Biology Medicines Have Been in Term Paper

Total Length: 567 words ( 2 double-spaced pages)

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Some people are overly prone to vomiting, some to bouts of runny noses.

The answer to why these reactions are so ubiquitous lies in efficiency. Expending a few hundred calories to vomit is much more efficient than being crippled by a disease that will threaten a life for weeks. If there is even a small chance, approximately five percent to be precise, that the chemical in the stomach is toxic, then the body will initiate vomiting. Only when the toxin is below the five percent mark will the amount of calories expended be inefficient enough to cause the body not to vomit.

Does treating these beneficial symptoms actually harm chances for survival? Using morning sickness as an example, it is often dismissed as a superfluous reaction from oversensitive pregnant women. When put into the frame of natural selection however, the reason for morning sickness becomes apparent.
Fetuses are especially vulnerable against pathogens, even ones which the mother isn't affected by. Morning sickness expels these dangerous pathogens from the body, thereby saving the fetus considerable harm. If the pregnant woman were to treat morning sickness, the fetus may be damaged irreparably. In fact "mothers with less morning sickness turn out to be more likely to have babies with birth defects." (Nesse 1995)

Treating these symptoms may actually be more harmful than allowing them to remain, but until solid research is done on the subject the idea will remain debatable. Coughing and runny noses do not physically endanger our health, and treating them may harm an individual more than not doing so.

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"Biology Medicines Have Been In" (2007, February 26) Retrieved May 20, 2024, from
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"Biology Medicines Have Been In" 26 February 2007. Web.20 May. 2024. <
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"Biology Medicines Have Been In", 26 February 2007, Accessed.20 May. 2024,
https://www.aceyourpaper.com/essays/biology-medicines-been-39772