There has been an increasing appreciation of the economic and human toll that age-related disorders take throughout the world. Unprecedented research efforts have followed, aiming at the understanding and treatment of Alzheimer's Disease (AD) in particular, and this effort has finally begun to bear fruit - sometimes in surprising ways: Twenty years ago, the idea that AD involved any sort of inflammatory or immune component seemed implausible, if considered at all. Now, there are hundreds of laboratories world-wide that are pursuing basic research in this area, and multi-site clinical trials are underway to test the therapeutic potential of common anti-inflammatory drugs in AD. How this dramatic sea-change came about is made clear in this book, both through overviews of the field and through focused papers on specific topics of recent interest. Complement, cytokines and the complex host of other acute phase reactants are covered, as are summaries of many epidemiologic and clinical-pathological findings...