Book Review: Survival of the Sickest

Survival of the Sickest: A Medical Maverick Discovers Why We Need Disease 
by Sharon Moalem, Jonathan Prince

Very entertaining and makes you think! Sharon Moelem writes in a very public-friendly manner, but manages to xplain historical and scientific facts in ways that are both entertaining and informative. The basic idea of this book is the question: if diseases are so bad and can kill of huge amounts of the population, why do they persist? Shouldn't natural selection weed them out? Sharon Moelenm looks at several current health problems & diseases. He explains what is happening in the body, and explore the historical past to see if that particular mechanism was ever an advantage. He comes up with some extremely interesting parallels! I recommend this to anyone interested in medicine, evolutionary history, of who just wants to learn more about how their body works. Great book! (Even interesting to students!)