Emergency Physician, Educator, Researcher, interested in the microbiome, evolution, and medicine
On monday, we will discuss the following hypotheses of aging: Antagonistic Pleiotropy is the concept that a gene for survival or a gene that promotes reproduction early can be selected for even if it kills you at a later age. So selection favors juvenile survival at the expense of old age survival. […]
The lecture will be an overview of some evolutionary considerations of food. These include the concept of the paleolithic diet, which proposes that humans are healthiest when eating what our stone age ancestors ate. We will explore a variety of concepts through the lens of a Thanksgiving meal. The following […]
We are going to focus on diet next week. We have already talked about trans fats, and I think we have said enough about it already. Diet, as you know, is a huge topic, with far more information that we can cover in one week. But we will talk about […]
Here is a preview of the slides for this monday’s talk: Evolution of Diabetes This is an extra reading that I did not include in the original list. Dr. Kuzawa wrote this chapter for a new book “Evolutionary Anthropology”. This work explains his hypothesis about the fixed needs of the […]
Cardiovascular disease (CVD) and diabetes are perhaps the most consequential diseases in America in terms of deaths, economic impacts, and effects on quality of life. Despite intensive efforts and millions of dollars worth of studies, our understanding of CVD and diabetes remains incomplete. The fine work of Chris Kuzawa from […]
The author of the textbook “Evolutionary Medicine” will be visiting on 11/10/08 to lecture on evolutionary considerations of human reproduction and childbirth. The readings for this lecture include: Evolutionary Obstetrics. Trevathan WR. Chapter 8 in in Evolutionary Medicine (1st edition) 1999. Eds Trevathan WR, Smith EO, McKenna JJ. Oxford University […]
Writing project: Some have suggested that the age of weaning of infants from the breast is subject to parent offspring conflict. Eg. infants might want to breastfeed longer than the mother would like. Breastfeeding tends to suppress ovulation and delay pregnancy. Give an evolutionary hypothesis for why infants might exhibit […]
Thanks goes to our guest lecturers so far: Kathy Hanley, Stephanie Forrest, Roland Cooper, and Greg Ebel. Next monday, I will be lecturing on the topic of reproductive conflict. (On the syllabus we are switching the topics for 11/3 and 11/10). This genetic conflict occurs between parents and between mothers […]
Next weeks topic will be on West Nile Virus. Readings for 10/27/08 are: 1)Jerzak-et-al 2)Ebel-et-al Meanwhile the writing topic due next week is unchanged from the syllabus: Plasmodium falciparum is an extremely difficult organism to eradicate and has developed resistance to most antimalarials. Explain why the way antimalarials have been […]
I want to write a little bit about your writing projects. First: do not worry too much about the grading of the papers. What I will mostly be looking for when I figure your grade will be improvement over the semester. After all, I want you to learn, so I wouldn’t […]
EvolutionMedicine 