In short
“Wellness Actually” first annual grab bag episode: rapid-fire debunking of small wellness fads (plus a health news segment).
Key claims
VAERS analysis for COVID vaccines allegedly mishandled rare-signal statistics—CDC reportedly didn’t run proportional reporting ratios; FDA’s empirical Bayesian method may have missed true myocarditis signals in young men, delaying recognition (myocarditis risk still considered rare/real). Trump’s “split vaccine doses to reduce autism” idea is rejected: no evidence vaccines cause autism; dosing doesn’t work by “adding up” percentages and would require extensive trials. Montana’s plan to let drug companies sell non-FDA-approved drugs is criticized as enabling profit-driven “shortcut” snake-oil.
Notable examples
cold showers may reduce “sick days” without reducing illness; vampire facials (microneedling + applied platelet-rich plasma) have limited cosmetic evidence and can be dangerous (including past HIV transmission from a spa); EMF meters/household electronics claims are dismissed as mostly BS—only high-frequency power lines have a weak association with rare childhood leukemia; vibrating plates don’t improve balance and won’t add weight-loss benefit beyond calories; salmon “most toxic” posts are largely false (astaxanthin is feed-based; dioxin risk is below WHO levels); pelvic floor therapy is strongly endorsed over simplistic Kegels.
Guests
Emily Oster (economist/data expert), Perry Wilson (medical doctor). Producer/guest: Tamar Avishai (episode producer, appears in “closet as booth” recording).
Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.
Chapters
Tap a time to open that second in VOIntroducing the Grab Bag Concept
0:45 to 3:18
Hosts discuss the idea behind the grab bag episode format and its purpose.
“smaller wellness fads that people have questions about, but that might not necessarily take a 45 minute deep dive.”
Health News Introduction
3:18 to 3:39
Overview of the health news segment that will follow.
“This week, we're doing our first ever Wellness Actually Grab Bag episode.”
Discussing Vaccine Adverse Events
4:12 to 10:41
Exploration of a critical article about vaccine reporting systems and their limitations.
“And now for the health news of the week.”
Critique of Vaccine Schedules
10:41 to 13:19
Discussion on President Trump's proposal regarding vaccine schedules and its flaws.
“Emily, while we're talking about vaccines, I'm going to play a clip from you from President Trump, who has a new idea to reduce the rates of autism in this country.”
Montana's Drug Proposal
13:19 to 14:00
Examination of Montana's proposal to sell non-FDA approved drugs and implications.
“Like any parent knows that you're not getting your kid in five times a year for like the first 10 years of their life to get the requisite vaccines.”
The Right to Try Movement and FDA Regulations
14:00 to 17:00
Discussing the implications and ethical considerations of the Right to Try movement and FDA regulations.
“So, I mean, with that argument, I don't see how we could go wrong with that.”
Introduction to the Grab Bag Segment
17:00 to 18:44
Setting up the grab bag segment with listener participation and rules.
“And I'm going to invite Tamar in and she's going to explain the scorekeeping and rules.”
Cold Showers and Sick Days
18:44 to 22:00
Exploring whether cold showers can lead to fewer sick days based on a study.
“And your question is, do cold showers lead to fewer sick days?”
The Body Keeps the Score: Book Discussion
22:00 to 26:16
Analyzing the claims of 'The Body Keeps the Score' and its scientific backing.
“I've been reading the book, The Body Keeps the Score, and I'm really fascinated by its argument that trauma can have lasting effects on the brain and the body.”
Vampire Facials: Efficacy and Risks
26:16 to 28:06
Examining the process and potential dangers of vampire facials for skin treatment.
“I saw Kim Kardashian plugging them with what looked like the most excruciating chemical peel with the tagline, Feel the power of your own plasma.”
Show all 26 chapters
The Truth About Vampire Facials
28:06 to 29:09
Learn about the safety concerns and misconceptions surrounding vampire facials.
“microneedling vampire facial thing uh and so it really is not this is not the secret to beautiful glowing skin.”
Understanding EMF and Power Lines
29:10 to 31:28
Explore the science behind electromagnetic fields and their health implications.
“I do like the tagline, feel the power of your own plasma.”
Debunking Myths About EMF Exposure
31:29 to 33:10
Discover the reality of EMF exposure from household electronics and its effects.
“The only reason there's even any consideration for the high frequency lines is because they generate a magnetic field at scale.”
Scores and Game Break
33:11 to 34:00
A brief interruption for score updates and a break in the game.
“I think the thing people need to take home is that if there's a rift in space time, firing an inverse tachyon pulse will close that rift.”
The Effectiveness of Vibrating Plates
34:01 to 37:46
Evaluate the claims and realities of using vibrating plates for fitness.
“I need a chance to, you know, take some deep breaths and learn some more things about running.”
Insights on Living Kidney Donation
37:47 to 41:47
Gain insights into the process and impact of living kidney donation.
“The question asker asks, I'd love to hear your take on living kidney donation, Perry.”
Fiber Supplements for Gut Health
41:48 to 42:01
Learn about the benefits of psyllium husk and beta glucan for health.
Discussion on Gut Health Supplements
42:01 to 45:20
Explore the effectiveness of psyllium husk and beta-glucan for gut health and colon cancer prevention.
“Did you guys ever read that Bad Art Friend article from the New York Times magazine a few years ago?”
Salmon and Toxins: Separating Fact from Fiction
45:21 to 49:40
Debunk claims about the toxicity of salmon and discuss its health benefits.
“The question asker asks, I see posts pointing to research that shows that salmon has more toxins than any other animal protein.”
The Importance of Pelvic Floor Therapy
49:41 to 52:55
Learn about pelvic floor therapy and its benefits for women after childbirth.
“I'm hearing about all these treatments after birth so that, you know, I don't pee when I sneeze.”
The Real Deal on Salt Lamps
52:56 to 55:16
Investigate the claims surrounding salt lamps and their actual effects.
“Perry, what is the deal with salt lamps?”
Humorous Banter on Salt Vampires
56:04 to 57:04
A light-hearted discussion about salt vampires and maintaining time limits.
“If anything, you should be like a wet blob, which I think is the better way to have done it.”
Listener Question on Jawline Masks
57:05 to 57:40
A listener inquires about the effectiveness of jawline masks for reducing puffiness.
“My question is about jawline or chin masks, which influencers claim will give me a defined jawline and reduce puffiness under my chin.”
Do Chin Masks Work? An In-Depth Analysis
57:41 to 1:00:47
An exploration of the effectiveness of chin masks and the science behind them.
“The question, how could they possibly work?”
Black Cumin Seed and Turmeric: Benefits Explained
1:00:48 to 1:04:20
Discussion on the health benefits and evidence supporting black cumin seed and turmeric.
“Perry, what is the deal with black cumin seed?”
Game Results and Future Questions
1:04:21 to 1:05:19
A light conclusion to the episode with reflections on game scores and future questions.
“Yeah, he kind of slipped that right in at the end.”
Transcript
Automatic transcript. May contain errors.0:00Perry Wilson:This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed human.
0:05Emily Oster:Well, hello, Emily and Tamar.
0:07Perry Wilson:Hi, Perry. Hi.
0:09Emily Oster:So exciting. We have sort of a guest today. We have Tamar Avishai. She's our producer. And Tamar, do you want to tell the good people why we have dragged you into your closet to be on the show with us today? Okay. Well, first of all, my closet is my recording booth. So let's not denigrate the closet.
