“Until the Wall Street Crash of 1929, the economy had been measured in tonnes of grain and steel, and because of the crash- economists and politicians decided they wanted some grip over the scale of output of the economy- so they turned to a brilliant young scientist called Simon Kuznets and asked him how they should be measuring economic output. His answer was published in 1930s- he figured out a way to add-up all the tonnes of grains and steel and create a national income figure. He gave the caveat that it would scarcely be taken as the measure of welfare of a nation because it didn't include all the value created in a community, all the unpaid caring work at home, and only measured what was sold- not what was used-up!”
— Kate Raworth
Creator of the Doughnut Economics framework for sustainable development

The quote archive

Health

A growing archive of 3,000+ moments, drawn from every interview.

When it comes to guns, the trend of covering of mass-shootings leads the public to think the big problem is mass shootings. However, the big problems are suicides, domestic violence, known people, and gangs shooting at each other.

— Nicholas Kristof

Pulitzer Prize-Winning Journalist & New York Times Columnist

There's a culture in Silicon Valley that believes that you should be obsessive and not be able to think about anything else other than your business. You shouldn't have kids… friends… just your company as a vehicle to make millions of dollars. That's the kind of founder that many investors want to back, but we need to kick those people out.

— Rand Fishkin

Founder of Moz, SEO software company and industry thought leader

We are a dark-deprived society in this modern era, and we need darkness for the release of melatonin for healthy sleep. Without melatonin, we will not sleep sufficiently.

— Matthew Walker

Sleep scientist and author of "Why We Sleep

In the spring, when we lose an hour of sleep, we observe a consequential 24% increase in heart attacks the following day. In the Autumn, when we gain an hour, we see a corresponding 21% reduction in heart attacks. It's a clear bi-directional relationship.

— Matthew Walker

Sleep scientist and author of "Why We Sleep

Limiting sleep to just 4-5 hours for one single night will drop levels of critical anti-cancer fighting cells, called natural killer cells, by 70%. That's a rather alarming state of immune deficiency, and it happens after just one night of short sleep.

— Matthew Walker

Sleep scientist and author of "Why We Sleep

Lack of sleep is like a broken water pipe in your home, it leaks water into every nook and cranny, and erodes the fabric of your DNA nucleic alphabet that spells out your daily health narrative.

— Matthew Walker

Sleep scientist and author of "Why We Sleep

Even just 20 years ago we used to ask the question, 'why do we sleep?' It was one of the last great scientific mysteries; and the crass answer (at that point) was that we slept, to cure sleepiness. Much like saying we eat to cure hunger, however, this tells us nothing of the physiological functions that food and nutrition provide.

— Matthew Walker

Sleep scientist and author of "Why We Sleep

Our boredom threshold has declined to the point where we're unable to stand idle in an elevator for ten seconds without pulling out our phones. There's also an epidemic of social avoidance, particularly among younger people, as the skills required for face-to-face interaction are more demanding.

— Adam Alter

Psychologist & Author specializing in behavioral psychology and irrational decision-making

Our informational environment has flipped from scarcity to abundance in a similar way that our food environment has. The heuristics we had living on the plains of Africa in an environment of food scarcity served us well there. But in the environment of Netflix, Ben & Jerrys Ice Cream and La-Z-Boy recliners, these same heuristics give us less than ideal outcomes.

— James Williams

She channelled that culture, and felt entitled to do the same thing – only her device wasn't a computer, or software, it was a medical device that patients and doctors relied on to make important health decisions, some of them life-or-death decisions. With medicine, you simply can't fake it till you make it. Otherwise, you jeopardize lives.

— John Carreyrou

Investigative journalist who exposed Theranos fraud through Wall Street Journal reporting

In India affordability and improving life are also key pillars of entrepreneurship- coming from the circumstances and context of the country; for example, India has 1,000 radiologists for a population of 1.4 billion.

— Kris Gopalkrishnan

Co-Founder and Former CEO of Infosys, Indian IT Pioneer

There is also a huge cultural misconception that heart disease is the patient's fault, they did something wrong to themselves. When we blame individuals and not the society that created those risk factors and behaviours, we don't react as forcefully as we could.

— Haider Warraich

Cardiologist and author specializing in heart disease and public health

The heart is dramatic. Many of your other crucial organs – your liver, your kidneys- do their work in bureaucratic silence. Your heart is dramatic and reacts to how you feel. Your heart moves with your emotions, it quiets down when you're about to sleep, or when you're relaxed.

— Haider Warraich

Cardiologist and author specializing in heart disease and public health

Diseases of the heart are sometimes thought of as forgotten diseases, which is ironic as they still kill more people than any other condition on the planet… and are on the rise in some of the largest countries in the world like China, India, Pakistan and Indonesia.

— Haider Warraich

Cardiologist and author specializing in heart disease and public health

Growing up in Pakistan, I saw so many people with heart disease and having heart attacks – it felt almost biblical – it was catastrophic. Unlike a lot of diseases, there wasn't much a cultural footprint for heart disease – it's not something you hear about on news or TV shows…. You don't see much advocacy done around it.

— Haider Warraich

Cardiologist and author specializing in heart disease and public health

I grew up with a fear of the heart as an executioner of men in the prime of their lives. We're extraordinarily vulnerable to the functions of our heart, no other organ can cause sudden death.

— Sandeep Jauhar

Cardiologist and author of "Intern" and "Heart: A History