So Ironic

Chapter 1 of Survival of the Sickest

What comes to mind when iron is mentioned?

Do you think of ironing clothes?

People mining iron?

Minecraft?

The iron in your body?

Well, the primary focus of Chapter 1 of the Survival of the Sickest was the iron in your body. This chapter explored both the benefits and the non-benefits of having iron in our bodies. The chapter began by talking about some dude who could had some freaky disease that caused his body to think that it needed more iron when it actually did not. This led to him getting poisoning from an excess of iron, which jacked up his metabolism. 

The chapter also mentioned the effects that iron has on bacteria. Iron allows bacteria to thrive. I mean, that stuff will grow like crazy in iron. Like, freakin' crazy growth. That's why babies are not supposed to consume that much iron. The bacteria could completely take over the baby's young body if an abundance of iron is present. There was also mention of the Black Death and how it affected men the most. This is because men had the most iron in their bodies. Women, children, and people with iron deficiencies were totally fine because they did not have enough iron in their bodies to contract the disease.

This connects to genetics because the passing down of the disease of hemochromatosis actually saved lives during the Black death and ties into issues of people who have problems pumping iron (through their veins that is...).