The more we learn about aspects of life and our biology, the more we start to realize how virtually everything truly does happen for a reason. I like to use the thinking of neuroscientist Dr. Matthew Walker here, which is that in general, Mother Nature has had far too much time to correct mistakes, or rid our biology of useless and/or harmful things. Evolutionarily, those things just tend to be popped out of the gene pool very fast. One may think, then, why do we still have so many common ailments? Why would we still have so many ways to get cardiovascular disease, or metabolic disease, or cancer?
When viewing anything from an evolutionary perspective, there are some critical caveats. First of all, just because we evolved something in the past, that does not mean it is beneficial now. Examples of this are ubiquitous. Thousands of years ago when calories were scarce, we developed strong mechanisms for long-term energy storage as fat, particularly as a result of fructose metabolism as we could load up on fruit before a difficult winter. Today, with our relative caloric excess, this adaptation is not helpful to get us through harsh winters; we have seemingly little trouble with that. Instead, it’s now causing epidemics of metabolic dysregulation and obesity, so-called “diseases of modernity” or “diseases of civilization.” Secondly, it’s crucial to note that all products of evolution exist to increase reproduction among the population, not overall health and longevity. In other words, once your genes are passed on, they’re passed on, so any genes that get you to that point will stay and spread in the population. The implication of this is that you have evolved to get to an age where you can reproduce, but beyond that, evolution does not really care that much about what happens to you. That said, there are certain exceptions. There may be selective pressures for parents to be able to raise their children and aid their development. In such a case evolution would, to an extent, still care about the parents during that time.
These considerations show that, if nothing else, comprehending our evolution can help us understand why certain processes may exist and how we might engage with them to optimize lifespan and healthspan. We don’t always necessarily want to work with our evolutionary intentions, and at times we will want to outwardly counteract them. Take certain clotting factors involved in cardiovascular and neurological disease, for example. ApoE4 is one which has been strongly linked to Alzheimer’s disease. In our evolution, dementia later in life was not exactly of the highest concern. Rather, as Dr. Hussein Yassine, physician researcher at the University of Southern California explains, many believe this protein helped improve acute inflammatory function and combat severe infections, as well as allowing successful childbirth. Since these benefits far outweighed harms of dementia in improving ability to reproduce, they were prioritized, and evolution selected for ApoE4. Now, by understanding the purposes ApoE4 serves, we can consider what might result from intervening with it. If one wants to genetically reduce or alter ApoE4 with the intention of reducing Alzheimer’s disease risk, they might recognize that it could alter one’s immune capacity. Or, perhaps they realize that it would not be a big deal to intervene, since its evolutionary protection does not pose great benefit to us in modern times anyway. It might be more worth it today to help prevent Alzheimer’s.
Nevertheless, in many circumstances, aiming to work within the confines of our evolutionary intentions can be a helpful approximation for achieving good health. Metabolically, it seems clear that we are not programmed to consume and utilize many processed foods, refined carbohydrates, and other artificial products that did not exist over the course of our evolution, or even as little as a century ago. In fact, this is the basis for the Paleo diet, which is based on the sole consumption of foods that were available to our ancestors during the Paleolithic era. This presumes that anything more recent is incompatible with our metabolic evolution, and should therefore be avoided. While I am sure some of these things may not be harmful, I tend to subscribe more or less to this general theory, and would even say that my diet is somewhat Paleo now, though I don’t actively try to ensure that.
You could also consider exercise, which is clearly an essential component of our overall health and longevity. In particular, zone 2 (“aerobic”) exercise, which appears invaluable to enhancing some of the most fundamental aspects of our metabolism, is a fascinating case to look at. This exercise is carried out at a reasonable pace, but not exhausting. We typically say that one should just be able to sustain conversation at this intensity. Speculatively, this probably would have been the level of exertion where our ancestors spent large portions of their days. They searched for food with a degree of urgency, but didn’t constantly sprint to exhaust themselves every minute. In fact, they probably even wanted to be communicating with others as they moved along. Thus, it makes sense that frequent time spent doing this exercise would be such a significant part of our ideal evolutionarily-programmed day. For our ancestors, it was just a prerequisite. Today, it’s technically optional, but it’s incredibly clear we should do it in a manner similar to them.
While we should always be guided by direct, hard biological evidence, evolutionary speculation can help guide or inform our research and thinking on countless topics. It shouldn’t be taken as scripture in every case, but despite its limitations, it can help provide a remarkably useful foundation upon which to view our existence, and one which we will continue to utilize when appropriate. When all else fails, I try to recall what Walker preaches: when you go against Mother Nature, you typically lose.
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