A key area of focus in Darwinian medicine is the emergence of modern epidemics like asthma and obesity — modern diseases resulting from changes in the environment which our bodies cannot evolve quickly enough to.

And these rapid changes in our environment can also be the result of human activity, and even caused by efforts to eradicate other diseases.

“The epidemic of asthma worldwide may be directly related to our very effective world health efforts to eliminate worms from people,” Nesse suggested.

Kathleen Barnes, summarising the work of a dozen or so researchers from around the world, pointed out that improved standards of hygiene could explain why societies in the rich world have become more susceptible to asthma, to allergies and to auto-immune diseases.

Humans in less developed, poorer societies, “where parasites and microbial infections are high,” have lower instances of such ailments, Barnes said in Berlin.

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