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podcasts. I'm muckledevichand and on this week's analysis I examine the

controversial new theory that says inequality is changing your biology.

Britain's unequal society is causing chronic health and social problems

for almost all of us, with people in the middle and at the top suffering

medical effects that make their lives worse, not just those at the bottom.

That's the new idea contained in an unlikely bestseller, the spirit level, and it's captivated

Britain's ruling classes.

In the spirit level, they show that per capita GDP is much less significant for a country's life expectancy, crime

levels, literacy, health, than the size of the gap between the richest and the poorest

in the population.

You see the gap between rich and poor does matter and it doesn't just harm the poor.

It harms all of us.

If you look at those societies that are healthiest, happiest, most secure, it is the more equal societies.

...