Rating: 4.0
What it's about:
Was diabetes evolution's response to the last Ice Age? Did a deadly genetic disease help our ancestors survive the bubonic plagues of Europe? Will a visit to the tanning salon help lower your cholesterol? Why do we age? Why are some people immune to HIV? Can your genes be turned on—or off?
Survival of the Sickest is fi lled with fascinating insights and cutting-edge research, presented in a way that is both accessible and utterly absorbing. This is a book about the interconnectedness of all life on earth—and especially what that means for us. Read it. You're already living it.
My thoughts:
Survival of the Sickest is an interesting and thought provoking book about disease. The author takes a handful of diseases, for example diabetes and favism, and looks at them from an evolutionary perspective. She shows how some of the diseases we have today might have actually been a good thing for our ancestors. "Evolution likes genetic traits that help us survive and reproduce-it doesn't like traits that weaken us or threaten our health (especially when they threaten it before we can reproduce)." If diabetes helped our ancestors survive the last ice age, those genes would have been passed on in reproduction. Dr. Moalem definitely makes sense in Survival of the Sickest. It gets a bit scientific in parts though and a little hard to digest. After reading this book I won't look at hereditary disease in quite the same way.
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