Evolving Health: The Origins of Illness and How the Modern World Is Making Us Sick / Edition 1

by Noel T. Boaz

Overview

Human illnesses can be understood as damage to those adaptations that we took on at various stages in our evolution from pre-life molecules to modern Homo sapiens. Preventing these illnesses entails avoiding what causes the damage — which too frequently are the everyday hazards of twenty-first-century life, as the chart below shows:

Level of Evolution / Cause of adaptive failure / resulting disease or problem

Pre-life / Environmental poisons / Certain birth defects

Single cell (bacteria and amoeba-like) / Viral infection / Colds/flu/HIV

Morula (sponge-like) / Cellular stress / Cancer

Chordate / Physical stress / Back pain

Fish / Excess dietary salt / Hypertension/heart disease

Amphibian / Tobacco smoke / Lung cancer/emphysema

Lower primate / Excess dietary sugar / Diabetes mellitus

Higher primate / Vitamin C deficiency / Scurvy

Ape / Excess dietary protein / Gout

Homo sapiens / Reduced dietary variety / Nutritionaldiseases/food allergies

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780471352617
Publisher:	Wiley
Publication date:	04/11/2002
Pages:	256
Product dimensions:	6.34(w) x 9.63(h) x 0.93(d)

About the Author

NOEL BOAZ, Ph.D., Biological Anthropologist, is the founder and Director of the International Institute for Human Evolutionary Research and Professor of Anatomy at Ross University School of Medicine. He is the author of more than fifty scientific papers, the leading textbook in biological anthropology, and two popular science books, Quarry and Eco Homo.

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Table of Contents

List of Tables.

Acknowledgments.

Introduction.

1. Achieving Adaptive Normality, Your EvolutionaryBirthright.

2. How Our Health Evolved.

3. An Evolutionary Child s Birthright:Perinatal and Pediatric Diseases.

4. The Virus War.

5. Cellular Stress: A General Model for Cancer.

6. Breast Cancer, Prostate Diseases, and Cancersof the Reproductive System.

7. Heart Disease and High Blood Pressure:A Story of Fish and Chips.

8. Why We Smoke.

9. Diabetes Mellitus and the Thrifty Genotype .

10. Gout, Liver Enzymes, and Global Climate Change.

11. Back Pain, Bad Knees, and Flatfeet.

12. Gut Diseases.

13. The Evolution of Psychiatric Disorders.

14. Uncivilized Solutions: ReestablishingAdaptive Normality in Your Life.

Notes.

Index.

Editorial Reviews

"...many of the book's points are excellent and would yield delight if effectively delivered to the public and to the clinicla specialists...a gem..."(human-nature.com, 11 June 2002)

"...rich in facts and good quality high-fibre solid information..." (Evolving Health Focus, August 2002)

From the Publisher