BIOMEDICINE AND THE HUMAN CONDITION: CHALLENGES, RISKS, AND REWARDS

"How to avoid disease, how to breed successfully, and how to live to a reasonable age are questions that have perplexed mankind throughout history. This book explores our progress in understanding these challenges and the risks and rewards of our attempts to find solutions. Nutritional experiences and exposure to microbes and alien chemicals have consequences that are etched into our cells and genomes. Such events have a crucial impact on development in utero and in childhood and later affect the way we age, how we respond to infection, and the likelihood of our developing chronic diseases, including cancer. The author discusses how prospects for human life might continually improve as biomedicine addresses these problems and also examines the ethical checkpoints encountered."--Jacket.