Hardwired: How Our Instincts to Be Healthy are Making Us Sick

A book that combines the very best of the social sciences and medicine | Well timed with emerging clinical evidence supporting the idea of the mind-body connection.

Heidelberg | London, 10 Dezemer 2020

This book is about modern health – or lack of it and the co-authors make two key arguments: that our deteriorating wellness is rapidly becoming a health emergency, and two, that much of these trends are rooted in the way our highly evolved hardwired brains and bodies deal with modern social change. Densely packed with fascinating facts and little-told stories, the authors weave together real-life cases that describe how our ancient evolutionary drives are propelling us toward ill health and disease. 

Over the course of seven chapters, the authors unlock the mysteries of our top health vices: why hospitals are more dangerous than warzones, our addiction to sugar, salt, and stress, our emotionally-driven brains, our relentless pursuit of happiness, our sleepless society, our understanding of risk, and finally, how world history can be a valuable tutor. Through these varied themes, the authors illustrate how our social lives are more of a determinant of health outcome than at any other time in our history, and to truly understand our plight; we need to recognize when our survival-seeking hardwired brains and bodies are directing our decisions and behaviour.   

According to Robert and Luis, their work "explore[s] what a broken heart looks like to a cardiologist, the link between depression and inflammatory diseases, how social distancing can affect our very chromosomes, and why loneliness is more dangerous to our health than smoking."

About the authors

The co-authors, Robert S. Barrett and Luis Hugo Francescutti: a PhD from the world of social science and an MD from the world of medicine – combine forces to bring this emerging human crisis to light.

Robert S. Barrett and Luis Hugo Francescutti

Hardwired: How Our Instincts to Be Healthy are Making Us Sick
2021, XXV, 164 p. 1 b/w illus.
Softcover 25,99€ | £22.99 | $29.99 
ISBN  978-3-030-51728-1
eISBN 978-3-030-51729-8