Reddit Reddit reviews Survival of the Sickest: The Surprising Connections Between Disease and Longevity (P.S.)

We found 11 Reddit comments about Survival of the Sickest: The Surprising Connections Between Disease and Longevity (P.S.). Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.

Science & Math
Books
Genetics
Evolution
Survival of the Sickest: The Surprising Connections Between Disease and Longevity (P.S.)
Harper Perennial
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11 Reddit comments about Survival of the Sickest: The Surprising Connections Between Disease and Longevity (P.S.):

u/Baeocystin · 256 pointsr/askscience

There is a book called Survival of the Sickest I think would interest you.

The tl;dr is that in populations that are under constant pathogen challenge (think malaria in Africa, or tuberculosis in Europe) you do see changes in the genome to reflect it.

But the changes are not 'for the better'. What is selected for is surviving long enough to pass on your genes. So what we wind up with is sickle-cell anemia, which kills its homozygous carriers, and can cripple its survivors and shorten their lifespans, but also conveys resistance to malaria. Or, in the case of tuberculosis, the cystic fibrosis gene does the same- kill its homozygous carriers, allow its heterozygous ones to live long enough to have children and avoid tb.

In both cases, the populations are more suited for living in their conditions than an outsider would likely be. But (unfortunately for us), 'more suited' does not imply 'more robust'.

u/Jhaza · 8 pointsr/SubredditDrama

Specifically, it shows that there is a qualitative difference between those with and without the disorder, both physiologically and in drug response; thus, whether you want to call it a disorder or not, it does describe a distinct subpopulation that it is meaningful to discuss as a group, distinct from other individuals who may share some traits with members of the group - that is, that it exists. You say that we know it exists (which is true!) and suggest that the debate is on classification of that subpopulation (reasonable!), but I don't think that's universally true. I don't really have any evidence to offer other than anecdotes, so take that as you will.

Incidentally, the question of "is it really a disorder or just a normal variation, possibly with a purpose?" is really, really interesting. There's a book called Survival of the Sickest that makes some very interesting connections between ostensibly-harmful disorders and possibly historical (or current!) benefits that derive from the same trait/gene/what have you.

u/KarnickelEater · 5 pointsr/news

Evolution is not a one-way street of "progress to better". It is just adaptation, nothing more. Yes you know, you think. But adaptation works equally way in the other direction.

The consequences of "all out war" among species is a full concentration of all efforts on just that "war". You will NOT get better. You may actually LOSE. Sure, you'll be able to withstand some diseases. I recommend the book "Survival of the sickest" (#). Each time you gain something, you lose something else in the process! If your body needs to fight diseases much harder other things will suffer. The result of such selection will NOT be some "super-man". Look around you - we ARE the result of such ruthless selection.

And by the way (an aside), if you believe the fairy tale that selection has stopped and we now live much longer because of medicine in his lecture "Return of the Microbes" Professor William Ayliffe, he made an aside about life-expectancy in 19th century England:

> Now, look at the modern day. Look where cancer is now. But, guess what? We still die! And what is interesting, if you take out the childhood mortality, the Victorian person between 1850 and 1880 lived slightly longer, if he was a male, than you do today. So, your life expectancy at five, in England, as a male, in 1870 was slightly longer than it is now, which is an extraordinary statistic, slightly shorter then if you were a female.

So our biggest achievement for life-expectancy is lowering child mortality. The pills for the older generation don't seem to do that much (for life-expectancy, they may still be good for quality of life).

