Evolving Health: The Origins of Illness and How the Modern World Is Making Us SickISBN: 978-0-471-35261-7
Hardcover
256 pages
April 2002
This is a Print-on-Demand title. It will be printed specifically to fill your order. Please allow an additional 10-15 days delivery time. The book is not returnable.
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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
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