Overdiagnosed — How Our Obsession with Medical Testing and Labels Is Making Us Sicker

The Art of Manliness

Society & Culture, Education, Philosophy

4.7 • 14.5K Ratings

🗓️ 8 September 2025

⏱️ 66 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Modern medicine has given us incredible tools to peer inside the body and spot disease earlier than ever before. But with that power comes a problem: the more we look, the more we find — and not everything we find needs fixing.

My guest today, neurologist Dr. Suzanne O'Sullivan, argues that our culture of over-diagnosis is leaving many people more anxious, more medicalized, and sometimes less healthy. In her book The Age of Diagnosis: How Our Obsession with Medical Labels Is Making Us Sicker, she explains how screening tests, shifting definitions of “normal,” and the rise of mental health labels can turn ordinary struggles or idiosyncrasies into problems in need of treatment. We dig into everything from cancer and diabetes to Lyme disease and ADHD and discuss how diagnosis really works, why screening can sometimes harm as much as it helps, and how to know when a label is and isn't useful.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	School's back in session and things are busy in the McKay household between basketball practice, church activities, and student council events. Some nights we just don't have time for a home-cooked meal, but we also don't want to end up grabbing fast food. That's where Factor meals comes in clutch. Factor delivers fresh, not frozen, chef-prepared meals that are ready to heat and eat in just two minutes. We've been using it on our busiest nights. A few of my go-to meals lately have been the garlic herb chicken and the smoky
0:24.6	tomato pork tenderloin. Both are packed with flavor and actually are satisfying, which is something
0:29.6	I don't say lightly about most pre-made meals. Eat smart at factor meals.com slash manliness 50 off
0:37.0	and use code manliness 50 off to get 50% off your
0:40.5	first box plus free breakfast for a year. That's pretty amazing. Again, that's factor meals.com
0:46.2	slash manliness 50 off. That's M-A-N-L-I-N-E-S-S-5-0-O-F. Use promo code
0:52.5	manliness 50 off to get 50% off your first box, plus free breakfast for a year. Get delicious, ready meals delivered with factor. Starting your own business means figuring out a lot of things you've probably never done before, especially in the early days. When I launched the Art of Manliness store, I suddenly had to learn how to manage orders, track inventory, fulfill shipments,
1:11.2	and make the whole operation look professional.
1:13.5	It was a lot.
1:15.0	That's why I've been using Shopify for years.
1:17.0	It takes the chaos out of running an online store.
1:19.9	Shopify is the commerce platform behind millions of businesses and 10% of all e-commerce in the U.S.
1:25.0	From big brands like Jimshark to solo creators just starting out, it scales with you.
1:30.3	You can launch a sharp-looking site using their templates, use AI tools to help write product
1:34.4	descriptions or clean up photos, and run marketing emails and campaigns all from the same dashboard.
1:39.5	Shopify also handles payments, inventory, analytics, shipping, everything you need to run and grow.
1:45.0	Turn your big business idea into real sales with Shopify.
1:48.9	Sign up for your $1 a month trial and start selling today at Shopify.com slash
1:53.3	manliness.
1:54.4	That's Shopify.com slash manliness, S-H-O-P-I-F-Y.com slash manliness.
2:00.0	Check it out today.
2:00.8	Music S-H-O-P-I-F-Y.com slash manliness. Check it out today.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from The Art of Manliness, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of The Art of Manliness and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.