0:31Perry Wilson:I want people to understand that Tamar is so professional that her closet has sound protection on the wall next to her clothing. It's a very high-end professional look here. Yes. Thank you. So today we have actually solicited from our listening audience smaller wellness fads that people have questions about, but that might not necessarily take a 45 minute deep dive. And in fact, I'm only going to give you three minutes per deep dive, but we'll explain all the rules at a later time.
1:06Emily Oster:So I love this idea, although obviously I'm going to be the worst at this game that we're playing. No chance for you here. Yeah, no, I know. This I know, But that's OK. Because when we do what we do, our friends come up to us and people come up to us all the time. And they're like, oh, you should talk about vampire facials and stuff. And we're like, oh, that's a great topic. But then as Emily and I bounce it off each other, we're like, I don't know that we have an hour to spend on this. It's a kind of quick thing to talk about what the deal is. And there were enough of these that came in that we came up with the idea of like, what if we did a grab bag?
1:43Emily Oster:What if we just did all those little things that can get answered quickly? Now, to be fair, Em, as I was doing some research, I was sort of like, oh, okay, we could build some of these out, I think, into a deeper episode. But for now.
1:56Perry Wilson:For sure, we could. But I think we can hit the high points of most of these in three minutes. And then I decided it should be competitive because I spend much of my life answering questions on Instagram where I only get 90 seconds. And so I'm very confident in my ability to win. And that's when I like to introduce competition, when I know it's going to result in success.
2:19Emily Oster:This is the same reason my son always wants to play chess with me, because he knows I'm pretty easy. All right. We've got Tamar fully closeted. Without a dog in this fight, I should add. We'll see. Let's get started.
2:37Perry Wilson:I'm Emily Oster. I'm an economist and a data expert.
2:41Emily Oster:And I'm Perry Wilson. I'm a medical doctor.
2:43Perry Wilson:It's Thursday, September 24th, 2026, and this is Wellness Actually.
2:47Emily Oster:Because you're getting a staggering amount of health and wellness information nowadays from every source imaginable. And some of it is awesome.
2:56Perry Wilson:And some of it is, well, actually bulls**t. Fortunately, we're both people who know how to read studies, how to parse the data, and can tell you what's worth thinking about and what you can safely ignore.
3:09Emily Oster:But before we dig in, a note that this podcast is for educational purposes and should not be construed as medical advice. We don't know your unique situation, so talk to your doctor for personal health decisions.
3:21Perry Wilson:This week, we're doing our first ever Wellness Actually Grab Bag episode. You asked, we're answering. But first, the health news of the week after the break.
3:40Perry Wilson:From GEICO Subconscious News, I'm Tammy Racing Thoughts, broadcasting from your brain. You think you live in a pretty safe place, but you just heard about a break in four miles away, which isn't close, but it isn't far either, you know? Art Palpitations is on the scene.
3:51Emily Oster:I sure am, Tammy, and I don't even know why I drove out here, because as you know, you got customized renter's insurance through GEICO, so your stuff is covered. Oh, well, that's great. Any sign of crime there, Art? Just some light littering, Tammy, but like they say, a little litter can lead to a lot. Wise words. It feels good to worry less.
4:08Perry Wilson:It feels good to GEICO. And now for the health news of the week. Perry, I want to start with an article in the BMJ, which is a prominent medical journal. This is an investigation about the U.S. vaccine adverse event reporting system, which basically argues that some combination of the, particularly the CDC, maybe a little bit the FDA, did not appropriately report COVID vaccine complications out of this reporting system they have. The article is pretty in the weeds, but I think it's important enough that we should talk about it.
4:45Emily Oster:Yeah, you're right. This is a challenging one, but we'll try to keep it to the high level thing here. This is important because obviously the COVID vaccines are surrounded by a lot of conspiracy theories. There's a lot of genuine concerns about them. There's a lot of positive things about them. And you just get so much information, especially if you're online, from people that, you know, to be honest, I think are often cherry-picking data to push their particular point of view here. So let's try to keep it to the facts. This is reported by David Willman in the BMJ. So first thing to note, VAERS, Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System, is a disaster of a data set.
5:26Emily Oster:This is a system that anyone can report to without any documentation whatsoever. You don't have to prove that you got a vaccine. You can literally say anything in this system. And so that's why in VAERS you have reports of, for instance, people saying that the vaccine turned them into the Incredible Hulk. Like that's – That is a real actual – That is real. That's in the data set. So there's a lot of crap in there. Nevertheless, you know, the thought is that maybe you can use some statistics to tease out rare signals of harm. And this is all about rare events. And because when you do a clinical trial, even if you do a trial of 10 ,000, 20 ,000 people, you know, things that happen to one in 100 ,000 people or one in a million people might not show up.
6:09Emily Oster:And nevertheless, if you're giving the vaccine to 300 million people, well, you know, it might be relevant. And so we have these systems to try to capture those adverse events. And what the CDC had said is that they have two statistical approaches to analyzing VAERS for these signals. One was going to be done by the CDC called proportional reporting ratios, which basically compares the rates of things you see in VAERS to the background rates, right? So like, are there more strokes than you would expect reported and things like that? The FDA was going to use a technique called an empirical Bayesian technique, which is a little more complicated.
6:45Emily Oster:And then they would compare results. And so they'd sort of have these two approaches coming together to find rare signals in the vaccine. Now, what the reporting shows is that the CDC basically never did their analysis, the proportional reporting ratios. Rochelle Walensky, director at the time, said the Bayesian approach that the FDA was using was more robust. And so let's just go with that. That sort of flew under the radar. Now what we know is that the FDA approach, this Bayesian approach, was not sensitive enough. So one of the differences in these approaches is that the PRR approach that the CDC was going to use is very sensitive.
7:26Emily Oster:It finds a lot of false positives. So like if you have like two weird events in the data, right, two people with what's a rare condition, two people with like some rare cancer or something, the CDC approach would have like blown that up as a signal. And so you get all these false positives, which I get in sort of the political environment we were in, all those false positives. I see the motivation to be like, well, people won't contextualize these properly as just things to keep an eye on. The Bayesian model is not that sensitive, and you can miss true positives with that. So they go with the Bayesian and the reporting shows that when the myocarditis data was coming out, largely from the military in the US and from Israel, people at FDA were like, why?
8:12Emily Oster:We don't see a myocarditis signal in VAERS. Like, we should. We believe it exists. Like, it is a true effect in young men. But it wasn't picking it up. Now, the statistical reason was because in the US we vaccinated older people first. So myocarditis cases were quite rare, whereas in Israel, they did their whole population. And of course, in our military studies, we did vaccinate younger people. That's why it came up. But nevertheless, it wasn't shown. And because of that, because of the sort of failure to appropriately do the statistics they did, we were delayed on the myocarditis signal, which, though very small and very rare and restricted to young men, is probably a real side effect of the vaccine.
8:54Perry Wilson:I mean, look, my takeaway from this beyond the kind of everything with COVID was so politicized and complicated that it's hard to know what to learn for the long term is that this data approach to rare events sucks and is terrible. And the core, so just to be clear, the reason these two approaches to this differ are that this empirical Bayes approach basically like downweights things that it doesn't expect. That's like a colloquial way to put it, but they kind of, one of the inputs to that is sort of is a prior, is like how likely do you think this is? So it basically shrinks rare events towards zero because it thinks of them as like probably an accident or more likely to be an accident relative to this other approach.
9:44Perry Wilson:So these are both reasonable approaches to the data. Both approaches, in fact, any approach you take to the data would be vastly, vastly, vastly, vastly better if your data collection system was not any idiot can put in anything that they think for whatever's into your data. That's not a very good approach. And we have some slightly better versions of this. There's a thing called the vaccine safety data link, which is a doctor-reported version of this. There, of course, would be other approaches would be much, much, much, much, much better, which is like national surveillance of various things.
