Margaret Profet

Margaret "Margie" Profet (born August 7, 1958 ) is an American evolutionary biologist who wrote work on the role of allergies , pregnancy vomiting and menstruation under the aspect of evolutionary biology . Their unexplained disappearance over the years caused a sensation.

Life

Profet studied political philosophy at Harvard until 1980 and obtained a bachelor's degree in physics from the University of California, Berkeley in 1985. In 1994 she began to study mathematics again at the University of Washington in Seattle, and a few years later at Harvard again. In the meantime she worked as a waitress. Margie Profet had never studied biology. In Berkeley she was noticed by the toxicologist Bruce Ames , who promoted her and gave her a position as an assistant at his institute. Even Donald Symons , George Williams and Harvey Mansfield were among their sponsors.

Theories and publications

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Profet developed theories about the evolutionary background of allergies, menstruation, and pregnancy sickness , which, according to her, remove germs, carcinogens and mutagenic toxins from the body. She has published in the Quarterly Review of Biology and Evolutionary Theory journals .

Her theories were controversial, but as a result she was given a six-figure sum from the MacArthur Foundation to fund further research. Profet subsequently published two books, including Protecting Your Baby-to-Be , in which she describes the influence of diet during pregnancy on the later health of the child and gives appropriate nutritional recommendations. Their rejection of certain vegetables in the early stages of pregnancy led to considerable controversy.

Allergies and cancer

An inverse relationship between allergies and several types of cancer had previously been established, but could not explain the observation until the publication of Profet's thesis that the allergic reaction removes, among other things, carcinogens from the body.

Profet argued that heavy metals such as arsenic and nickel among the metals are most likely to cause cancer, while at the same time they are the most allergenic, which is also true of the organic aflatoxin .

In 2008, neurobiologist Paul Sherman and evolutionary biologist Janet Shellman-Sherman analyzed a variety of historical studies, taking Profet's theories into account, and found that allergy sufferers actually had fewer cancers. This applies to tissues and organ systems that interface with the external environment: the mouth , throat , colon , rectum , gray matter , pancreas , skin , cervix and lungs . At Yale, experiments were later carried out with various organic allergens such as phospholipase A2 in bee venom . The allergic reaction was able to bring about a better immunization, extreme allergic reactions are a malfunction of the mechanism.

Role of menstruation

The menstrual concerning argued prophet that this cleaning the reproductive channels serve as sperm can serve as vectors of disease by bacteria from male and female genitalia attach to sperm and thus reach the uterus. Based on this theory, Profet recommended avoiding oral contraceptives , which suppress menstruation. Profet's theory that the menstrual period was used to cleanse the reproductive ducts of pathogens was criticized against the background that human copulation can take place practically during the entire cycle, so that up to a month can pass from the invasion of bacteria to the next menstrual period . Beverly Strassmann of the University of Michigan provided a detailed counter-notification. Among other things, she argued with the undetectable difference in bleeding intensity in sexually active women.

Profet, which also appeared definitely, called Strassman's study a waste of time, her mentor Williams saw the anthropologist right.

Profet later told the media that she developed her theory of menstruation based on a dream in which black triangles embedded in red appeared to her. She saw the triangles as pathogens, the red color as blood. In 2011, Sarah Treem's The How and the Why was released, a play that incorporates Profet's work on menstruation.

Disappear

In 2002 Margaret Profet broke off relations with her family and then gradually ceased contact with friends and colleagues until she disappeared between 2004 and 2005 without leaving any traces. In 2012, she was rediscovered by her family. She had lived in Boston during the period, where, according to her family, she was struggling with a (possibly mental) illness and poverty.

David Buss, professor of psychology at the University of Texas at Austin, noted that Profet "seemed to have a unique view of the world that included a paranoia fixated on invading pathogens and parasites." That paranoia may have enabled her unconventional view but could also help explain their disappearance. She was considered to be in love with detail and eccentric. Profet often dressed in shorts and a sweater regardless of the season. Some of Profet's former companions pointed out their unconventional way of life and thinking as well as possible unspecified psychological difficulties.

A former college colleague and journalist, Mike Martin, became aware of her disappearance through clues in her long unkept Wikipedia article. He researched her whereabouts three years and contributed to her recovery with an article in Psychology Today .

Works (selection)

• Menstruation as a Defense Against Pathogens Transported by Sperm. In: The Quarterly Review of Biology. Volume 68, No. 3, The University of Chicago Press, Chicago, pp. 335-386.
• The Function of Allergy: Immunological Defense Against Toxins. In: The Quarterly Review of Biology. Volume 66, No. 1, The University of Chicago Press, Chicago, pp. 23-62.
• The Evolution of Pregnancy Sickness as Protection to the Embryo Against Pleistocene Teratogens. In: Evolutionary Theory. No. 8, pp. 177-190.
• Pregnancy Sickness as Adaptation: A Deterrent to Maternal Ingestion of Teratogens. In: Jerome H. Barkow, Leda Cosmides, John Tooby: The Adapted Mind: Evolutionary Psychology and the Generation of Culture . Oxford University Press, pp. 327-366.

Web links

• The Mysterious Case of the Vanishing Genius

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Darwinian Medicine - It's A War Out There And Margie Profet, A Leading Theorist In A New Science, Thinks The Human Body Does Some Pretty Weird Things To Survive Seattle Times, July 31, 1994
2. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g h} Mike Martin: The Mysterious Case of the Vanishing Genius: Margie Profet generated solutions to seemingly intractable puzzles of biology. Then she disappeared . In: Psychology Today , May 1, 2012; psychologytoday.com ( Memento of the original from February 1, 2013 in the web archive archive.today ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
3. ↑ Fellows List - P . MacArthur Foundation. Archived from the original on April 12, 2011. Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
4. ↑ Bee Venom Phospholipase A2 Induces a Primary Type 2 Response that Is Dependent on the Receptor ST2 and Confers Protective Immunity Immunology, Volume 39, Issue 5, November 14, 2013
5. ↑ Allergies to Bee Stings may be Malfunctioning Evolutionary Response  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Nature World News, October 2013  
6. ^ Robert D. Martin: The First Curse on Women: Menstruation . In: Psychology Today , August 6, 2014
7. ↑ Women on the Verge of an Explanation: A Review of 'The How and the Why,' at Penguin Rep Theater . In: The New York Times , October 12, 2012. Retrieved June 15, 2015. 
8. ^ T10 Unsettling Disappearances In The Age Of Information. In: ListVerse , February 1, 2015
9. ^ " [She] seemed to have a unique view of the world that included a paranoia consumed with invading pathogens and parasites ".
10. ↑ ^{a b} Missing biologist surfaces, reunites with family: News blog. In: blogs.nature.com. Retrieved January 24, 2016 .