.

Organ Speak: What It Really Means To Listen To Our Bodies was released on April 28 by publisher HarperOne. The book explores the functions of the lungs, skin, muscles, immune system and brain in the enthusiastic and informative style that characterised the author’s debut.

Thirteen years ago, Enders shot to fame with a book about all things digestive – from burps to bowel disease.

Gut: The Inside Story of Our Body’s Most Underrated Organ (published in German in 2013, and in English in 2015) was written when she was 23 and widely praised for its breezy style that made cutting-edge research accessible to lay readers.

It has sold four million copies worldwide and led to Enders being featured in a 2024 Netflix documentary, Hack Your Health: The Secrets Of Your Gut.

Gut was a fun and light-hearted book. The entire experience was like a very funny excursion, Enders says in a video call from Frankfurt, Germany, where she lives.

With Organ Speak, the author has become more serious about science communication and helping people get the information they need to live healthier and happier lives.

Now aged 36, she has a doctorate of medicine and clinical experience. She still loves the gut the most, but knows that simply treating digestive woes does not always address the root cause of these health problems.

She writes about a woman suffering stomach cramps from a miscarriage, and a shift worker whose digestion is constantly upset because his work hours are irregular.

She finds it concerning that her patients see themselves as machines that need fixing. They tend to be embarrassed by feelings such as loneliness or anxiety.

“Living beings are not linear or completely calculable,” End...