An integrative skeletal and paleogenomic analysis of stature variation suggests relatively reduced health for early European farmers.

Human culture, biology, and health were shaped dramatically by the onset of agriculture ∼12,000 y B.P. This shift is hypothesized to have resulted in increased individual fitness and population growth as evidenced by archaeological and population genomic data alongside a decline in physiological health as inferred from skeletal remains. Here, we consider osteological and ancient DNA data from the same prehistoric individuals to study human stature variation as a proxy for health across a transition to agriculture. Specifically, we compared "predicted" genetic contributions to height from paleogenomic data and "achieved" adult osteological height estimated from long bone measurements for 167 individuals across Europe spanning the Upper Paleolithic to Iron Age (∼38,000 to 2,400 B.P.). We found that individuals from the Neolithic were shorter than expected (given their individual polygenic height scores) by an average of −3.82 cm relative to individuals from the Upper Paleolithic and Mesolithic (P = 0.040) and −2.21 cm shorter relative to post-Neolithic individuals (P = 0.068), with osteological vs. expected stature steadily increasing across the Copper (+1.95 cm relative to the Neolithic), Bronze (+2.70 cm), and Iron (+3.27 cm) Ages. These results were attenuated when we additionally accounted for genome-wide genetic ancestry variation: for example, with Neolithic individuals −2.82 cm shorter than expected on average relative to pre-Neolithic individuals (P = 0.120). We also incorporated observations of paleopathological indicators of nonspecific stress that can persist from childhood to adulthood in skeletal remains into our model. Overall, our work highlights the potential of integrating disparate datasets to explore proxies of health in prehistory.

Paradigmas de salud y políticas de medicamentos: continuidades y rupturas en el caso argentino en la etapa posguerra hasta finales del siglo XX / Health paradigms and drug policies: Continuities and ruptures in the Argentine case in the postwar period until the end of the 20th century

En este trabajo se recuperan elementos conceptuales relacionados con los paradigmas en salud, así como sus implicancias históricas en torno a la cuestión de los medicamentos. La salud internacional, el panamericanismo y la nueva agenda de salud global se ubican como paradigmas hegemónicos con un fuerte anclaje desde una perspectiva biologicista donde la atención médica y los medicamentos juegan un papel predominante. La medicina social latinoamericana se presenta como un paradigma contra hegemónico desde una perspectiva que, orientada desde categorías sociales, analiza el proceso de salud de la población, en tanto colectivo y determinado por condiciones preexistentes. Estos paradigmas signaron las políticas de salud de modo alternante. Se analizan, particularmente, el caso de las políticas de medicamentos en Argentina y cómo las estrategias en ese campo manifiestan características de dichos paradigmas. Se concluye que existieron continuidades y rupturas con éstos. También describe los preceptos de las organizaciones internacionales y su relación con lo que estaba pasando en el territorio nacional. Las políticas de medicamentos fueron un reflejo de la posición de los gobiernos de turno con vaivenes que expresan un debate sin resolver (AU)

In this work, conceptual elements related to the paradigms in health are recovered, as well as their historical implications around the issue about medication. International health, pan-Americanism and the new global health agenda are located as hegemonic paradigms with a strong anchorage from a biological perspective where medical care and medication play a predominant role. Latin American social medicine is presented as a counter-hegemonic paradigm from a perspective that, oriented from social categories, analyzes the health process of the population, both collective and determined by pre-existing conditions. These paradigms alternately signified health policies. In particular, the case of medication policies in Argentina are analyzed, and how the strategies in this field show characteristics of said paradigms. It is concluded that, this paradigms showed continuities and breaks. It also describes the views under the precepts of international organizations and their relation to what was happening in the national territory. Medication policies were a reflection of the position of the governments in office with swings that express an unsolved debate (AU)

Historical evolution of the concept of health in Western medicine.

"Health" is a positive multi-dimensional concept involving a variety of features, ranging from ability to integrity, from fitness to well-being. According to the first principle of the constitution of the World Health Organization "Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity". This constitution was adopted by the International Health Conference held in New York in June-July 1946 and became operative in April 1948. This classical, seventy-year old definition of the World Health Organization is nowadays considered a historical one and it stands as a fundamental milestone of a diachronic track beginning, in Western medicine, with the definition of health proposed by Hippocrates and his School. For Hippocrates health was the state of equilibrium of four humours. This philosophical-naturalistic definition has been flanked in the history of Western medicine by various concepts of health and disease, alternatively based, according to different scientists and in different medical contexts and periods, on epidemiological, anatomical, physiological, functional, social and molecular perspectives. Since biomedical definitions are always prone to integration and updating, depending on the continuous achievements of medical science and bioethics, the fascinating journey through the concepts of health and disease, the fundamental milestones of which are here briefly proposed, is still in progress.

Neanderthal behaviour, diet, and disease inferred from ancient DNA in dental calculus.

Recent genomic data have revealed multiple interactions between Neanderthals and modern humans, but there is currently little genetic evidence regarding Neanderthal behaviour, diet, or disease. Here we describe the shotgun-sequencing of ancient DNA from five specimens of Neanderthal calcified dental plaque (calculus) and the characterization of regional differences in Neanderthal ecology. At Spy cave, Belgium, Neanderthal diet was heavily meat based and included woolly rhinoceros and wild sheep (mouflon), characteristic of a steppe environment. In contrast, no meat was detected in the diet of Neanderthals from El Sidrón cave, Spain, and dietary components of mushrooms, pine nuts, and moss reflected forest gathering. Differences in diet were also linked to an overall shift in the oral bacterial community (microbiota) and suggested that meat consumption contributed to substantial variation within Neanderthal microbiota. Evidence for self-medication was detected in an El Sidrón Neanderthal with a dental abscess and a chronic gastrointestinal pathogen (Enterocytozoon bieneusi). Metagenomic data from this individual also contained a nearly complete genome of the archaeal commensal Methanobrevibacter oralis (10.2× depth of coverage)-the oldest draft microbial genome generated to date, at around 48,000 years old. DNA preserved within dental calculus represents a notable source of information about the behaviour and health of ancient hominin specimens, as well as a unique system that is useful for the study of long-term microbial evolution.

La Sanidad en los presidios del Reino. Real Ordenanza General de presidios de 1834 / Health care in the prisons of the Kingdom. General Royal Ordinance of Prisons of 1834

En el S. XIX, aparece en España el concepto «Sanidad penitenciaria» en el ordenamiento legal como elemento propio de las prisiones. En este siglo, gracias a una serie de principios ideológicos de carácter humanitario y progresista, se regulan y decretan normas que organizan la necesidad de una adecuada atención médica en los presidios de África, en los peninsulares, insulares y de ultramar. La más importante de ellas en aquella época, la constituyó la Ordenanza General de los Presidios del Reino de 1834, y el posterior Reglamento de 1844 (AU)

In the 19th century, the concept of «prison health» began to make an appearance in Spanish legislation as an integral part of prison management. Thanks to a series of ideological and progressive principles in the same century, laws were decreed and regulated to address the need for adequate medical care for prisoners in Africa, Spain and the overseas territories. The most important of these was the Royal Ordinance of Prisoners of the Kingdom of 1834, and subsequent Regulation of 1844 (AU)