Origins Of Disease: An Evolutionary Perspective

One of the leading health threats to humans is cancer. However, wild animals rarely get this disease. Why are humans more at risk of developing cancer? When humans became bipedal in Africa, they also developed bigger brains. It seems this created the ideal conditions for cancer cell growth.

Scientists discovered that under certain conditions, the part of the fish brain that works to protect them from natural predators goes out of control and causes depression. When mammals began living in groups, they developed traits that lead to a similar, poorly regulated response in the brain. This program also introduces the latest treatments.

According to the World Health Organization, heart disease is the leading cause of death in the world. Why do people get heart disease and how can we prevent it? This program examines how the human predisposition for heart disease was the price for evolution.

The human brain has undergone dramatic evolutionary advances. Today, however, humans suffer from strokes because brain size increased too rapidly during the course of human evolution. The blood supply to our brains increased threefold during the last 2.5 million years, but the walls of our blood vessels didn't adjust to this change and remain fragile.