Berlin: A new field of medical research is
looking at the emergence of modern epidemics like asthma and
obesity through the prism of Charles Darwin`s 150-year-old
theory of evolution.
In focus at a World Health Summit, which finished
yesterday in Berlin, was evolutionary or Darwinian medicine,
which aims to help doctors and medical researchers recognise
that humans have evolved down the ages.
The body "is not a machine, like a machine designed by
engineers, it is shaped by natural selection and has flaws in
different pieces," said Randolph Nesse, a pioneer in the field
from the University of Michigan.
These flaws make people "extremely vulnerable," he said
at the summit, the first ever, involving 700 delegates from
over 60 countries.
"This rapidly growing field of medical research is deeply
significant both for medicine overall and for public health
care policies, especially the implementation of preventive
measures, which are key to stabilising our health care
systems," Nesse said.
A key area of focus in Darwinian medicine is the
emergence of modern epidemics like asthma and obesity --
modern diseases resulting from changes in the environment
which our bodies cannot evolve quickly enough to.
And these rapid changes in our environment can also be
the result of human activity, and even caused by efforts to
eradicate other diseases.
Bureau Report