Evolution and medicine

Evolution and medicine

More and more researchers are calling for the inclusion of evolution in medicine. They postulate that evolutionary biology is a fundamental basis for medicine and essential for the understanding and treatment of modern disease.

Evolutionary medicine in the media
The topic was currently taken up by the online magazine of the Heinz Heise publishing house from Hanover, Telepolis. Co-founder Florian Rötzler wrote with the subtitle "Despite or because of advances in culture and medicine, evolution continues to influence human health in many ways" about the ideas and activities of US-American evolution researchers, who wrote them in an article in the journal "Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences ".

The magazine "Der Spiegel" also took up the subject in September 2009. On the front page of issue 40/09 were various modern ways of life, such as sitting in front of the computer monitor, eating chips, etc. under the heading "Misconception of man - why we are not made for the modern world" listed. Even in those days, experts such as Stephen Stearns of Yale University and Harvard University, such as biologist David Haig or anthropologist Daniel Lieberman, had their say in the article itself.

In the current issue of the science magazine "bild der Wissenschaft", the topic is taken up by the way. The Amish people in the United States who have emigrated from Germany live as they did 300 years ago and are currently being studied by medical professionals.

Foundations and theories of evolutionary medicine
A steadily growing number of anthropologists and physicians from different disciplines and biologists are involved in so-called evolutionary medicine. It is certainly due to the rise of diseases such as diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, cancer, Alzheimer's and the increased number of allergies. The evolutionary physicians here assume a biologically requirements of our body diametrically opposed lifestyle as the cause.

Studies such as the German Institute for Nutritional Research (DIfE) seem to confirm this: the DIfE had found that more exercise and healthier nutrition (as in the centuries before) lowered the risk of certain diseases by 78 percent.

According to evolutionary researchers, the function of specific organs and the development of diseases can be viewed and treated quite differently by knowledge and understanding of evolutionary processes in medical professions.

"Our biology is the result of many evolutionary compromises. If we understand these stories and conflicts, "said Cambridge University anthropologist Professor Peter Ellisson," it can really help the doctor understand why we get sick and what we should do to stay healthy. "Questions that The evolutionary researchers throw in the room, for example : How is there such a high incidence of high blood pressure or antibiotic resistance in pathogens (such as MRSA) or how does autism occur??

Explanations for many ailments and problems in the present time, they assume, for example. in old age, an imbalance between cultural and biological development, unfamiliar modern diet (e.g., high sugar intake) and massively reduced exercise.

In part, the demands of evolutionary physicians seem like a manifesto of naturopathy. One should better observe nature and pursue development processes in order to better understand and treat the human organism. Furthermore, they believe that by the massive use of antibiotics and strong hygiene, for us living in symbiosis organisms and thus ultimately for us, critical situations are created that damage the necessary balance and the compensation ability of our organism.

An exact knowledge and consideration of such factors could in the future show new ways in medicine for the prevention and treatment of complaints.

Next DEVELOPMENT options
Most of the researchers' references to using evolutionary biology in medicine and disease prevention are Darwin's theories of evolution.

So it comes that the scientists from the universities of Harvard, Yale, Michigan and Boston come to conclusions that are certainly interesting in the approach, but in the end quite one-sided. In the future, it is important to include other theories of evolution.

Because other evolutionary theories such as those of the University of Maastricht, embryology and anatomy expert med. Jaap C. van der Wal or the German physician, molecular and neurobiologist and author of popular science books Joachim Bauer, could enrich the findings, but also appear in a different light and allow different conclusions.

Van der Wal, for example believes that it is not adaptation but resistance to development. He interprets the classic image from the school's evolutionary lessons, where all the embryos (pig, bird, reptile, human) are identical. Because the human embryo stays upright while the others (the animal ones) "lie down". So he literally "stops".

Bauer argues that, even according to recent scientific findings, it is clear that not the egoism of a gene, but cooperation leads to survival. According to his statements, the anatomical structure of our gene structures outweighs the proportions that are not fixed, but rather oriented towards reconstruction, constant change and cooperation.

The initiators of the article in the "Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences" and the colloquium in early April 2009 at the National Academy of Sciences in Washington,to the Cambridge anthropologist Prof. Peter Ellison, the Professor of Evolutionary Biology and Ecology of Yale University Stephen C. Stearns and the Professor of Psychiatry and Psychology of the University of Michigan, Randolph M. Nessehopefully launching further ambitions and impulses in the direction of evolutionary medicine.

Eventually evolutionary physicians will still face the headwind of analytically minded scientists. But even from the point of view of naturopathy, not all ideas should be received uncritically and cheered.

An example: evolutionary physicians mention the connection with today's lifestyle and spinal pain. Physicians and handlers from the manual sector such as orthopedists, Rolfer, osteopaths, FDM treatment, u.a. Recently, the anatomical structure of the spine as a place of pain in question. It is discussed whether many sitting leads to a backward step in the evolution back to the quadruped stand. This can permanently cause a shortening of the hip flexor, which in turn can trigger the problems. Also, the findings of the biomechanician Professor Serge Gracovetsky, after the stout connective tissue plate of the back, the fascia Thoracolumbalis, about 80 percent of the flexion work on the back, should be included here. Probably people with a passive structure as a holding mechanism were able to perform effortless tasks for centuries, bent forward (for example, field work). Recent findings by American researcher Helen M. Langevin, who found thickening of the deepest layer of the thoracolumbar fascia in patients with back pain, seem to point further in this direction. Researchers at Heidelberg University recently found that the uppermost layer of this connective tissue has the most pain fibers.

Reducing the causative agent to the spine alone and its lordosis-kyphosis relationships seems to be shortened. If evolutionary physicians really want more influence on medical operations and collaboration with individual disciplines, more differentiation involving new insights is needed in individual cases.

Otherwise, it is foreseeable that this sector, with its concern for enriching medicine, will run into a dead end in the form of its own dogmatism.(Thorsten Fischer, Naturopath Osteopathy, 06.02.2010)