Why We Get Sick - Baba Brinkman

Let’s begin with medicine from back in the day

When a priest and a medicine man were the same

I’m in pain, I’ve got a fever and I’m restless!

«A classic case of demon possession

I’ve got the cure though, here, take it easy

Drink this broth,

it’s made from endangered species

It works only when the weather’s not stormy

Now go sacrifice a goat and call me in the morning»

We practice medicine in similar ways today,

but now it’s nominally evidence-based

It used to be entirely mysterious but these

Days it’s just mysterious to various degrees

Thanks to Louis Pasteurization, vaccines

And discoveries like the germ theory of disease

But what about natural alternative medicine

Ayurvedic homeopathy and all the rest of it?

Well, if we can isolate and test it for effectiveness

Maybe some of it will be vindicated by evidence

And then it won’t be «alternative»,

it’ll be «medicine»

And whatever’s left?

Well, that we can jettison

Yeah, modern medicine is mechanistic

Treats the body like a machine,

attempts to fix it

But the picture’s incomplete without this next bit

Not just «how it works» but «why we get sick»

Why we get sick

We evolved to crave salt, sugar and fat

They were scarce in the past

So we get sick

Sit down,

take some weight off

Lower back pain results as a trade off

We get sick

The genes inside us are ancient,

surrounded by modern products

We get sick

Microbial arms races

Charles Darwin taught the basics

Of why we get sick

«Why does disease exist?»

Next time someone asks that,

don’t plead the fifth

I know your neighbour’s car has a Jesus fish

You wanna keep the peace,

and he believes a myth

But so what?

People die from untreated infections

And asking «why» implies natural selection

And that can lead to new research questions

So lives are lost to avoid bein' offensive?

Well that’s offensive

to life’s preservation

Every disease requires two explanations

The first one is proximate,

Doctor Gregory House

Tryin' to get the diagnosis and figure it out

What’s the broken mechanism?

Like a puzzle to solve

The second question is: How did this evolve?

Relax,

evolution is so simple

The DNA in your cells encodes info

For how to build a body to develop and thrive

Ultimately to reproduce and survive

So disease itself is not the adaptation

But you need adaptations to explain…

Why we get sick

We evolved to crave salt, sugar and fat

They were scarce in the past

So we get sick

Sit down, take some weight off

Lower back pain results as a trade off

We get sick

The genes inside us are ancient,

surrounded by modern products

We get sick

Microbial arms races

Charles Darwin taught the basics

Of why we get sick

How does DNA make design?

With no intelligent mind?

It takes time

But any variation that increases reproduction

or random mutation that enhances some function

of feeding or developing or escaping from hitches

Will tend to increase in number — that’s fitness

Take infection, you can feel it, something’s wrong

But that’s an organism trying to get its reproduction on

Up in your guts,

no guts no glory

That’s just one of several evo-categories

Another is defenses,

you catch a fever

To cook the invader,

no bug, that’s a feature

Yeah, you have weapons to beat back infections

So don’t make rash decisions and mask symptoms

Dosing with iron when your blood is busy bindin' it

And watch out for mismatched environments

We evolved in the days of the cave man

Coca cola wasn’t really part of the game plan

And some diseases are all about genetics

You gotta take the gene’s eye view to really get it

Sometimes they go rogue,

it’s like starting a war

They send you to the oncology ward

Life is full of design compromises

Trade offs, you know,

kinda like with high rises

Strength for tensility,

speed for longevity

Live fast, die young,

breed prolifically

And yeah, humans are still evolving

But we’ve got a body plan,

so we can’t evolve wings

We had to wait to fly 'til someone thought of it

Cultural evolution, medicine is part of it

Cultural evolution, medicine is part of

Part of cultural evolution

Medicine is part of

Why we get sick

We evolved to crave salt, sugar and fat

They were scarce in the past

So we get sick

Sit down, take some weight off

Lower back pain results as a trade off

We get sick

The genes inside us are ancient,

surrounded by modern products

We get sick

Microbial arms races

Charles Darwin taught the basics

Of why we get sick