Evolution and Diseases

In Survival of The Sickest, Dr. Sharon Moalem, draws conclusions to the evolution of human and the diseases it brought together with it. Sharon Moalem believes that certain diseases travelled through genes and made it to existence today because they helped people survive natural selection. Natural selection is when the fittest species manages to survive in the conditions of the environment. That said, I am also convinced that culture and genetics have a role in which diseases certain groups of people are susceptible to.

The fact that people who had diabetes during the ice age had better chances in surviving does not mean that people today should have diabetes. Medicine should not be interrupted because of the evolutionary process that never stops. We are in a constant change, physically, mentally and cognitively, natural selection never stops, the one who cannot adapt to its environment is eliminated, and diseases keep on changing the social equilibrium. Along with Moalem’s theory, I think that some of diseases are just caught by the chance of mutations and cross overs in our genes, which leads to evolutionary differences. For example, some people are immune to AIDS and this is mostly caused by the mutations in their genes, they do not have the receptor in their cells that activates the AIDS virus; therefore they have zero chance of being AIDS. Maybe one day the human race can be immune to AIDS and this can be another example of how we survived such an age.

Some of the diseases are and will help us survive today, ones that we might not even be aware about at the moment. I think this book helps us think about evolution and medicine together in a way I never thought we could.