46 episodes

Joe Alcock and guests talk about evolution, adaptation, medical care, epidemics, emerging diseases, and the microbiome.

EvolutionMedicine evolution and medicine by Joe Alcock MD

    • Science
    • 5.0 • 8 Ratings

Joe Alcock and guests talk about evolution, adaptation, medical care, epidemics, emerging diseases, and the microbiome.

    What Works in COVID-19

    What Works in COVID-19

    Joe Alcock talks about the Surviving Sepsis Campaign's recent recommendation to use acetaminophen in patients with COVID-19. Can we bring concept from evolutionary medicine to help us decide what to do in the pandemic? Spoiler alert: yes

    • 14 min
    Coffee Brown's Education Philosophy

    Coffee Brown's Education Philosophy

    This week, we get some background on co-host and polymath Coffee Brown. Coffee talks about his philosophy of teaching and a bit on evolution in education.

    • 1 hr 13 min
    Zombified

    Zombified

    This episode introduces listeners of the Evolution Medicine podcast to a brand new podcast started by Athena Aktipis PhD, of the Department of Psychology at Arizona State University. Download Zombified and give it a review. Athena interviewed me for this episode. The topic? How gut microbes can make us into zombies. Listen and learn how the Zombified podcast came to be, along with the Zombie Apocalypse Medicine Alliance, and the bi-yearly conference the Zombie Apocalype Medicine Meeting, a radically interdisciplinary medical conference where fiction meets fact. http://www.zombiemed.org/
    The next conference is planned for October 15th, 2020.

    • 1 hr 10 min
    Should I open a probiotic clinic?

    Should I open a probiotic clinic?

    Coffee and Joe spend the day before the 4th of July talking about probiotics. Is there enough evidence to prescribe probiotics full time? Listen and find out.

    • 1 hr
    The Tesla Episode - can autonomous cars save us from an evolutionary mismatch?

    The Tesla Episode - can autonomous cars save us from an evolutionary mismatch?

    Cars kill a lot of people. We see the consequences every day in the Emergency Department. These accidental deaths result from a mismatch between our brains and the modern environment. We routinely pilot 3500 lb automobiles at speeds in excess of 75 mph, a task the human brain was not evolved to perform, especially when drunk or while texting. Can we let the computer do the driving for us, and fix this mismatch problem? Does partial autonomy pose an even greater risk and mismatch for our brains and bodies? Coffee Brown and Joe Alcock explore these issues in this podcast.

    • 48 min
    Genes, Germs, and High Altitude

    Genes, Germs, and High Altitude

    This is a bonus podcast, a recording of a lecture from the 2019 Mountain and Emergency Medicine Conference March 22nd at Taos Ski Valley, new Mexico. At this high elevation location (10,200 feet) I discuss three high altitude people - Andeans, Himalayans, and Ethiopians - their genetic changes to altitude, and what that means for genetic lowlanders like me who like to spend time and recreate at high altitude. I also talk about the microbiome changes at altitude and some of the possible dangers of too much oxygen.

    • 32 min

Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5
8 Ratings

8 Ratings

Jacobb1b ,

EvoMed Personal review

Great podcast! I hope that they start putting more up. I have been listening to them and I think they have been able to demystify a lot of the concepts I have found to be very difficult to grasp. I am personally a philosophy nut as well, so hearing an episode on biases in a medical podcast, with medical application was amazing! I like both the long and the short podcasts. Sometimes I have to take a little breaks beefier I return to the longer ones but there aren’t any true problems with this podcast in my personal opinion. Keep up the good work!

Paul619462 ,

Save the marshmallow.

Teaching evolution in medical school and beyond is like passing the marshmallow test and realizing that evolutionary medicine teaches us where we might want to direct Medicine and research. Unfortunately we eat the marshmallow right away and focus only on the proximate narrow view of disease and not the big picture.

lfullerton ,

Interesting and relevant

This podcast provides a much-needed set of insights into the relationship between medical interventions and patient outcomes, placed in the context of the evolutionary basis of human physiologic responses to illness and injury. The host is well-informed and interesting, as are his occasional guests. I look forward to each new episode.

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