It’s Possible To Be Sick as a Dog: Linking Human and Animal Health

Infertility, lung cancer, anxiety, obesity, eating disorders, heart attacks, and PTSD are common in humans, but they are not uniquely human disorders. Concerns about the diseases associated with animals have encouraged researchers around the world to try to bridge the gap between animal and human medicine. Drawing on the latest in medical and veterinary science—as well as evolutionary and molecular biology—it’s now understood that animals and humans suffer from many of the same health problems. Practitioners and researchers are actively comparing the human and veterinary approaches to shared ailments and transforming medical practices and research in the process.

Through observation and research studying animals in natural settings, cardiologist and evolutionary biologist B. Natterson-Horowitz has uncovered evolved adaptations for some of these conditions. She explores how our vulnerability to illnesses has its roots in our ancient evolutionary past and how understanding physical and mental illness in wild animals—from depression and self-harm to cardiac disease—has the potential to make us physically and mentally healthier humans.

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