This module deals with the evolutionary aspects that have made humans, plants and other living things what we are today. Older known anthropogenic stressors such as infection, hunger, thirst and climate change have led to innumerable adaptations in the field of our genome and in the way the genome functions (the epigenome).
New risk factors such as sedentary life, eating 6 times a day, mortgage stress and many other factors are so new to the genetically “old: homo sapiens” that our health controller (read hypothalamus) has not (yet) found a solution for them. These new stressors cause a conflict with our genome, which is full of polymorphisms meant to survive under previous conditions; the same polymorphisms, along with epimutations, are now the cause of most if not all chronic diseases suffered by modern humans, especially in the wealthy West, so those diseases can be considered evolutionary scars.
Genetics, epigenetics, polymorphisms and evolutionary stressors are the topics of the first day. The second day deals with “how it works” and “why it works this way”, the most important questions within evolutionary clinical PNI. The third day translates all evolutionary knowledge into certain interventions in a number of very common conditions.
Learning objectives
Student will:
- Look at clients from the point of view of why they function the way they do, from an evolutionary perspective.
- Learn the evolutionary mechanisms of action responsible for diseases today and use the tools to reset these mechanisms in patients.
- Identify diseases as evolutionary scars and use evolutionary interventions to treat people suffering from these conditions.
- Discover the meaning of the concept of Intermittent Living and apply a number of the interventions in your own life.
- Learn to identify the evolving mechanism of action that the “error” is utilized by a patient (e.g., insulin resistance and cortisol resistance).
- Be presented with a list of functional parameters that allow them to identify a disorder of an evolving mechanism of action.