10:16Perry Wilson:So it's a complicated problem. But I think the core for me is just our data stinks. And therefore, it makes it very hard to learn from because any approach you're taking is bad. Yeah.
10:27Emily Oster:What this doesn't change is the thing that everyone knows at this point in time already, which is that there is a rare myocarditis risk in young men. Most people, you know. Don't have that. Don't need to worry about that. OK, Emily, while we're talking about vaccines, I'm going to play a clip from you from President Trump, who has a new idea to reduce the rates of autism in this country. Here you go.
10:54Perry Wilson:I can't wait. I'm excited.
10:56Emily Oster:We're also going to be recommending, not recommending, demanding the drug companies with respect to a certain situation. Maybe you want to mention, discuss it, but the autism that they make their doses in 20 % shots. So you have shot one, shot two, shot three, shot four, shot five. So the childhood vaccine schedule, each of these vaccines being broken up into five separate visits, I think makes a lot of sense. Let's move on. Yes.
11:33Perry Wilson:No notes. So first of all, just to be clear, there's no evidence that vaccines are linked to autism. So the premise of this discussion is poor. Second of all, actually vaccines don't work like that. So they are dosed to an amount of vaccine, you know, virus or killed virus that prompts an immune response. And so actually giving it in five doses of 20 % could easily result in no immune response because you wouldn't have enough to respond. It's not like it adds up like this, that's how it works. There are this any version of this would require extensive clinical trials of dosing at this to make sure that people responded, which they probably wouldn't.
12:12Perry Wilson:There's no approved vaccines like this. People would be much less likely to get vaccines if they went in, had to go in. Try to schedule five visits with your pediatrician. This is a bad plan. This is a bad plan. And I don't I don't approve it. And I also think it's very unlikely that we will get this plan because it doesn't actually make any sense.
12:33Emily Oster:I mean, we need to call out the overriding issue here, which is that, you know, this is classic moving of the goalposts of the vaccine autism link. So, you know, people first were like, oh, it's the thimerosal. It's the mercury preservative in vaccines. That was studied. And in fact, in many vaccines, the thimerosal was removed in the favor of other preservatives. no change in autism, no link to autism. Okay. It's not that. It's the, you know. Too many. Too many vaccines. Too many of the time. It's too many all at once. And it's just like all these things kind of keep moving and moving, moving, and there's no evidence for any of it.
13:09Emily Oster:And so, you know, and in the end, you're coming up with, I mean, legitimately unworkable. This is a legitimately unworkable plan. Like any parent knows that you're not getting your kid in five times a year for like the first 10 years of their life to get the requisite vaccines. It's not going to happen.
13:29Perry Wilson:It doesn't make any sense. Okay. But good news. If you don't get vaccines or in some other way you need treatment for a disease, Montana's got a new plan for you, Perry. They've approved a proposal to allow drug companies to sell non-FDA approved drugs in Montana. And I want to read you one sentence from an article about this, which I think is just the summary. Startup biotech firms told Politico they hope Montana will serve as their shortcut around the Food and Drug Administration's costly and extensive drug development process to the United States' vast and lucrative drug market. So, I mean, with that argument, I don't see how we could go wrong with that.
14:15Emily Oster:I mean, as long as we have the best interests of the shareholders at heart, I think that's our North Star, right?
14:22Perry Wilson:This FDA, it's the worst. They're constantly with the testing and the safety. It's like, what a bunch of losers.
14:29Emily Oster:Yeah, totally. Such a buzzkill. They are disruptophobes. So this is kind of related to the Right to Try movement, but I think there's some really significant differences that I want to touch on. So Right to Try was a legitimate debate where it was like if you have a terminal condition and there's a drug that has been shown to be safe, like it doesn't kill you. It doesn't kill mice and it doesn't kill people in the phase one trial. Phase one trials are just safety. Like they don't even measure efficacy. It doesn't kill you. Then you should have a right to just like try it because whatever, you're going to die anyway.
15:02Emily Oster:And there's ethical debates about this actually, like whether it is ethical to do that. But broadly, the right to try legislation has gone through and there are mechanisms to do this. But there are some caveats. One generally being that, you know, you have to have a life-threatening condition without other options for treatment. And two, that the drug company can't make money off of you, right? This is a, you know, it's supposed to be an altruistic type of thing. Sure, maybe the drug company learns a bit more about their drug, but it's not a profit-making enterprise. Montana says, okay, the phase one, the safety data does need to be there.
Read the full transcript
15:37Emily Oster:It can't be poison. And that's it. So you can have any condition. Doesn't have to be life-threatening. Doesn't have to be anything that doesn't have a treatment. There's no rules like that. and the company can charge you whatever they want for it. So they can make whatever profit they want. What this sets up is a mechanism for basically every shyster with snake oil, right? To say, okay, well, fly to Montana and I'm gonna charge you$50 ,000 and I'm gonna infuse this, you know, whatever I invented in my, you know, quote unquote lab that I did, you know, minimal safety testing on and that's it. And, you know, the FDA is there for a reason.
16:22Emily Oster:There was a time in this country when there was no safety testing and lots of people died. And there was a time when there was no efficacy testing and lots of people got taken advantage of. And actually safety came before efficacy. The FDA added efficacy testing because there was so much snake oil out there. There was so much stuff that you could buy and whatever that people were selling that no one knew what to do.
16:47Perry Wilson:Yeah, I genuinely think the right to try stuff is very, very important. And this is not bad. And so I'm concerned. OK, that's it for the health news of the week. And now we get to grab bag. And I'm going to invite Tamar in and she's going to explain the scorekeeping and rules. OK, I actually never left, but here I am off mute. All right. So as I said, we sent out a call to the listeners to give us their short, ridiculous wellness fads. We got a really nice response. We ended up only picking 12. So we have 12 that we are going to alternate you guys. You will get three minutes each. I have my timer right here.
17:39And you will get a 30 second warning before the time runs out. In terms of our point system, you get two points for staying within the time limit, not too long or too short, by the way. Perry gets an extra point every time he references Star Trek. Emily gets an extra point every time she references endurance running. Both of you get a half point if you say the dose makes the point. and you lose 25 points for referencing Mendelian randomization.
18:14Emily Oster:Okay. All right. I like it. Yeah. I don't want to have to edit out all of the hot mic clipping for how angry Emily gets. So end with a smasher pass, and we will have voice memos from people and social media clips where available. So does everybody understand the rules? I'm ready. Yes. And the point system.
18:37Perry Wilson:Basically. We're going to trust you on that. But I trust you to not be a liar. Yeah. Great. OK, Emily, you are going first. OK. And your question is, do cold showers lead to fewer sick days? Go. Great question. Okay, there is a study on this from 2016 in which some researchers in the Netherlands took people and they encouraged them to finish their usual enjoyable warm shower with 30, 60, or 90 seconds of cold water every day for a month. And so I guess some people agreed to be in this study. I don't know why. And then they tracked whether they were sick. Okay, here's what happened. the people who took the cold showers were actually less likely to take sick days from work but they just they got sick just as much so the cold shower seemed to make them not be less sick but somehow be able to push through sickness or something which i'm not sure is a good thing or not a good thing this feels to me like the other day when i listened to andrew Huberman explained to me that if I got in a cold plunge, I would like learn to push through my fears because being in a cold plunge is so awful.
