-
Evolution and Disease?
- Biocultural Approach
- * Cultural actors influence patterns of human illness
- * Examples:
- o anorexia nervosa
- o kuru
-
Anorexia nervosa?
- * Western culture-bound syndrome?
- o Is thinness the objective? Asceticism of the body?
- * Historical cases prior to recognition
- o no good evidence for increase in incidence non-Western cases lack concern over weight
- * Weight concerns culture-bound
-
Kuru?
- * High incidence among Fore people
- o laughing sickness, body tremors
- * Progressive wasting
- * Prion disease
- * Spread by cannibalism
- * Allelic variant confers resistance
- Evolution and Disease?
- Evolutionary Approach
- * Symptoms: defects or defenses?
- o Pathogen:Host arms races
- * Environmental mismatch
- o Pleiotropy (e.g. Alzheimers)
- * Design compromise (e.g., knees, backs)
-
Triumph of Culture? Agriculture and Domestication?
- Mass production
- Urbanization
- Specialization
- Cultural Innovation
- Disease
- Malnutrition
-
Rise of Agriculture (Cost of Civilization)?
- * Reliable supply of calorie-rich nutritionally poor foods
- * Excellent environment for spread of disease
-
Population Growth?
- * 7 billion and growing
- * 1st spike: Stone Tools
- * 2nd spike: A & D
- * 3rd spike: Industrialization
- * Pandemics
- * Famine
- * Policy
- * Economics
- *
- Epidemiological Transitions?
- 1. ? Ecology/demography
- 2. Agriculture
- 3. Germ theory: hygiene, antibiotics, vaccination
- 4. ? Gene therapy
-
Life History Patterns?
- * 1st menstrual period
- * OBVIOUS FACTORS: better nutrition, less disease
- * POTENTIAL FACTORS: parental longevity (general quality of care), heterosis, ban on child labor
-
Life History Patterns?
- Life expectancy: increasing over time
- Fertility rate: decreasing over time
-
Comparative Life Histories: Heterochrony?
defined as a developmental change in the timing of events, leading to changes in size and shape
-
Menopause: An Evolutionary Enigma?
- 1. Cessation of reproductive capacity (~ age 50)
- 2. End result of programmed cell death (atresia)
- 3. Artifact or Adaptation?
- Byproduct of changing life history
- Grandmother hypothesis
- Very Attentive Mother hypothesis
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