Health risks and unsustainability of cannibalism

Researchers from the University of Wrocław (Poland) and Charles University (Czech Republic) first reported on 3 July that human flesh offers no caloric benefit and can transmit pathogens, including prion proteins linked to kuru, even after cooking. A follow‑up on 9 July added a mathematical model showing health risks rise sharply when cannibals consume other cannibals, reinforcing the view that cultural taboos act as an evolutionary safeguard.

On 27 July the same authors published a second mathematical‑model study in *Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences*. The model compares the modest nutritional gain of human flesh against hidden epidemiological costs and finds that regular cannibalism rapidly spreads prion diseases and can drive population decline. The authors conclude the practice is only marginally viable under extreme food scarcity, with already‑dead bodies and thorough cooking, but even then disease risk quickly outweighs any advantage. The study again cites the Fore people of Papua New Guinea, whose ritual cannibalism triggered a deadly kuru epidemic that ceased after the practice ended.

Together, the papers argue that deep‑rooted prohibitions on eating human flesh likely evolved to protect populations from epidemic collapse, characterising cannibalism as a biological dead‑end.