19:55Perry Wilson:So I guess this is like you get in a cold shower and you're like, oh my God, I'm going to die. And then you're like, well, I didn't die. I guess I can go to work even though I'm sick. So there are some problems with this trial. One is that it's not blinded because you know if your shower is cold. And so maybe it's like the placebo effect, Like I feel like the Hulk. And then I'm like, I can do anything. And also I just, again, I'm not, I'm not sure this is good because just going to work and like getting all your coworkers sick and they probably aren't taking cold showers. So they're just staying home.
20:26Perry Wilson:So it seems like a bit, a bit mixed. This honestly feels to me like a place where if you wanted the answer, you should just try it for yourself because you can totally experiment with your own, you know, we all love to data track. You can experiment with your own cold showers. But I would never do that because showering is one of life's great pleasures. And taking a cold shower, adding 90 seconds of freezing water at the end of my shower, just sounds like it would totally ruin my day. So I'm a pass on the cold shower. But I can see someone wanting to experiment with it. But I don't think they should.
21:12Perry Wilson:How'd I do tomorrow? Okay, you've got 40 seconds left. Can you squeeze in endurance running? If you finished running, then you... No, I don't... Gosh, okay. I only have to... I'm going to work on my next one. I really feel like I'm kind of trained for 90 seconds. And so I'm going to have to get more detail.
21:33Emily Oster:I think it's okay if we don't hit three minutes.
21:36Perry Wilson:What if, you know? I was told there was a points system for going too short, Perry. You can't change the rules, Perry. You can't change the rules. Just make up the rules in the middle. Okay. You've got eight seconds. Does the dose make the poison? No, actually, it doesn't. It turns out it didn't matter whether it was 36 or 90 in the study. Okay. Nicely done. Way to start us off. Perry, we have a voicemail for you. Yep. Go ahead. Hi, Emily and Perry. I've been reading the book, The Body Keeps the Score, and I'm really fascinated by its argument that trauma can have lasting effects on the brain and the body.
22:17But I've also heard that some of the neuroscience and the studies the book cites have been overstated or been challenged since it's last been published. And a lot of my friends are recommending this book to other people. I just am curious how much of this book is actually supported by current research and what parts should we be more skeptical of? Thank you. Wait, before you start, let me just add that that was actually two clips together. One was the person asking the voicemail question and the other was a social media video that was kind of explaining what the Body Keeps the Score issues are.
22:59So she did not put the sappy music under the question.
23:04Emily Oster:Yes, very fair. All right, Perry, go. Okay. The Body Keeps the Score. For those of you who don't know, this is a 2014 book by Bessel van der Kolk. And the general theory of that book is that overwhelming experiences, especially things like chronic childhood abuse and neglect, are not stored in the brain as memories per se, but as fragmented physiologic states. So it uses terms like the body gets stuck in threat mode or like you get this overactive amygdala in your brain. This is sort of a classic pop science book in that it does cite some actual research, but does that thing where it leans way too heavily on some aspects of neuroscience and ignores a whole bunch of other neuroscience.
23:56Emily Oster:So what the book leans heavily on is some brain scans that suggest that when people are recalling trauma, a part of the brain called Broca's area, which is responsible for speech, goes dark. It's not as active. And the leap that Van der Kolk makes with this is that therefore trauma cannot be addressed with words. It is manifested by physiologic states and you need to do physiologic things like yoga, neurofeedback, this eye, ocular muscle movement, exercises, and in fact, more recently, MDMA-assisted therapy to actually process all of this trauma. Okay, the problem is that this is probably not true.
24:43Emily Oster:Like, the argument that trauma doesn't encode memory is pretty wrong. In fact, most of the data suggests that trauma is remembered too well. Like people have two vivid memories of their traumatic experiences. The sort of classic work on this is called Remembering Trauma from 2003. There's also a vibe in The Body Keeps the Score that reminds me a little bit of the like recovered memories vibe that happened or fad that – fad is probably the wrong word. But that happened in the late 90s where guided by therapists, people were, quote unquote, remembering experiences in their childhood that actually never happened.
25:22Emily Oster:And that can do a lot of psychological damage not only to the person in whom those memories are being implanted, but obviously to their family members and whatnot who are being accused of things like abuse. 30 seconds. You know, overall, forcing people to recognize the lifelong impacts of childhood trauma is good. Yes, childhood trauma is important, but there's no real evidence that these body-based approaches are any better than traditional talk therapy. You know, there is – the past does get encoded in our bodies, and that's why in the Star Trek The Next Generation episode, Genesis, the virus that caused the crew to devolve, was effective.
26:05Pass.
26:06Emily Oster:Well done.
26:07Perry Wilson:Pencils down. Come on, Star Trek. I like you got it in the last, like, 20 seconds. Amazing.
26:13Emily Oster:I'm not as good at this as you are. I could have gone for, like, 10 more minutes. All right, I'm going to be better. Totally. Let's go. Let's go. Keep it going. Totally. Okay, so, Emily, about vampire facials. What's the deal with vampire facials? I saw Kim Kardashian plugging them with what looked like the most excruciating chemical peel with the tagline, Feel the power of your own plasma. What the actual f***? Go.
26:36Perry Wilson:Okay, so what is a vampire facial? A vampire facial is when you take tiny microneedles and microneedle your face, and then they – okay, so let me back up. I'm using my time. First, we take some of your blood, and then not from your face. And then we spin it in a centrifuge, so we concentrate the platelets of the blood. And then you prick your skin with a ton of tiny microneedlings, and you rub the blood all over it. so the the like platelet plasma like goes in and the idea is that these platelets are releasing some kind of like awesome growth factors and they're going to make your collagen work better and then the microneedling is good because it really gets it in there with all the tiny wounds that you have created and and kim kardashian did post this and it's like as you might imagine from my description it's gross it's like basically you're like taking blood and like smearing it all over your face and like it's like you smear the plasma on your face it's already bloody from all the tiny needles um but if it makes you look good i think it's totally worth it it's better to look good than to feel good we all know that totally so okay so does this work i'm not really um there's a little bit of evidence for like acne scarring maybe although you know like whether it's good as better than regular microneedling not totally clear um for the general kind of wrinkles and glow of course there are some small studies presumably all run by the purveyors of the microneedling vampire facial thing uh and so it really is not this is not the secret to beautiful glowing skin.
28:24Perry Wilson:That's Botox. No, just kidding. But yes, actually.
28:27Emily Oster:But not really.
28:28Perry Wilson:We're going to have an episode about that, but we can put that aside. 30 seconds. Okay. But just one thing actually very important to say about this is that it actually can be dangerous. So there was an episode in like 2018 in which some people actually got HIV from a spa that was doing these. And so because of Of course, there's a lot of blood and so on. And so that is, of course, not a typical complication. But anytime people are taking your blood and doing stuff with it and rubbing it back on your bloody face, you should make sure that they are a reputable location. I am a pass. Hard pass on vampire facials.
29:09Excellent. Me too.
29:13Perry Wilson:I do like the tagline, feel the power of your own plasma. I mean, that's good. Yeah, yeah. That's good. I don't feel it that often. No, you're definitely not. You need tiny needles in your face for that. Okay, Perry. So one more, and then we're going to do a quick score update.
29:30Emily Oster:Ooh, okay. What is the deal with the EMF craziness from power lines too close to the house? And I will spell out EMF so you don't burn up the time. That's electromagnetic frequency, like in Better Call Saul, I think. All right. I'm going to play a clip. So I've got my EMF reader. Let's walk around and check some common household spots and see how they pan out on the AMF reader. Here's the microwave. We don't use the microwave, but I know a lot of people do, so I figure I should definitely include a microwave. This is the microwave off. That's the microwave off. Let me put something in the microwave and see how that changes.
