The Fragile Wisdom : An Evolutionary View on Women's Biology and Health / Grazyna Jasienska.
Jasienska, Grazyna, author.
2013
Available Online

Linked e-resources

Linked Resource Online Access

Details

Title The Fragile Wisdom : An Evolutionary View on Women's Biology and Health / Grazyna Jasienska.
Author Jasienska, Grazyna, author.
ISBN 9780674067196
DOI https://doi.org/10.4159/harvard.9780674067196
Published Cambridge, MA : Harvard University Press, [2013]
Copyright ©2013
Language English
Language Note In English.
Description 1 online resource (298 p.) : 19 line illustrations, 3 tables
Item Number 10.4159/harvard.9780674067196 doi
Dewey Decimal Classification 613.04244
Summary So many women who do everything right to stay healthy still wind up with breast cancer, heart disease, or osteoporosis. In The Fragile Wisdom, Grazyna Jasienska provides an evolutionary perspective on the puzzle of why disease prevention among women is so frustratingly difficult. Modern women, she shows, are the unlucky victims of their own bodies' conflict of interest between reproductive fitness and life-long health. The crux of the problem is that women's physiology has evolved to facilitate reproduction, not to reduce disease risk. Any trait-no matter how detrimental to health in the post-reproductive period-is more likely to be preserved in the next generation if it increases the chance of giving birth to offspring who will themselves survive to reproductive age. To take just one example, genes that produce high levels of estrogen are a boon to fertility, even as they raise the risk of breast cancer in mothers and their daughters. Jasienska argues that a mismatch between modern lifestyles and the Stone Age physiology that evolution has bequeathed to every woman exacerbates health problems. She looks at women's mechanisms for coping with genetic inheritance and at the impact of environment on health. Warning against the false hope gene therapy inspires, Jasienska makes a compelling case that our only avenue to a healthy life is prevention programs informed by evolutionary understanding and custom-fitted to each woman's developmental and reproductive history.
Access Note Access limited to authorized users.
System Details Note Mode of access: Internet via World Wide Web.
Digital File Characteristics text file PDF
Source of Description Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 30. Aug 2021)
In E-BOOK GESAMTPAKET / COMPLETE PACKAGE 2013
E-BOOK PACKAGE MEDICINE 2013
E-BOOK PAKET MEDIZIN 2013
HUP eBook-Package Backlist 2000-2013 (Canada)
Harvard University Press eBook Package Backlist 2000-2013
Linked Resources Online Access
Record Appears in Online Resources > Ebooks
All Resources
Frontmatter
Contents
Introduction: Why It Is So Difficult to Be Perfectly Healthy
1 If Reproductive Hormones Are So Important, Why Is There So Much Variation?
2 Coevolution of Biology and Culture: Agriculture and Selection for High Levels of Estrogen
3 You Are What You Eat . . . as a Fetus
4 The French Paradox: Did Child Welfare Reduce the Risk of Heart Disease?
5 Intergenerational Echoes of Slavery
6 The Price of Reproduction
7 The Ultimate Test of the Costs of Reproduction: Life Span
8 Evolutionary Past and Modern Diet
9 Evolution and Physical Activity
10 Evolutionary Trade- Offs and Culture
11 Fallacies of Philanthropy
12 Fixing Genes versus Fixing Lifestyles
Conclusion: Is Our Physiology Obsolete?
References
Acknowledgments
Index

Browse Subjects

Show more subjects...

Statistics

from
to
Export