Survival of the Sickest
A Medical Maverick Discovers Why We Need Disease
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Narrated by:
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Eric Conger
About this listen
Survival of the Sickest reveals the answers to these and many other questions as it unravels the amazing connections between evolution, disease, and human health today.
Joining the ranks of modern myth busters, Dr. Sharon Moalem turns our current understanding of illness on its head and challenges us to fundamentally change the way we think about our bodies, our health, and our relationship to just about every other living thing on earth, from plants and animals to insects and bacteria.
Survival of the Sickest is filled with fascinating insights and cutting-edge research, presented in a way that is both accessible and utterly absorbing. This is a book about the interconnectedness of all life on earth and, especially, what that means for us. Listen to it. You're already living it.
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"A lively and enthusiastic treatise." (Kirkus Reviews)
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You are just 10% human. For every one of the cells that make up the vessel that you call your body, there are nine impostor cells hitching a ride. You are not just flesh and blood, muscle and bone, brain and skin, but also bacteria and fungi. Over your lifetime, you will carry the equivalent weight of five African elephants in microbes. You are not an individual but a colony. Until recently, we had thought our microbes hardly mattered, but science is revealing a different story, one in which microbes run our bodies and becoming a healthy human is impossible without them.
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Must read for anyone that wants to be healthy
- By T. Kalinowski on 06-05-21
By: Alanna Collen
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This Is Your Brain on Parasites
- How Tiny Creatures Manipulate Our Behavior and Shape Society
- By: Kathleen McAuliffe
- Narrated by: Nicol Zanzarella
- Length: 8 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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A riveting investigation of the myriad ways that parasites control how other creatures - including humans - think, feel, and act. These tiny organisms can live only inside another animal, and, as McAuliffe reveals, they have many evolutionary motives for manipulating their host's behavior. Far more often than appreciated, these puppeteers orchestrate the interplay between predator and prey.
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Entertaining but questionable studies
- By mdkoci on 01-02-17
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Queen of Fats
- Why Omega-3s Were Removed from the Western Diet and What We Can Do to Replace Them
- By: Susan Allport
- Narrated by: Tavia Gilbert
- Length: 5 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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A nutritional whodunit that takes readers from Greenland to Africa to Israel, The Queen of Fats gives a fascinating account of how we have become deficient in a nutrient that is essential for good health: the fatty acids know as omega-3s.
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Eye Opener about fats, weight and health!
- By Eric on 12-22-11
By: Susan Allport
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Pandora's Seed
- The Unforeseen Cost of Civilization
- By: Spencer Wells
- Narrated by: Spencer Wells
- Length: 6 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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This new book by Spencer Wells, the internationally known geneticist, anthropologist, author, and director of the Genographic Project, focuses on the seminal event in human history: mankind's decision to become farmers rather than hunter-gatherers.
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Short and unfocused, but often quite interesting.
- By Alan on 06-23-10
By: Spencer Wells
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The Truth About Cancer
- By: Ty M. Bollinger
- Narrated by: Ty M. Bollinger
- Length: 9 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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One out of three women alive today, and one out of two men, will face a cancer diagnosis, according to the World Health Organization. Ty Bollinger takes this personally: in the course of a decade, he says, "I lost my entire family to cancer. I don't believe I had to lose them." The Truth about Cancer has been written for one simple reason: to share the knowledge we need to protect ourselves, treat ourselves, and in some cases save our lives or the lives of those we love.
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save a life with this valuable information.
- By edwin matias on 12-30-16
By: Ty M. Bollinger
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The Fat Switch
- By: Richard J. Johnson MD
- Narrated by: Brian Holsopple
- Length: 9 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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If you've ever struggled with losing weight and keeping it off, I don't have to tell you it's a challenge. You already know. What if losing weight could be as easy as flipping a switch? I know that sounds incredible. But now there's an abundance of research telling us that may be possible. In his new book, The Fat Switch, Dr. Richard J. Johnson, presents news-breaking, science-based studies that will reverse current thinking on both the cause and treatment of obesity.
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Want to understand weight gain?
- By Programming Dragon on 02-01-16
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The Language of Life
- DNA and the Revolution in Personalized Medicine
- By: Francis S. Collins
- Narrated by: Greg Itzin
- Length: 10 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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A scientific and medical revolution has crept up on us, based on study after study, from hundreds of laboratories around the world. It is no longer just a theoretical shift: every one of us will be touched by it, and many of us already have been. The meaning of disease, our understanding of the human body, and crucial decisions about what we all need to know and what choices we make about our health are at stake. Welcome to the new world of personalized medicine.
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The future of medicine
- By Ronald E on 04-12-10
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A Crack in Creation
- Gene Editing and the Unthinkable Power to Control Evolution
- By: Jennifer A. Doudna, Samuel H. Sternberg
- Narrated by: Erin Bennett
- Length: 9 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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Not since the atomic bomb has a technology so alarmed its inventors that they warned the world about its use. Not, that is, until the spring of 2015, when biologist Jennifer Doudna called for a worldwide moratorium on the use of the new gene-editing tool CRISPR - a revolutionary new technology that she helped create - to make heritable changes in human embryos.
