Evolution in Health and Disease

For most of our history, humans lived in small hunter-gatherer groups whose diets, living conditions, and environmental pressures were very different from what most humans face today. The result is that the evolutionary adaptations which proved beneficial in our past may prove less so now. This fascinating book explores the implications of human evolutionary history for human health and medicine. The topics include the evolution of antibiotic resistance, the evolution of pathogen virulence, the evolution of aging, the design of vaccines, and population- and genotype-specific reactions to drugs and susceptibility to disease. The book also discusses new insights into mother-offspring conflict during pregnancy, menstruation, menopause, child abuse, homicide, depression, schizophrenia, and many chronic degenerative diseases, such as cancer and osteoporosis. Written by leading experts in evolutionary medicine and addressed to medical students and researchers and evolutionary biologists, the book describes the state of the art and provides clear access to the primary literature. It also provides compelling arguments for why the tools evolutionary biology belong in every doctor's tool-kit.