The two are not synonymous. Evolutionary medicine is a term describing the application of methods and concepts from evolutionary science to the study of medicine. Ancestral health is a ambiguous neologism employed by a group that calls itself the Ancestral Health Society and used to describe attempts to emulate the "Ancestral Lifestyle" to improve health and well-being in modern humans. They created a journal named the Journal of Evolution and Health to publish materials on ancestral health. A third of the journal's editorial board lacks a graduate degree and they published their first and only issue in 2013. M. A. Bruhn (talk) 07:32, 6 August 2016 (UTC)
The people in the actual Ancestral Health movement seem to use the two terms interchangeably. http://ancestraldoctors.org/how-we-view-ancestral-health/ says "Please watch the video below, featuring Rick Henriksen, MD 'Evolutionary Medicine in Primary Care' for more information about ancestral health". Why would I watch a video about Evolutionary Medicine to get more information about Ancestral Health if they are different things?
You can, of course, find places where subtle differences between the two are discussed, just as you can with "health care" and "medical care" -- two other terms that are often used interchangeably. --Guy Macon (talk) 08:19, 6 August 2016 (UTC)
The first link you provided described Ancestral Health as:
Ancestral Health means using the best practices of previous generations within modern medicine to prevent and treat modern diseases with lifestyle changes.
This is in line with my characterization of how it is used, and does not describe the employment of the basic science of evolution to applied problems in medicine and health which characterizes evolutionary medicine. I don't believe your question "Why would I watch a video about Evolutionary Medicine to get more information about Ancestral Health if they are different things?" can be answered without first answering why, if they believe they are synonyms, does a board member from Physicians for Ancestral Health give a 50 minute speech on evolutionary medicine that seemingly avoids any usage of the term "ancestral health" outside of a declaration of his position at Physicians for Ancestral Health coupled with a disclaimer that his views are his own.
The Kresser Institute, founded by Chris Kresser, L.Ac. (who "personally" created the "entire" course and delivers "all" its materials), doesn't appear to have an internally consistent meaning that it assigns to its terminology. It would take more time than I'm willing to invest to ascertain what an "Evolutionary Medicine Practitioner" is or what they mean when they say they offer the "Only Case-Based Functional Medicine Training with an Ancestral Perspective".
Going through these links, I've lost track of my line of thought. I'm just going to conclude with it being irrelevant (for the purpose of keeping these wiki articles distinct) if they believe the terms are synonymous since that would be mostly due to them redefining evolutionary medicine to refer to their concept of ancestral health, rather than the other way around. This would still leave us with two distinct articles, Evolutionary medicine and Ancestral health/"Evolutionary medicine as viewed by ancestral health proponents". M. A. Bruhn (talk) 10:37, 6 August 2016 (UTC)
Or it will leave us with one article, because it's not obvious that Ancestral health is a notable topic. Notability requires someone outside the little movement to write about it (among other things). WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:07, 6 August 2016 (UTC)
