I am interested in evolution from a # of standpoints…did you ever wonder why we have headaches, why they exist?? Is there an evolutionary advantage for migraine?? Our closest relatives are chimps..one could consider humans to just be a third species of chimp(along with common and pygmy chimps)…we only differ from chimps by only 1.6% of DNA….98.4% of our DNA is the same as chimps(included in that 1.6% must be my love of lattes).
Do chimps have migraines??..possibly, probably not. We broke off from common ancestors with chimps about 7 million years ago. So, when did headaches start??..was it with climate changes 70,000 or so years ago, or diet changes(when we went from hunter-gatherers to agriculture, including injesting gluten, about 17,000 years ago). Fossils do not provide much of a roadmap for these questions, but genetics does.
Now that they have identified the “genes”, or the locations of the genes, for migraine(partly on chromosome 8), eventually we will be able to look at the genome of a human from 40,000 years ago and maybe identify that gene location…did the species Neandertals(mostly in Europe) have migraines??…
In evolution, there are 2 primary ways that change comes about: for survival of the fittest/individual … and for sexual advantage. Survival of the fittest means if there is an advantage, then that person will live longer and procreate his/her genes more..so, if migraine conveyed an advantage to living(say it forced a person to take a break, or go in the cave and chill out, etc.)
Or, maybe there is a sexual advantage for migraine(say migraines convey a vulnerability, and maybe men are more likely to be attracted to the vulnerabilty women with migraine may confer, and then those women with migraine will end up having more kids, passing on their genes, yada yada).
Or, maybe none of the above … maybe migraine is like an illness(diabetes, lupus, even cancer) that has no advantage, is just a bad set of genes with no advantage.
MORE ON THIS LATER ON…
for comments, or opinions on evolution, doclarryrobbins@aol.com
