We are in trouble.  As a culture, we are sick.  One in eight people suffer from clinical depression. Forty million people suffer from anxiety.  Heart disease is the leading cause of death across ethnicities accounting for 1 in 4 deaths. Ten percent of Americans suffer from diabetes. Twenty percent of Americans suffer from autoimmune diseases like rheumatoid arthritis and lupus. We spend millions of dollars annually in treating and managing these diseases, but we are losing the battle. The common pathway to all this destruction?  Chronic systemic inflammation inherited by our evolutionary forefathers.

We tend to separate mental health disorders from physical diseases like high blood pressure, heart disease, and diabetes. But if we want to understand the rising incidence of disease-both mental and physical- we need to look at the evolution of our bodies immune response to threats.

INFLAMMATION THEN (Caveman)

Early man was besieged by danger.  We fought predators and the threat of physical harm.  Fight or flight. Our bodies were equipped to adapt to those threats that challenged our survival. And it was supported primarily by an inflammatory response created by our immune system. Our immune systems fought against bacteria, viruses, cholera, the plague, polio, and measles.  Our immune response was appropriate to the threat.  When we got infections, our bodies reacted with inflammation.  We got fevers, we experienced pain, and we became immobile.  We acted sick.  We retreated.  We slept.  We hunkered down and allowed our bodies to fight the fight for us. Read more