Evolving Health The Origins of Illness and How the Modern World Is Making Us Sick

Human illnesses can be understood as damage to those adaptationsthat we took on at various stages in our evolution from pre-lifemolecules to modern Homo sapiens. Preventing these illnessesentails avoiding what causes the damage-- which too frequently arethe everyday hazards of twenty-first-century life, as the chartbelow 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