Survival Of The Sickest: A Synthesis Essay

In chapter one it talks about how hemachromatosis is a hereditary disease and it’s the most common genetic disease for people of European descent, in which the body can't register that it has enough iron. So it keeps absorbing as much of it as possible, and this can have very, serious side effects (including death). Iron is very important for bacteria, cancer, and other things to grow. The way this disease is most easily treated is blood letting. Looks like all those crazy blood-letting, leech-sticking doctors weren't mistreating everyone. What is the author's argument for why this disease stuck around? To really simplify things: during the black plague in Europe, people with more iron in their system were more likely

Sickle cell anemia is a hereditary disorder that mostly affects people of African ancestry, but also occurs in other ethnic groups, including people who are of Mediterranean and Middle Eastern descent. More than 70,000 Americans have sickle cell anemia. And about 2 million Americans - and one in 12 African Americans - have sickle cell trait (this means they carry one gene for the disease, but do not have the disease itself).

In the book, “Survival of the Sickest”, Sharon Moalem forms the basis of how vaccine originated to become a way of combatting the most dangerous diseases in the world. It began with a discovery from a man named Edward Jenner, a doctor from Gloucestershire county in England, where he began to understand a strange pattern when people who were immune to cowpox were struggling with smallpox and vice-versa. He started to test his findings through a small experiment where he injected cow pox into a group of young children and he was surprised to see that their bodies built immunity towards smallpox and supported his findings on the bizarre immunity of people towards either the smallpox or the cowpox but not to both. The rest of the chapter explains complex concepts

believed that genetically aberrant hemoglobin evolved as a protection against malaria."(2) It has also been said that, "People with a single copy of a particular genetic mutation [sickle cell trait] have a survival advantage. One copy of the mutation confers a benefit." (3) Its quite interesting to find that original purpose of this gene was

Sickle cell anemia is an anemia that is inherited and mostly affects people whose heritage can be traced back to places where malaria was prevalent. There are approximately 100,000 Americans that have the disease and many more with the trait. Several of my family members are afflicted by this medical condition that causes red blood cells to take on an irregular shape.

Atul Gawande’s book Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End presses on an extremely difficult subject: death. Gawande talks about the need to confront death and not ignore it by taking steps in having a meaningful and satisfying end. Readers say that Gawande does demand a lot from people and the book is eye opening but it does not have a guide to having a better end in life. I agree that Gawande is demanding a lot but people still to listen to him but I think Gawande does give a guide to having a more satisfying end to life though not simply.

Genetic diseases are a major cause of worry in today’s society. However, these same diseases have given humans critical advantages during difficult times in the past. In The Survival of the Sickest, Dr. Sharon Moalem discusses the connection between diseases and human survival. Seemingly unrelated genetic defects have provided critical advantages to their carriers. Hemochromatosis, for example, is a condition linked to Alzheimer’s disease that helped Europeans survive the Bubonic Plague.

Here in the twenty first century, even with all our technology, life remains a concept complex beyond one’s comprehension. In Survival of the Sickest, Dr. Sharon Moalem along with Jonathan Prince brings us on evolutionary journey to justify that life is not a single idea, for it branches out and encompasses many other concepts, such as genes/inheritance and the impacts diseases have. Along the way, we pause at certain stops; diabetes, favism, and hemochromatosis are among those. Diabetes sparked my interests many time through experiences, from my classmate to relatives, I wonder why does diabetes (and others) exist and whether diseases ever have any merits. The other two diseases played a major role in our ancestor’s lives and in the twenty

Thousands of years ago, a genetic mutation occurred in people from the Mediterranean basin, India, Africa, and the Middle East. As the Malaria Epidemic attacked people of these countries, carriers of the defective hemoglobin gene survived. Carrying one defective gene means that a person has a sickle cell trait. Two parents with the trait will produce a child with sickle cell anemia. People of these countries migrated and spread to other areas. In the Western Hemisphere, where malaria is not much of a problem, having the abnormal hemoglobin gene has lost its advantage. Any child born from parents that each has the trait will be born with the disease.

Health care has been a debatable topic for many years now. More than half of Americas are without health coverage. On the other side the world places like Germany and Japan required that everyone has insurance. In the videos, Sick Around the World and Sick Around America, Frontline examines the health care system in the United States and parts of the world such as, England, Japan, Germany, Taiwan, and Switzerland, for some responses about health care.

Sickle cell disease is a disease that is most prevalent in people of African descent along with people of Mediterranean and Middle Eastern origin. This disease is known to affect about 70, 000 Americans and about 2 million people carry the trait (meaning that, they carry a single gene mutation).

While watching the film “Sick around the World,” I learned that one of the first statements made on the video was extremely true. The statement made was, “other countries do much better than the U.S but spend a lot less money.” There were numerous innovations that impressed me from several different countries. The countries with innovations that stuck out the most were Germany, Japan, and Taiwan.

The human body is an amazing mechanism of intricate parts working together to keep you alive. In times of need, the body will do anything it can to keep you alive. People will go to great lengths to survive the harsh environment that surrounds us.

Sickle cell anemia is a genetically transmitted disorder marked by episodes of painful crisis, severe hemolytic anemia, and increased susceptibility to infections. This disorder usually affects African American (Zelman, Tompary, Raymond, Holdaway, & Mulvihill, 2010) Since this disorder is inherited and affects African-American this puts Davon at a higher risk. Sickle cell anemia can be diagnosed by having a genetic testing and blood test. Some symptoms of this disorder are pain crisis, fatigue, splenic sequestration, bacterial infections, shortness of breath, and eye damages. Some treatments for sickle cell anemia are supportive therapy during the crisis, blood transfusions, and prevention of sickle cell crisis. Since this is an inherited disorder, there is no prevention. This blood disorder is usually diagnosed in childhood and persists throughout a person’s life ("Mayo Clinic", 2015).

The treatment for the disease depends on the stage of the infection, the sooner it 's found the easier it is to treat. If found in the first stage the drugs used of are low toxicity and easy to administer and consists of Pentamidine for T.b.g. and Suramin for T.b.r. For the second stage of infection there are four drugs that can be administered but are all toxic and complex to administer. Melarsoprol for both forms, Eflornithin for T.b.g and most recently the combination of nifuritimox and eflornithine have been used to treat severe cases. Thanks to the efforts of organizations like the World Health Organization the upward trend of new cases of the disease is no longer a trend. In fact According to the WHO in " In 2009, after continued control efforts, the number of cases reported has dropped below 10,000 (9878) for first time in 50 years". In epidemic areas it is estimated that 20% of the population are infected by the disease which has a serious economic impact because of the damage it does to the workforce in these regions.