An Elegant Defense: The Extraordinary New Science of the Immune System: A Tale in Four Lives by Matt Richtel
Rating: ★★★★★★★★★☆ 9/10
Matt makes the science of immunology extremely accessible in this book. It’s not perfect by any means — there are, for example, no citations (??) in the entire book — but it’s enlightening and educational nonetheless. I kept my laptop close at hand while reading the book so I could look up molecules he mentioned, or terms that were only superficially defined.
To me, this book is a combination of Mukherjee’s Emporer of All Maladies, the great book on cancer and oncology, and a memoir of Richtel’s friend Jason. He injects anecdotes about his life periodically throughout the novel, and his voice is present all the time. I think this fits well for the type of book this was, because if this book were told through a cold, uncompromising, scientific lens, the connections he draws between the immune system and society/life in general would not have been as poignant.
Obviously this book is extremely relevant today. Dr. Fauci features quite heavily in the book, which is really cool, since I see him doing coronavirus briefings at the same time. I never knew that Fauci was such a big name in immunology, either. I knew he was a big shot, because he was the director of NIH, but the book really highlighted his contributions to immunology and oncology. Learning about the immune system was really enlightening for me, because it answered a lot of questions I had about getting sick: why did I get fevers when I got sick? Why did I feel tired and unmotivated to even leave my house? Why does my body react the way it does when I eat something I’m allergic to, and why do I even have these allergies in the first place? I’ve been lucky enough not to have any major injuries or diseases, but the answers to my questions, as well as the answers to heavier questions like why some people get cancer, or why some people are asymptomatic carriers of HIV, all have a common thread, which is the immune system.
The symptoms of a cold or the flu are usually not caused by the virus; they are caused by the ensuing immune response that tries to defend your body from the virus. When we see people on ventilators or dying from coronavirus, it’s because of a cytokine storm which causes inflammation our body simply can’t handle. Our immune system walks a very fine line between being too aggressive and destroying our own body, and being too passive and letting the virus overrun and destroy our body.
Richtel also gives some practical advice for the reader to keep their immune system in balance. There is a lot of evidence that managing stress, maintaining a healthy sleep schedule, exercising regularly, and eating healthy foods all help the immune system orchestrate the perfect response to any foreign cells, harmful or not. It’s not new advice, obviously, but understanding the science behind it makes it a hell of a lot more compelling. Finally, he also talks about the hygiene hypothesis, which states that our immune systems are much weaker nowadays because of our ultra-clean environments. We aren’t exposed to as many pathogens when our immune system is developing, which causes our immune system to overreact to certain harmless objects (which indeed are allergies). It’s weird to think about, but it makes sense. The 5-second rule that we all obeyed in elementary school? That probably helped strengthen our immune systems. It’s also just another example of human vs. nature, and why such a delicate balance needs to be found.
Peter's Life 