I was very interested in the book, Why Don't Zebras Get Ulcers when I first started reading it. I honestly had no clue how Sapolsky was going to incorporate zebras into this book and make a connection somehow with the human population and our society. There are a lot of stressors that humans and other mammals like us have everyday. These stresses are proven to cause sicknesses that can lead to diseases, terrible illnesses in fact. Although zebras and lion stress over entirely different things than humans do, the end result is usually the same. Chronic stress can cause a lot of cardiovascular issues in our population and it is entirely preventable. Obviously it is inevitable that we will have stress, however, according to Sapolsky, we humans like to think of a ton of scenarios in our head about things that went wrong in our day, how we are doing in class or at work, are we living up to societal standards, we think about or relationship issues, whether our family is doing well, if our house is clean, if we are safe, and many, many more things. All of these issues are grieved over to such an extent that it can actually cause us pain, to a point where we get illnesses over it.
Animals stress over things too. They have to worry about providing for their families, and if they are going to fall prey to another mammal higher up on the food chain, or if they are going to have something to eat tonight or somewhere to sleep. But animals have less chance of repeatedly, constantly worrying about these things. They are more of spur-of-the-moment occurrences and will likely be forgotten soon after. That is one of the main reasons that animals like that usually do not get serious side effects of stress like we do. However, if constant stress is placed on an animal, such as the stress that is placed on humans, than it is likely that the animal will experience an ulcer or something of the sort. For example, Sapolsky mentions a study that was done on a rat. The rat was frequently tossed around, forced to run back and forth and had it fight for its life. After the stress and exhaustion the rat experienced, tests were ran on it and they showed that the rat had a peptic ulcer.
Sapolsky is trying to make the point that in any of our organs in our body, stress can cause diseases to form inside of them. The same occurs in animals that experience the same stressful events. What shocked me was that social stress alone can cause the greatest damage in the blood vessels and arteries. Plaque can form and build up from the drama of not being accepted socially. The same was true for monkeys experiencing the same thing. The study showed that monkeys figure out where they stand socially with others of the same species very quickly and if this is not good to them then they get upset and stressed. The causes of hypertension and atherosclerosis come from this. Who knew that social stress could eventually cause so much harm?
Similar to Brittany, I found Sapolsky's comparison between humans and animals particularly interesting. Thought the zebra and lion made for a good analogy when talking about different kinds of stress, I was a little skeptical about how similar zebras and lions are to humans. He also compared modern day humans with humans in traditional hunter/gatherer societies, which I found even more interesting. Though I don't think this is related to stress, a lot of the topics in the book reminded me of our brief discussion in class about how today people have many more allergies and autoimmune disorders today than we have in the past. Perhaps this is another illustration of how lifestyle change also leads to changes in health over the course of many generations.
ReplyDeleteI also enjoyed Sapolsy's writing style. Books and articles that discuss medical issues often tend to have so many technical terms that they are difficult for most people to understand. I appreciate that Sapolsky uses the technical terms, but is also very good about explaining them through analogy. I think this is important when trying to convey a message to everyone and mot just people in the medical field.
I think you have started to touch on some very important issues in this book. LIke you, I was curious as to how Sapolsky was going to tie in zebras with the idea of stress and I think the result is a very effective explanation about how and why stress has such a large effect on our health. One thing that you touched on briefly but I feel was central to Sapolsky's book was the difference between chronic stress and short bursts of stress that occur in a potentially life threatening situation. This argument is key in what separates humans from zebras, lions, and other animals. He seems to say that it is not necessarily the things we stress about that matter most, but instead it is one our constant high stress levels and two our ability to create high stress levels solely in anticipation of something that might happen in the future. This distinction, I feel, is essential to your comments and to the book as a whole.
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