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(#) I have read the most highly rated negative review on that page and I have no idea what book it is talking about. It seems the reviewer has taken issue with some minor side-issue that I can't even remember having read. So he may be right about that, but as I said, I can't even remember it was in the book. So while I usually like those negative reviews more, this one is completely bogus. So read the book and decide for yourself based on its actual contents. The comments to that review are completely insane, they have nothing at all to do with the book. People are just going off on their own discussions, ignoring that it's supposed to be about that book. And I followed that review's advice and googled tha author. The anti-blog posts I read had not a single substantive argument, they were all ad-hominem attacks. So the author may be all they call him, but none of the links I followed to see their prove bothered to show any. Besides, having read that book some time ago I'm quite baffled what the big deal is? Those "anti" voices are so extremely venomous, I have no clue what got under their skin. It doesn't look like scientific well-reasoned argumentation is their strong suite.
Here's one of those anti-voices. What am I supposed to make of that??? And again: The things they criticize may be right, but they are no substantial part of that book (hey, I read it). So if something is substantially wrong with it, why do they attack points I can't even remember he made?

u/texascience · 3 pointsr/diabetes

You should read Survival of the Sickest by Sharon Moalem and Jonathan Prince. It has other explanations of how certain genetic variations helped populations survive.

u/finepopla · 2 pointsr/booksuggestions

I enjoyed the book Survival of the Sickest by Sharon Moalem. It's all about the evolution of diseases and using that information to diagnose and cure them. It was surprisingly gripping!

u/herecomesthasun · 2 pointsr/Anxiety

Okay, I've been thinking about this and have many things that have influenced me but here's a few!
this book was wonderful for understnaing the basics of cell biology when I began my journey. It's also a great reference.
For fun reading really enjoyed survival of the sickest and Sharon Moalem's other books as well. He's a medical doctor who also does genetic disease research.
For concepts I struggled with I would find academic videos on you tube. There are some really great resources out there for quick refreshers! I don't have specific channels to recommend though, it just depends on the topic.
After having a good foundation and starting to ask more specific questions it's time dive in to scientific literature! I started out with review articles in my field (membrane trafficking). These are great because they summarize years worth of discoveries in a few pages, and also cite the original papers where you can go to learn more!
After having a good grasp on the past research in order to keep me up to date I use PubCrawler. Its a website that automatically searches pubmed for all of the things you are interested then sends you a list of new papers to dive in to. I have mine delivered to my inbox every monday morning.
Academic papers have a bit of a learning curve before you really begin to digest them, but once you get the hang of it it takes you to literally the edge of current human knowledge (how cool!), and is more real than a polished textbook which is just trying to get the main idea across.
I hope that helps!

u/yourmomcantspell · 1 pointr/answers

Check out this book. It is fascinating and one of my faves of all time. Easy to read and understand too if you aren't very keen on science speak. http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0060889667 sorry for the long link, I'm on mobile.

u/jedipunk · 1 pointr/explainlikeimfive

There is a book about diseases and how they benefitted humans throughout history.


Survival of the Sickest

From one of the comments:
Dr. Moalem elegantly explains why medical conditions that are deemed to be diseases today often helped our ancestors survive and reproduce in difficult environments. Take hemochromatosis, a hereditary condition that causes iron to accumulate in a person's internal organs, eventually leading to death. Although the gene that causes hemochromatosis was once thought to be rare, research completed in 1996 found that it's actually surprisingly common. Why wouldn't such a terrible disease have been "bred out" of our species long ago? The answer is that hemochromatosis reduces the amount of iron available to iron-loving bacteria, such as the bubonic plague that depopulated Europe in the mid-1300s. A person living in the Middle Ages with the hemochromatosis gene would have eventually died from iron build up, but in the meantime would have have had a smaller chance of dying from the plague and other iron-loving infections--in an age when few people lived past the age of 50, the disease resistance conferred by hemochromatosis far outweighed the disadvantage that would have materialized if the person carrying the gene had lived to old age. People with hemochromatosis reproduced and passed the gene one to their heirs; those without it died of the plague, without children.

u/iscreamtruck · 1 pointr/science

first heard about it here. Interesting book and ideas.

u/SlothMold · 1 pointr/booksuggestions

Survival of the Sickest was an interesting read, though some of the conclusions seemed shaky.

u/i_am_scared_of_truth · 0 pointsr/medicine

Interesting reading on the same topic.