Genes, Germs, and High Altitude

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

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.

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-yearly conference the Zombie Apocalype Medicine Meeting, a radically interdisciplinary medical conference where fiction meets fact. http://www.zombiemed.org/ The next conference is planned for October 15th, 2020.

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.

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 autonomy pose an even greater risk and mismatch for our brains and bodies? Coffee Brown and Joe Alcock explore these issues in this podcast.

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 microbiome changes at altitude and some of the possible dangers of too much oxygen.

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 were no longer suited to the world"

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.

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.

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