Rating: 
Summary: Stimulating Persepctives on Sickness
Review: -Why We Get Sick- is a discussion on novel way of thinking about sickness, an epiphany on the perseverance of human vulnerability. The book addresses whre disease come from and why we get such diseases. Nesse and Williams carefully state 6 major causes of diseases: Defenses, infection, novel environments, genes, design compromises, and evolutionary legacies. Our immune system is the frontier battefield of any intruders. Studies have shown that at the first point of contraction, the immune system proliferate T-cells against the HIV virus. These immune cells fight the best they can to prohibit HIV settling onto the CD-4 cells. The only reason the immune system loses is because the HIV virus is simply too smart that they mutate into other forms and fool the T-cells. The first sign of the cold virus triggers series of defensive action-fever and sneezing are actually not illness, but defensive/immunological responses against the virus.Bacteria can evolve as much in a day as we can in a thousand years, and this gives us a grossly unfair handicap in the arms race. That's right, according to the authors of this book, we are in an ever-lasting struggle with bacteria and virus because they evolve so much faster than we can imagine. TB disappeared more than 40 years ago after the discovery of antibiotics. TB is now coming back with an even more potent form-a kind that no longer can be treated by the old antibiotics. Evolution of the virus plays a significant role here. The possibile treatment would be chemical mimetics, synthesizing structurally similar compound to treat the new strain. The more I read the more I'm refreshed by the authors. They discussed the cause of allergy and why some people are so allergic to plants and pollen while others are completely immune to them. The book also makes distinction between virus and toxins. How does the body identify novel toxins? What is the sinificance of maleness and femaleness? These are questions we all address but of which we never consider in the evolutionary point of view. The authors do not argue that evolution is the main cause of why we have allergy, AIDS, influenza and gene defects, but they have done a brilliant job in exploring the matter in this side of the argument.
Rating:
Summary: Stimulating Persepctives on Sickness
Review: -Why We Get Sick- is a discussion on novel way of thinking about sickness, an epiphany on the perseverance of human vulnerability. The book addresses whre disease come from and why we get such diseases. Nesse and Williams carefully state 6 major causes of diseases: Defenses, infection, novel environments, genes, design compromises, and evolutionary legacies. Our immune system is the frontier battefield of any intruders. Studies have shown that at the first point of contraction, the immune system proliferate T-cells against the HIV virus. These immune cells fight the best they can to prohibit HIV settling onto the CD-4 cells. The only reason the immune system loses is because the HIV virus is simply too smart that they mutate into other forms and fool the T-cells. The first sign of the cold virus triggers series of defensive action-fever and sneezing are actually not illness, but defensive/immunological responses against the virus. Bacteria can evolve as much in a day as we can in a thousand years, and this gives us a grossly unfair handicap in the arms race. That's right, according to the authors of this book, we are in an ever-lasting struggle with bacteria and virus because they evolve so much faster than we can imagine. TB disappeared more than 40 years ago after the discovery of antibiotics. TB is now coming back with an even more potent form-a kind that no longer can be treated by the old antibiotics. Evolution of the virus plays a significant role here. The possibile treatment would be chemical mimetics, synthesizing structurally similar compound to treat the new strain. The more I read the more I'm refreshed by the authors. They discussed the cause of allergy and why some people are so allergic to plants and pollen while others are completely immune to them. The book also makes distinction between virus and toxins. How does the body identify novel toxins? What is the sinificance of maleness and femaleness? These are questions we all address but of which we never consider in the evolutionary point of view. The authors do not argue that evolution is the main cause of why we have allergy, AIDS, influenza and gene defects, but they have done a brilliant job in exploring the matter in this side of the argument.
Rating: 
Summary: Nw Perspective and Stimulating Ideas
Review: Dr. Nesse's book is a certainly very useful for those studying the medical sciences. His ideas on evolution and disease are intriguing and command the reader's attention. The examples from the book are well explained and truly help the reader to understand how diseases affect humans and how they have come about. The point of view in the book is rare not one that you hear everyday, but one that is certainly deserving of attention. I would highly recommend this book!
Rating:
Summary: Stimulating, important, clear.
Review: From an evolutionary standpoint, it is reasonable to ask why we are plagued with disease, both physical and "mental", and why we age. It is not so hard to understand if the disease is due to viruses or bacteria, which evolve along with us in an evolutionary arms race. For this reason, some scientists have postulated that many illnesses ranging from heart disease to schizophrenia are also due to living organisms, and certainly there is increasing evidence for the importance of this viewpoint. Nesse and Williams provide other answers. Some of these answers - changes in environment and habits, rare mutations - are straight forward, others are more subtle and interesting. More than anything, there are inevitably tradeoffs. The gene which causes sickle cell anemia helps protect against malaria. In a few instances, an evolutionary perspective provides immediate suggestions for changes in medical practice, in the care of newborns and in the treatment of fever. More significantly, it has a role to play in the guidance of future research aimed at specific diseases. The book falls somewhere between a popular explication, and an original contribution, the contribution primarily being that it organizes many separate findings, and sets them out in a more general framework, while posing a host of possible PhD research questions. Much of the background information in Why We Get Sick is of great interest, and I only wish there was more background on the immune system. The writing is competent, and almost always clear.