30:09Oh my god. Alright, so this is, whoa. The beepy thing beeped more. It literally went up just from me clicking the button on the way far away.
30:16Perry Wilson:And it's beeping, Perry.
30:18Emily Oster:I hope you're not standing next to your microwave when you're using it. It's red and it's beeping. Okay, go. EMF, electromagnetic fields. This we could do a whole episode on because there's so much good physics to talk about here. So I really want to put a pin in that. Okay, there is some correlational data that living near high-frequency power lines has an association with some childhood leukemias. This has been shown in several different places. This is not confirmed, not necessarily causal, but it is something that we are aware of. It is completely different than the stuff they're trying to sell you online.
30:55Emily Oster:So those meters that they sell online for electromagnetic fields, everything is an electromagnetic field. Every power outlet at 60 hertz or 120 hertz if you're in Europe generates an electromagnetic field. Light coming from your lights generates an electromagnetic field. In fact, the electromagnetic field from visible light is about a thousand orders, a million orders of magnitude stronger than the electromagnetic field that comes from your Wi-Fi router or your microwave. So if you're really concerned about electromagnetic fields, you should be living completely in the dark.
31:28Perry Wilson:That's what I'm hearing.
31:28Emily Oster:None of these things are ionizing radiation, which has enough power to break chemical bonds and therefore, you know, damage DNA, something like UV light. They're all well, well below this. The only reason there's even any consideration for the high frequency lines is because they generate a magnetic field at scale. It's about the order of 0.3 to 0.4 micro teslas. That is much stronger than a magnetic field that you get from a running current from your microwave, for example, and it can bathe the whole house in it. There's some suggestion that chronic exposure to magnetic fields on that order might have some problems.
32:04Emily Oster:Again, but very, very rare childhood leukemias. And all this other stuff about your household electronics and like your – that's all – it's literally BS. Like it's detecting electricity the same way my little voltmeter – like my live wire detector detects electricity so that I don't shock myself when I'm changing a light fixture or something like that. Electromagnetic fields is how everything works except gravity and nuclear decay and fusion, I guess. It's everywhere.
32:34Perry Wilson:So if my kid is standing in front of the microwave while it's on, is that a problem?
32:39Emily Oster:No. It's really – it's literally not. They don't penetrate the skin. They are non-ionizing. And again, it's much less energy than your kid standing in front of a light. The only reason the light doesn't set off that meter because it's a million times stronger is because light has a frequency that's 10 to the 14th times per second, which is way – flipping back and forth, which is way too fast for the meters to detect. It's just beyond their resolution. Whereas electricity is 60 hertz because that's how we have, which it can detect. That's it. Otherwise, the meters would be blaring red all the time because there's light outside.
33:11Emily Oster:30 seconds.
33:11Perry Wilson:I'm hearing I need a better meter.
33:13Emily Oster:What you need.
33:14Perry Wilson:A more sensitive meter.
33:15Emily Oster:I think the thing people need to take home is that if there's a rift in space time, firing an inverse tachyon pulse will close that rift. But you have to do it at all three points in space time. Wait, was that a Star Trek thing? Clearly. Obviously. I don't know. I'm not a scientist. on worrying about electromagnetic fields. It's like worrying about gravitational fields. It's like, it's welcome to physics. It's not an issue. Don't waste your money. Wow. Okay. So my very quick mathematical calculation for the points puts Perry at one point ahead. Oh, man. Okay. So, Emily, you got to step it up. All right.
34:01Emily Oster:Should we take a break and regroup?
34:03Perry Wilson:Take a break and regroup. I need a chance to, you know, take some deep breaths and learn some more things about running. All right.
34:14All right.
34:15Perry Wilson:We're back. And I'm regrouped and I'm going to win. All right. Let's go. Okay. Emily, what is the deal with vibrating plates? Can you please watch this clip and describe what is going on in it? Okay. This person is vibrating on a plate and she's transforming herself. This is a standard before, after, but with vibration. And I think there's an intention to demonstrate weight loss. There's a lot of vibrating. A lot of vibrating. All right.
34:49Emily Oster:I'm a smash, by the way. Just getting it out there. Just putting it out there. Go.
34:55Perry Wilson:All right. So let me explain something that's very important for people as they age, which is balance. So when you think about what are the things you would like to be like a healthy, aging person who doesn't crumble to dust, you need to do some strength training to keep your muscle mass and to promote bone health. You should do some endurance sports and some cardio exercise because that's important. And also, especially for older people, your proprioception gets worse. And so people need to practice their balance. And there's actually some really good, simple ways that older people can practice their balance.
35:33Perry Wilson:For example, when you're making coffee, try just standing on one foot. Do it near a counter so you don't fall over. So I really like if we have sort of older adults listening to this, balance, even for people who are doing all the other things, balance is sometimes missed. And so I want to emphasize it's important to balance. Vibration plates are a vibrating plate. It's a vibration. You stand on it. Okay. And there are a couple of things people think about these for. The most like actually potentially useful is to increase balance. So if you think about asking someone who's struggling with balance to like stand on top of this while they're also doing some other kind of like squats or something, maybe that would improve their balance more.
36:17Perry Wilson:People have tested that in trials. And it doesn't work. In fact, the people with the vibrating plates may be slightly more likely to fall, presumably because they're trying to do stuff standing on top of a vibrating plate. But at any rate, this is not helpful for balance, which is really the only thing you would want to have it helping for. If you are trying to use this for weight loss, if you think it's like that, like one of those things from the 1980s where you were like, it was that strap around your butt and it was like, and like the fat was just going to like, that's not how fat works. guys like that's i'm sorry but like that's just not how like weight loss operates you don't like shake off the fat that's not that's just not how biology is and so if you if you are using your vibrating plate for weight loss like in the context of a calorie deficit uh it will it will work but it will not add to the calorie deficit it's just the calorie deficit 30 seconds i do know people who really enjoy a vibrating plate.
37:19Perry Wilson:And I have at least one friend who occasionally travels with her vibrating plate because she likes to stand on it in the mornings and play like some kind of game on her phone. And that's how she relaxes. And I think that's the way you're using your vibrating plate. That's great. If you're hoping to shake off the fat, no thanks, I'm a pass. that was actually perfectly within time so i'm going to give you an extra point i feel like i should get extra thank you i appreciate the extra points i mean okay that's a new rule but that's fine that's i'm i'm cool with it we have a former colleague who used to travel with her squatty potty i mean that i don't i i'm i i don't judge that is there a travel squatty potty someone made
38:05Emily Oster:like a foldable one that fits in your carry-on if so patent pending yeah i don't know i think it Probably came down with like kind of like a car seat, like all wrapped up. All right. Okay. Perry. What is the deal? This is right up your alley. With living kidney donation. The question asker asks, I'd love to hear your take on living kidney donation, Perry. It is something I've been interested in for a long time, and it would be great to hear your thoughts on it as a nephrologist, including the health impacts on the donor. This is only tangentially related to social media, but I did some basic research once and was served a lot of sponsored posts of people requesting kidney donations.
38:46Go.
38:47Emily Oster:All right. Living kidney donors are heroes. Straight up. Let's put some numbers on it. There are roughly 100 ,000 people waiting for a kidney in the United States right now. And we do about 27 ,000 transplants per year. 6 ,000 of those transplants are from living donors. So the remainder, 21 ,000 or so, are from brain-dead donors or donation after cardiac death donors. So what that means is that around 5 ,000 people on the transplant waiting list die every year or get too sick to get a kidney, about 13 people a day. So the more living donors we have, the more we can save people's lives. You have two kidneys and you really only need one.
