Emergency Physician, Educator, Researcher, interested in the microbiome, evolution, and medicine
Which group is most closely related to fishes? I have written that “every medical student needs to understand tree thinking,” but have not devoted much space to it on this blog. Ryan Gregory has a wonderful blog that summarizes Baum’s classic tree thinking article (part 1 also gives the answer […]
Although yesterday’s debate on evolution vs. creation between Bill Nye and Kenneth Ham did not include many fireworks, it was worth watching. Kenneth Ham did resort to a variety of rhetorical tricks to make his points. The illustrated book of bad arguments is absolutely worth a read. So which bad […]
Strike another blow in the fight against the evolution of antibiotic resistance. According to the New York Times, “In December 2013, the F.D.A. began formal implementation of a strategy to phase out the use of all medically important antimicrobials” Read the story here.
Humans engage in extreme activities in extreme environments. There is no question that some of things we do are so radically different from what our hominin ancestors experienced. As a result, selection has not had time to modify their effects. Two examples: Footage of Felix Baumgartner’s leap from the edge […]
Evolution is necessary background knowledge for any exploration of evolutionary medicine. However, I have not tried to define it on this site. Thankfully, John Hawks has a nice post this week that provides some background and perspective.
How important is gene-environment mismatch? What is the Paleo diet? 1) Quickly skim this recent piece in the Huffington Post 2) Next read Eaton (2006)-Ancestral human diet 2) Then read this review: Paleofantasy by Marlene Zuk Finally, read my post about nutrient signaling on the Evolution & Medicine Review. If […]
Emergence of Evolutionary Medicine: Publication Trends from 1991- 2010 was published last year in the Journal of Evolutionary Medicine. This article explores the domain of evolutionary medicine, conceptualized by the area of overlap shown in the following Venn diagram: Publication in the area of Evolutionary Medicine is experiencing exponential growth. […]
Next weeks topic is Genomic Conflict and Parent-of-Origin effects of imprinted genes. These concepts draw heavily on insights of David Haig, an evolutionary theorist from Harvard. David Haig writes: “The most intimate human relationship is that between a mother and her unborn young. A fetus obtains all its nutrients and […]
Introducing evolutionary thinking to medicine Stephen Stearns, Randy Nesse, and David Haig And: Evolutionary Medicine: its scope, interest and potential And: Alcock and Schwartz. A clinical perspective in Evolutionary Medicine: What we wish we had learned in medical school. Evolution: Education and Outreach, 2011.
A previous student alerted me to this link, which describes health tradeoffs involving testosterone. This will be familiar to anyone who has taken the Evolutionary Medicine course and learned about life history theory: http://www.genengnews.com/gen-news-highlights/high-testosterone-men-have-the-weakest-immune-responses/81249287/
EvolutionMedicine 