If You're Curious About These Questions...
You should listen to this audiobook
- Have you ever wondered why the very biological traits that helped our ancestors survive are now the leading causes of chronic illness today?
- Did you know that your body’s ancient mechanism for preventing dehydration is a hidden reason behind modern high blood pressure?
- What if the secret to understanding obesity lies not in your willpower, but in a prehistoric survival instinct that tells your body to never stop eating?
Listen to Too Much of a Good Thing — Free Audiobook
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Key Takeaways from Too Much of a Good Thing
- Understand why the human body's slow evolutionary pace clashes with the rapid advancements of the modern world, resulting in a biological mismatch that causes chronic diseases.
- Discover how evolutionary adaptations designed to survive food scarcity—like storing fat and releasing hunger hormones after weight loss—now fuel the modern obesity epidemic.
- Learn why genetic traits that once aggressively conserved sodium and water to prevent ancient humans from dying of dehydration now cause deadly high blood pressure.
- Uncover how the life-saving prehistoric instinct to panic and flee from physical predators misfires in response to modern stressors, causing widespread anxiety and depression.
- Find out how the biological blood-clotting mechanisms that historically protected early humans from bleeding to death are now inadvertently triggering modern heart attacks.
Learning Tools
Reinforce what you learned from Too Much of a Good Thing
Mind Map
Too Much of a Good Thing
Evolutionary Mismatch+
Food & Metabolism (Obesity)+
Water & Sodium (Blood Pressure)+
Fight or Flight (Mental Health)+
Blood Clotting (Heart Disease)+
Why Evolution Won't Save Us+
Solutions & Interventions+
Quiz — Test Your Understanding
Question 1 of 8
Why did early humans who migrated out of Africa eventually develop lighter skin?
Question 2 of 8
According to the book, what physiological challenge makes it difficult for humans to maintain weight loss?
Question 3 of 8
How do the survival mechanisms developed by our ancestors to prevent dehydration negatively impact us today?
Question 4 of 8
Why is the human tendency to panic considered a 'holdover from our past'?
Question 5 of 8
How does the body's natural blood-clotting mechanism contribute to heart attacks in the modern world?
Question 6 of 8
Why is natural selection unlikely to eliminate modern chronic diseases like obesity and diabetes?
Question 7 of 8
What does the book suggest is the most effective way to change dietary habits and combat the obesity epidemic?
Question 8 of 8
What biological technique did Dr. Susumu Tonegawa use to erase anxiety-inducing memories in mice?
Too Much of a Good Thing — Full Chapter Overview
- 1Recommendation
- 2The human body is ill-suited to the modern world.
- 3Human bodies adapted to food scarcity, but today we now have abundant food.
- 4We were once threatened by having too little water and sodium, yet too much is dangerous too.
- 5Our tendency to panic once aided survival, but it now fuels anxiety and depression today.
- 6Blood clotting that once protected us from fatal bleeding can now cause heart attacks too.
- 7Our genes are unlikely to evolve quickly enough to combat modern chronic diseases on their own.
- 8Collective action is more effective than individual willpower for meaningfully changing dietary habits in society.
- 9Pharmaceutical firms are supporting high-tech medical research.
Too Much of a Good Thing Summary & Overview
The human body evolved to allow us to survive in a world very different from the one we inhabit today. These blinks explain why we’re not suited to the modern world, and the health complications we’re suffering as a result.
Who Should Listen to Too Much of a Good Thing?
- People suffering from obesity, high blood pressure, depression or coronary illnesses
- Medical professionals
- Anyone interested in genetics or evolution
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