EvolutionMedicine

EvolutionMedicine

Joe Alcock and guests talk about evolution, adaptation, medical care, epidemics, emerging diseases, and the microbiome.

Episodes

What Works in COVID-19

May 1, 2020 • 14 mins
Joe Alcock talks about the Surviving Sepsis Campaign's recent recommendation to use acetaminophen in patients with COVID-19. Can we bring concept from evolutionary medicine to help us decide what to do in the pandemic? Spoiler alert: yes
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Coffee Brown's Education Philosophy

August 13, 2019 • 73 mins
This week, we get some background on co-host and polymath Coffee Brown. Coffee talks about his philosophy of teaching and a bit on evolution in education.
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Zombified

July 4, 2019 • 70 mins
This episode introduces listeners of the Evolution Medicine podcast to a brand new podcast started by Athena Aktipis PhD, of the Department of Psychology at Arizona State University. Download Zombified and give it a review. Athena interviewed me for this episode. The topic? How gut microbes can make us into zombies. Listen and learn how the Zombified podcast came to be, along with the Zombie Apocalypse Medicine Alliance, and the bi...
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Should I open a probiotic clinic?

July 3, 2019 • 60 mins
Coffee and Joe spend the day before the 4th of July talking about probiotics. Is there enough evidence to prescribe probiotics full time? Listen and find out.
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The Tesla Episode - can autonomous cars save us from an evolutionary mismatch?

March 30, 2019 • 48 mins
Cars kill a lot of people. We see the consequences every day in the Emergency Department. These accidental deaths result from a mismatch between our brains and the modern environment. We routinely pilot 3500 lb automobiles at speeds in excess of 75 mph, a task the human brain was not evolved to perform, especially when drunk or while texting. Can we let the computer do the driving for us, and fix this mismatch problem? Does partial...
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Genes, Germs, and High Altitude

March 23, 2019 • 32 mins
This is a bonus podcast, a recording of a lecture from the 2019 Mountain and Emergency Medicine Conference March 22nd at Taos Ski Valley, new Mexico. At this high elevation location (10,200 feet) I discuss three high altitude people - Andeans, Himalayans, and Ethiopians - their genetic changes to altitude, and what that means for genetic lowlanders like me who like to spend time and recreate at high altitude. I also talk about the ...
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Was Evolution Right To Make Us Wrong?

March 9, 2019 • 58 mins
Is self deception a bug or a feature? Coffee Brown shares his thoughts on the topic, focusing on a paper co-authored by evolutionary theorist Robert Trivers. Coffee dissects this topic in a memorable and incisive fashion, with a few epic rants in between. Also, we discuss how modernity and new technology has offered myriad new opportunities for deception, exploitation, and manipulation. "When we changed the world to suit us, we wer...
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Fat Fights Back

February 28, 2019 • 43 mins
In this Evo Med podcast #39, Coffee Brown and I discuss Mary Jane West Eberhard's paper on the evolutionary function of fat and a developmental explanation for the obesity epidemic. Her paper lays the groundwork for understanding why some early life experiences make us more likely to have chronic diseases like heart disease, diabetes, and obesity.
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#38 Treat Nobody's Fever?

February 25, 2019 • 11 mins
Joe Alcock takes a time out for short podcast to talk about a paper published this month on fever. Paul Young's group looked for, and could not find, any group of patients who do better from aggressive fever control. This result fits with expectations from evolutionary medicine.
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#37 Does Fasting Make You Smarter

February 14, 2019 • 65 mins
Coffee Brown and Joe Alcock talk about the recent paper by Mark P. Mattson, "An Evolutionary Perspective on Why Food Overconsumption Impairs Cognition" published in the journal Cell. Does overeating make us dumb as a culture? Can fasting make us smarter? We lay out the evidence and add our own thoughts. Plus Coffee talks about his new venture Interesting Conversations
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#36 The Naked Emperor

