Exam 13: Health and Disease

No one wants to be sick or experience nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, fever, or cough; yet, from a health perspective, these are basic _____ mechanisms designed to remove or kill pathogens.

Nesse (2005) suggests that part of the reason why men do not live as long as women is that those factors that support ____ success in males may actually be at odds with longevity.

There is _____ genetic diversity among humans who live past the age of 70 compared with that among those who are 30.

A variety of studies suggest that early _____ relationships help influence later reactions to stress; for example, rat pups that received positive maternal care showed fewer negative hormonal responses to stress.

The overall stress reaction has been referred to as the _____ response; this involves the sympathetic nervous system releasing norepinephrine and epinephrine into the blood stream, increasing heart rate, dilating pupils, increasing breathing rate, and reducing blood flow to organs not involved in action.

Data from hospitals during the Dutch Hunger Winter of 1944-1945 have shown that a brief period of intense deprivation in an otherwise well-nourished population can result in a mismatch that leaves these individuals susceptible to future

Neel (1962) suggested that certain genes may be advantageous in times of famine, in that they reduce energy expenditure; this idea became known as the _____ hypothesis.

Like many other protective mechanisms, such as reacting to a stick as if it were a snake, sickness-related mechanisms err on the side of being overprotective. For example, the immune system response is sometimes greater than necessary for the challenge. Nesse (2005) refers to this as the _____ principle.

Explain the thrifty genotype hypothesis and the thrifty phenotype hypothesis. Discuss the evidence supporting them.

Our physiological structures have developed over a long period of evolutionary time; new structures are simply added to old ones, and thus these newer structures are _____ by what was there previously.

A _____ is a physiological manifestation that serves no purpose; a seizure may be an example of such a process.

In general terms, the _____ nervous system excites the body, preparing it for action, whereas the _____ nervous system calms the body back down.

Smoking in mothers can lead to obesity in her offspring because

McEwen (2002) suggests that the concept of stress is ambiguous; instead, we should think of our bodies as _____ systems that are designed to adapt to change.