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In to the abyss we ascend, a scary future
- By Philomath on 06-17-17
By: Jennifer A. Doudna, and others
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Vitamin K2 and the Calcium Paradox
- How a Little-Known Vitamin Could Save Your Life
- By: Kate Rhéaume-Bleue BSc ND
- Narrated by: Virginia Wolf
- Length: 7 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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Are you taking calcium or vitamin D? This book could save your life! Learn the secret to avoiding osteoporosis and heart disease. Millions of people take calcium and Vitamin D supplements thinking they're helping their bones. The truth is, without the addition of Vitamin K2, such a health regimen could prove dangerous. Without Vitamin K2, the body cannot direct calcium to the bones where it's needed; instead, the calcium resides in soft tissue, like the arteries, leading to a combination of osteoporosis and atherosclerosis, or the dreaded "calcium paradox".
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I CANNOT APPLAUD THIS BOOK ENOUGH!!!!!!!!!!
- By @THEROOTMATTERS on 03-22-19
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The Gene
- An Intimate History
- By: Siddhartha Mukherjee
- Narrated by: Dennis Boutsikaris
- Length: 19 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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The extraordinary Siddhartha Mukherjee has written a biography of the gene as deft, brilliant, and illuminating as his extraordinarily successful biography of cancer. Weaving science, social history, and personal narrative to tell us the story of one of the most important conceptual breakthroughs of modern times, Mukherjee animates the quest to understand human heredity and its surprising influence on our lives, personalities, identities, fates, and choices.
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It's a Wonderful Book
- By JKC on 06-02-16
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The Compatibility Gene
- How Our Bodies Fight Disease, Attract Others, and Define Our Selves
- By: Daniel M. Davis
- Narrated by: Christopher Grove
- Length: 7 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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Most of the 25,000 genes we possess are the same for all of us. Compatibility genes are those that vary most from person to person and give each of us a unique molecular signature. These genes determine both the extent to which we are susceptible to a vast range of illnesses and the different ways each of us fights disease.
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If interested in medicine, got to read
- By Howard Sterling on 06-29-16
By: Daniel M. Davis
What listeners say about Survival of the Sickest
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Mebazi
- 09-09-14
I wish this was a series!!!
Where does Survival of the Sickest rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?
Top 3.
What did you like best about this story?
Educational, but yet given with a delivery of a story.
What does Eric Conger bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?
Passion.
Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?
I just couldn't stop listening.
Any additional comments?
I searched for a part two 3 different times just in case I might of missed something! Loved this book! Will listen to it a few more times!
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1 person found this helpful
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- Anonymous User
- 04-26-21
Incredible!
I love all of the seemingly non-related examples turning out to be the best explanation for whatever topic he was focusing on at any given time. Amazing
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- Debra Elisa
- 02-10-16
not a disappointment!
Lots of new info delivered in a storytelling way. I'll listen again & recommend it to the curious.
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- Amazon Customer
- 07-12-22
For Any Interested in Biology
This was a summer reading for our AP Bio course. Needless to say, I’m hooked. Complex topics with detailed explanations, with a soothing narrator-just great.
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- A. Ilardi
- 03-01-16
wow great intro to DNA
this is a fantastic book about some theories about why we evolved the way we did. they did a great job at that
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- Anonymous User
- 08-04-22
It is an interesting and educational read!
This book is something everyone should take the time to read, just to give a slightly better understanding of the world we are in, and how we, as humans, evolved some of the traits and conditions we have today.
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- Roy
- 12-14-09
Very Informative
Sharon Moalem has done each reader a great service with the book Survival of the Sickest. Each chapter is a self-contained discussion of an aspect of human health and vulnerability. Of particular interest to me were the discussion of how prenatal diet effects the unborn; males and females and how DNA from viruses comingle with out own. This is a wonderful book written to for a general audience. It is well writtten, well read, and well worth the listener's time.
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8 people found this helpful
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- Elkobri
- 11-15-14
home run
Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?
I would absolutely recommend this audiobook as well as the book in any format. It is intriguing. The authors and narrator manage to convey excitement with provocative questions concerning the evolution of illnesses. This would be a great book for science classes in grammar and high school, etc.
What was one of the most memorable moments of Survival of the Sickest?
One of the authors' grandfather and how he wondered about his love of giving blood and then connected that experience with his later illnesses.
Which scene was your favorite?
Imagining the black death and people with hemochromatosis being able to help others. It is like the ugly duckling transformed into a swan.
Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?
Yes and I wanted a digital copy to go back over it. I keep telling people that this is the best kind of science: when the authors take you into the unexpected and yet plausible. They excite the reader as if they were detectives on the hunt for clues to understand mysterious evolutionary riddles.
Any additional comments?
Tell the authors to keep writing more along this line.
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1 person found this helpful
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- RiverSong172
- 06-17-13
Loved it, loved it, loved it!
Would you listen to Survival of the Sickest again? Why?
Absolutely! Great book!
Any additional comments?
I cannot speak highly enough of this book. I could not stop listening. Not only does this book appeal to those who love science, but to those who loves stories and history as well. Learning all about how different events of the past have shaped our lives today- fascinating!
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1 person found this helpful
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- Piso
- 07-04-13
Very informative
Any additional comments?
I really enjoyed this book. Deep enough to make you think, but not too technical for the layperson
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