Elsevier

Medical Hypotheses

Volume 77, Issue 4, October 2011, Pages 560-564
Medical Hypotheses

Medicine could be constructing human bodies in the future

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.mehy.2011.06.031Get rights and content

Abstract

In the 21st century human life has been profoundly changed by developments in sanitation, medical interventions and public health measures. Practically every person born into a developed nation population has a chance to survive throughout entire reproductive life and well beyond. Human body has evolved in the past adaptations to hunting–gathering, and later, agricultural ways of life. In the new situation of practically non-existent premature mortality and technologically developed complex societies medical practice will devote less attention to “saving lives” – preventing premature deaths – and more to enhancing capacities of our biological organisms and providing for maintenance of the bodies beyond their biological limits established by evolution. The role of advances in nanotechnology, information technology, neuroscience and biotechnology is discussed in the context of mind and body enhancements.

Section snippets

History of human body

Humans are mammals. We share with other mammals nearly all of our physiological processes and biochemical properties. Our anatomical structure has the basic mammalian plan, but is uniquely modified by the evolutionary experience and development of erect bipedalism [1], [2], [3]. This development had a number of structural and functional consequences. It released our upper limbs from the necessity of locomotion and allowed them freedom for manipulation of objects. It requires precise balancing

History of human lifespan

For the vast majority of our ∼5 Ma long history we were subjected to same threats to our lives as other mammals: infectious and parasitic diseases, accidental trauma, predation. Age distribution of probabilities of dying of our ancestors, the australopithecines was similar to that of other large mammals (Fig. 1). This situation remained basically unchanged until about eight thousand years ago food production spread through large sections of humanity. Agricultural way of life brought new threats,

The modified body in medical discourse

Medical attitudes of the body must be understood according to social categories which present the body as fluid and non-static-a continuing work in progress. The anthropologist Mary Douglas is insightful here. For Douglas [12], human beings are creatures who live according to social categories. Human societies use an array of complex social categories in order to maintain social order. Social categories are also important for delineating between socially sanctioned and prescribed behaviours.

The future of the body and medicine

We contend that the notion of transformation is integral to the current medicalised body. Bio-medicine’s movement from preventative to corrective techniques during the second half of the 20th century exemplifies the notion of transformation. Never in human history has the body undergone such modification; a phenomenon which will increase in the 21st century. The use of gene therapy, stem cell therapy and nanotechnology, or a combination of these will herald incredible medical advances.

Conflict of interest statement

No conflicts financial or otherwise are related to this work.

Sources of support

None.

References (32)

  • Henneberg M, Henneberg RJ. Reconstructing Medical Knowledge in Ancient Pompeii from the Hard Evidence of Bones and...
  • M. Douglas

    Purity and Danger: An Analysis of Concepts of Pollution and Taboo

    (1969)
  • Foucault M. Two Lectures. In: Colin Gordon, editor. Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews & Other Writings 1972–1977....
  • M. Featherstone

    Body, image and affect in consumer culture

    Body and Society

    (March 2010)
  • P. Vertinsky

    Making and marking gender: bodybuilding and the medicalization of the body from one century’s end to another

    Sport in Society

    (1999)
  • M.A. Blasco

    Telomeres and human disease: ageing, cancer and beyond

    Nature Rev

    (August 2005)
  • Cited by (0)

    View full text