Analysis Of Survival Of The Sickest By Sharon Moalem
Ever since life first appeared on the planet we call home, these organisms have been
changing in a process called evolution. Evolution favors genetic traits that helps a
species thrive and reproduce and tries to weed out the traits that threaten a species
chance of survival. Genes that give a survival or reproductive advantage spread
through the gene pool faster while genes that do not help a species get less common.
This key mechanism of evolutionis called natural selection. But even with evolution
and natural selection, genetic diseases that make people sick are still in the gene
pool after hundreds of thousands of years. So why would this happen? In Dr. Sharon
Moalem s Survival of the Sickest, he proposes that many of today s deadly genetic...
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Because of this, the body absorbs iron nonstop. As a result, the body will have
extremely high levels of iron, leading to fatal outcomes over time. Such
consequences include damaging the joints, the major organs, and overall body
chemistry (Moalem, p. 2). When this disease was described in 1865, it was thought
that this disease was extremely rare. But it was soon discovered that this particular
disease, soon called hemochromatosis, was caused by a certain gene. In the book, it
states If your ancestors are Western European, the odds are about one in three, or one
in four, that you carry at least one copy of the hemochromatosis gene (Moalem, p. 3).
In other words, this is the most common hereditary disease of those of Western
European descent. This brings up another question. Why would a disorder be so
common in the genetic pool of the Western Europeans? First, it needs to be
understood that harmful bacteria feed on iron of the macrophages to thrive. However,
people with hemochromatosis have a lack of iron in their macrophages, even though
it may seem like the complete opposite. Therefore, those who have hemochromatosis
are less prone to infectious agents. For this reason, people with hemochromatosis
were less prone to diseases like the bubonic plague and tuberculosis. During the Black
Death, for people who had hemochromatosis, though it would kill them decades later,
they are much more likely. . .to survive the plague, reproduce, and pass the mutation
to their children (Moelem, p. 15). Since the mutation helped humans survive an
outbreak of the bubonic break in the fourteenth century, the mutation became more
common in the gene pool. To treat this genetic disorder, bloodletting is the treatment
of choice since it reduces the iron level in their body. I find it interesting that
bloodletting, an ancient