Mismatch
Price:
$45.00 (01)Description
Our bodies and body processes evolved to allow our ancestors the best chance of survival as hunter-gatherers in the Savannah. Our brains, on the other hand, have evolved intelligence, imagination, and foresight, allowing us to leave all other creatures behind, and develop complex societies, cultures, and lifestyles, far removed from those of our ancestors.The development of a modern human in utero still reflects our past, and we have created a modern, artificial world that is out of tune with our evolved bodies. Could it be that this mismatch has led to the current deadly explosion in 'lifestyle' diseases such as diabetes and obesity, and will it lead to increasingly frequent epidemics? We appear unable to evolve out of this problem, and unwilling to return to a different way of life, so how can we understand and address this increasingly crucial challenge?
Gluckman and Hanson set out the case, examining issues that are at times controversial and speculative. Utilizing the latest research in epigenetics (that genes may be environmentally modified), they propose that intervention in early human development, alongside a better focus on the health of potential mothers, can make future generations better suited to the modern world.
Features
- A fascinating look at the consequences of living in an era when our human behaviour has outstripped classical Darwinian processes.
- Encompasses epigenetics, evolutionary biology, and perinatal medicine.
- The rapidly increasing incidence of 'lifestyle' diseases is cause for much concern in the developed world - the authors take a forward-looking perspective on the future of clinical medicine.
- Provides an accessible account of the interplay of genes and the environment - one of the most exciting areas of research in biology today.
- With a foreword by Sir Robert Winston.
Reviews
"Mismatch is a salutary reminder that the old genetics, with its rigid separation of nature from nuture, is giving way to a murkier model of inheritance in which the environment, almost as much as DNA, plays a central part as generations succeed one another."-- Science
About the Author(s)
Peter Gluckman
is University Distinguished Professor, Professor of Paediatrics and Perinatal Biology, and Director of the Liggins Institute for Medical Research and the National Center for Growth and Development, at the University of Auckland.
Mark Hanson
directs the Centre for Developmental Origins of Health and Disease at the University of Southampton, and is an honorary Fellow of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, and Honorary professor at the University of Auckland.
