My guest today is one sharp cookie. Barbara Horowitz is a Cardiologist and Professor at UCLA, Professor of Medicine at Harvard and Professor of Evolultionary Biology at Harvard. She’s also a trained Psychiatrist for good measure

Today we discuss her recent focus on species-wide patterns in development in critical periods of life and her books Zoobiquity & Wildhood. We explore what we can learn from human health and disease from the study of animals, and it’s a fascinating conversation.

Here is the link to Barbara's website and you can also click here for her Zoobiquty book and here for her new book Wildwood - both are co-written with Kathryn Bowers.

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We are also delighted to announce the, called The Better You Program. It’s comprehensive 8-week, Better You program, with 8 weekly interactive webinars with myself and mindset coach Carly Taylor, a partner app and a whole heap of exercises and tools to help you become a better version of yourself – whatever that means for you. It launches on the 29th March. If the sound of this floats your boat, click here to find out more.

Start: How Barbara went from Cardiologist to studying animals

5:40 - The blindfold of human exceptionalism

10:26 - A fascinating whistle-stop tour of evolution (a must-listen!)

14:57 - What studying animals can teach us about diseases in humans

26:42 - Mental health conditions in animals

33:34 - Implications of co-evolved fear circuitry in animals and humans

38:27 - The complex biology of stress and inflammation

44:45 - The value of testable hypothesis in evolutionary adaptation

49:30 - Teenagers, risk-taking, impulsivity & peer influences in animals & humans

59:27 - Evolutionary trade-offs in chronic disease

1:09:19 - Barbara's new book Wildhood release of our first public courseHere's the highlights of the show:

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Harvard & UCLA Professor Barbara Horowitz on what the study of animals can teach us about human health and disease