Is Postpartum Depression a Disease of Modern Civilization?

The Huffington Post:

In the current issue of The New Yorker, Elizabeth Kolbert describes her family’s brief and not-entirely-successful experiment with the Paleolithic diet. Her account is humorous, but it also explores some of the science underlying this popular style of eating, which basically avoids everything but meat, tubers and fresh fruits and vegetables. The idea behind “Paleo” meals and menus is to get back to the healthier diet that our ancient ancestors consumed before the advent of agriculture, which has led to all sorts of dietary and lifestyle changes — and to a host of modern diseases.

The experts call these diseases “mismatch diseases,” because they result from a mismatch between our genes and our culture. Since farming took over, human culture has evolved much more rapidly than human genes have, and as a result we are a biologically ancient people living in a modern world — and eating modern food. Obesity, heart disease, type-2 diabetes — these are all the consequence of eating and living in a way that early humans would not have recognized.

Read the whole story: The Huffington Post

Wray Herbert is an author and award-winning journalist who writes two popular blogs for APS, We’re Only Human and Full Frontal Psychology. Follow Wray on Twitter @wrayherbert.