Evolution
TLDR - Humans evolved and changed over billions of years from when life was first created on earth. Evolution is a very slow process. Today’s world is changing quicker than evolution can keep up with. Looking back at our evolutionary path can help show us how we’re designed to live and how to reclaim health
Human Evolution
The Earth formed approximately 4.5 billion years ago. Around 3.7 billion years ago, the earliest forms of life appeared. Humans emerged about 200,000 to 300,000 years ago. Over these periods, we evolved in response to our environmental exposures, dietary habits, and mindset.
Human evolution has been significantly shaped by our migration to various climates:
Cold Adaptation: Humans who migrated to colder climates developed physiological adaptations to cope with the cold.
Sun Exposure: Those in warmer, sunnier climates evolved to produce more melanin, which protects against ultraviolet radiation.
Our diets have also driven evolutionary changes:
Jaw and Digestive Adaptations: The types of food we consumed influenced the structure of our jaws, teeth, and digestive systems.
Geographical Diets: Humans in lower latitudes, closer to the equator, typically consumed more fruits, while those in northern latitudes had diets with fewer fruits. Importantly, until about 100 years ago, no human diets included processed foods. Meat has almost always been a crucial part of human nutrition.
Sunlight has been a consistent element throughout our evolutionary history. The first forms of life began their evolutionary paths with exposure to sunlight. While some organisms evolved to live without sunlight, all life forms that eventually led to humans experienced the sun’s different wavelengths daily and had periods of darkness at night.
Sunlight contains a full spectrum of different colors, which vary in intensity at different times of the day. Our bodies have evolved to respond to these changes in light, triggering specific physiological processes at specific times. This relationship with light helps regulate our circadian rhythms and optimize our bodily functions throughout the day. Future posts will explain this in more detail.
In our modern world, we face new challenges that our ancestors did not:
Electromagnetic Fields (EMFs): Sunlight is a native EMF that we evolved with, however, there are now significantly more non native EMFs we are exposed to daily.
Toxins: Our environments and diets are now laden with significantly more toxins, including:
Air pollution
Water pollution
Asbestos
Glyphosate and other pesticides
Heavy metals
BPAs and plastics
Parabens
Our bodies have always adapted to our environment and exposures, but this process is slow and takes generations. The rapid changes in our environment and lifestyle over the past century pose significant challenges, as our bodies have not had enough time to adapt.
Understanding our evolutionary history can guide us in making better choices for our health today. By aligning our lifestyles more closely with the conditions under which our bodies evolved, we can improve our overall health and mitigate some of the modern challenges we face.