What evolutionary biology offers public health Randolph M Nesse
a Evolution is the foundation of biology, and biology is the
foundation of medicine and public health, so you would think
that evolutionary biology has already been applied to every
possible aspect of health. Remarkably, this is not the case.1
With the exceptions of population genetics and methods for
tracing phylogenies, other applications are very recent
developments. There are few evolutionary biologists in schools
of medicine or public health, so news about advances in this
field is often slow to arrive. The publication of a new edition
of Evolution in health and disease2 offers a good opportunity to
take stock. For instance, work on diseases of pregnancy
continues to accumulate evidence that diabetes and hypertension
of pregnancy may be related to evolutionary conflicts between
interests of the maternal and paternal genomes and the fetus.
Imprinted genes that influence these conflicts have profound
implications for in vitro fertilization pol