(R)evolutionary Medicine: 8 Interviews That’ll Enrich Your Mind

Over the past two years, interviews with some of the world’s leading experts on various evolution-centered medical issues have been published here on Darwinian-Medicine.com. If you haven’t already checked out all of the interviews, then now’s your chance…

The interviews of Darwinian medicine

Every interview that has appeared here on the site has a story behind it. The interview subjects certainly weren’t picked at random. I’m very selective about who I interview. I only approach individuals whose work I’m familiar with and find enticing, who are specialists in a specific medical area, and who think in a Darwinian way. If the person in question has something special to offer that few or no one else can bring to the table, then that’s a huge plus. I’m certainly open to interviewing someone who I don’t completely agree with on everything; however, I don’t want to give a voice to someone who I don’t feel “deserve” to be given one. I also try to avoid being repetitive, in the sense that I’ve sought to explore a new topic for every interview.

With that being said, let’s get to the interviews…

Anthony J. Basile

– Profile: Anthony J. Basile at Arizona State University
– Academic degree: MSc in Nutrition
– Speciality: Health and nutrition in an evolutionary context
– Scientific publications: Anthony J. Basile on PubMed
– Selected publication: Status of evolutionary medicine within the field of nutrition and dietetics: A survey of professionals and students.
– Interview: Are Nutritionists Ready to Embrace Evolutionary Science? 10 Questions with Researcher Anthony J. Basile, MS, NDTR

Quote from the interview:

The most important thing that evolutionary medicine offers to the conventional healthcare system is the evolutionary perspective of why a disease exists in the first place. Causality in biology can either be a proximate or ultimate cause. An evolutionary perspective supplies the answer for the ultimate cause.

Pedro Carrera Bastos

– Profile: Pedro Carrera Bastos on ResearchGate
– Academic degree: MS in Human Nutrition
– Speciality: Evolutionary health and nutrition
– Scientific publications: Pedro Carrera Bastos on PubMed
– Selected publication: The western diet and lifestyle and diseases of civilization
– Interview: Do Traditional People Hold the Key to a Healthy Life? 15 Questions with Researcher Pedro Carrera Bastos

Quote from the interview:

… hunter-gatherers, horticulturalists, and other populations minimally affected by modern habits exhibit superior body composition, physical fitness, and health markers compared to typical “healthy” citizens of industrialized nations.

Bodo Melnik

– Profile: Bodo Melnik on ResearchGate
– Academic degree: MD
– Speciality: Acne vulgaris, the physiological effects of milk consumption, and mTORC1 signaling
– Scientific publications: Bodo Melnik on PubMed
– Selected publication: Milk’s Role as an Epigenetic Regulator in Health and Disease
– Interview: Is it Healthy to Drink Milk? 10 Questions with Bodo Melnik (MD); Professor of Dermatology, University of Osnabrück, Germany

Quote from the interview:

… milk is not a simple food but a most sophisticated endocrine signaling system of mammals to promote postnatal growth, let´s compare it to a specialized form of postnatal doping.

Chris Kuzawa

– Profile: Chris Kuzawa at Northwestern University
– Academic degree: PhD in Anthropology
– Speciality: Evolutionary theory and human life history and development, in particular the developmental origins of adult health and disease
– Scientific publications: Chris Kuzawa on PubMed
– Selected publication: Early Homo, plasticity and the extended evolutionary synthesis
– Interview: How Developmental Experiences Shape Our Health – 10 Questions With Chris Kuzawa (PhD)

Quote from the interview:

I see some of the developmental responses made by the fetus as having characteristics consistent with a possible adaptive function. That implicitly presumes that natural selection has shaped aspects of the mother’s signal, the fetal response, or both.

Iver Mysterud

– Profile: Iver Mysterud on ResearchGate
– Academic degree: PhD in Biology
– Speciality: Health, medicine, human behavior, and environmental problems in a biological and evolutionary context
– Scientific publications: Iver Mysterud on PubMed
– Selected publication: Evolutionary Health Promotion
– Interview: How Darwinian Medicine Can Transform Human Health – An Interview With Iver Mysterud (PhD)

Quote from the interview:

Using an evolutionary approach to medicine more generally will link medicine more closely to evolutionary biology. It will provide a better approach to finding out how humans are equipped to cope with disease.

Joe Alcock

– Profile: Joe Alcock at The University of New Mexico
– Academic degree: MD
– Speciality: Evolutionary medicine and the human microbiota
– Scientific publications: Joe Alcock on PubMed
– Selected publication: Is eating behavior manipulated by the gastrointestinal microbiota? Evolutionary pressures and potential mechanisms
– Interview: Do Gut Bacteria Control Your Appetite? 15 Questions With Dr. Joe Alcock

Quote from the interview:

One possibility is that microbes hijack our nervous systems with neurotransmitters and appetite peptides that mimic our own. If so, our food choices may be less an issue of willpower, and more the result of our gut bacteria.

Begoña Ruiz-Núñez

– Profile: Begoña Ruiz-Núñez on ResearchGate
– Academic degree: PhD in Medical Sciences
– Speciality: Evolutionary health & nutrition and clinical psychoneuroimmunology
– Scientific publications: Begoña Ruiz-Núñez on PubMed
– Selected publication: Lifestyle and nutritional imbalances associated with Western diseases: causes and consequences of chronic systemic low-grade inflammation in an evolutionary context
– Interview: What Are the Root Causes of Modern Illness? 16 Questions With Researcher and Therapist Begoña Ruiz Núñez

Quote from the interview:

In our Western society, we are constantly attacking our bodies; we don’t allow them to recover. We’re not giving them what they need to reach that homeostatic state. That is the big difference between us and our Paleolithic era ancestors.

William Parker

– Profile: William Parker at Duke University School of Medicine
– Academic degree: PhD in Chemistry
– Speciality: Immunology, biota alteration, and helminthic therapy
– Scientific publications: William Parker on PubMed
– Selected publication: Evolutionary biology and anthropology suggest biome reconstitution as a necessary approach toward dealing with immune disorders
– Interview: Can Worms Cure Disease? 17 Questions With Dr. William Parker

Quote from the interview:

Besides biota alteration, chronic psychological stress, sedentary lifestyles, inflammatory diets, and vitamin D deficiency need to be the highest priorities for our health care system. If we don’t address all of these issues, the best we can ever hope for is a sick-care system that treats disease, not a health care system that protects the population health.