Adipositas – eine Bürde der Evolution?

Obesity – a consequence of evolution? The high obesity rates are the result of a dramatic mismatch between current environment and a human body evolved in the environment of our evolutionary adaptedness. Various evolutionary hypotheses try to explain this relationship. Natural and sexual selection shaped our gene pool towards an optimal adaptation to these environments and life circumstances. Our recent obesogenic environment differs dramatically from that in which we evolved.     

Biotop Mensch. Wir sind besiedelt

The Human Biotope After the sequencing of the human genome, which had been largely finished in the year 2000, two new projects are devoted to the analysis of the microorganisms colonizing on the human body. In both projects, only the prokaryotes are analysed (eubacteria and archaea). The US‐American “Human Microbiome Project” is aimed to characterize the microbial communities (microbiota) of the skin, the nasal, the gastrointestinal tract and the urogenital tracts and their relevance for our health and for diseases. The EU provides financial support for the project entitled ”Metagenomics of the Human Intestine”. It concentrates on the prokaryotes of our gastrointestinal tract and their significance for the inflammatory bowel disease and for the adipositas. The already known functions of the microbiota of our skin and gastrointestinal tract are described.