Why You Should Feel Optimistic About the Future

While we are in an incredibly exciting time when it comes to preventing and reversing disease, issues such as misleading scientific research, imperfect policy, corporate financial interests, and other biases often act as roadblocks to enhancing the health of our population and our planet. Yet, when we recently reflected on a number of conversations from The Doctor’s Farmacy, we couldn’t help but hear a common and hopeful message. In this mini-episode, we revisit four conversations Dr. Hyman has had with guests on this podcast, each with a common refrain: Progress is being made and it’s happening fast! Michael Pollan is the author of the New York Times bestsellers Cooked, Food Rules, In Defense of Food, The Omnivore’s Dilemma, The Botany of Desire, and his latest book How to Change Your Mind, which is all about the new science of psychedelics. A longtime contributor to the New York Times Magazine, he also teaches writing at Harvard and the University of California, Berkeley where he is the John S. and James L. Knight Professor of Science Journalism. In 2010, Time magazine named him one of the one hundred most influential people in the world. Dr. Hallberg is a Medical Director at Virta Health and a Fellow of the Aspen Institute’s Health Innovator Fellowship and a member of the Aspen Global Leadership Network. She is also the Medical Director and founder of the Medically Supervised Weight Loss Program at Indiana University Health Arnett and an adjunct Professor of Clinical Medicine at the Indiana University School of Medicine. Dr. Hallberg is serving as Chair of the Board of Directors and Chair of the Scientific Advisory Council for The Nutrition Coalition. Dr. Hallberg is a diplomate of the American Board of Internal Medicine, American Board of Obesity Medicine, and The American Board of Clinical Lipidology and is a Registered Exercise Physiologist by the ACSM. She is also a Fellow of the Obesity Medicine Association and The National Lipid Association. David Wallace-Wells is the deputy editor of New York magazine and the author of the international bestseller The Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming, published in February 2019, which the New York Times called both “brilliant” and “the most terrifying book I have ever read.” Dr. Sonia Angell is a former Deputy Commissioner at the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (DOHMH), where she oversaw the Division of Prevention and Primary Care. Dr. Angell is a practicing physician, board certified in internal medicine, and on faculty at the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Columbia University and New York Presbyterian Hospital. Tune into Dr. Hyman’s full length conversation with Michael Pollan: https://DrMarkHyman.lnk.to/MichaelPollan Tune into Dr. Hyman’s full length conversation with Dr. Sarah Hallberg: https://DrMarkHyman.lnk.to/DrSarahHallberg Tune into Dr. Hyman’s full length conversation with David Wallace-Wells: https://DrMarkHyman.lnk.to/DavidWallaceWells Tune into Dr. Hyman’s full length conversation with Dr. Sonia Angell: https://DrMarkHyman.lnk.to/DrSoniaAngell