Health Disparities and the Ancestral Environment

This book makes the case that disparities in health outcomes affecting people of West Central African descent in the United States (African Americans) are due, in large part, to evolutionary physiological adaptations to potentially lethal infectious organisms in the ancestral environment of sub-Saharan Africa, in particular Plasmodium falciparum, coupled with exposures unique to the environment of North America. According to the proposed theory, inherited characteristics acquired over millennia from adaptations to endemic tropical organisms helped to increase survivability in the original African environment. However, in the different natural and dietary environment of North America, these adaptations render people of West Central African descent susceptible to the same chronic diseases that affect other Americans. The theory has implications for disease treatment and for overall health and longevity.