{"id":130164,"date":"2021-02-15T13:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-02-15T20:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/?p=130164"},"modified":"2021-02-15T13:45:23","modified_gmt":"2021-02-15T20:45:23","slug":"cepon-robins-a-healthy-sense-of-disgust-can-keep-you-from-getting-sick","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/?p=130164","title":{"rendered":"Cepon-Robins: A healthy sense of disgust can keep you from getting sick"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Coauthors Tara Cepon-Robins, assistant professor of anthropology at the University of Colorado Colorado Springs, and Theresa Gildner, assistant professor of biological anthropology at Washington University in Saint Louis, prepare stool samples for parasite and microbiome analysis. Photo credit: Melissa Liebert, Northern Arizona University.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Remember the last time you felt nauseous, revolted or generally repulsed? New research from Tara Cepon-Robins, assistant professor of anthropology, suggests that same feeling \u2013 disgust \u2013 could be your body\u2019s way of keeping you from getting sick.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cepon-Robins was the lead researcher on the study, \u201cPathogen disgust sensitivity protects against infection in a high pathogen environment,\u201d published by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences February 2021.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The research is the first in its field to directly test whether individuals who experience a greater pathogen disgust sensitivity \u2013 that is, people who are more sensitive to feeling disgust \u2013 will become exposed to fewer pathogens in their local environments, and thus suffer fewer infections.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDarwin first recognized disgust as an evolved human emotion, hypothesizing that it aided in avoidance or expulsion of \u2018tainted\u2019 food,\u201d Cepon-Robins and fellow researchers write in the study.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSince then, many studies have supported the hypothesis that disgust is a universal human emotional response that evolved to motivate avoidance of certain kinds of fitness-reducing substances. [Yet] evidence has been largely indirect, [and] no studies have directly tested whether greater pathogen disgust sensitivity is associated with fewer current infections.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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An Upano Valley community showing variation in housing styles. The Upano Valley is the more market integrated region examined in the study compared to the more remote Cross Cutuc\u00fa region.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Researchers examined data from households in three indigenous Ecuadorian Shuar communities, all located in high-pathogen environments but with differing levels of economic development.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The study hypothesized that in environments where disgust-motivated avoidance of contaminated food and other pathogen-containing substances has a low cost \u2013 for example, in areas with reliably clean water and cooking surfaces that are easily cleaned \u2013 individuals likely experience greater pathogen disgust.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But in environments where individuals must regularly encounter potential pathogens to acquire food or shelter \u2013 for example, among populations who often have direct exposure to soil, animal feces, dirt floors or potentially-contaminated water sources \u2013 disgust-motivated avoidance becomes more costly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Their findings support the hypothesis that disgust is an evolved human emotion that functions as a disease-avoidance mechanism, helping humans to reduce their exposure to pathogens. In addition, the findings demonstrate that the human disgust response is calibrated to the local costs and benefits of avoidance and infection.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Significantly, it is the first study to document that higher pathogen disgust sensitivity is associated with lower levels of pathogen infection among an indigenous subsistence-based population living in a high-pathogen environment \u2013 conditions that are, in important ways, more similar to those experienced throughout human evolutionary history than those tested to date.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The study was conducted as part of the Shuar Health and Life History Project<\/a> and includes researchers from Washington State University, Washington University in St. Louis, Northern Arizona University, Baylor University, University of Oregon and Queens College, City University of New York.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Cepon-Robins writes, researches and teaches in the Department of Anthropology in the College of Letters, Arts and Sciences<\/a>, which enrolls 5,800 students among 21 departments and programs. The college offers 19 majors and 53 minors in the arts, humanities, social sciences and natural sciences. Learn more about Cepon-Robins’ work<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Cepon-Robins was the lead researcher on the first study in its field to directly test whether people who are more sensitive to feeling disgust will become exposed to fewer pathogens \u2013 and thus suffer fewer infections. (More)<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":130238,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1,45,48],"tags":[86,110,302,329],"class_list":["post-130164","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all","category-arts-and-culture","category-science-and-tech","tag-college-of-letters-arts-and-sciences","tag-department-of-anthropology","tag-office-of-research","tag-research"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/Stool-Sample-prep-2012-1.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1mBpJ-xRq","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130164","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/27"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=130164"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130164\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":130251,"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130164\/revisions\/130251"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/130238"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=130164"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=130164"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=130164"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}