Rating:
Summary: Stimulating, important, clear.
Review: From an evolutionary standpoint, it is reasonable to ask why we are plagued with disease, both physical and "mental", and why we age. It is not so hard to understand if the disease is due to viruses or bacteria, which evolve along with us in an evolutionary arms race. For this reason, some scientists have postulated that many illnesses ranging from heart disease to schizophrenia are also due to living organisms, and certainly there is increasing evidence for the importance of this viewpoint. Nesse and Williams provide other answers. Some of these answers - changes in environment and habits, rare mutations - are straight forward, others are more subtle and interesting. More than anything, there are inevitably tradeoffs. The gene which causes sickle cell anemia helps protect against malaria. In a few instances, an evolutionary perspective provides immediate suggestions for changes in medical practice, in the care of newborns and in the treatment of fever. More significantly, it has a role to play in the guidance of future research aimed at specific diseases. The book falls somewhere between a popular explication, and an original contribution, the contribution primarily being that it organizes many separate findings, and sets them out in a more general framework, while posing a host of possible PhD research questions. Much of the background information in Why We Get Sick is of great interest, and I only wish there was more background on the immune system. The writing is competent, and almost always clear.
Rating:
Summary: Wonderfully interesting and engaging for laypeople
Review: In their book Why We Get Sick the authors(a physician and a biologist) assert that an "evolutionary" perspective has been overlooked by western medicine in its analysis of sickness and disease. To correct this oversight, Why We Get Sick reconsiders the evolutionary perspective as a distinct, yet mutually beneficial partner to current "proximate" explanations now being used in our medical community.) The authors contend that when an evolutionary perspective is introduced into the medical analysis of sickness and disease, we benefit from a new way of thinking about illness. These assertions made by the authors within the framework of the "new" Darwinian medicine are startling for two reasons. First of all, Darwin's theory of evolution has been around for awhile. Secondly, an evolutionary perspective not only has relevance, but may prove beneficial to doctors and patients. Yet an evolutionary perspective, the authors concede, is little used and misunderstood even to this day. Of course, its lack of application in the analysis and treatment of disease, poses a major question to all of us, whether we are historians of science or not. Indeed, "many participants in this debate don't even agree on what disease is" , never mind the "public policy implications", or the impossibility of "deducing" moral and ethical principles from "biological facts". That would take a whole book to discuss. Just what does characterize the "dynamics" of an evolutionary perspective in the analysis of sickness and disease? In other words, what makes this perspective relevant to an analysis of disease and sickness? Also, how could an evolutionary context, once it was implemented, continue to stay relevant? These questions (and many others) may have helped to organize this book. Furthermore, as the authors searched for answers, they may have provided us with more groundwork in this "new" field of science called "sociob!iology". It seems that the framework for the "new" Darwinian medicine gets its underlying focus from two explanations for the "susceptibility" of homo sapiens to sickness and disease. Furthermore, these two areas seem to overlap, perhaps without our realizing this "confusion". These two areas include, first of all, Charles Darwin's "theory of natural selection" as an "explanation of the functional design of organisms" The second area or focus in the analysis of disease comes from the medical community's "proximate" explanations for why we get sick. Proximate explanations are referred to by Neese and Williams as the "What?" or the "How?" questions which attend a diagnosis, something we all do perhaps only too well. While these two areas ( "proximate" vs. "evolutionary") often overlap sometimes to the point of confusion, it is the lack of a twin perspective (or keeping the individuality of both explanations distinct) which may keep us unnecessarily in harms way. By reconsidering the evolutionary perspective as a distinct yet mutually beneficial partner to the "proximate" explanation, the authors hope to reinvigorate western medicine's analysis of sickness. In other words, the authors want to extend the reach and the focus of our commitment to health, both as individuals and for the sake of our communities.
