Book answers age-old questions on what our genetic structure tells us about our bodies
Evolution: Coming out of the Cave

Do you have skeletons in your closet? Maybe not, but you definitely have cavemen (or cavewomen) in your genes, say evolutionary researchers.

In fact, though less hairy and more vocal, modern people aren’t much different than our prehistoric predecessors, said Dr. William Meller, a Santa Barbara, Calif., internist who researches and teaches evolutionary medicine. In his book, "Evolution Rx: A Practical Guide to Harnessing Our Innate Capacity for Health and Healing,” Meller addresses in layman’s terms the latest research in genetics, biology and early human history and what it reveals about preventing modern disease, fighting infections and how people evolved from who we were 1 million years ago to who we are today.

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Dirt and DNA among keys to history

You may be wondering how scientists can know so much about people who lived thousands, even millions, of years ago.

Dr. William Meller, author of "Evolution Rx: A Practical Guide to Harnessing Our Innate Capacity for Health and Healing,” said the evidence comes from various sources: paleontology, archaeology, anthropology and molecular genetics.

Sites of caves where people lived for tens of thousands of years are treasure troves for scientists. By dissecting the dirt on cave floors molecule by molecule, they can learn much about the former inhabitants.

By studying modern people living in societies that have changed little over thousands of years, scientists get a glimpse into how primitive societies lived.

"Other missing links lie hidden within us, tightly wound in our DNA,” Meller writes. "These coils hold the genetic code — a detailed record of our evolutionary history, a living testament that binds us to our most primitive ancestors.”

— Heather Warlick-Moore

"We now can look at our genes word by word, sentence by sentence, within the genetic structure, and they tell us the tale of where we came from and how we evolved,” Meller said.

In his book, Meller answers age-old questions such as: When is pain good for us? Why are we fat? How is gossip good for us? How does a pregnant woman’s morning sickness help her developing baby? Why are some women attracted to bad guys?

Meller believes that by arming ourselves with knowledge of how our bodies have evolved and where our behaviors came from, we can make better decisions on how we treat our bodies today.

Some of Meller’s ideas fly directly in the face of accepted theories.

"Think about it. If sunshine were so dangerous, how could Stone Age people have spent their entire lives outdoors, mostly naked, and not dropped like flies from skin cancer?” (Seventy-five percent of melanomas, the deadly kind of skin cancer, he said, are not caused primarily by sun exposure but by our genes.)

Water? Most of us are overhydrated, Meller said. "We do not need to drink so much. We never did.” (Most of the water our ancestors ingested came from food, he writes.)

But many of his hypotheses are logical conclusions drawn from the human condition, which he contends hasn’t changed much in hundreds of thousands of years.

"It’s not like we’re going to go back there to the Stone Age,” he said. "But our bodies, our genetic makeup and our evolutionary heritage are not going to change very fast.”

Here are a few of his other assertions.

In general, people have a great capacity for judging trustworthiness and honesty. In evolutionary medicine, when researchers find capabilities that people are very good at and spend a lot of time on, they look for reasons that skill might have been important in earlier times and been selected to evolve.

And most people are excellent at gossip, whether they admit it or not, Meller said.

"Interestingly enough, if you go back to one of the earliest written records that we have, the Ten Commandments, that record states ‘Thou shalt not bear false witness.’ It doesn’t say anything about bearing true witness. And this is gossip,” Meller said.

In general, gossip is looked at as a bad thing. But Meller contends gossip can be good because it tells us the limits of our society.

"It tells us who’s good and who’s bad, who we can trust, who’s going to cut and run when we really need them,” Meller said. "That’s what the real subject is. It’s all about sex, and it’s all about trustworthiness.”

How did cave people gossip? They likely spoke a rudimentary language with only about 1,000 words. "Ursprache” is the name scientists have given to one hypothetical primitive language. With only a basic vocabulary, Meller said, Stone Age people could communicate what they needed to know such as who was sleeping with whom, who got the bigger piece of meat, who stole food from whom and who was the dominant male.

A man’s ability to provide was one of the biggest turn-ons for primitive women, Meller said. If he could provide her with a nice juicy hunk of meat every day, it didn’t matter to most cavewomen how he got it.

"Stealing back then meant stealing food,” he said. "There wasn’t much else to steal. So, ‘bad’ really meant that you were willing to break the rules a little bit. And if the female believed that you were going to break the rules in order to help her survive by feeding her, that was OK.”

Though much has changed since the Stone Age, Meller said these lingering genetic codes could explain the attraction some women feel for men that may not be good for them.

Of course, looks mattered, too. Primitive attractions such as physique, strength and a forceful nature played a huge rule in the process of sexual selection.

"Researching attraction attracts researchers,” Meller writes. Studies show the strongest attraction in both sexes is the waist-to-hip ratio. In women, a curvy 7-10 ratio is most desirable. In men, it’s a less-pronounced 9-10 ratio.

About 15 years ago, theoretical biologist Margie Profet figured out that "nausea in early pregnancy is not some counterproductive mistake causing the pregnant mother to starve but rather a safeguard for the delicate, early fetus, protecting it from the dicey diet of the Stone Age.”

While adult cavewomen could handle their diets filled with toxins and bacteria, a developing fetus couldn’t.

Cavewomen spent much of their lives pregnant, scientists believe. They likely became pregnant as soon as they started ovulating. When they weren’t pregnant, they were breast-feeding, and their bodies were preparing to become pregnant again. So, having a period was a rare and unusual thing, Meller said.

In fact, scientists estimate that Stone Age women only had about 20 periods their entire lives compared with about 400 for modern women.

Meller asserts that having fewer periods meant cavewomen had fewer incidences of gynecologic cancers.

"Each time a cell is stimulated to grow and divide and multiply, there is the risk that will go awry in some way, and since there are millions and millions of cells in the breast and the uterus, occasionally the stimulation will cause one cell to become cancerous,” he said. He said this is evident in many modern tribal cultures in which women have fewer cancers.

Meller’s intention in writing "Evolution Rx” was to educate people on their genetic origins, enabling them to determine whether new fad diets, alternative medicine practices and other questionable practices are reasonable.

"For me, as a physician having practiced for 25 years, I’ve seen all kinds of stuff come and go; as much from the orthodox medical pharmaceutical establishment as from every other alternative, much of which was a waste of time, money or even harmful,” he said. "By looking back at where our bodies evolved ... it gives me some standard to judge things by.”

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