Survival of the Sickest Essay

I have decided to write about four conditions, three of which are detailed in “Survival of the Sickest”, a book written by Dr. Sharon Moalem about how genetic diseases may have evolved to help the human race survive in the past. The diseases which I chose are Hemochromatosis, Diabetes, Transposons, and Sickle cell anemia. I decided to write about hemochromatosis because of how it affects the body by overloading the body with iron, how it evolved in Vikings to minimize iron deficiencies, and how it spread across the population as the Vikings began inbreeding as they colonized Europe. I chose to write about diabetes because of how it may have evolved to prevent blood from freezing during the Last Ice Age, and because of the impact which it has on society. I wrote about transposons, despite the fact that these are not diseases, because of the role they play in the development of cancer, the way they are used in cancer research, and the way they have affected the evolution of life. Lastly, I decided to write about sickle cell anemia because of its interesting relationship with a disease which continues to run rampant in Africa.

Hemochromatosis is a disease which makes your body absorb all of the iron in food, instead of regulating iron intake. Hemochromatosis “attacks” the entire body, especially the places where most of the iron normally goes: the bloodstream and liver. Some symptoms of this disease are bone and joint discomfort, liver problems, irregular heartbeat, and an unusual bronzing of the skin. Armand Trousseau first described it in 1865 as Diabetes bronze, due to people with diabetes showing the bronze-skin symptom. It was thought to be quite rare at the time. About “⅓ or ¼ of people of Western European descent have th...

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