How Diseases Saved Humanity Survival of the Sickest, a book written by Sharon Moalem, discusses various diseases that have stayed in our gene pool due to the positive influence they had on humanity’s evolution. Despite having bad reputations, these diseases have given different populations a survival and evolutionary advantage over other groups hundreds and even thousands of years ago. Those populations, well in health and being, continued to reproduce and passed on the disease to their offspring, and with the evolutionary advantage provided, they also continued to survive and reproduce. Nowadays, these diseases can become a burden to everyday life, hindering someone to complete daily tasks with a lack of effort, due to modern technology
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There are two types of diabetes; there’s type 1 diabetes where insulin production is stopped completely, and type 2 diabetes where insulin is still produced but in very small amounts, or the body’s tissues are resistant to this hormone. In both cases, the insulin production process is broken, resulting in undigested glucose which can build up to dangerous amounts. Diabetes attacks major organs like the heart, kidneys, blood vessels, eyes, and nerves. Some symptoms (and eventual complications) of this disease includes frequent urination, rapid dehydration, blindness, heart disease, stroke, and vascular disease. Diagnosing diabetes in the past required ants to detect sugar in a person’s urine, and treating diabetes required injections of insulin daily. Diabetes seems like a burdensome disease, but it made its first appearance and had a positive impact on humanity during a severe change in temperature known as the Younger Dryas. Many people froze to death, but some survived due to brown fat, which is a type of fat that generates heat as long as it has fuel. The lack of insulin produced to keep blood sugar levels high (which raises the body’s freezing point) also functioned as an anti-freeze. Unlike other tissues, brown fat does not need insulin to provide fuel for its cells, so blood sugar does not rise to critical levels. This kind of protection from the extreme cold is also present in grapes …show more content…
Favism is also called G6PD deficiency, and people who are G6PD deficient are more prone to the trouble that free radicals, which are molecules with unpaired electrons, create in red blood cells; as the unpaired electrons look for other electrons to pair up with in other molecules, they cause chemical reactions that can, “disrupt cellular chemistry and lead to the cell’s early death.” G6PD is responsible for protecting red blood cells from damage and without it, hemolytic anemia arises, along with a list of other complications like weakness, fatigue, kidney failure, heart failure, and jaundice. Diagnosing this would require a simple blood test that would check for G6PD enzyme levels. Eating fava beans creates a similar reaction because of compounds called vicine and convicine that produce free radicals (and that’s how it got its name), so people who have favism would have to avoid potential triggers to prevent further recurrent episodes. Coincidentally, places that cultivated and consumed fava beans were also the places where favism was most common; malaria was also common in the Mediterranean. Malaria is a disease caused by a protozoan parasite common in Africa and around the Mediterranean. Because malaria is so widespread and deadly, vulnerable populations needed some kind of protection in order to survive and reproduce, and fava bean consumption happens to ward off malarial parasites; these
There are two types of diabetes; there’s type 1 diabetes where insulin production is stopped completely, and type 2 diabetes where insulin is still produced but in very small amounts, or the body’s tissues are resistant to this hormone. In both cases, the insulin production process is broken, resulting in undigested glucose which can build up to dangerous amounts. Diabetes attacks major organs like the heart, kidneys, blood vessels, eyes, and nerves. Some symptoms (and eventual complications) of this disease includes frequent urination, rapid dehydration, blindness, heart disease, stroke, and vascular disease. Diagnosing diabetes in the past required ants to detect sugar in a person’s urine, and treating diabetes required injections of insulin daily. Diabetes seems like a burdensome disease, but it made its first appearance and had a positive impact on humanity during a severe change in temperature known as the Younger Dryas. Many people froze to death, but some survived due to brown fat, which is a type of fat that generates heat as long as it has fuel. The lack of insulin produced to keep blood sugar levels high (which raises the body’s freezing point) also functioned as an anti-freeze. Unlike other tissues, brown fat does not need insulin to provide fuel for its cells, so blood sugar does not rise to critical levels. This kind of protection from the extreme cold is also present in grapes …show more content…
Favism is also called G6PD deficiency, and people who are G6PD deficient are more prone to the trouble that free radicals, which are molecules with unpaired electrons, create in red blood cells; as the unpaired electrons look for other electrons to pair up with in other molecules, they cause chemical reactions that can, “disrupt cellular chemistry and lead to the cell’s early death.” G6PD is responsible for protecting red blood cells from damage and without it, hemolytic anemia arises, along with a list of other complications like weakness, fatigue, kidney failure, heart failure, and jaundice. Diagnosing this would require a simple blood test that would check for G6PD enzyme levels. Eating fava beans creates a similar reaction because of compounds called vicine and convicine that produce free radicals (and that’s how it got its name), so people who have favism would have to avoid potential triggers to prevent further recurrent episodes. Coincidentally, places that cultivated and consumed fava beans were also the places where favism was most common; malaria was also common in the Mediterranean. Malaria is a disease caused by a protozoan parasite common in Africa and around the Mediterranean. Because malaria is so widespread and deadly, vulnerable populations needed some kind of protection in order to survive and reproduce, and fava bean consumption happens to ward off malarial parasites; these