Survival of the Sickest by Dr. Sharon Moalem is a novel that investigates genetic disorders/ diseases and how they might have once facilitated our survival. This particular novel highlights a few disorders and diseases and delves into their history of how they might have benefitted the human race at some point. After all, Moalem comments, “It’s a book about life- yours, ours, and that of every little living thing under the sun” (ix).
A common theme throughout the book is that biology will select for the disease that will kill you after several decades rather than allowing a disease that will kill you much sooner. One notable example would be the correlation of the Black Plague and hemochromatosis. While the Black plague ran amok throughout …show more content…
Another interesting factor of the novel is the interaction of the environment and organisms around us. For example, sunlight, an inorganic substance can influence our bodily health. Moalem states that sunlight “simultaneously helps your body to create vitamin D and destroys your body’s reserves of folic acid” (49). Therefore, acquisition of sunlight needs to be at a careful balance to ensure optimum health. This leads to there being a wide variety of skin tones to make sure the human populus is able to thrive in certain climates. Where there is more sunlight, such as in Africa, there is more need to protect the body’s reserves of folic acid. Hence, there is much more melanocytes, the cells that include melanin to protect bodies against the sun. So skin color is much lighter than those with less sunlight such as up north need less melanin and melanocytes in order to synthesize sufficient levels of vitamin D. Where environmental factors can push for natural selection over generations, they can also change the human genome in less than a lifetime. For example, Moalem cites McClintok, who studied “jumping genes” through corn. She concluded that organisms, when stressed could change sequences of DNA. This ended up changing the status …show more content…
With just a simple idea, further research of the human genotype and diseases can prepare and defend against future diseases. This teaches the basic mechanism of natural selection, and with that knowledge we can probably develop new ways to tamper with the human genotype to protect against genetic disorders.
Overall, I found this book entertaining, I did not like the off topic vignettes. While learning little theories about why humans have diabetes today was interesting, I did not feel like anti-freeze frogs were particularly interesting. It was as if Moalem was trying in push in several other stories at once. This is not objective, but I found Moalem to seem rather condescending as if he wasn’t explaining but rather telling, especially since a few of his theories are not completely accepted by the scientific community. This was a good read, but I wouldn’t recommend it to
A common theme throughout the book is that biology will select for the disease that will kill you after several decades rather than allowing a disease that will kill you much sooner. One notable example would be the correlation of the Black Plague and hemochromatosis. While the Black plague ran amok throughout …show more content…
Another interesting factor of the novel is the interaction of the environment and organisms around us. For example, sunlight, an inorganic substance can influence our bodily health. Moalem states that sunlight “simultaneously helps your body to create vitamin D and destroys your body’s reserves of folic acid” (49). Therefore, acquisition of sunlight needs to be at a careful balance to ensure optimum health. This leads to there being a wide variety of skin tones to make sure the human populus is able to thrive in certain climates. Where there is more sunlight, such as in Africa, there is more need to protect the body’s reserves of folic acid. Hence, there is much more melanocytes, the cells that include melanin to protect bodies against the sun. So skin color is much lighter than those with less sunlight such as up north need less melanin and melanocytes in order to synthesize sufficient levels of vitamin D. Where environmental factors can push for natural selection over generations, they can also change the human genome in less than a lifetime. For example, Moalem cites McClintok, who studied “jumping genes” through corn. She concluded that organisms, when stressed could change sequences of DNA. This ended up changing the status …show more content…
With just a simple idea, further research of the human genotype and diseases can prepare and defend against future diseases. This teaches the basic mechanism of natural selection, and with that knowledge we can probably develop new ways to tamper with the human genotype to protect against genetic disorders.
Overall, I found this book entertaining, I did not like the off topic vignettes. While learning little theories about why humans have diabetes today was interesting, I did not feel like anti-freeze frogs were particularly interesting. It was as if Moalem was trying in push in several other stories at once. This is not objective, but I found Moalem to seem rather condescending as if he wasn’t explaining but rather telling, especially since a few of his theories are not completely accepted by the scientific community. This was a good read, but I wouldn’t recommend it to