Evolution, Medicine, and Public Health最新文献

Background: Evolutionary medicine applies principles of evolutionary biology to elucidate the origins of human health and disease. Despite rapid growth since its emergence in the 1990s, the field lacks systematic bibliometric evaluation.

Methods: We conducted the first comprehensive bibliometric analysis of evolutionary medicine using the Web of Science Core Collection. Two search strategies captured general literature (n = 885) and publications from Evolution, Medicine, and Public Health (EMPH, n = 358). We analyzed citation patterns, thematic clusters, and collaboration networks using Bibliometrix and VOSviewer.

Results: The field exhibits steady growth, with high citation impact from review articles and a dominant presence of contributions from the USA, UK, and Germany. Six major keyword clusters were identified: drug resistance, infection, evolutionary mismatch, cancer, cognition, and mental health. However, topics such as clinical translation, One Health, Planetary Health, and race-related issues remain underrepresented. Moreover, standard database queries failed to capture most EMPH articles, highlighting a lack of field identification in metadata.

Conclusions: This bibliometric overview reveals strengths and gaps in the evolutionary medicine literature. To enhance visibility, equity, and clinical relevance, future research should promote interdisciplinary integration, broader international collaboration, and more consistent field labeling in publications. These efforts are vital to advancing evolutionary perspectives in global biomedical and public health discourse.

Background and objectives: Understanding health and aging in one of our closest relatives, wild chimpanzees, provides key insights into the evolutionary origins of human disease risk. In humans, females often experience higher rates of disease than men despite having longer lifespans. Here we examine age- and sex- related patterns of health burdens in three communities of wild chimpanzees to investigate whether males exhibit health disadvantages, as predicted by life history trade-offs, or whether females exhibit health disadvantages in line with the health-survival paradox.

Methodology: We analyzed 16 years of observational health data from the Kasekela and Mitumba communities of Gombe National Park, Tanzania, and the Kanyawara community of Kibale National Park, Uganda. We recorded clinical signs of respiratory illness, diarrhea, and injuries, along with annual cumulative health signs. We used generalized linear mixed models to examine the effects of sex and age on these measures while controlling for community differences and annual and seasonal patterns.

Results: Respiratory clinical signs increased with age, but there were no sex differences. Males exhibited significantly increased likelihood of injuries and diarrhea with peaks in middle-aged years, and higher cumulative health burdens than females throughout adulthood.

Conclusions and implications: Our findings align with predictions from life history theory, suggesting that males prioritize reproductive effort over somatic maintenance, leading to greater health risks. The absence of a male-female health survival paradox in chimpanzees suggests that this pattern in humans is a derived trait, shaped by sociocultural, lifestyle, and environmental factors. These results highlight the importance of cross-species comparisons in understanding the evolution of health and aging.

Background and objectives: Lactation is one of the defining features of mammals, yet many humans struggle with breastfeeding. One reason for this is that humans are unique among mammals in the degree of learning and support that they require to breastfeed successfully. Despite this, we know little about how social learning impacts breastfeeding, particularly outside the influence of biomedical systems.

Methodology: Qualitative and systematic interviews were conducted with 128 Namibian women on infant feeding norms and practices. Structured statements were analyzed with cultural consensus analysis to determine whether a single cultural model exists and to identify variance in individual cultural competencies.

Results: Cultural consensus analysis revealed a single cultural model for breastfeeding, with strong and consistent norms and a significant role for social learning. Both learning and instinct were invoked in women's responses, speaking to the necessary and expected role of intensive support in the early postpartum period. Women also noted steep learning curves and clear expectations about infant feeding, which led to nearly universal breastfeeding and clear paths for troubleshooting difficulties.

Conclusions and implications: The breastfeeding support that Himba mothers receive is part of the legacy of assisted reproduction in humans. However, the features of intensive teaching and learning shown here are lacking in western models of infant feeding and postpartum care. These data suggest that protracted breastfeeding difficulties may result from a mismatch between the evolved socioecology of breastfeeding and current norms and practices that hinder social learning and impair support pathways.