39:37Emily Oster:The process of becoming a living donor, though, is quite intense. And basically, when we're screening someone to become a living donor, they go through all sorts of testing basically to make sure that they're never going to have a kidney problem in the future, right? Like they're going to – whatever you die of, it's not going to be kidney disease. So you can't have diabetes. You can't be too overweight. You can't have, you know, unexplained protein or blood in the urine. There's all this testing that goes on. When a kidney is removed, the other kidney grows a bit and takes over. And broadly speaking, there's no health effects.
40:06Emily Oster:The rate of progression to need dialysis or a kidney transplant yourself among living kidney donors is about the same as the national average, which is very low. But I will point that out because actually you'd expect it to be better. Like these are patients who are screened to be very healthy from a kidney standpoint. So the fact that after donation, they have the same risk as the rest of us schmoes suggests that there is probably some modest hit, as you might expect. But the rates of regret after living kidney donation are vanishingly small. Most people are extremely happy about it. I would say if you're interested in this, look into altruistic chains where, you know, if you don't have someone you're giving to, there are basically people, you know, you want to give to someone who you're a good match for.
40:52Emily Oster:So there are people waiting for a kidney donor and like their wife isn't a match for them. But the wife has agreed that if the husband gets a kidney from someone, she'll donate her kidney to someone she's a match for. And they can make these long chains where like the goodness just rolls down the hill. And it's really a miraculous thing. So, you know, more power to you. We do not live in the age of Star Trek where we can use a replicator to like create a kidney. 30 seconds. I'm hopeful we'll get to that place in the future. Oh, and the last thing I should say is that if you have given a living kidney, if you've donated a kidney, you're automatically at the top of the donation list if you ever need a kidney yourself.
41:33Emily Oster:So instead of having to wait, the average wait in the US is about four and a half to five years, depending on your region. If you were a prior living kidney donor, and for whatever reason you need a kidney yourself, you get one right away. Smash.
41:46Perry Wilson:I want to add that my college thesis advisor, Al Roth, who's an economist, did a lot of the design for this chained altruistic kidney donation.
41:58Emily Oster:So cool. So very, very cool. Did you guys ever read that Bad Art Friend article from the New York Times magazine a few years ago? Yes. about the woman who was a little bit too proud of her kidney donation. And so she got completely taken down by the Boston area writers. Oh, no. In group. Yeah. Okay. All right. All right. Be chill about it, guys. But thank you. You're a hero. Okay, Emily, what's the deal with psyllium husk and beta glucan supplementation for gut health and colon cancer prevention? How about lowering your LDL cholesterol, powder or pill form. If powder form is more effective, how to really incorporate it into daily life.
42:45Go.
42:47Perry Wilson:Great. So both of these things, psyllium husk and beta-glucan are sources of fiber. They're not those sources of the same kind of fiber. So psyllium husk is actually our best source of what's called insoluble fiber. Think of that as the fiber. We talked a little bit about this in the poop episode, but the fiber that like really like zooms things out. And beta-glucan, which is like commonly in oats, is a kind of soluble fiber. And so it like kind of glues things together and makes it sort of move more slowly and, I don't know, better in some other way. But let me say sort of this question asked about LDL cholesterol, gut health, and colon cancer, and the answers to those things are different.
43:31Perry Wilson:So there is evidence that both psyllium husk and beta-glucan through food, particularly through oats, can improve your pooping. So if you're looking to improve your poop health, getting these things, and ideally through food rather than through, you know, random pills and powders and supplements, like, these are things you can get in food, and that is the best way to get them, and they will make your poop better if you're struggling with it. So like, smashing for poop. The evidence on colon cancer prevention is much weaker. People have suggested that this is true, but in fact, in trials, moving around people's fiber in this way does not seem to prevent colon cancer.
44:13Perry Wilson:And so I think the cancer link is just not there in the same way. And on the cholesterol link, oats are actually, have been linked. So consumption of oatmeal has been linked to lowering LDL cholesterol. So not psyllium husk, which is insoluble fiber, but the soluble fiber has been linked to lowering cholesterol, but again, ideally getting through food. So I think there's something to both of these, especially when you're thinking about poop, but like with many supplements, it's really best to get your stuff through your food rather than through pills and powders. So I'm a smash on getting these through food for your poop.
45:00Perry Wilson:Okay. 44 seconds left. Anything to add? Perry, do you have anything? I'm going to like seed my time. I don't know. I feel like this one. Well, okay. Just to be fair to me, we did do an episode about poop. This is true. And so people should go back and listen to our episode about poop if they want to learn more about poop, which you should.
45:17Emily Oster:That's a good citing precedent. I will let this pass for stare decisis. Okay. Perry. Is salmon full of toxins? The question asker asks, I see posts pointing to research that shows that salmon has more toxins than any other animal protein. Should we be eating it at all? Or should we be eating it less often? Go. Okay, so I took a look at the linked Instagram post. Here are the claims made in this post. Farmed salmon is the most toxic food in the world. Farm-raised salmon are sedated and in conditions that make 95 % go deaf. They use petroleum-based dyes to dye the meat so it's more orange or red.
46:00Emily Oster:They have higher dioxins, cancer-causing chemicals than beef, chicken, pork, eggs by about tenfold. Now, I'm a huge salmon fan. If you go back to our talk about seed oils, we were talking about omega-3 fatty acids, and salmon is a great source of the beneficial omega-3 fatty acids. It's the best tasting one because I don't like sardines that much. And I do try to eat salmon when I can get some salmon. So let me go through all these claims. Number one, are they the most toxic food in the world? Well, definitely not. The most toxic is the death cap mushroom, which will kill you dead from eating its cap.
46:42Emily Oster:Right away.
46:42Perry Wilson:Right away. Right away.
46:44Emily Oster:Clearly more toxic. Dead. Okay. But maybe in terms of food people actually eat, well, then the most toxic would be fugu, of course, the puffer fish that is eaten in Japan. Only if you do it wrong. Only if you do it wrong.
46:57Perry Wilson:If you do it wrong.
46:57Emily Oster:At a population level, the most toxic is probably aflatoxin mold from poorly stored grain and peanuts that causes liver cancer, kills about 100 ,000 people in sub-Saharan Africa per year. So no, it ain't salmon. Are the salmon sedated? The farm salmon sedated? No, that's just not true. They want them to eat and swim and get muscle. So nope, they're not sedated. Do they go deaf? No, but there's a kernel of truth here in that they grow faster. than wild salmon and salmon who grow fast develop these crystals in their inner ear, which can impact hearing. That's sad. And I guess like farming something, you know, farm animals don't get the best treatment, but it doesn't like make it toxic.
47:41Emily Oster:I don't know. It's just, it's neither here nor there for this. Okay. Do they add this coloring to make it, to make the fish pink? Well, the implication of these posts are that it's done after harvesting, like they put spray some red food dye on. It's not. The chemical is called astaxanthin, and it is added to the feed that the salmon get. It's the same chemical that comes from krill and shrimp that give, it's like chemically the exact same thing. Now, it is synthesized, astaxanthin. So it's made in a process as opposed to being extracted from shrimp and krill. But it's the same thing, and it's just mixed with their food.
48:18Emily Oster:Lastly, dioxins. Fish that are apex predators concentrate environmental toxins like mercury, arsenic. Yes, dioxins. Wild salmon have three times the dioxin that's farmed salmon because farmed tend to be raised on plant-based diets. So yes, they have dioxins. They're well below the risk levels that are set by the World Health Organization. The dose makes the poison. Don't worry about salmon.
