Evolutionary healing: A new -- but old -- approach to care

In an evolving world of medicine, Charles Darwin's principle of natural selection may be worth a closer look.

By Susan J. Landers, AMNews staff. Nov. 5, 2001.

About eight years ago, Paul Ewald, PhD, an Amherst College biology professor, sprained his knee. It swelled considerably, and he was well aware of the commonly prescribed treatment: rest, ice, compression and elevation. But he did not follow it.

Instead, Dr. Ewald approached his injury with an eye to evolution. Our ancestors would have paid too high a price to have suffered a painfully swollen limb without any return, he reasoned. The injury would have made it impossible to run from enemies or find food. Therefore, there must be some benefit, he thought. "Just because something feels bad, it doesn't mean it's bad for your body," he theorized.

The benefit, Dr. Ewald found, seemed to be that the pain and swelling served as a natural cast. "You just don't want to move it," he said. After a few days, the pain began to subside and soon after, the leg healed perfectly, he said.

Many scientists are studying similar "why" questions in medicine. They are interested in answering inquiries such as: Why do we run a fever? Why does swelling accompany a sprain? And why do some pregnant women suffer from morning sickness?

This line of questioning has led to the fledgling science called Darwinian medicine, defined as "medical understanding based on what the human body, and mind, are designed to accomplish," by George Williams, PhD, one of its founders and now professor emeritus of ecology and evolution at the State University of New York at Stony Brook.

Right now the answers are coming primarily from biology departments. "I believe they will filter into the medical community and medical education," said Paul Sherman, PhD, a biology professor at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y. "But the first thing that has to happen is it has to be demonstrated why this is a useful approach. And that's our job right now," he said. [...]