Why We Get Sick: The New Science of Darwinian Medicine | 
 enlarge | Authors: Randolph M. Nesse, George C. Williams
Publisher: Vintage
Category: Book
List Price: $15.00
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Rating:  20 reviews
Sales Rank: 26852
Media: Paperback
Edition: 1
Pages: 304
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.5
Dimensions (in): 8 x 5.1 x 0.9
ISBN: 0679746749
Dewey Decimal Number: 610.1
EAN: 9780679746744
ASIN: 0679746749
Publication Date: January 30, 1996
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| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.com Review
Is our tendency to "fix" our bodies with medicine keeping them from working exactly as they're supposed to? Two pioneers of the emerging science of Darwinian medicine argue that illness is part and parcel of the evolutionary system and as such, may be helping us to evolve towards better adaptation to our environment.
Product Description
The answers are in this groundbreaking book by two founders of the emerging science of Darwinian medicine, who deftly synthesize the latest research on disorders ranging from allergies to Alzheimer's and from cancer to Huntington's chorea. Why We Get Sick compels readers to reexamine the age-old attitudes toward sickness. Line drawings.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 15 more reviews...
 Excellent review of topic, even though it's a bit dated June 12, 2008
Francis Tapon (San Francisco, CA USA)
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
PROS: It helps you understand why some illnesses are good for you. Well written and easy to read.
CONS: It's a dated. Medical advances and knowledge have come a long way in the last 15 years.
CONCLUSION: I would suggest reading "The Survival of the Sickest" instead. It's more up to date and has better writing than this book.
What's for dinner? September 2, 2007
Joseph Haschka (Glendale, CA USA)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
"If you are starving in a rain forest, eat the camouflaged frog that is hidden in the vegetation, not the bright one sitting resplendent on a nearby branch."
At first glance, this quote from WHY WE GET SICK wouldn't seem to be relevant to the topic. But since the hypothesis of the book is that evolution and natural selection govern the senescence of aging and the physiological responses to diseases and mortally competitive environments, the fact that the gaudier frog has evolved with potent internal poisons that (should) signal "danger" to any potential predator makes the connection vis-a-vis both the amphibian's toxin and the starving hiker whose internal defense mechanisms may at least cause vomiting and diarrhea if frog's legs make it onto the dinner menu.
As authors Randolph Nesse and George Williams summarize:
"First, there are genes that make us vulnerable to disease ... Most deleterious genetic effects ... are actively maintained by selection because they have unappreciated benefits that outweigh their costs ... Second, disease results from exposure to novel factors that were not present in the environment in which we evolved ... Third, disease results from design compromises, such as upright posture with its associated back problems ... Fourth, ... natural selection ... works just as hard for pathogens trying to eat us and the organisms we want to eat. In conflicts with these organisms, as in baseball, you can't win 'em all. Finally, disease results from unfortunate historical legacies ... the human body must function well, with no chance to go back and start afresh ... Susceptibility to disease ... cannot be eliminated by any duration of natural selection, for it is the very power of natural selection that created them."
Under the umbrella of natural selection, the authors include everything from the obvious and non-arguable, such as fever as a mechanism to kill invading pathogens with heat, to the less obvious and perhaps debatable, such as the instinctive desire of small children to remained unweaned from mother's breast, which serves to prolong lactation and ensures that Mom won't become pregnant with a potential rival. Other examples fall into the category, Gee, Why Didn't I Think of That, including the morning sickness of pregnancy, which serves to prevent Mom from ingesting toxins during that vulnerable period when the unborn child is experiencing peak organ formation, and the causative agent of gout, uric acid, the build-up of which also protects the body from the aging effects of oxidative damage. Then there's cancer, which wouldn't be a problem had we not tissue cells that grow and regenerate. And did you know that premature ejaculation in the male is ostensibly selective, in an evolutionary sense, for those men that can get the gene transfer job done, so to speak, and then flee before the female's alpha male partner shows up to brain the interloper with a knotty pine cudgel?
Nesse and Williams lucidly present an unconventional paradigm of medicine, a different perspective from which to view disease and aging, that's only accasionally preachy. They rue the fact that it's not part of the mainstream, and argue for its inclusion in the curriculum of the country's medical schools. They fail to mention what I think is the more practical route to widespread acceptance, i.e. when it can make the medical industry lots of money.
Hey honey! How about some frog legs for dinner? I see a bright green one with yellow and red speckles perched in the carrotwood out back!
 Really great read January 9, 2007
Mary Kosloski
0 out of 2 found this review helpful
Anyone in interested in how evolution impacts their day-to-day lives should read this book. It's not only informative, but also an enjoyable read.
A fresh and innovatrive approach March 22, 2006
Nader (Newport Beach, California United States)
3 out of 6 found this review helpful
Insightful, progressive, meaningful, and comprehensive coverage of the field. I learned a lot from the book. Few minor points that can be improved. One, the figures in the book (there are only a few anyway) are vague and don't add much to the content. Two, there are many sentences in the book that are either out of context or they don't convey what the authors have in mind. Third, the book could have benefited from a bibliography. Alphabetical bibliography is easier to use to look the sources up than to struggle to find them in the Notes section at the end of the book. But, overall, a great book.
EVOLUTIONARY MEDICINE February 26, 2006
E. Nossa (New York)
0 out of 2 found this review helpful
Why we get sick is great for explaining evolutionary medicine for first timers. It's great for students, classrooms and anyone interested in Evolutionary medicine.
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