In conclusion, let me quote from Martin Heidegger as a way of pointing out that the coordination of efforts of the authors (Dr. Neese and Dr.Williams) is exemplary and is suggestive of what Heidegger calls "an inner readiness for communal cooperation". This "inner readiness" is still a long time coming considering Heidegger made this remark during a 1929/30 lecture course"The Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics:World,Finitude, Solitude."The precarious situation in our communities and the g!rowing gap between physicians and patients induces a frantic inability to find (let's call it) "common ground". This does not even consider the disastrous "polarizations" that the AIDS epidemic produce among all the so-called "special interest groups" which ignores the need for consensus amongst us all to prevent the spread of this disease.Heidegger writes( nearly 60 years ago):"Philosophical knowledge is supposed to be superior because of its more universal character...corresponding to this hyper-sophisticated pseudo-philosophy, what we find in the field of research is a stubborn appeal to the so-called facts and an inability to understand that a fact yields nothing by itself, that every fact we can produce has always already undergone a process of interpretation. Between them, the hypersophistication of philosophy and the intransigence of the sciences create the hopeless situation in which both parties obstinately persist in talking past one another and foster the spurious freedom in which each eventually leave the other to its own devices." One important aspect of this book is that two individual, the authors of this book, one a doctor in the field of psychiatry and one a biologist, did not talk past each other and their cooperation has given us a book that we all must examine during this time when so much hangs in the balance, if only for its way of showing how we might sow the seeds of a mutual understanding.
Rating:
Summary: An evolutionary approach to understanding medicine
Review: Slightly modifying an oft-quoted line by the famous biologist Dobzhansky, Nesse and Williams conclude, "After all, nothing in medicine makes sense except in the light of evolution." In this lucidly written book, the authors make this assertion throughout. They lay out principles for interpreting aspects of human health from an evolutionary perspective. For example, some of the body's responses can be viewed as adaptive defenses (e.g. fever), others the products of novel environments (e.g. Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, or SIDS). The authors raise intriguing examples, from adaptive withholding of the body's iron stores to pregnancy sickness, that put flesh on the bones of these principles. This book does a fine job of overviewing the ways in which an evolutionary perspective can contribute to a richer understanding of medicine than the more proximate (e.g. what are the chemical and genetic bases to schizophrenia?) focus alone can provide. For this reason, it may long be seen as a seminal contribution.
Rating:
Summary: An evolutionary approach to understanding medicine
Review: Slightly modifying an oft-quoted line by the famous biologist Dobzhansky, Nesse and Williams conclude, "After all, nothing in medicine makes sense except in the light of evolution." In this lucidly written book, the authors make this assertion throughout. They lay out principles for interpreting aspects of human health from an evolutionary perspective. For example, some of the body's responses can be viewed as adaptive defenses (e.g. fever), others the products of novel environments (e.g. Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, or SIDS). The authors raise intriguing examples, from adaptive withholding of the body's iron stores to pregnancy sickness, that put flesh on the bones of these principles. This book does a fine job of overviewing the ways in which an evolutionary perspective can contribute to a richer understanding of medicine than the more proximate (e.g. what are the chemical and genetic bases to schizophrenia?) focus alone can provide. For this reason, it may long be seen as a seminal contribution.
Rating:
Summary: Evolutionary thinking is critical to managing disease
Review: There is a growing realization that many diseases are related to or caused by pathogens. Lack of understanding of evolution of microorganisms makes us ineffective at treating disease. The evolution of antibiotic resistance is a good case in point. Working with advanced electromagnetic technologies to eliminate pathogens quickly demonstrates that evolution of microorganisms can occur quickly enough to affect treatment during the course of treating a single episode of a disease in a single patient. There needs to be a new field of the science of internal ecology of the body that builds understanding of the ecosystems of the microbiological agents that outnumber our cells. That said, Nesse and Williams give an easily readable primer on some of the fundamental evolutionary thinking essential for successful understanding and treatment of disease. It is unfortunate that more physicians are not deeply familiar with these issues. The improper handling of disease with current antibiotics makes the organisms that cause them more deadly. This could easily be minimized by correctly approaching treatment from a base of understanding of evolutionary biology. While this book is a good step into the deep waters of internal ecology, its easy reading makes it somewhat superficial. To start getting the real scoop, you need to read Ewald's work. A good starting point is Plague Time: How Stealth Infections Cause Cancer, Heart Disease, and Other Deadly Ailments. As one simple example, Plague Time points out that the Borna virus is usually associated with Bipolar disease. After working with a few individuals with Bipolar disease, I've found they invariably have the Borna virus. This is untreatable by conventional medicine. Using electromagnetic techniques, the virus can be eliminated or reduced in number. This results in immediate cessation of a manic/depressive episode in some people. There are numerous other examples of these issues in heart disease, cancer, auto-immune diseases, and so forth. The fact that microorganisms are becoming more resistant to treatment and getting deadlier from improper management, combined with the fact that many diseases are caused by unrecognized pathogens, means that every individual needs to come to grips with evolutionary biology or risk becoming a victim of it.
Rating:
Summary: Practically reads itself
Review: This book is extremely readable, and hard to put down. The authors make a very compelling case for the usefulness of a evolutionary perspective in medicine. I have a couple minor complaints (but don't let this discourage you). The authors seem to move freely between fact and speculation, without making clear distinctions. Not a problem if you're paying attention, but they may sometimes give the impression that their is more data to support a contention than there actually is. Anyway, I highly recommend this book - it's easy to read, stimulating, and bound to make you look at illness and health in a new way.
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