Evolutionary Medicine

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Gluckman ◽  
Felicia Low
Keyword(s):  
Human Health ◽  
Clinical Medicine ◽  
Disease Risk ◽  
Balancing Selection ◽  
Reproductive Period ◽  
Evolutionary Medicine ◽  
Factual Knowledge ◽  
Health And Disease ◽  
Evolutionary Concepts ◽  
Evolutionary Perspectives

Evolutionary medicine, sometimes referred to as Darwinian medicine, is an emerging academic field that employs evolutionary principles to aid in the understanding of human health and disease at the levels of both the individual and the population. While its main value lies in giving an ultimate (evolutionary) perspective to patterns of health and disease, there are areas of clinical medicine and public health where it has direct application. Whereas the bulk of clinical medicine is focused on issues of proximate causation and, in particular, pathophysiological mechanisms and their treatment, evolutionary perspectives focus on understanding how and why traits evolved and how they confer greater or lesser disease risk. Evolutionary perspectives also give weight to ecological dimensions, particularly the positioning of individuals within their social and environmental context, and also their relationship to other organisms, including gut microbiota, parasites, and infectious agents. A core principle of evolutionary medicine is that selection has operated to optimize reproductive fitness, and that this is not the same as selection for health or longevity. Indeed, selection pressures wane with age, and humans have had increasing median lifespans in recent centuries, leading to greater incidence of diseases that occur in the post-reproductive period. Another distinctive feature is an appreciation of the role of cultural evolution and technology in changing the environments within which humans now live—changes that can exaggerate the mismatch between evolved biology and the environment, with health consequences. Selection can occur not only at the level of the whole organism but also at the level of a cellular clone, and evolutionary concepts have become important in understanding the progression of cancer. More controversially, evolutionary concepts are contributing to understanding the origin of human behavior at both an individual and a group level, and also to understanding some psychiatric symptomatology. Evolutionary history also contributes to disease risk through anatomical and biochemical vestiges such as the appendix or the lack of the gene to synthesize ascorbic acid (and prevent scurvy); through genetic mechanisms such as founder effects and balancing selection; and through the evolution of defense mechanisms that may operate excessively (e.g., autoimmune disorders), which can explain much common symptomatology (e.g., fever). Being well versed in evolutionary concepts enables medical students and clinicians to integrate factual knowledge of cellular biology, physiology, and anatomy into a meaningful framework, thus promoting a better understanding of human health and disease. This sentiment is being embraced by a growing number of medical schools worldwide as evidenced by the inclusion of evolutionary medicine into the core curricula.

scholarly journals Oxidative Stress Indexes for Diagnosis of Health or Disease in Humans

2019 ◽  
Vol 2019 ◽  
pp. 1-32 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martha A. Sánchez-Rodríguez ◽  
Víctor Manuel Mendoza-Núñez
Keyword(s):  
Oxidative Stress ◽  
Human Health ◽  
Clinical Medicine ◽  
The State ◽  
Stress Index ◽  
Clinical Prognosis ◽  
Oxidative Stress Index ◽  
Health And Disease ◽  
Antioxidant Markers ◽  
The Relationship

Oxidative stress (OS) is the imbalance between oxidant and antioxidant molecules, in favor of oxidants, that causes aging and disease. Many studies have been published that demonstrate the relationship between OS and human health and disease; however, the following questions arise: (i) how are we sure that the OS is present in a biological process? (ii) Is the OS reported in the different investigations equivalent? (iii) What are the best oxidant and antioxidant markers for OS diagnosis? (iv) Can we establish the types and the intensity of the OS? (v) Does OS index could be useful for research and/or application in clinical medicine? In this regard, several indexes have been proposed to measure OS in humans relative to the state of health and disease, among which the following can be highlighted: Oxidative Stress Index (OSI), Tiol Ratios (-SH/TT, -SS/-SH, and-SS/TT), Glutathione Ratio (GSSG/GSH), Oxidative Stress Score (OSS), and OXY-index. Therefore, the aim of this review is to present the state of the art of knowledge about OS indexes for diagnosis of health or disease in humans. We searched for articles in English or Spanish in the PubMed/MEDLINE and Scopus electronic databases published up until May 2019. The keywords used were “oxidative stress,” “index,” and “oxidative stress index.” It was identified 11479 records in both databases, and 490 articles were analyzed. Our review suggests that all indexes analyzed allow diagnose and differentiate the OS related to human health and disease. Also, the studies on OSI, Oxy-score, and OSS indexes have proven to be reliable, practical, and with clinical utility. However, it is necessary to continue with longitudinal studies, especially assess the usefulness of the indexes in the clinical prognosis, and make comparative studies between the different indexes.

scholarly journals The Impact of Nutrition and Environmental Epigenetics on Human Health and Disease

