The immune mystery A doctor's impassioned quest to solve the puzzle of autoimmune disease

Recent progress in immunology has made this science a popular topic in the publishing trade. This book, however, stands out compared to other popular science titles. Presented in translation from the original Norwegian, the text offers a personal mystery story. The author vividly recalls childhood experiences of caring for her mother, who eventually succumbed to complications from rheumatoid arthritis. Later, as a researcher, she posed questions: Are hormonal changes associated with this disease? If so, can such connection lead to therapeutic measures? Clearly the answers are "yes," and readers learn how a question became a passion to find an answer. Autoimmune diseases, when the immune system no longer distinguishes between self and non-self, are common and, until recently, effective treatments were rare. Kåss and her colleagues faced setbacks, opposition, and misunderstanding before their results were seen as conclusive and useful. We now see television ads for the medications that resulted. They appear so often that the medications seem to have been around forever. This book offers a behind-the-scenes look at the quest to produce them. A three-page list of medications for autoimmune diseases looks hopeful, but a 48-page list of autoimmune diseases shows that complex mysteries remain, and more solutions are needed. An excellent book for general audiences. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Lower-division undergraduates. Students in two-year technical programs. General readers. --Thomas P. Gariepy, emeritus, Stonehill College

An impressive account of an ambitious medical researcher and her struggles. Raised in Britain, now living and working in Norway, Kåss watched her mother suffer from the debilitating effects of rheumatoid arthritis; she died when the author was in her early teens. After performing brilliantly in medical school, Kåss devoted her life to the study of autoimmune diseases, bravely stepping into a male-dominated field that garners far less attention than other areas of research. In the U.S., she writes, "health authorities have allocated ten times as much funding to cancer research as to research into autoimmune diseases." Kåss delivers a lucid explanation of our complex immune system, which fiercely attacks germs and viruses when they enter the body but must tolerate other foreign substances such as food and medicine. Autoimmunity occurs when it mistakenly attacks the body it is supposed to protect, and women make up 80% of victims, in part because their immune system has the almost impossible task of ignoring an enormous foreign invader: a fetus. Autoimmune disease often begins around pregnancy. The author paints an eye-opening portrait of the grueling life of a clinical researcher: pleading for money, struggling with technical details, persuading patients to volunteer for a study that's unlikely to help them, laboring for years, and trying to persuade skeptical journal editors to pay attention to her findings. The author's discovery that blocking a certain brain hormone may relieve symptoms of rheumatoid arthritis has persuaded pharmaceutical companies to invest millions in large-scale testing; after five years, the results remain "promising." Kåss concludes her engrossing book with a 50-page description of scores of diseases, from obscure to everyday (diabetes, colitis, multiple sclerosis, psoriasis), whose relations to autoimmunity range from proven to pure speculation, as well as a list of possible environmental causes ranging from gluten to UV radiation. Good popular science combined with a moving memoir. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.