Human illnesses can be understood as damage to those adaptations that we took on at various stages in our evolution from pre-life molecules to modern Homo sapiens. Preventing these illnesses entails avoiding what causes the damage–– which too frequently are the everyday hazards of twenty-first-century life, as the chart below shows:
Level of Evolution
Cause of adaptive failure
resulting disease or problem
Pre-life
Environmental poisons
Certain birth defects
Single cell (bacteria and amoeba-like)
Viral infection
Colds/flu/HIV
Morula (sponge-like)
Cellular stress
Cancer
Chordate
Physical stress
Back pain
Fish
Excess dietary salt
Hypertension/heart disease
Amphibian
Tobacco smoke
Lung cancer/emphysema
Lower primate
Excess dietary sugar
Diabetes mellitus
Higher primate
Vitamin C deficiency
Scurvy
Ape
Excess dietary protein
Gout
Homo sapiens
Reduced dietary variety
Nutritionaldiseases/food allergies