2018 ◽  
Vol 19 (11) ◽  
pp. 3425 ◽  
Author(s):  
Céline Tiffon
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Factors ◽  
Human Health ◽  
Disease Risk ◽  
Cellular Level ◽  
Epigenetic Modifications ◽  
Environmental Signals ◽  
Environmental Epigenetics ◽  
Health And Disease ◽  
Potential Strategy ◽  
The Impact

Environmental epigenetics describes how environmental factors affect cellular epigenetics and, hence, human health. Epigenetic marks alter the spatial conformation of chromatin to regulate gene expression. Environmental factors with epigenetic effects include behaviors, nutrition, and chemicals and industrial pollutants. Epigenetic mechanisms are also implicated during development in utero and at the cellular level, so environmental exposures may harm the fetus by impairing the epigenome of the developing organism to modify disease risk later in life. By contrast, bioactive food components may trigger protective epigenetic modifications throughout life, with early life nutrition being particularly important. Beyond their genetics, the overall health status of an individual may be regarded as an integration of many environmental signals starting at gestation and acting through epigenetic modifications. This review explores how the environment affects the epigenome in health and disease, with a particular focus on cancer. Understanding the molecular effects of behavior, nutrients, and pollutants might be relevant for developing preventative strategies and personalized heath programs. Furthermore, by restoring cellular differentiation, epigenetic drugs could represent a potential strategy for the treatment of many diseases including cancer.

scholarly journals Microbial Evolutionary Medicine – from theory to clinical practice

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sandra Breum Andersen ◽  
B. Jesse Shapiro ◽  
Christina Vandenbroucke-Grauls ◽  
Marjon G.J. de Vos
Keyword(s):  
Antibiotic Resistance ◽  
Human Health ◽  
Evolutionary Biology ◽  
Clinical Microbiology ◽  
Evolutionary Medicine ◽  
Clinical Expertise ◽  
Microbe Interactions ◽  
Health And Disease ◽  
Etiological Agents ◽  
Traditional Paradigm

Bacteria and other microbes play a crucial role in human health and disease. Medicine and clinical microbiology have traditionally attempted to identify the etiological agents that causes disease, and how to eliminate them. Yet this traditional paradigm is becoming inadequate for dealing with a changing disease landscape. Major challenges to human health are noncommunicable chronic diseases, often driven by altered immunity and inflammation, and persistent communicable infections whose agents harbor antibiotic resistance. It is increasingly recognized that microbe-microbe interactions, as well as human-microbe interactions are important. Here, we review the “Evolutionary Medicine” framework to study how microbial communities influence human health. This approach aims to predict and manipulate microbial influences on human health by integrating ecology, evolutionary biology, microbiology, bioinformatics and clinical expertise. We focus on the potential promise of evolutionary medicine to address three key challenges: 1) detecting microbial transmission; 2) predicting antimicrobial resistance; 3) understanding microbe-microbe and human-microbe interactions in health and disease, in the context of the microbiome.

scholarly journals Postmenopausal Health and Disease from the Perspective of Evolutionary Medicine

2013 ◽  
Vol 34 (3) ◽  
pp. 61-86 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew W. Froehle
Keyword(s):  
Behavioral Ecology ◽  
Evolutionary History ◽  
Disease Risk ◽  
Human Life ◽  
Evolutionary Medicine ◽  
Deep Roots ◽  
Disease Rates ◽  
Comparative Demography ◽  
Technological Developments ◽  
Health And Disease

Menopause normally occurs between 45-55 years of age, marks the end of a woman’s reproductive lifespan, and is accompanied by a reduction in estrogen that has substantial physiological effects. The standard medical view is that these changes underlie high postmenopausal disease rates, defining menopause as an estrogen deficiency condition needing treatment. This view stems from the idea that extended postmenopausal longevity is a consequence of recent technological developments, such that women now outlive their evolutionarily-programmed physiological functional lifespan.Increasingly, however, researchers employing an evolutionary medicine framework have used data from comparative demography, comparative biology, and human behavioral ecology to challenge the mainstream medical view. Instead, these data suggest that a two-decade human postmenopausal lifespan is an evolved, species-typical trait that distinguishes humans from other primates, and has deep roots in our evolutionary past. This view rejects the inevitability of high rates of postmenopausal disease and the concept of menopause as pathology. Rather, high postmenopausal disease risk likely stems from specific lifestyle differences between industrialized societies and foraging societies of the type that dominated human evolutionary history. Women in industrialized societies tend to have higher estrogen levels during premenopausal life, and experience a greater reduction in estrogen across menopause than do women living in foraging societies, with potentially important physiological consequences. The anthropological approach to understanding postmenopausal disease risk reframes the postmenopausal lifespan as an integral period in the human life cycle, and offers alternative avenues for disease prevention by highlighting the importance of lifestyle effects on health.