48:44Perry Wilson:Perfect timing. I also feel like if we had to outline problems with the diets of Americans, like not like consuming too much salmon is really like this feels to me like those reels that are like this thing is going around. That's like if you add a banana to a blueberry smoothie, it cancels out the flavanols. It's like, I'm sorry. Americans problems are not that they're eating too many bananas in their fruit smoothies and their flavanols are being canceled out by the other thing. Like that's not the problem. OK, the problem is mostly the Doritos.
49:15Emily Oster:I was just dying when I first clicked on that. It was like the most toxic food in the world. And it's just like, okay, this is going to be very easy. Mushrooms. There's so many ways we can kill you with food. To be fair, the dose makes the poison also applies to Doritos. Totally. Totally. Definitely. Definitely. Okay. Emily, this one is particularly up your alley. What is the deal with pelvic floor therapy? I'm hearing about all these treatments after birth so that, you know, I don't pee when I sneeze. Go. Perry, trying to resist making an up your alley joke. Well, move on.
49:56Perry Wilson:I want that time back. I cannot emphasize enough how great pelvic floor therapy is and how much people should be embracing it. So a pelvic floor therapist is someone who helps you train, work, strengthen your pelvic floor muscles. Your pelvic floor is a muscle group that holds up all of your organs. It gets very stressed during pregnancy because babies and uteruses full of water are heavy. And so it is really useful to understand how to keep your pelvic floor organized and strengthened. Everyone should ideally see a pelvic floor therapist before, during, and after pregnancy. People will talk about Kegels, which is when you think of it as like try to tighten your pelvic floor the way you would if you were going to stop yourself from peeing and then hold and release.
50:59Perry Wilson:that's a standard exercise, but actually pelvic floor therapy goes way beyond that. And for some issues, Kegels are not actually the right treatment. And so you really do want to see a person. And this can be just life-changing. I mean, there are a lot of things that happen when your pelvic floor is not strong. It can make it difficult to exercise. It can make you pee when you sneeze or when you run. It can cause fecal incontinence. Like this is just absolutely should be something that is covered by all insurance should be covered by medicaid it is something we should be doing for everybody to make their lives better i just cannot say enough positive things about how you should all be having access to a pelvic floor therapist i just like you shouldn't pee when you sneeze and i really there's this whole like advertisements for for you know pads that protect you against peeing on yourself that are like ladies have little leaks like no yes that's totally true and it's not something to be ashamed of and happens to many of us but also you should not have to pee yourself when you sneeze that is not a thing that we should expect out of our lives like we should be expecting more of our medical system and our pelvic floors and we could totally get there uh there's a really great person to follow on the Instagram called The Vagina Whisperer.
52:24Perry Wilson:And she talks all about the pelvic floor. And she's really great. And she dresses up in a vagina costume, which looks a lot like a hot dog, but not exactly. And so it's like a little bit of fun. The vagina doesn't look like a hot dog. The costume looks like a hot dog. Anyway, vagina whisper, Instagram, pelvic floor, smash. I'm like a hard, so could not smash. I'm smashing it incredibly hard.
52:47Emily Oster:Can I give Emily an extra point for inspiring speech?
52:51Perry Wilson:Absolutely. We should all be expecting better. Men also have pelvic floors, but they don't get as stressed during pregnancy.
53:01Emily Oster:Yeah. No, mine was all right.
53:06Okay. Perry, what is the deal with salt lamps? I've recently seen one on the wall in a real spa. What are they even supposed to do? And do they do it? This is the one thing on the list I had never heard of.
53:21Emily Oster:Oh, really? So I have been to a spa. Oh, God, everyone I know has one in their baby's room. I went to a spa that had a room of salt lamp. Like you were surrounded on all sides by pink salt. Okay. What do they do? Nothing is the answer. But what people say they do, what they say they do is that they release ions into the air. and ions are good for various reasons. Maybe they clean the air because like ions bind things or whatever. That also works via electromagnetic fields, but whatever, so does everything in the universe. That's the claim and that you have it around. It's releasing these beneficial ions and that's all well and good.
54:02Emily Oster:So that's not true. Salt crystals do not ionize at anywhere near the temperatures that you get by putting a 15 watt light bulb inside them. Their sodium and chloride ions are not being emitted. That just doesn't work. That's not how chemistry works. You probably don't even want sodium chloride ions necessarily to be stripped apart from the salt lamp because then you could actually form chlorine gas, which is toxic and stuff. But don't worry about it. It's not going to happen at the energy levels within a salt lamp. What they are nice for is some nice like red, like dark dim kind of reddish light, which I think at night, if you're worried about, you know, getting to sleep appropriately and You want to avoid blue light, which destroys melatonin levels.
54:46Emily Oster:And then, yeah, sitting in a dark room with a little pink salt lamp on in the corner, I think, seems very peaceful. Maybe read a book. That's what they're good for. But no, they're not releasing ions into the world. There are some dangers associated with them. So they can, because they are salt, they can collect moisture from the air and get a little bit wet. They sort of sweat a little and there have been cases of fires started by the water kind of dripping into the electrical circuitry and stuff like that. So I don't know. Be careful about that. You know, salt is important. Okay. I'm really stretching here.
55:24Emily Oster:Salt is important to humans. humans. And we know this because creature M113 from the original Star Trek, colloquially referred to as the salt vampire, would telepathically appear as your loved one. This is not a real thing. I'm sorry. This is a real thing?
55:46Perry Wilson:Oh, yeah.
55:46Emily Oster:And it would suck all of the sodium chloride out of humans and leave you, for some reason, like a dried husk on the ground, which doesn't seem right. All right, 30 more seconds of this video. Please not 30 more seconds. Yeah, yeah. So you shouldn't be a dried out husk when it sucks out the sodium chloride, right? If anything, you should be like a wet blob, which I think is the better way to have done it. If you do run into a salt vampire, I would say spritz them with water. I think that's the maybe holy water.
56:20Perry Wilson:Solution. So I'm a pass. Close to an electrical outlet.
56:22Emily Oster:I'm a pass on salt lamps and vampires. Wow. Okay. Quick score update. So Emily has been very inspirational and sticking right to her time limit. And Perry has been adding a lot of Star Trek in. I feel like it's almost like you're trying a little too hard, I think. I mean, that last one was real. That was a stretch. I needed to. That was a stretch. Yeah. Yeah. So I'm going to say you're tied, which means I think you're just making this up, but okay, fine. It's all riding on these last two answers. Okay. Okay. Okay. Emily, we have a voicemail for you to listen to.
57:08Perry Wilson:Hey, Emily and Perry. This is Sandy from North Carolina. My question is about jawline or chin masks, which influencers claim will give me a defined jawline and reduce puffiness under my chin. I'm someone who's always had a soft jawline, always carried a little bit of extra puffiness in that area, and so has my sister. So my question or series of questions is, why do some people just seem to have a puffier jawline? And what, if anything, could I do about mine? Do these masks work? How could they possibly work?
57:38Emily Oster:Thanks. Go. Sorry, pause time. The question, how could they possibly work? Like, I love that. If we ever make t-shirts, I just want, like, that idea is so, like, how could they, like, this ever work but okay sorry go ahead yeah so in case you are also not super familiar with these
57:58Perry Wilson:these are the like one of these it's like a sheet mask you put it under your chin and you sort of typically hook it around your your ears and it has like a like a disposable it's a disposable mask it's got a gel a hydrogel it's soaked in something uh and you know they they typically have a variety of different random stuff in them. But like the kinds of things you might have on this thing is like collagen or hydrolytic acid, plant extracts, caffeine. Sometimes there's like some menthol to make it seem cooling, etc. And the claim is that they will reduce this puffiness. First of all, why do some people have a puffier jaw than other people?