In recent years, childrearing in high-income countries has become described as 'relentless' in its demands on parents. In response to growing delays in social and financial independence, public health professionals have even advocated for redefining adulthood to begin at later ages. There is also growing concern, not just about the wellbeing of exhausted parents, but of children whose parents are deemed to provide developmentally inappropriate care that may undermine their independence and foster poor mental health. In this review, we describe such 'overparenting', an intensive style of modern parenting considered costly to both parent and offspring wellbeing, as a phenomenon of increasing public health relevance, before putting these concerns into an evolutionary framework. We characterize overparenting as an extreme and maladaptive continuation of trends in extended parental care that have characterized much of human (evolutionary) history, highlighting four relevant socioecological shifts hypothesized to incentivize increases in parental care: (i) lowering extrinsic risk, (ii) increased reliance on skill-intensive production, (iii) escalating intergenerational wealth transfers, and (iv) reduced availability of alloparents. From this perspective overparenting within high-income countries presents an underappreciated example of evolutionary mismatch to prevailing socioecological conditions. To conclude, we discuss how an evolutionary perspective on overparenting may help promote new research directions and inform the design of initiatives aimed at improving both parent and child wellbeing.

Objective: Intradural spinal cord tumors, particularly intramedullary glial neoplasms such as astrocytomas, ependymomas, and oligodendrogliomas, are rare in humans but pose significant diagnostic and therapeutic challenges. Despite their clinical importance, little is known about their evolutionary origins or cross-species presentation. This study aimed to synthesize existing veterinary literature on spontaneous intradural spinal tumors in non-human animals to uncover patterns in clinical symptoms, tumor distribution, and histopathological features that may inform human spinal oncology.

Methods: We conducted a systematic review of Medline, Embase, and Web of Science using a Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses-guided approach. Studies were screened using Covidence by multiple independent reviewers. Inclusion criteria required spontaneous, histologically confirmed intradural spinal cord tumors in non-human species. Data extracted included species, tumor type, anatomical location, presenting symptoms, and histopathology. Phylogenetic and life history data were incorporated to explore evolutionary trends.

Results: A total of 109 studies describing 155 cases across 11 animal species were included. Astrocytomas (n = 37), oligodendrogliomas (n = 31), and ependymomas (n = 24) were the most common tumor types, with a notable bias toward the cervical spinal cord. Neurological symptoms were consistent with human intradural tumors: 42% of cases presented with limb paralysis and 28% with ataxia. The most recent common ancestor among affected species was the amniote, suggesting an evolutionary origin of spinal glial vulnerability dating back over 340 million years.

Conclusions: This is the first cross-species synthesis of spontaneous intradural spinal cord tumors in non-human animals. The evolutionary conservation of tumor types and symptom patterns highlights opportunities to develop genetically informed animal models and identify early diagnostic markers. Expanding comparative tumor databases may enhance our understanding of spinal cord oncogenesis and support novel therapeutic strategies in both veterinary and human medicine.

Background and objectives: The origin of animal farming is associated with major and inter-related changes in the ecology of humans and animals and new opportunities for pathogens to invade and be sustained in both populations. Understanding these transitions is critical for unravelling the origins and evolution of infectious diseases linked to emergent farming. This study aims to leverage One Health approaches, which recognize the inter-dependencies between the health of humans, animals, and environments, to better understand the ecology of humans, animals, and pathogens during the onset of farming.

Methodology: This study develops a One Health conceptual framework to explore the interconnected ecological and health impacts of early animal farming. It employs archaeological and contemporary wildlife farming case studies to build this framework.

Results: One Health frameworks are ideal to situate these changing human-animal-environment relationships in their widest context, allowing interacting processes and their feedback loops to be considered in integrated ways. Combined evaluation of ancient and contemporary emergent farming contexts enables a more inclusive approach, allowing a broader range of ecological and evolutionary insights to be considered.

Conclusions and implications: One Health approaches offer a valuable framework for understanding the historical emergence and impact of infectious diseases within farming contexts. By situating ancient interspecies relationships within broader ecological and health contexts, this framework helps investigate complex archaeological contexts and offers useful parallels to contemporary issues in wildlife farming. Insights gained from studying ancient farming systems can inform current health and agricultural policies and contribute to preventing future infectious disease outbreaks.

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1093/emph/eoae023.].

