Peter Gluckman is a New Zealander.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Online version licensed for access by U. of T. users.

"This book is about a growing and dangerous mismatch affecting the developed world: a mismatch that originates in our evolutionary history; that is influenced by development processes in the womb, and takes its toll as we grow to adulthood." "Our evolution designed us for a world very different from that which we have constructed for ourselves. Within a mere instant, in evolutionary terms, we have transformed our environment. But the widening mismatch between our biology and our environment has its costs. And we cannot evolve our way out of the problem." "In a narrative that begins with the Sherpa in Nepal, Peter Gluckman and Mark Hanson, both leading medical scientists, draw on the latest research, bringing together concepts from evolutionary biology, developmental sciences, medicine, anthropology and ecology to describe the nature of this mismatch, its consequences, and how we may counter them."

"Our basic design is informed by genes largely selected and adapted for life in our Pleistocene past. But our individual design is fine-tuned by information about the environment picked up by the fetus via the placenta, which affects our development and sets our metabolic levels and life strategy. One impact of our growing mismatch is that these tuning mechanisms increasingly fail to make us well adapted to modern life. The cost appears as obesity, early-onset diabetes, and other health problems. There are broader consequences too for societies, such as the falling age of puberty, with its attendant mismatch with psychosocial maturity, and at the other end of life, the implications of increasing longevity."--Jacket.

Rutherford Medal; 2001.

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