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Discover How Evolution Has Effected Both Health and Disease

Posted on: Friday, 18 July 2008, 06:00 CDT

Research and Markets (http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/8cb5a3/evolution_in_healt) has announced the addition of the "Evolution in Health and Disease" report to their offering.

A fully revised edition of a volume written by the worlds leading authorities on this subject. It discusses how the evolution of humans and their pathogens have generated important medical issues, covering both infectious and degenerative diseases. It presents important ideas that are not yet sufficiently appreciated in the medical community.

In this fully revised and updated edition, the editors have integrated a completely new set of contributions from the leading researchers in the field to describe the latest research in evolutionary medicine, providing a fresh summary of this rapidly expanding field 10 years after its predecessor was first compiled. It continues to adopt a broad approach to the subject, drawing on medically relevant research from evolutionary genetics, human behavioural ecology, evolutionary microbiology (especially experimental evolution of virulence and resistance), the evolution of aging and degenerative disease, and other aspects of biology or medicine where evolutionary approaches make important contributions.

'Evolution in Health and Disease' describes how evolutionary thinking gives valuable insights and fresh perspectives into human health and disease, establishing evolutionary biology as an essential complementary science for medicine. Integrating evolutionary thought into medical research and practice helps to explain the origins of many medical conditions, including diabetes, obesity, cardiovascular disease, asthma, allergies, other autoimmune diseases, and aging. It also provides life-saving insights into the evolutionary responses of pathogens to antibiotics, vaccinations, and other human interventions. Why do we grow old? How can we stay healthy as we age? The book discusses these and many other fascinating questions, as well as suggesting exciting possibilities for future treatment and research.

This research level text is suitable for graduate level students and researchers in the fields of evolutionary (Darwinian) medicine, evolutionary biology, anthropology, developmental biology and genetics. It will also be of relevance and use to medical researchers and doctors.

Key Topics Covered:

-- Introducing evolutionary thinking for medicine

-- Global spatial patterns of infectious diseases and human evolution

-- Medically relevant variation in the human genome

-- Health consequences of ecogenetic variation

-- Human genetic variation of medical signifi cance

-- Intimate relations: Evolutionary conflicts of pregnancy and childhood

-- How hormones mediate trade-offs in human health and disease

-- Functional signifi cance of MHC variation in mate choice, reproductive outcome, and disease risk

-- Perspectives on human health and disease from evolutionary and behavioral ecology

-- The ecology and evolution of antibiotic-resistant bacteria

-- Pathogen evolution in a vaccinated world

-- The evolution and expression of virulence

-- Evolutionary origins of diversity in human viruses

-- The population structure of pathogenic bacteria

-- Whole-genome analysis of pathogen evolution

-- Emergence of new infectious diseases

-- Evolution of parasites

-- Evolutionary biology as a foundation for studying aging and aging-related disease

-- Evolution, developmental plasticity, and metabolic disease

-- Lifestyle, diet, and disease: comparative perspectives on the determinants

-- Cancer: evolutionary origins of vulnerability

-- Cancer as a microevolutionary process

-- The evolutionary context of human aging and degenerative disease

For more information visit http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/8cb5a3/evolution_in_healt

Source: Oxford University Press

Source: Business Wire

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