This week we start a series on evolution and health. We’ll begin with an interview with Dr. Neil Shubin, author of Your Inner Fish. Dr. Shubin is a Paleontologist and a Professor of Anatomy at the University of Chicago.
Play Podcast 149
Understanding evolution helps us understand the biology behind the obesity epidemic, and the epidemics of obesity-related diseases.
Before you conclude that evolution has nothing to teach us about why we’re getting fatter think about the role evolutionary biology is already playing in medicine. Antibiotic resistance, like MRSA (Methicillin Resistant Staphlococcus Aureus), is an evolutionary phenomenon. Dr. Shubin and I discuss this in the interview. When you get a live attenuated vaccine, you are getting a vaccine made using the principles of evolutionary biology.
References:
Your Inner Fish: A Journey into the 3.5-Billion-Year History of the Human Body (Vintage)
Related posts:
- Evolutionary Biology and Health – Part Two: an Interview With James Evans, M.D., Ph.D.
- The Environment and Your Health: an Interview with Paul Auerbach, M.D.
- Mindfulness and Health: an interview with Dr. Ellen Langer
- Corn and Your Health: an Interview with Filmmaker Ian Cheney
- Is Overweight or Obese a Health Risk – or Not?
I didn’t quite understand the placement of this topic in your collection of shows, but I hope the second interview will clear things up for me. I am somewhat lost on the topic of evolution, since I don’t have an opinion either way. But I am willing to listen; maybe, since I may learn something.
Great show, Dr. Monte! You really can’t understand much about humans, or indeed the natural world as a whole, without a solid understanding of evolution. Thanks for the show.
Dr. Monte,
Thanks for putting on such a great show, I continue to hear great things from other podcasters and I’m listening to more and more of your shows.
I appreciate you taking the time to address the “controversy” of evolution at the beginning of the episode and understand the significance of understanding the human body as well as possible when discussing health and fitness topics. Over the past year or two I’ve become almost evangelical myself about the benefits of minimalist running and really learned a lot from McDougall’s “Born to Run” which relies heavily on evolutionary evidence.
I am also somewhat sympathetic to those who are likely to dispute you on the “facts” of evolution as I’m currently working towards a master’s of theology in seminary. However, instead of blindly calling all discussions of evolution “heresy” and insisting upon an “intelligent design” or whatever cover, I hope to provide a sensible voice to those of us who do believe in God and feel that too often the discussion of evolution assumes atheism as a natural conclusion and are just as “evangelical” in their assertion of atheism as the worst TV evangelists any Sunday morning.
When it comes to learning about our bodies, any source of useful information is valuable, and out of mutual respect I hope that philosophical differences can be put aside. Ultimately the sciences are going to either prove or disprove current paradigm theories, and if we can learn from Galileo, the church can avoid embarrassment by suspending judgement and if we can learn from Richard Dawkins, prominent scientific authorities can avoid coming across as prejudiced elitists by not dismissing someone simply on the basis of faith.
Hi Ryan,
Thank you for your thoughtful comment. I think you will be interested in the lectures and books of Dr. Kenneth Miller, a Cell Biologist at Brown University, the editor of the most commonly used high school biology textbook in America, a strong supporter of educating the public about evolution – and a devout Catholic.
You can watch an excellent video of a recent lecture he gave at this link:
http://fora.tv/2008/08/18/Kenneth_Miller_on_Evolution_and_Intelligent_Design
Have a great workout.
Monte
It was very cool, that Dr. Rubin (and crew) figured out that their missing link would be in rock that was (?) 325 million years old, because they knew when the descendants and ascendants were found in the fossil record. Wow: a “fish” with a neck and elbows, and walkie-things in the fins — very likely our ancestor.
It was fascinating, but the podcast was light on how evolution relates to our modern health predicaments, and especially how we should be eating.
By coincidence, last week I encountered something new, the Paleo Diet. It’s advocates say that we are not evolved to eat grain and dairy products, sugar and salt. Instead, we should be eating like our ancestors did, 10,000 years ago: meat, vegetables, fruit, nuts and roots (?). That’s close to your familiar plant-based diet prescription, Monte — leaving aside the meat. Paleo’s hold that the wild game our species ate millenia ago was much leaner (and healthier) than our modern meat. Sounds credible to me: feedlots are all about adding fat, right?
I don’t know if these Paleo people are crazy. I chanced on a podcast, featuring a guy with a seemingly strong science background — a PhD. in biochemistry (maybe?) and a former Olympic class body-builder!! It sounded good, but I haven’t read up on it yet.
If you’re interested, this page has abstracts of Paleo-related scientific papers, most with links to the journal articles. Dr. Loren Cordain is the main man, according to the podcast, and he’s featured on the linked page.
Insulin resistance is a focus of the Paleo crew — which piques my interest, since I’m a recovering diabetic (my last A1C was 5.6, joy!). The podcaster was adamant about health problems in modern societies, because of a 20-1 ratio of omega-6 to omega-3 fats in the typical American diet — asserting that it should be closer to 1-to-1. I think the guy dissed flax seed oil — he definitely was an advocate for fish oil supplementation.
I’ll email you if / when I learn more about the Paleo thing.
I am so glad you’re back! I’m passing through all the podcasts a second time — but it’s great that there are new ‘casts coming. YAY!
- Hoyt
I think the Paleo diet is an interesting concept, but I am not sold. I know of no compelling scientific reason to eat meat (lean or not), and there is data suggesting you shouldn’t. Of course, are ancestors probably weren’t eating MUCH meat, either.
Make that “our” ancestors.
I had an interview with one of the leading proponents of the Paleolithic diet. He is a respected researcher and his work is frequently cited by others writing about nutrition and health. During the interview I was either asking really stupid questions or he was having a really bad day. Whatever it was, the interview ended abruptly with him getting angry at me. I assume full responsibility for the mishap, but I regret not being able to provide you guys with the interview on the Paleo diet.
One of the things I said in the interview that appeared to upset him was that the meat people find in the grocery store today is nothing like the meat our ancestors would have hunted and eaten. The meat of our hunter gatherer ancestors was lower in fat, especially saturated fat, and higher in healthy omega-3 fats because the animals were eating grass instead of corn and they were physically active animals instead of standing shoulder to shoulder in a feedlot. I had taken this statement almost directly from one of his research papers, but I guess I said it wrong because it made him mad.
The other obvious difference is that the physical effort involved with getting meat for our ancestors was substantially greater than driving up to a drive-through window and having somebody hand you a big greasy bag of meat. They most likely expended a considerable amount of calories chasing wild animals through the woods and across the plains. That would have had a big impact on the health implications of eating meat.
But, think about this: We have not only changed the environment in which we evolved, we have also changed the environment of the animals we eat – and now they too are out of sync with their evolution which has changed their nutritional value to the people who eat them.
Understanding evolution is critical to understanding our modern health problems.
Monte
What a timely post, Dr. Monte. I actually came to the site to post about my frustrating experience reading a Paleo-centric blog, “Fuel As Rx”. Meat as medicine? Give me a break!
I do not know why any researcher would get angry when discussing his work…unless his data is not very sound.
Well, as I said, I’m sure the researcher in question got mad because I was asking what seemed to him to be stupid questions. So, it was probably my fault.
Monte