Healthy No Matter What: How Humans Are Hardwired to Adapt

In this competent program, physician Jadad (The Feast of Our Life) and his daughter Jadad-Garcia (Everything You Need to Know About Love [Almost]), a philosopher, offer guidance on how to use humanity’s “natural gift of adaptation” to lead a healthy life. The authors encourage readers to view health as the ability to “adapt to the inevitable physical, mental, and social challenges” of life, and provide advice on how to enhance this ability. Humans are naturally adaptive, the authors contend, as exemplified by their capacity to develop language and cultures that enable communal problem-solving and the transmission of knowledge. Jadad and Jadad-Garcia suggest that the “biggest threat to adaptability” is a “toxic stress load,” which refers to the physical toll taken by long-term stress. Examining studies on those with long life spans, the authors attribute longevity to regular exercise, modest portions at meals, and active social support systems. The research is robust, but the focus on adaptability sometimes leads to awkward wording that obscures the straightforwardness of the advice, as when they tout the importance of having close friends by discussing the “capacity to supercharge the adaptive potential of your personal social networks.” Still, readers will appreciate the sound suggestions. (Jan.)