Thesis
Cross-national variation in smoking prevalence versus parasite load
Washington State University
Master of Arts (MA), Washington State University
2017
Handle:
https://hdl.handle.net/2376/104980
Abstract
The pharmacophagy hypothesis for the origins of plant neurotoxin use in humans states that, throughout our evolutionary history, humans have made use of psychoactive plant toxins, including nicotine, as a form of self-medication against pathogen infection. This runs counter to prevailing hypotheses of drug initiation, which assume that plant neurotoxins are evolutionarily novel and signal a false positive fitness benefit, despite having negative physiological and psychological consequences. In this largely exploratory analysis, we examined the effect of pathogen load on smoking prevalence, after controlling for latitude, GDP, fertility, and gender inequality, in 171 countries. Our results indicated that, after controlling for these four variables, pathogen prevalence appears to be a reasonably good predictor of smoking prevalence: pathogens predicted less of the variation in male smoking prevalence than female smoking prevalence, however the results suggest that as men's pathogen prevalence increases, smoking decreases, while women show the opposite relationship. This may be due to the fact that people tend to increase smoking as a form of self-medication against infection, however women's smoking prevalence, due to other constraints on smoking, such as pregnancy and lactation, never increases above a certain threshold which would eliminate pathogens. Men's smoking prevalence, meanwhile, is high enough that increases in pathogen prevalence predict a decrease in smoking prevalence, suggesting that men who smoke more are less likely to be infected with pathogens.
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Details
- Title
- Cross-national variation in smoking prevalence versus parasite load
- Creators
- Katarina Elizabeth Kaspari
- Contributors
- Edward H. Hagen (Degree Supervisor)
- Awarding Institution
- Washington State University
- Academic Unit
- Anthropology, Department of
- Theses and Dissertations
- Master of Arts (MA), Washington State University
- Publisher
- Washington State University; [Pullman, Washington] :
- Identifiers
- 99900525272101842
- Language
- English
- Resource Type
- Thesis