The Fetal Matrix: Evolution, Development and Disease

by Peter Gluckman, Mark Hanson

Overview

New discoveries indicate that the most important interactions in determining our fate occur before birth. These processes are an evolutionary echo of mechanisms which allowed our ancestors to survive as hunter-gatherers. Two of the world's leading pioneering authorities reveal exciting insights into a rapidly emerging field. They suggest new ways of protecting the health of the fetus, infant and adult and cover important triggers for many emerging diseases such as obesity, diabetes and heart disease.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780521542357
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	11/18/2004
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	272
Product dimensions:	6.89(w) x 9.72(h) x 0.51(d)

About the Author

In 2004, Dr Peter Gluckman was named 'New Zealander of the Year' by the New Zealand Herald. The newspaper recognized him for 'a long career of achievement that has brought life-saving developments in medicine and demonstrated an ability to produce world-leading scientific research in New Zealand.

Table of Contents

1. Shaping our destiny: genes, environment and their interactions; 2. Mother and fetus; 3. Fetal choices; 4. Predictive adaptive responses and human diseases; 5. Obesity, diabetes and other diseases; 6. The biology of predictive adaptive responses; 7. Predictive adaptive responses - critical processes in evolution; 8. Evolutionary echoes and the human camel; 9. Improving human health; 10. Fetal futures.

Editorial Reviews

"The authors are persuasive and their findings have relevance for health policy everywhere"
New Scientist

"...a detailed and comprehensive account...highly readable with many interesting examples provided to illuminate key points of the author's thesis...I recommend this book highly as a contribution to the growing literature on developmental plasticity, genomic regulation and human adaptive physiological processes."
The Midwest Book Review, A.R. Cellura, Ed. D.

"Despite the complexity of the topic, the authors have managed a tour de force in making it understandable to the educated lay reader as well as the specialized professional."
Nicole J. Bernshaw, MSc, IBCLC, Official Journal of the International Lactation Consultant Association

"The biological interpretation of disease and health is a topic in need of serious attention and wider dissemination. In The Fetal Matrix, Gluckman and Hanson have made a very interesting contribution to this enterprise."
Stephen Lewis

From the Publisher