Joining the ranks of modern myth busters, Dr. Sharon Moalem turns our current understanding of illness on its head and challenges us to fundamentally change the way we think about our bodies, our health, and our relationship to just about every other living thing on earth, from plants and animals to insects and bacteria. So why does disease exist? Moalem proposes that most common ailments—diabetes, hemochromatosis, cystic fibrosis, sickle cell anemia—came into existence for very good reasons. At some point they helped our ancestors survive some grand challenge to their existence. Examining human evolution, Moalem reveals the role genetic and cultural differences have played in the health and well-being of various races, including their susceptibility to inherited diseases. With mesmerizing insight and a fresh perspective on medical history, Moalem offers groundbreaking insight into : • How diabetes may be a biproduct of a mechanism that helped humans survive the Ice Age • Why African Americans living in the north might suffer from vitamin D deficiencies, • Why Asians can’t drink as much alcohol as Europeans Revelatory, utterly engaging, and timely—Moalem ponders strongN1, the emerging Avian Flu virus—Why Redheads Feel More Pain and Asians Can’t Drink will irrevocably change the way we think about our bodies and ourselves. “fascinating, enlightening and reader-friendly...This is one not-to-be-missed fantastic journey across the evolutionary landscape of humankind. - Rocky Mountain News MED History does not always receive a great deal of attention...this book shows exactly why it shouldn’t be ignored. - Library Journal “CSI meets Freakonomics meets Bill Nye the Science Guy.” - Edmonton Journal (Alberta) “[a] fascinating new book...[Moalem] has a way of turning complicated biology into captivating stories.” - Body + Soul “[It] will challenge everything you thought you knew about disease. Fascinating!” - Memet Oz, co-author of YOU: The Owners Manuel “A lively and enthusiastic treatise” - Kirkus Reviews Joining the ranks of modern myth busters, Dr. Sharon Moalem turns our current understanding of illness on its head and challenges us to fundamentally change the way we think about our bodies, our health, and our relationship to just about every other living thing on earth. Through a fresh and engaging examination of our evolutionary history, Dr. Moalem reveals how many of the conditions that are diseases today actually gave our ancestors a leg up in the survival sweepstakes. But Survival of the Sickest doesn't stop there. It goes on to demonstrate just how little modern medicine really understands about human health, and offers a new way of thinking that can help all of us live longer, healthier lives. Dr. Sharon Moalem is an award-winning neurologist and evolutionary biologist, with a PhD in human physiology. His research brings evolution, genetics, biology, and medicine together to explain how the body works in new and fascinating ways. He and his work have been featured on CNN, in the New York Times , on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart , on Today , and in magazines such as New Scientist , Elle , and Martha Stewart's Body + Soul . Dr. Moalem's first book was the New York Times bestseller Survival of the Sickest . He lives in New York City. Jonathan Prince was a senior adviser and speechwriter in the Clinton White House and oversaw communications strategy at NATO during the war in Kosovo. He was named one of America's Best and Brightest by Esquire in 2005 for his work to improve political advertising. With former U.S. senator John Edwards and Edwards's daughter Cate, Prince edited Home: The Blueprints of Our Lives. Survival of the Sickest The Surprising Connections Between Disease and Longevity By Sharon Moalem HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. Copyright © 2008 Sharon Moalem All right reserved. ISBN: 9780060889661 Chapter One Ironing it Out Aran Gordon is a born competitor. He's a top financial executive, a competitive swimmer since he was six years old, and a natural long-distance runner. A little more than a dozen years after he ran his first marathon in 1984 he set his sights on the Mount Everest of marathons—the Marathon des Sables, a 150-mile race across the Sahara Desert, all brutal heat and endless sand that test endurance runners like nothing else. As he began to train he experienced something he'd never really had to deal with before—physical difficulty. He was tired all the time. His joints hurt. His heart seemed to skip a funny beat. He told his running partner he wasn't sure he could go on with training, with running at all. And he went to the doctor. Actually, he went to doctors . Doctor after doctor—they couldn't account for his symptoms, or they drew the wrong conclusion. When his illness left him depressed, they told him it was stress and recommended he talk to a therapist. When blood tests revealed a liver problem, they told him he was drinkin