What is Darwinian medicine? What separates it from conventional medicine? And how can Darwinian medicine be applied in a clinical setting? If you are a long-time reader of this blog, you probably know the answer to all of these questions. However, if you are a new reader, or someone who hasn’t dug into the science […]
General health
Are “Bad Genes” to Blame for Your Health Problems?
The Human Genome Project (HGP), an international research project aimed at mapping all of the genes that make up the human genetic make-up, held much promise. Many scientists and laypeople alike were convinced that we would finally get the answers we need to effectively treat cancer, heart disease, and many other health conditions. The disappointment […]
What Happens When Contemporary Humans Adopt a Hunter-Gatherer Lifestyle?
Up until about 12.000 years ago, all humans lived as hunter-gatherers. This was how things had been for millions of years. Today, however, very few true hunter-gatherers are left on this planet. We’ve traded in our original way of life for a modern, high-tech existence. Most people would probably say that this is a good […]
The Pitfall of Evidence-Based Nutrition & Medicine
These days, you don’t have to look far and wide to find information about nutrition, fitness, and medicine. There are millions of blog posts, news stories, books, and magazine articles covering these topics out there. Many of these are written by people – including nutritionists, doctors, scientists, and self-proclaimed fitness experts – who use Randomized […]
Evolutionary Mismatches: 6 Videos That Explain Why We Get Sick
I talk a lot about evolutionary mismatches here on Darwinian-Medicine.com – and for good reason. Many, if not most, of the chronic ills that affect contemporary human populations are caused by a mismatch between genes and environment. By combining the evolutionary discordance/mismatch model with other key concepts of Darwinian Medicine (e.g., trade-offs), we get a […]
Inflammation: The Root Cause of Chronic Disease?
Your immune system is magnificent. It has been shaped over eons of time in response to environmental pressures. We humans no longer have to compete with other animals for food or escape large predators that lurk in the wild, but that doesn’t mean our struggle for existence is over. We still have to change in […]
5 Signs Your Gut Microbiome is Out of Balance
You are a superorganism! Your body is home to trillions of microorganisms (the human microbiota) that co-exist side by side with your human self. The collective genome of these microorganisms – the human microbiome – can be thought of as an extension of our own genome, in the sense that our microbial inhabitants carry out […]
The Indoor Microbiome and Toxic Mold: Is Your House Making You Sick?
The ancestral health movement is built on the premise that there’s a mismatch between the human genome and our current milieu. Humans evolved to live as hunter-gatherers in natural environments, not as office workers in large, polluted cities. This mismatch theory underlies pretty much everything we talk about in the evolutionary health community, and a […]
10 Science-Backed Ways to Combat Chronic Inflammation
Scientific research over the past several decades has made it clear that systemic, low-grade chronic inflammation, a condition characterized by two- to threefold elevated levels of several pro-inflammatory mediators such as C-reactive protein, tumor necrosis factor alpha, and interleukin 6 in systemic circulation, is linked to many – if not most – of the chronic […]
What Captive Gorillas Can Teach Us About Health & Medicine
Imagine standing in the middle of a rainforest taking in all of the stimuli around you; the sound of birds singing, the rustling of leaves in the light wind, and the sight of a monkey high up in one of the many trees around you. The immediate impression of such a scene might be that […]