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Silent Killer Research Paper

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Our bodies are in a “can’t live with you, can’t live without you” relationship with the sun. Too much sun can fatally damage our skin, causing skin cancer, hence the “can’t live with you” part. Meanwhile, all organisms need the sun to live. Humans need the sun for oxygen, which is a result of plants going through a process called photosynthesis. Photosynthesis is a process that turns carbon dioxide and water to glucose and oxygen, using sunlight. The plants need glucose for energy, while humans need oxygen to breathe. Additionally, natural sunlight helps our bodies create vitamin D and destroy our bodies’ reserves of folic acid. We need a sufficient amount of vitamin D to live but we also need folic acid as well. Vitamin D, needed to ensure and …show more content…

The “silent killer” is high blood pressure, or hypertension, a disease that’s responsible for as much as 25 percent of end stage kidney failure, and has no noticeable symptoms. Too much salt can raise one’s blood pressure. African Americans’ blood pressure is very reactive to salt because their African ancestors weren't fed or given much water, if any, to drink when they were taken to America against their will by slave traders. This resulted in a very high death rate on the ships, so those who had a natural propensity to retain high levels of salt, maintaining enough water to avoid deadly dehydration, had a better chance to survive. This ability, along with a modern salt-filled diet, leads to increased rates of hypertension.

16. Fast metabolizers can detoxify harmful substances more successfully than slow metabolizers. In a very toxic environment, evolution favored these toxin-clearing genes. If one is a CYP2D6 fast metabolizer and was prescribed medicine, such as cough syrup, that had codeine in it, they could become seriously ill because their bodies would’ve converted that codeine into morphine very quickly. This could be prevented with the knowledge of their genes.

Chapter 4: Hey, Bud, Can You Do Me a

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