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Survival of the Sickest: A Medical Maverick Discovers Why We Need Disease

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You're already living it.

Was diabetes evolution's response to the last Ice Age? Did a deadly genetic disease help our ancestors survive the bubonic plagues of Europe? Will a visit to the tanning salon help lower your cholesterol? Why do we age? Why are some people immune to HIV? Can your genes be turned on -- or off? 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.

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.

When the option is a long life with a disease or a short one without it, evolution opts for disease almost every time.

For more information about the title Survival of the Sickest: A Medical Maverick Discovers Why We Need Disease, read the full description at Amazon.com, or see the following related books:

After the Dinosaurs: The Age of Mammals (Life of the Past) — Perhaps nudged over the evolutionary cliff by a giant boloid striking the earth, the incredible and fascinating group of animals called dinosaurs ... > read more

Dawn of the Dinosaurs: Life in the Triassic (Life of the Past) — Before the Age of Dinosaurs there was an age in Earth's history known as the Triassic. It was a world of truly fantastic creatures, a genetic stew ... > read more

The Genie in Your Genes: Epigenetic Medicine and the New Biology of Intention — Author Dawson Church applies the insights of the new field of Epigenetics (epi=above, i.e. control above the level of the gene) to healing. Citing ... > read more

After the Ice: A Global Human History 20,000-5000 BC — 20,000 B.C., the peak of the last ice age--the atmosphere is heavy with dust, deserts, and glaciers span vast regions, and people, if they survive ... > read more

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Authors: Sharon Moalem, Jonathan Prince

Publisher: William Morrow

Date: Feb. 1, 2007

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