Peter Sterling - What Does Our Species Require for a Healthy Life?

Peter Sterling - What Does Our Species Require for a Healthy Life?

Peter Sterling, now retired from the University of Pennsylvania, is a well-known neuroscientist, having co-authored a popular text, Principles of Neural Design. He is a lifelong political activist, and historians of psychiatry may remember his public criticisms of psychiatric treatments in the 1970s, most notably of electroshock and antipsychotics.

He could also be described as an ethnographer, as his travels among the indigenous people of Panama, where he now lives part-time, influenced his understanding of how the human brain was shaped in response to the demands of early hunter-gatherer societies.

He is the author of a recent book titled, What is Health: Allostasis and the Evolution of Human Design. His books raises this provocative question: What does our species require for a healthy life? And can we achieve this with drugs?

Episoder(291)

Food First, Pharma Last - Part Two of our Interview with Chris Masterjohn

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This week, we are joined by Chris Masterjohn, PhD. Chris is a nutritional scientist, a former professor, and the founder of Mitome. With a PhD in nutritional science and years of research in mitochond...

21 Jan 43min

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Jan N. DeFehr is an associate professor in the Faculty of Education at the University of Winnipeg and an associate of The Taos Institute and a member of the Faculty for Palestine, Manitoba. She is als...

14 Jan 47min

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In our first podcast of 2026, Robert Whitaker joins us to answer questions submitted by Mad in America readers and listeners. We discuss the validity of ADHD diagnoses, withdrawal and sexual dysfuncti...

7 Jan 48min

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17 Des 202543min

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19 Nov 202537min

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Joining us for a roundtable discussion are Brooke Siem, David Antonuccio, Kim Witzak, Angie Peacock and David Healy. They discuss the challenges of openly discussing psychiatric drug withdrawal, the t...

29 Okt 202545min

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On July 21st 2025, the FDA convened a hearing on maternal use of antidepressants during pregnancy and the impact this use has on fetal development. Around 400,000 children in the United States are bor...

8 Okt 202548min

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