scholarly journals Therapeutic and medicinal uses of lycopene: a systematic review

2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 1195 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bishal Joshi ◽  
Sanjit Kumar Kar ◽  
Prem Kumar Yadav ◽  
Shankar Yadav ◽  
Laxmi Shrestha ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Human Health ◽  
Disease Risk ◽  
Cardiovascular Disease Risk ◽  
Antioxidant Properties ◽  
Clinical Trial Data ◽  
Dietary Intakes ◽  
Functional Feature ◽  
Medicinal Uses ◽  
Health And Disease ◽  
Tomato Products

Lycopene is a carotenoid present in fruits and vegetables. The richest sources of lycopene are tomatoes and tomato products. The beneficial effects of lycopene in human health and disease are mainly associated with its antioxidant properties. Lycopene is a carotenoid with strongest antioxidant property because of its capability of quenching the singlet oxygen. Eleven conjugated double bonds of lycopene give it a deep red color and are responsible for its antioxidant activity which is major functional feature of lycopene. Dietary intakes of tomatoes and tomato products containing lycopene have been shown to be associated with decreased risk of chronic diseases such as cancer and cardiovascular diseases in numerous studies. Although there are evidences from many epidemiological and cell culture and animal studies explaining the inverse relationship between lycopene and cancer or cardiovascular disease risk, more clinical trial data is needed to support this hypothesis. In this article we outline the possible mechanisms of action of lycopene and review the current understanding of its role in human health and disease prevention.

scholarly journals Emerging trends and focus of human gastrointestinal microbiome research from 2010–2021: a visualized study

2021 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Xingzhu Yuan ◽  
Chengting Chang ◽  
Xinrong Chen ◽  
Ka Li
Keyword(s):  
Human Health ◽  
Clinical Medicine ◽  
Detection Methods ◽  
Knowledge Map ◽  
Gastrointestinal Microbiome ◽  
Ongoing Research ◽  
The Past ◽  
Microbiome Research ◽  
Health And Disease ◽  
Visualized Study

Abstract Background The gastrointestinal microbiome is an important component of the human body and is closely related to human health and disease. This study describes the hotspots of the human gastrointestinal microbiome research and its evolution in the past decade, evaluates the scientific cooperation network, and finally predicts the field’s future development trend using bibliometric analysis and a visualized study. Methods We searched the original articles from January 2010 to February 2021 in the Scopus database using the term “gastrointestinal microbiome” and its synonyms. CiteSpace was used to construct country and author co-occurrence map; conduct journal, citation cocitation analysis, and reference co-citation knowledge map; and form a keywords co-occurrence map, a clustering knowledge map, timeline view of keywords, and burst term map. Result A total of 4444 documents published from January 2010 to February 2021 were analysed. In approximately the past decade, the number of articles on the human gastrointestinal microbiome has increased rapidly, and the research topics focus on different populations, research methods, and detection methods. All countries and regions in the world, led by the US, are studying the human gastrointestinal microbiome, and many research teams with close cooperation have been formed. The research has been published extensively in microbiology journals and clinical medicine journals, and the highly cited articles mainly describe the relationship between gastrointestinal microorganisms and human health and disease. Regarding the research emphasis, researchers' exploration of the human gastrointestinal microbiome (2011–2013) was at a relatively macro and superficial stage and sought to determine how the gastrointestinal microbiome relates to humans. From 2014 to 2017, increasingly more studies were conducted to determine the interaction between human gastrointestinal flora and various organs and systems. In addition, researchers (2018–2021) focused on the gastrointestinal microbial community and the diversity of certain types of microbes. Conclusion Over time, the scope of the research on the clinical uses of the gastrointestinal microbiome gradually increased, and the contents were gradually deepened and developed towards a more precise level. The study of the human gastrointestinal microbiome is an ongoing research hotspot and contributes to human health.

scholarly journals Gene/Environment Interaction in Atherosclerosis: An Example of Clinical Medicine as Seen from the Evolutionary Perspective

2010 ◽  
Vol 2010 ◽  
pp. 1-3 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gerhard Mertens
Keyword(s):  
Clinical Medicine ◽  
Medical Science ◽  
Public Health Problem ◽  
Evolutionary Medicine ◽  
Major Public Health Problem ◽  
Environment Interaction ◽  
Gene Environment Interaction ◽  
Gene Environment ◽  
Genes And Environment ◽  
Health And Disease

Evolutionary medicine is the application of evolution theory to understanding health and disease. It provides a complementary scientific approach to the present mechanistic explanations that dominate medical science, and particularly medical education. The chronic multifactorial disease of atherosclerosis clearly illustrates the Darwinian paradigm. Recent research, combining the effects of genes and environment, has provided surprising clues to the pathogenesis of this major public health problem. This example makes a strong case for recognizing evolution biology as a basic science for medicine.

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