Mike
Carruthers:
Our evolutionary past has left us with some interesting
illnesses and conditions. For example many Asians can't drink alcohol because
when they do…
Dr.
Sharon Moalem:
It's an allergic reaction they appear drunk, their
face becomes very red and it's all because they don't have a specific gene that
allows them to break down alcohol effectively. Dr.
Sharon Moalem, author of the book Survival
of the Sickest… You
look back in history, when people started settling in towns and cities, the first
thing to go is the water supply. It becomes contaminated. And in Asia the water
was boiled and people made tea out of it. In Europe it went the other way. People
fermented everything they could get their hands on and made alcohol. And so it's
thought that Europeans have a very good ability to break down alcohol but the
downside of that is it puts them at risk for alcoholism. Whereas if you lack the
gene to breakdown alcohol - which almost half of Asians do - then you don't go
on to become an alcoholic because drinking is just not fun. Another
example of this kind of evolutionary compromise is a gene many Europeans have. This
gene is associated with high levels of cholesterol and no one ever would kind
of think that it would be a good thing to have because it's also a risk factor
for Alzheimer's. 30% of Europeans have it. And the big question is, why? Well,
having high cholesterol allows you to make vitamin D when there's not enough sun.
So, being at risk for Alzheimer's is the downside but surviving a cold winter
where there's not enough sun by making enough vitamin D is the positive flip-side. You
can link to Dr. Moalem's
website from ours: somethingyoushouldknow.net
- I'm Mike Carruthers and that's Something You Should Know. | 
