30 January 2024

Human evolutionary biology and how our modern environment is causing modern diseases - The Diary of a CEO with Dr Daniel Lieberman

Dr Daniel Lieberman is the Chair of the Department of Human Evolutionary Biology at Harvard University. His research focuses on how the human body has evolved to be the way it is. He is the author of the best-selling books, ‘The Story of the Human Body: Evolution, Health, and Disease’ and ‘Exercised: Why Something We Never Evolved to Do Is Healthy and Rewarding’.

In this conversation Dr Daniel Lieberman and Steven discuss topics, such as if human evolution is going backwards and what we can learn from hunter-gatherers.

00:00:00 Intro
00:02:00 What do you do, and why do you do it?
00:03:09 Are we actually a good species?
00:05:11 Do our ancestors hold the answer to all our health needs?
00:07:32 Have we evolved to eat meat?
00:10:33 How did we learn to hunt and gather?
00:17:03 Have we evolved to breathe wrong?
00:19:28 Why do we sweat?
00:24:23 When did our brains get so big?
00:29:55 Why do we struggle to diet?
00:38:31 Modern-day mismatched diseases
00:42:41 Why did you write a book about food?
00:45:02 Has our culture moved too fast?
00:46:15 We've decided to live with diseases rather than prevent them.
00:50:13 The modern foods we eat have affected the way we look.
00:53:02 Is cancer a consequence of our modern society?
00:58:34 How our bodies store energy
01:05:23 The keto diet and fasting
01:09:44 Are we too comfortable as a society?
01:14:59 Puberty has changed, and we’re going into it earlier than ever before.
01:16:37 The dangers of sitting down all day like we do.
01:20:08 What should people take away most from this conversation?
01:24:16 The products we put on our bodies, are they toxic?
01:30:06 The last guest's question