The Center for the Biology of Chronic Disease

Home	About	Nobel	Donate
The Book	Meetings	Grants	Contact

Harry Elvanides, MD

Research Fellow, Department of Endocrinology, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Harvard Medical School

REVIEW

First of all, I want to thank you for giving me the opportunity to review this book. Dr. Polansky presents a theory about microcompetition, which was unknown to me until recently. This theory tries to explain the origin of various diseases that range from autoimmune diseases to atherosclerosis and obesity. Although it is believed that most of the diseases presented are unrelated to each other, Dr. Polansky presents the mechanism of microcompetition with foreign DNA (mainly viral DNA) as a common underlying mechanism that bridges their origin. I think that this idea is very interesting and not only gives you a theory about the pathogenesis and pathophysiology of chronic disease, but also a proposal to treatment. This book is very challenging, and although Dr. Polansky has done a very good job on trying to be thorough, it is rather difficult to read. One has to have a good mathematical background to understand the equations, figures and graphs supporting the model. One has to go back to the list of literature references and do a good amount of reading in order to elucidate and understand the theory in-depth. At this point, I have to congratulate Dr. Polansky for a complete list of literature references.

In conclusion, it is my strong belief that this book, although complex, will engage the motivated reader and give new ideas for further research on the origin of chronic human disease and the options of treatment. Thank you once more for giving me the opportunity to read and give my comments for this book. I believe that it helped me to understand the concept of microcompetition and to get some new ideas for my future research.

BIOGRAPHY

Dr. Harry Elvanides received a B.S. in Biochemistry in 1993 from Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece. In 2000 he earned an MD from Umea University, Sweden. He became a Licensed Physician upon approval from the Swedish/EU Board 2002. Since July 2002, he has worked as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Endocrinology in the Department of Medicine at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston. His main scientific interest is the study of obesity and the physiology/pathophysiology of adipokines.

MORE REVIEWS