Background: During pregnancy, the maternal body undergoes extensive physiological adaptations to support embryonic growth, including whole-body remodeling, that may induce odor and food aversions, as well as nausea and vomiting. The biological mechanisms behind odor and food aversions, as well as nausea and vomiting in early pregnancy, remain largely unexplored. Our study investigated associations between these changes and cytokine profiles during pregnancy.

Methodology: A cohort of pregnant Latina women in Southern California (n = 58) completed a structured questionnaire on pregnancy "morning sickness"-related symptoms and aversions. Maternal plasma cytokine levels were measured between 5 and 17 weeks' gestation.

Results: About 64% of participants experienced odor or food aversions, primarily to tobacco smoke and meat; 67% reported nausea, and 66% experienced vomiting. Multivariable linear regression models revealed that odor aversions were associated with increased pro-inflammatory T-helper-cell type (Th) 1 composite cytokine levels. Women who found tobacco smoke aversive exhibited a shift toward Th1 immune responses, indicated by a higher Th1:Th2 ratio. Food aversions also showed a positive association with Th1 cytokine levels. A borderline positive association was noted between nausea and vomiting and the Th1:Th2 ratio.

Conclusions: These findings are consistent with the hypothesis that gestational changes in olfactory and gustatory experience, and nausea and vomiting, reflect adaptive upregulation of behavioral prophylaxis in ways that could protect the fetus. If this elevated Th1:Th2 ratio and pro-inflammatory phenotype are part of the maternal and embryonic response to embryogenesis, the behavioral and biological markers that we explore may provide an accessible index of fetal development during early pregnancy.

Evolutionary biologists have long been fascinated by pregnancy sickness, the heritable, stereotyped syndrome in early pregnancy that usually consists of benign nausea and vomiting and in around 1% of cases progresses to the pathological extreme hyperemesis gravidarum. Identification of the placental hormone GDF15 as a principal causal factor justifies reassessment of its proximate and ultimate causes. This Review synthesizes knowledge of pregnancy sickness at the four levels of analysis of classical ethology-mechanism, development, phylogeny, and adaptive function. Emerging insight into GDF15's role in innate sickness behaviors suggests pregnancy sickness is a heightened state of pre-existing behavioral defenses triggered by placental production of an emetogenic hormone which may hold a different primary function. Comparison of transcriptomes reveals that placental GDF15 production rose 100- to 1000-fold to human-like levels in catarrhine primates, and is low or absent in New World monkeys, rodents, and other mammals, with the possible exception of elephants. This suggests that pregnancy sickness is phylogenetically restricted yet not human-specific, and associates with innovations in syncytiotrophoblast biology rather than diet. I re-evaluate leading adaptive hypotheses (prophylactic, metabolic rewiring, placental growth, and anti-rejection) and argue that the key to adjudicating among them hinges on whether GDF15 acts locally through non-canonical receptors and whether additional factors distinguish pregnancy sickness from sickness behavior. Finally, I evaluate explanations for the persistent risk of hyperemesis gravidarum in modern humans, including trade-offs, mismatch, and conflict. With recent advances, pregnancy sickness is not just a curiosity of human evolution, but a compelling opportunity to investigate the mechanistic bases of complex adaptive behaviors.

Evolutionary theory predicts mammalian offspring will favor greater investment than parents are willing to provide, leading to conflict over resource transfer. This theory of parent-offspring conflict has been applied to resource transfer across the placenta. Birthweight and gestation length are functionally linked, suggesting that the timing of birth might also represent a focal point of maternal-fetal conflict. This hypothesis relies on two assumptions: mother and offspring have different fitness optima and both parties exert partial control over the timing of birth. It is argued, and evidence is reviewed, that suggests offspring benefit from slightly longer gestation than the maternal optimum, and that fetal and maternal genes both influence gestation length. We might therefore expect an evolutionary history of maternal-fetal conflict over the control of parturition. Evidence consistent with this hypothesis includes the effect of imprinted genes, as revealed through imprinting disorders, on gestation length; the wide variability in parturition mechanism(s) among mammalian species; and the complex physiology of human parturition including initiation by multiple different pathways with inputs from both mother and offspring. One potential consequence of a history of maternal-fetal conflict over control of the mechanisms of parturition is that the timing of birth may be subject to a greater degree of dysregulation than simpler physiological systems subject to single-party control.