630 Landwirtschaft und verwandte Bereiche
Refine
Year of publication
- 2021 (2)
Document Type
- Part of a Book (2)
Language
- German (2)
Keywords
- Alter (1)
- Anthropozentrismus (1)
- Antibiotikaresistenz (1)
- Arten (1)
- Artensterben (1)
- Darwin, Charles (1)
- Domestikation (1)
- Erbgut (1)
- Ethik (1)
- Evolution (1)
Has Fulltext
- yes (2)
Institute
- Interdisziplinäre Arbeitsgruppe Zukunft der Medizin: "Gesundheit für alle" (2) (remove)
Evolutionary Medicine and its Holistic Concept of Health. Recent years have seen tremendous advances in our understanding of biological processes on genomic, cellular, and evolutionary levels.We owe this progress in great part to modern genetic techniques, steady improvements in imaging technology, and ground-breaking molecular tools.These findings not only helped turning Darwin’s hypothesis on the origin of species into an exact science, they also require us to integrate the complex interactions between biology, environment, and behavior into our ways of thinking. As a result, a new scientific rationale for a holistic concept of health and disease emerged: Evolutionary Medicine. The holistic approach of Evolutionary Medicine provides a new perspective on human biology: Why are people so frail, why do we get sick? Most importantly, it helps us comprehend how to better preserve health – as opposed to merely focusing on the treatment of diseases. For example, it is the misalignment between our evolutionary ‘old’ biology and our fast-changing, man-made environment (e. g., urbanization and nutrition with processed food) that helps to comprehend the emergence of civilization diseases.
One Health and Human-Animal Relationships: Do We Make Our Animals Sick? Since the very beginning of human-animal relationships, humankind took advantage of animals, as of nature in general. While many people today perceive themselves as animal-loving, in reality we tend to systematically deprive our farm animals and pets of their own nature and health. On our quest to perfect our exploitation of the animal world, we reached a dimension that started to profoundly worry veterinary professionals, animal welfare activists, and also the informed public. Ultimately, this destructive relationship leads to detrimental consequences for both parties: e. g., the extinction of wild animals, or the transmission of diseases from one to the other. However, one could argue that the suffering we cause to animals clearly and by far exceeds the harm caused by, for example, the animal-derived COVID-19. Is this a too provocative hypothesis? This article is an invitation to take a closer look at various facets of our current humananimal relationship with its consequences for both.