58:40Perry Wilson:I don't know. People have different genetics. Your face has a different shape. Some people have, you know, a bigger nose. Some people have more prominent cheekbones. Some people have like a tiny giant forehead. Who knows? Like just everyone has a different shape face and that is why your jaw looks away. I don't know. That's it. So there's no like real answer to that question. If you put one of these things on, it will not lead to a long-term difference in your jaw shape. It could like very briefly work depending on exactly what's in it. So one thing is if you're just like really snug and kind of push fluid out of the tissue and then temporarily make your face look a little bit different.
59:30Perry Wilson:It's like the same reason like a cold compress kind of changes the puffiness in your face sometimes. It's also like a moisturizer. And so, I don't know, moisturizers are always nice. Caffeine is a vasoconstrictor. And so if you put caffeine all over your face, it could actually slightly reduce swelling. These are all like sort of short term effects. And so it's a little bit like if you're dying to look good like 20 minutes from now and you want a marginal improvement that only you could see but could make you feel better about yourself due to the placebo effect, this could be something to try.
1:00:09Perry Wilson:But there really isn't any actual evidence for this.
1:00:17Perry Wilson:And that's it. You don't need this. And I will just extend this to say a lot of my Instagram seems to lately be full of these people who like wake up in the morning and remove like an absolutely astonishing number of different like stickers from their face. And I there's really no evidence for any of the face stickers. So it's not just the chin sticker. It's the eye stickers, the forehead sticker, the like mouth sticker. Don't sticker your face. Pass. Okay, last one. Perry, what is the deal with black cumin seed? Any evidence for black cumin seed for lowering LDL cholesterol and blood glucose?
1:01:04If yes, what is the recommended dose? And how to incorporate it into your routine if using powder form? And I, Tamar, personally, I'm adding turmeric here also. What's the deal with turmeric? Because it seems like they're related because it's delicious. And also I see it advertised in pill form every time I go to Costco. Go.
1:01:24Emily Oster:Okay. So there is some evidence for these things. And we shouldn't necessarily be surprised because they are plants. And plants have compounds and chemicals in them. And chemicals can be biologically active. And there are a slew of biologically active things that you can put in your mouth and eat. And broadly speaking, most of our pharmaceuticals came about in this way, right? Like aspirin came from willow bark and eventually they figured out the thing that was making you feel better when you chew willow bark and they isolated aspirin and now they synthesize aspirin and that's what it is. And that is basically what's going on with black cumin seed and turmeric.
1:02:00Emily Oster:Black cumin has an ingredient in it called thimoquinone, which is an HMG-CoA reductase inhibitor. That is the same mechanism of action as the statins. So black cumin has like a little statin in it. And it does, in fact, lower cholesterol modestly. Randomized trials show about a 15-point LDL reduction for what it's worth. It's fat-soluble, so the oil form of black cumin seed worked a little better than the seed form, which isn't as readily absorbed. For turmeric, not quite as potent. There is also some cholesterol-lowering effects, about 5 mg per deciliter of LDL. It also has, in randomized trials, some reduction in fasting glucose up to about 10 milligrams per deciliter.
1:02:45Emily Oster:So the unifying thing here is these are all quite modest compared to the pharmaceutical grade stuff that you can get in terms of reducing LDL. And broadly speaking, I don't advise people to get their medications from unregulated things and plants. If you want to incorporate it into your diet because whatever, you like the taste or you just kind of generally want to be healthy. But it doesn't work as well, and it's not as pure as what you get from pharmaceutical companies. I know people feel it's like, oh, it's natural, you know, and it's got to be better. But that's called the naturalistic fallacy, and there's plenty of things in nature that will kill you dead, as we've talked about earlier today, right?
1:03:23Emily Oster:Like, so there is value in pure substances created in a lab to lower your cholesterol and your blood sugar. There's also other stuff in these seeds. There's a lot of other compounds that might be interacting with other medications or cause off-target effects. So generally, it's not a great idea. Now, this is not a stretch at all. There are good studies that black tea has compounds in it that reduce cholesterol actually by a similar amount, about 15 points. There's also studies that suggest that bergamot has a modest LDL reducing effect. Now, if you combine black tea and bergamot, you get the classic flavoring of Earl Grey.
1:04:04Emily Oster:So if you really want to lower your cholesterol, I suggest you drink tea, Earl Grey, hot. That is a Star Trek reference. Pass on cumin and turmeric.
1:04:20Perry Wilson:I think Perry won. I gotta say. I have to say. I think he won. Yeah, he kind of slipped that right in at the end. He should have gotten like infinity points for the pelvic floor speech. Yeah, yeah. But absent that, I think he's the winner. I don't know.
1:04:37Emily Oster:I'm willing to take a tie on this because I think if you started a political campaign where the number one platform was pelvic floor health, you could take 2028. I'll be behind you. There's nobody else as far as I can tell.
1:04:52Perry Wilson:Who cares about people's pelvic floor? No, no, just in general. Definitely not.
1:04:55Emily Oster:There's no other competent person. Oh, there's just no other good options. Yeah. But Perry, on the other hand, my husband will now really enjoy listening to this episode. OK. So, OK. Well, as as official scorekeeper, I will say that you two are both my boss equally. So it was a tie. Congratulations. Very impressive.
1:05:15Perry Wilson:Thank you very much. And thank you to everybody for your questions. This was a delight. And we will do another one at some point in the future.
1:05:25Emily Oster:Yeah, keep those questions coming in. We do a question of the week every week. You can submit your questions at wellnessactually.fm. Leave us a voice memo. It's so fun to hear people's voices if you can, or an Instagram clip is good too. And that is it for us for this week.
1:05:40Perry Wilson:Thank you guys so much for having me this week. We always love to have you, even when you're not on the camera.
1:05:49Perry Wilson:So that's it for us today. Stick with us next time when we'll ask, what's the deal with Botox? Wellness Actually is produced in association with iHeart Media. Our senior producer is Tamar Abishai. Our executive producer at iHeart is Jennifer Bassett. Our theme music is by Eric Deutsch. And our content is for educational purposes only.
1:06:11Emily Oster:If you like the show, help other people find us. Leave a rating and review on Apple Podcasts or your podcatcher of choice. And help us spread the word about the show. You can follow us on Instagram at wellnessactuallypod. And don't forget, we want to hear from you. Head over to wellnessactually.fm and leave us a question for our mailbag or suggest a topic for a future show. We'll let the influencers have the last word. Kim Kardashian and her cringeworthy, bloody vampire facial. Did you see what was happening in social media? She got a facial using her own blood. You got to see this to believe it.
1:06:47Emily Oster:Let's watch it. Okay, we're going to start. Beautiful. More blood. Help. A little bit more PRP. I know this is very sensitive.
1:07:00Perry Wilson:Ooh, that hurts right. Around the bone. Ow, that hurts so badly. One more line and we're done. All right. That's it. You're set.
1:07:20Perry Wilson:This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed Human
From the publisher
This week, Emily and Perry are joined by Producer Tamar to answer series of short health and wellness suggestions - by you, the listeners! - that don't merit a full deep dive but are still fun to dissect. From vampire facials to vibrating plates to salt lamps to toxic salmon, we're here for you.
Plus: U.S. officials failed to detect flaws in the covid vaccine, President Trump wants to split other vaccines up, science be damned, and Montana eschews the FDA.
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