ReviewEvolution, medicine, and public health2016
Cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes in evolutionary perspective: a critical role for helminths?
Review in Evolution, medicine, and public health, 2016. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 42 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
42 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 70 citations in OpenAlex.
- Effects of a Paleolithic Diet on Cardiovascular Disease Risk Factors: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Randomized Controlled Trials.Advances in nutrition (Bethesda, Md.) · 2019Pooled it
- The Effect of Helminth Infections and Their Treatment on Metabolic Outcomes: Results of a Cluster-Randomized Trial.Clinical infectious diseases : an official publication of the Infectious Diseases Society of America · 2020Trial
- Minimal Evidence of Inflammaging in Naturalistic Chimpanzee Populations.American journal of biological anthropology · 2026Article
- Dampened inflammation and reduced risk of osteoarthritis among non-industrialized societies.Osteoarthritis and cartilage · 2026Review
- A Review of Traditional, Time-Honoured Foods and Recipes: To Choose to Use or Not to Use.Foods (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Review
- Inflammaging is minimal among forager-horticulturalists in the Bolivian Amazon.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2025Article
- Childhood skeletal lesions common in prehistory are present in living forager-farmers and predict adult markers of immune function.Science advances · 2025Article
- Soil-Transmitted Helminths and the Intricacies of Immunoregulation: Evidence From Amazonian Ecuador for the Importance of Considering Species-Specific Effects Within the Old Friends Hypothesis.American journal of human biology : the official journal of the Human Biology Council · 2025Article
- The unrevealed links: periodontal health, human milk composition, and infant gut microbiome dynamics.Primary health care research & development · 2024Review
- Contemporary small-scale subsistence populations offer unique insights into human musculoskeletal health and aging.Science advances · 2024Review
- Multiomic Insights into Human Health: Gut Microbiomes of Hunter-Gatherer, Agropastoral, and Western Urban Populations.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2024Article
- Sustained metabolic dysregulation and the emergence of diabetes: associations between HbA1c and metabolic syndrome components in Tunisian diabetic and nondiabetic groups.Journal of physiological anthropology · 2024Article
- Aging and "Age-Related" Diseases - What Is the Relation?Aging and disease · 2024Review
- Anti-Inflammatory Responses Produced withBiomolecules · 2024Article
- Age-related physiological dysregulation progresses slowly in semi-free-ranging chimpanzees.Evolution, medicine, and public health · 2024Article
- Arterial hypertension and its covariates among nomadic Raute hunter-gatherers of Western Nepal: a mixed-method study.BMJ open · 2023Article
- Brain volume, energy balance, and cardiovascular health in two nonindustrial South American populations.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2023Article
- Natural selection of immune and metabolic genes associated with health in two lowland Bolivian populations.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2023Article
- Prevalence of dementia and mild cognitive impairment in indigenous Bolivian forager-horticulturalists.Alzheimer's & dementia : the journal of the Alzheimer's Association · 2023Article
- Evolutionary Approaches in Aging Research.Cold Spring Harbor perspectives in medicine · 2022Review
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
7 authors at 6 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
Abstract
Heart disease and type 2 diabetes are commonly believed to be rare among contemporary subsistence-level human populations, and by extension prehistoric populations. Although some caveats remain, evidence shows these diseases to be unusual among well-studied hunter-gatherers and other subsistence populations with minimal access to healthcare. Here we expand on a relatively new proposal for why these and other populations may not show major signs of these diseases. Chronic infections, especially helminths, may offer protection against heart disease and diabetes through direct and indirect pathways. As part of a strategy to insure their own survival and reproduction, helminths exert multiple cardio-protective effects on their host through their effects on immune function and blood lipid metabolism. Helminths consume blood lipids and glucose, alter lipid metabolism, and modulate immune function towards Th-2 polarization - which combined can lower blood cholesterol, reduce obesity, increase insulin sensitivity, decrease atheroma progression, and reduce likelihood of atherosclerotic plaque rupture. Traditional cardiometabolic risk factors, coupled with the mismatch between our evolved immune systems and modern, hygienic environments may interact in complex ways. In this review, we survey existing studies in the non-human animal and human literature, highlight unresolved questions and suggest future directions to explore the role of helminths in the etiology of cardio-metabolic disease.
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What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.