The Fetal Matrix: Evolution, Development and Disease

A ground-breaking and fascinating account of fetal origins of adult disease.

Peter Gluckman (Author), Mark Hanson (Author)

9780521542357, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 18 November 2004

272 pages, 18 b/w illus.
24.7 x 17.5 x 1.3 cm, 0.552 kg

'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. … they have introduced, in a very readable fashion, an idea that is likely to receive further attention.' Biologist

New discoveries reveal how crucial interactions which determine our destiny occur before birth, when our genes interact with their environment as the embryo and fetus develop. These processes - in the matrix of the womb - are evolutionary echoes of mechanisms which allowed our hunter-gatherer ancestors to survive. These exciting insights into predictive adaptive responses suggest new ways of protecting the health of the fetus, infant and adult. If inappropriate they can trigger obesity, diabetes and heart disease, formerly thought to result solely from adult lifestyle. The new concepts in this book are crucial to understanding the daunting public health burden in societies undergoing rapid transition from poverty to affluence. They add an important new dimension to evolutionary theory. Synthesising developmental biology, evolutionary history, medical science, public health and social policy, this is a ground-breaking and fascinating account by two of the world's leading pioneers in this important emerging field.

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.

Subject Areas: Reproductive medicine [MFKC]