{'fraction_non_alphanumeric': 0.018446890806307646, 'fraction_numerical': 0.0002975304968759298, 'mean_word_length': 5.56640625, 'pattern_counts': {'":': 0, '<': 0, '<?xml version=': 0, '>': 0, 'https://': 0, 'lorem ipsum': 0, 'www.': 0, 'xml': 0}, 'pii_count': 0, 'substrings_counts': 0, 'word_list_counts': {'cursed_substrings.json': 0, 'profanity_word_list.json': 0, 'sexual_word_list.json': 0, 'zh_pornsignals.json': 0}}
Molecular mechanisms of atherosclerosis

This book summarizes modern thinking about the pathogenesis of atherosclerosis. It reviews the roles of epidemiology, genetics, inflammation, oxidative stress, thrombosis, endothelium, lipoproteins, implications of diabetes, hypertension, smoking, homocysteine and infection in the pathogenesis of atherosclerosis. A further two chapters consider rational molecular and cell-based therapies and future directions. Although many of these topics are available in individual review articles after sampling numerous publications, it is nice to see them brought together in a complete volume with excellent illustrations. It would be useful if the illustrations could be made available on a CD-ROM/dedicated web-site. This book is a thorough modern overview of the pathogenic mechanisms behind atherosclerosis and will be useful to postgraduate researchers in atherosclerosis and clinicians interested in basic science in the field. As with many multiauthor texts, some chapters are stronger than others. Its main strength is the extreme scientific approach favoured in the US with a great emphasis on basic mechanisms and animal models of disease. However, this strength is also a weakness, because specific factors, such as the changing epidemiology of atheroma to a developing world disease, the importance of the metabolic syndrome/ insulin resistance in non-obese populations and the differences between animals and humans in the development of atheroma, are underemphasized. The main emphasis is tacitly on coronary heart disease and the subtle differences relating to carotid disease, peripheral arterial disease or aortic disease are not explored in detail. A section is devoted to whole genome screens for atheroma, but none of these have yielded any definitive information as yet. Similarly genomic and proteomic studies are reviewed but their lack of results, to date, is underemphasized. An omission is the lack of description of familial combined hyperlipidaemia, the commonest of the genetic dyslipidaemias, because this may give an insight into the metabolic syndrome. The role of innate immunity is not discussed in detail, although the significance of toll receptors has only been appreciated within the last 2 years and similarly insights from autoimmune disease and HIV-related atherosclerotic disease are not discussed in detail. Although the role of endothelial stem cells is mentioned, the significance of these is not discussed; moreover, the data are extremely recent. It would have been useful to add a commentary on how clinical trials have influenced ideas on pathogenesis of atherosclerosis and vice versa in the last decade. This would detail the insights that therapeutic compounds have given into pathogenic mechanisms in atherosclerosis, as statins have focused interest on non-lipid mechanism through their effects on inflammation via isoprenoid intermediates while fibrates and thiazolidinediones (glitazones) have helped delineate the roles of peroxisomal proliferatoractivating receptors and their relatives in atheroma. The mechanisms of some drugs are still unknown, e.g. niacin/nicotinic acid and may yield further insights. In brief, this is an excellent overview of pathogenic mechanisms of atherosclerosis and deserves to be in libraries of researchers interested in atherosclerosis.