January 30, 2019 • 48 mins
Are our bodies the enemy in sepsis? I argue no. Decades of experiments in sepsis show that most interventions focused on the host have been either ineffective or harmful. With this track record of failure, it is time to consider the alternative hypothesis—regulation instead of dysregulation—and the possibility that the events of sepsis are adaptive.
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#35 the Evolution of Sleep Part 2

July 2, 2018 • 46 mins
Why we sleep is not well understood. The study of sleep is one of the last frontiers in human biology. In addition to smoking and bad diet, we can add sleep loss to the list of risk factors for chronic disease. But is modern sleep all that different from that of our ancestors? Joe Alcock, Kate Rusk, Coffee Brown, and Gandhi Yetish explore the mystery of sleep in this Part 2 of our discussion of sleep evolution.
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#34 The Evolution of Sleep Part 1

July 2, 2018 • 46 mins
Why do we sleep? Why did sleep evolve? How much is enough? Do we die if we don’t get enough? Kate Rusk, Joe Alcock, Coffee Brown and special guest Gandhi Yetish discuss these topics in this episode of the EvolutionMedicine podcast. Gandhi has studied the Tsimane, a hunter horticulturalist group in Bolivia. This group, as well as hunter gatherers in Africa - the Hadza and the San - sleep about the same as us: just over 6 hours. What...
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#33 Human Superpowers Part 2

June 30, 2018 • 68 mins
In this age of Marvel comics, superheroes with superpowers have attained a high degree of cultural fascination. But some superpowers exist in real life, courtesy of natural selection. In part two of this episode, originally livestreamed on Inertia TV, Kate, Joe and Coffee talk about the superpower of the Bajau, a sea nomadic people, to dive longer and deeper than other people. This ability is linked to a bigger spleen, a trait with...
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#32 Human Superpowers Part 1

June 30, 2018 • 69 mins
In this episode, originally livestreamed on Inertia TV, Kate Rusk and Coffee Brown and Joe Alcock discuss whether humans can have actual superpowers. Some human groups have unique abilities to survive underwater, and at the highest altitudes, or deal with temperature extremes. We talk about Tibetans, Andeans, Ethiopian highlanders, and Sea Nomads. More at EvolutionMedicine.com
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#31 Reproductive Conflicts

June 29, 2018 • 107 mins
Kate Rusk and Joe Alcock discuss the evolutionary reasons why pregnancy is so dangerous, both for fetus and for mother. Genetic conflicts of interest between paternal and maternal genes may give rise to gestational diabetes and preeclampsia. Evolutioanry theorist David Haig came up with these ideas, inspired by Robert Trivers "parent offspring conflict." This hypothesis of genetic conflicts in pregnancy has held up over the years, ...
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#30 Resistance Evolution

June 23, 2018 • 90 mins
Kate Rusk and Joe Alcock recorded this for Inertia TV in March 2018. We talk about the reasons for resistance evolution, alternatives to antibiotics, and which drugs predispose to Clostridium difficile. What to do if no antibiotics work? Fecal transplants of course.
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#29 Evolution and Emergency Medicine

June 23, 2018 • 64 mins
Does evolution matter in the emergency department? Joe Alcock describes why it does. This episode was recorded for Joe Tomkins Darwinian Revolution class in University of Western Australia on April 5, 2018 at the Inertia TV studio, thanks to Kate Rusk. Find more at https://evolutionmedicine.com/ and the EvolutionMedicine podcast on iTunes
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#28 Depression - Feature or Bug? Part 2

June 22, 2018 • 57 mins
In part two Joe Alcock, Coffee Brown, Paul Watson talk about how evolution might guide the treatment of patients with mood disorders. We talk about the evolution of sickness behavior, the utility of antidepressant drugs, and the role of the microbiome in depression and anxiety.
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#27 Depression - Feature or a Bug? Part 1

June 22, 2018 • 56 mins
Coffee Brown and Joe Alcock are joined by evolutionary biologist and theorist Paul Watson to discuss whether depression is a feature or a bug. Paul Watson developed the social navigation hypothesis along with Ed Hagen, Paul Andrews, and others to explain depression as a unconscious way to break social contracts and make new ones. Watson now calls this the "niche change" hypothesis. This is part one of two.
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