R. Straub published an article entitled Evolutionary medicine and chronic inflammatory state–known and new concepts in pathophysiology last year in which he argues that chronic inflammatory diseases – responsible for the bulk of cardiovascular disease in humans – are caused by re-directed energy stores to the activated immune system. Re-allocation of energetic resources to immunity is a central part of arguments we have explored previously on this blog: for example here,  here, and here.

I should note that my co-author Ed Legrand and I have criticized part of Straub’s arguments in our 2012 paper in the Quarterly Review of Biology, Turning Up The Heat, Immune Brinksmanship in the Acute Phase Response. I will elaborate more on that this afternoon.

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Joe Alcock

Emergency Physician, Educator, Researcher, interested in the microbiome, evolution, and medicine