An Introduction to Evolutionary Medicine Lecture Notes for Health Professionals and Students

The evolutionary perspective in medicine describes the ultimate or upstream cause of disease. This contrasts with pathology and pathophysiology, which are concerned with the proximate or downstream mechanisms. Evolutionary medicine tries to answer the "why" questions of disease and proposes new hypotheses to give a more complete understanding of the reasons why we get sick.

Evolutionary medicine asks: why do certain disease susceptibility genetic variants (alleles) persist in human populations? These genetic variants are increasingly forming the basis for genomic diagnostic testing and have the potential to lead to better treatments through pharmacogenomics. By showing how millions of years of evolution have left human bodies susceptible to devastating diseases such as cancer, stroke, autoimmune disease, and infection, the book lays out a new way of thinking about disease that should help students find success in medical practice and research.

An Introduction to Evolutionary Medicine is written by two physicians, Alan Penman and Joe Alcock, with years of combined experience teaching evolutionary medicine to medical students. The book is aimed at health professionals and students and could serve as a foundational preclinical course for medical students. The chapters are organised by body system, with each covering a specific disease or disorder, introduced by a clinical case. Examples at the end of each chapter demonstrate how an evolutionary perspective can lead to new diagnostic tools, better risk stratification, and new therapies.

Alan D. Penman is a retired physician, formerly a professor in the Department of Preventive Medicine at the John D. Bower School of Population Health at the University of Mississippi Medical Center in Jackson, Mississippi. There, he directed and taught courses in epidemiology, biostatistics, public health, global health, and evolutionary medicine for medical students and graduate medical faculty. Dr. Penman earned his medical degree from the Aberdeen University Medical School in 1979, a Master of Science degree in Clinical Tropical Medicine from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine in 1981, a Master of Public Health degree from the University of Alabama at Birmingham in 1998, and a PhD in Biostatistics from the University of Mississippi in 2008.

Joe Alcock is a practicing clinician and professor of emergency medicine at the University of New Mexico (UNM), with twenty-five years' experience in academic emergency medicine. After earning his medical degree at UCLA and completing a residency at UNM, Dr. Alcock designed and taught a popular course on evolutionary medicine for UNM undergraduate and graduate students. He also initiated an evolutionary medicine elective for medical students at the UNM School of Medicine, which is now in its seventeenth year. His research focus is the human relationship with the microbiome through an evolutionary lens of conflict and cooperation. He has featured in scientific outreach podcasts, web articles, video shorts, and meetings, aiming to expand the reach of evolutionary medicine.