A Short Note on Evolutionary Medicine Anthropology

Received: 26-Jan-2022, Manuscript No. jem-22-60158;;Accepted Date: Feb 16, 2022; Editor assigned: 28-Jan-2022, Pre QC No. jem-22-60158(PQ); Reviewed: 11-Feb-2022, QC No. jem-22-60158; Revised: 16-Feb-2022, Manuscript No. jem-22-60158(R); Published: 25-Feb-2022, DOI: 10.4303/jem/236046

Introduction

Biological anthropologists have been contributing to what is now known as evolutionary medicine for more than a half-century, despite the fact that the term itself did not become widely used until the early 1990s. Nutrition, reproductive health, and chronic disease are three areas where anthropological contributions have been particularly significant.

Description

The health consequences of evolved biology in the context of modern diets, lifestyles, and contraceptive practises seen in industrialised nations are a major focus in nutrition and reproduction. Anthropology’s contributions include efforts to assess and redefine the concept of “normal” in health indicators, a focus on developmental processes as well as proximate and ultimate forces influencing health, and a better understanding of contemporary health disparities. Biological anthropologists have been contributing to what is now known as evolutionary medicine for more than a half-century, despite the fact that the term itself did not become widely used until the early 1990s. Nutrition, reproductive health, and chronic disease are three areas where anthropological contributions have been particularly significant. The health consequences of evolved biology in the context of modern diets, lifestyles, and contraceptive practises seen in industrialised nations are a major focus in nutrition and reproduction. Anthropology’s contributions include efforts to assess and redefine the concept of “normal” in health indicators, a focus on developmental processes as well as proximate and ultimate forces influencing health, and a better understanding of contemporary health disparities. The study of generation-to-generation changes in human morphology that occurred in historical times and continue to occur in modern populations as a result of evolutionary forces helps to explain medical conditions and warns clinicians that their current practises may influence future humans. In addition, analysing historic tissue specimens such as mummies is critical in addressing the molecular evolution of pathogens, the human genome, and their coadaptation’s

Medical anthropology is a branch of anthropology that uses social, cultural, biological, and linguistic anthropology to better understand the factors that influence health and well-being (broadly defined), the experience and distribution of illness, the prevention and treatment of illness, healing processes, the social relations of therapy management, and the cultural significance and utilisation of pluralistic medical systems. Medical anthropology draws on a wide range of theoretical perspectives. It is as concerned with popular health culture as it is with bio scientific epidemiology, the social construction of knowledge, and science politics as it is with scientific discovery and hypothesis testing. Medical anthropologists study how the interrelationships between humans and other species, as well as cultural norms and social institutions, affect the health of individuals, larger social formations, and the environment. Although evolutionary biology is an important basic science in medicine, only a small number of doctors and medical researchers are familiar with its most important principles. Most medical schools have geneticists who understand evolution, but only a few have an evolutionary biologist on staff to suggest other possible applications. The gap between evolutionary biology and medicine is enormous. The question is whether they provide enough value to each other to make building bridges worthwhile. What advantages could be anticipated if evolution were fully applied to medical problems? What impact would studying medical problems have on evolutionary research? Is it necessary for doctors to understand evolution, or is it primarily useful for researchers? What practical steps will be taken to promote the use of evolutionary biology in the areas of medicine where it has the most potential? Other fields, such as infectious disease research and ageing research, demonstrate the dramatic recent progress enabled by evolutionary insights. Applying evolutionary principles to other fields, such as epidemiology, psychiatry, and understanding the regulation of bodily defences, remains an open possibility [1-4].

Conclusion

Aside from the practicality of specific applications, an evolutionary viewpoint fundamentally challenges the prevalent but fundamentally incorrect metaphor of the body as a machine designed by an engineer. Bodies are susceptible to disease – and remarkably resilient – precisely because they are not pre-programmed machines. Instead, they are collections of compromises shaped by natural selection in small increments to maximize reproduction rather than health.

Acknowledgment

None

Conflict of Interest

None

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Copyright: © Mamabolo B. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited