Speaker 1: You were just looking for ways to be healthy, and
Speaker 1: all of a sudden you're getting gray market peptides from
Speaker 1: China and injecting them into your body. So it's a
Speaker 1: wild West out there and there's no real regulation going on.
Speaker 2: Victoria's Song is a senior reviewer at The Verge. You
Speaker 2: might remember her from our episode about the Meta ray Bands. Recently,
Speaker 2: she's been writing about something that she calls the wellness
Speaker 2: wild West.
Speaker 1: Basically, wellness is just anything that's not medicine, right, you know,
Speaker 1: stuff like breathing exercises or ag one which is athletic,
Speaker 1: greens supplements, supplements of all kinds, and online people be
Speaker 1: out here making some wild claims as wellness influencers.
Speaker 3: I've honestly reverse aged myself using neuroscience and biohacking, and
Speaker 3: I've had testing done.
Speaker 1: My biological age is eighteen, which was the youngest that
Speaker 1: the scale would go. You're four ways to biohack your
Speaker 1: body and truly feels superhuman.
Speaker 4: So this little guy right here is called NAD plus
Speaker 4: and three days ago I started injecting it into my body.
Speaker 1: Let me tell you why and what it does. And
Speaker 1: a lot of times what they do is they hawk
Speaker 1: a product, and then they will tell you something that's
Speaker 1: sort of an actual fact, put it next to something
Speaker 1: that's quite misleading. So you push a thought or an agenda,
Speaker 1: and that's how you get people. You know, they're just
Speaker 1: starting off with supplements and somehow they end up in fascism.
Speaker 1: That's just basically kind of how the wellness wild Blest works.
Speaker 1: You know, like you start off trying to eat clean,
Speaker 1: and then all of a sudden you don't believe in vaccines.
Speaker 1: You start off just looking for sunscreen, and then all
Speaker 1: of a sudden, you're rubbing beef tallow all over your face.
Speaker 5: You can eat your skinkcare, you should not be putting
Speaker 5: it on your face.
Speaker 6: The biggest question I get asked is how long did
Speaker 6: it take to see results from your beef tallow? Because
Speaker 6: this is where it started in January and this is
Speaker 6: where I'm at now forty one.
Speaker 2: I don't have any botox and fillers, no Guadalajara facelifts.
Speaker 1: And it's very hard to tell fact from truth because
Speaker 1: oftentimes these influencers are blending facts or distorting them in
Speaker 1: a certain way. They're going to say this is scientifically backed,
Speaker 1: this is clinically backed.
Speaker 3: At acre actually included the clinically studied amounts to be
Speaker 3: fully effective.
Speaker 1: It's back by science. Okay, this is a twelve step
Speaker 1: Korean skincare routine and a capsule, and like, what does
Speaker 1: that mean? What does clinical testing mean for a supplement
Speaker 1: that is not regulated? What does clinical testing mean for
Speaker 1: a skincare gadget that is again not regulated.
Speaker 2: It's not just influencers getting into this new wild West.
Speaker 2: Tech companies are making money here too. There's luxury shoe inserts,
Speaker 2: hormone testing, kits Ai enabled treadmills. If you can strap
Speaker 2: a device onto your wrists, or if you want to
Speaker 2: go more official, you could embed it under your skin.
Speaker 1: The umbrella term for all of us is called longevity,
Speaker 1: and it just funnels into this, like I think culturally
Speaker 1: existential fear of dying, so we're gonna use our tech
Speaker 1: to optimize ourselves so we live as long as possible.
Speaker 1: And it's a very human desire. But tech do be
Speaker 1: taking it to some extremes.
Speaker 2: And Victoria's also taking it to some extremes here too.
Speaker 2: She's not just reporting on it, she's actively testing some
Speaker 2: of this stuff on herself.
Speaker 1: If you know anything about science journalism. If you know
Speaker 1: anything about health tech, if you know anything about the space,
Speaker 1: You're just sitting there and the internal screams just keep
Speaker 1: getting louder as you see, see it proliferate.
Speaker 2: So, in keeping with the wild West theme on this episode,
Speaker 2: we're going to get into the good, the bad, and
Speaker 2: the good. Lord, why would you inject that into your body?
Speaker 2: Kaleidoscope and iHeart podcasts. This is kill Switch. I'm Dexter Thomas, I'm.
Speaker 3: Goodbye.
Speaker 2: Victoria writes a newsletter called Optimizer, and one of her
Speaker 2: recent installments was about the trip she took to this
Speaker 2: year's Consumer Electronics Show or ce S. So ce S
Speaker 2: is a big convention where companies announced all the latest
Speaker 2: gadgets that are coming out this year. I remember I
Speaker 2: used to look forward to this back in the day
Speaker 2: because I can find out what new video games are
Speaker 2: coming out. Needless to say, things have changed. Victoria's overall
Speaker 2: impression of this year's CES, as she wrote in her newsletter,
Speaker 2: was that it was quote a wash in bodily fluids.
Speaker 1: It's because there was a lot of bodily fluid tech
Speaker 1: that was at the show. Like I saw a taint zapper,
Speaker 1: which was a wearable that men put in their chaint
Speaker 1: to help them delay premature ejaculation.
Speaker 2: Yes, sorry, we went right there. We went right there,
Speaker 2: didn't we. I was gonna warm up and maybe talk
Speaker 2: about that later. I was thinking, like, oh, let's save
Speaker 2: that for the fun part of the end of the episode. No, okay, well,
Speaker 2: let's go right into it. A taint zapper, please elaborate.
Speaker 1: It's a wearable band aid with an electrical component that
Speaker 1: zap's you there to delay ejaculation. And is there scientific
Speaker 1: proof that this works? I don't know. The FDA has
Speaker 1: cleared it, so it's not going to harm you. They
Speaker 1: did testing on rabbits to make sure it wasn't going
Speaker 1: to rip off any sensitives down there. So cool. That's
Speaker 1: one example of the wellness wild West. Another would be
Speaker 1: like hormone testing gadgets. I wrote about this, like hormone
Speaker 1: egg called mirror, and you basically pian a stick and
Speaker 1: then you stick it in this little egg shaped machine
Speaker 1: and it reads your hormones and you can not diagnose,
Speaker 1: but it can like flag whether you show signs of
Speaker 1: perimenopause or other various things.
Speaker 2: And that thing that you did right there though, where
Speaker 2: you said diagnose wait a second, not diagnose flag. That's
Speaker 2: kind of a hallmark of all of this stuff, right,
Speaker 2: is that it really feels like medical devices. And of
Speaker 2: course they have the little disclaimer at the bottom, this
Speaker 2: is not meant to treat or diagnose any disease or
Speaker 2: anything like that, but I think people just kind of
Speaker 2: ignore that. People look past it. You know. It's kind
Speaker 2: of like looks like a duck, talks like a duck.
Speaker 2: I think it's a duck.
Speaker 1: So there's actually like a legal reason for that, and
Speaker 1: it's because if anything is diagnostic or could inform your
Speaker 1: medical treatment, that is a medical device and it requires
Speaker 1: FDA regulatory oversight. Wellness does not. The definition legally is
Speaker 1: that a wellness device is just for fun. It's just
Speaker 1: for your education. It's for your entertainment so that you
Speaker 1: know something about yourself. It's not diagnosing you with anything.
Speaker 1: So that does not require FDA oversight. And the process
Speaker 1: of FDA oversight is lengthy. It requires expensive testing. It
Speaker 1: has to be hippocompliant. If it collects any data and
Speaker 1: transmits it to your phone, all of that has to
Speaker 1: have appropriate data security protocols. They have to test for
Speaker 1: different skin colors is very expensive. Like I'm going to
Speaker 1: use the tt zapper as an example. I first saw
Speaker 1: it in twenty twenty. It didn't get FDA clearance until
Speaker 1: like twenty twenty five, I believe, and they had to
Speaker 1: go through two rounds of fundraising for millions of dollars
Speaker 1: because the FDA was like, you're going to need clearance
Speaker 1: for that, because that is a sense area that you're
Speaker 1: proposing to stick a device onto. So a lot of
Speaker 1: times with the wellness space is you have companies who
Speaker 1: are trying to circumvent that. And a really good example
Speaker 1: that happened recently, I think last summer was Whoop, which
Speaker 1: is a fitness tracker company. They had this beta feature
Speaker 1: which would kind of give you an estimate of your
Speaker 1: blood pressure.
Speaker 2: The all new Whoop is here, get the most advanced
Speaker 2: view of your health with blood pressure insights right from
Speaker 2: your wrist.
Speaker 1: Now, the FDA was like, hold up, wait a second,
Speaker 1: this requires FDA oversight, and Woop was like no, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: no, no no, this is a wellness feature. And what was
Speaker 1: in contention was like this beta feature you had to
Speaker 1: kind of calibrate with a blood pressure cuff and then
Speaker 1: once you calibrated in the app, it would kind of
Speaker 1: give you an estimate of your systelic and diastolic blood
Speaker 1: pressure and tell you whether it was high, medium, or low.
Speaker 1: And the FDA was like, that is very close and
Speaker 1: consumers could be you know, ostensibly misinterpreting those results as
Speaker 1: a diagnosis of hypertension of being told that they have high.
Speaker 2: Blood pressure if it's as high.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Right, So, like the design of that feature fits
Speaker 1: in this very gray area that wellness devices kind of
Speaker 1: live in at the moment, and you know Whoop was saying,
Speaker 1: like the no, no, this is the same as us
Speaker 1: telling you what your respiratory rate during sleep is. And
Speaker 1: you know, they had the appropriate disclaimers there. They had
Speaker 1: disclaimers saying this is not medical, this is not a diagnosis.
Speaker 1: But I believe for the average consumer, they're going to
Speaker 1: look at that and they're going to say, oh, no,
Speaker 1: it's telling me I have high blood pressure. And because
Speaker 1: it was calibrated with a cuff, it must be accurate.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because that feels and looks probably just like the
Speaker 2: same exact thing that you use at the doctor's office.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 4: The twenty first Century Cures Act makes it very clear
Speaker 4: that wellness intended features are not supposed to be regulated
Speaker 4: by the FDA.
Speaker 2: That's the CEO of Whoop in an interview with Bloomberg
Speaker 2: explaining why he thinks his device does not need FDA approval.
Speaker 4: And the FDA is intended to actually just regulate medical
Speaker 4: devices that are diagnosing something. So then the fundamental question
Speaker 4: becomes does blood pressure have wellness intended use cases? We
Speaker 4: believe it does.
Speaker 1: Once you understand the legal framework of what is an
Speaker 1: FDA cleared medical device versus a wellness gadget, you can
Speaker 1: start to see it and that in the features that
Speaker 1: these tech companies will release, like for the Apple Watch,
Speaker 1: they'll never give you a direct reading of what it
Speaker 1: thinks your blood pressure is. It'll tell you where you're trending.
Speaker 1: So in truths, by not giving you the reading and
Speaker 1: saying you're trending this way, that's a wellness feature. So
Speaker 1: it's the very difference between flagging something and diagnosing you
Speaker 1: with something.
Speaker 2: This medical versus wellness gray area is a big part
Speaker 2: of how this entire industry is even able to function.
Speaker 2: And the biggest trend right now is well trends. See
Speaker 2: in the past, you could get some simple devices that
Speaker 2: would give you a basic number, like say a step counter,
Speaker 2: We'll just tell you how many steps you took during
Speaker 2: that day. But now it's all about getting as much
Speaker 2: data as possible and putting all that data into a
Speaker 2: phone app that'll show you a graph and then interpret
Speaker 2: that data for you. It can't show you a diagnosis,
Speaker 2: because legally that would be a problem, but it can
Speaker 2: show you a trend, which means that analyzing your health
Speaker 2: is no longer dependent on a doctor. Maybe you think
Speaker 2: that's a good thing, maybe you think it's a bad thing,
Speaker 2: But it also means that you're going to be handing
Speaker 2: over a lot of information to some company and you
Speaker 2: just got to trust them.
Speaker 1: It's your blood, it's your sweat, it's your hormones. They
Speaker 1: want to track all of these things like blood tests
Speaker 1: like AURA and WHOOP for example, will now partner with
Speaker 1: Quest Diagnostics, so you can upload your blood test results tracing. However,
Speaker 1: many biomarkers into their platform. When you start doing that,
Speaker 1: when you start taking a withvings at home, PP lab
Speaker 1: in installing it in your toilet so it can tell you.
Speaker 2: Pause PP Sorry, yeah.
Speaker 1: It's called the U scan. It isn't at home. Your
Speaker 1: analysis lab. It has cartridges in it, and it can
Speaker 1: tell you your hydration levels or your like vitamin C
Speaker 1: levels and you know it EPI it. Yeah. And for
Speaker 1: some people who have specific conditions, like maybe you have
Speaker 1: polycystic overy syndrome and you kind of want more information
Speaker 1: about your hormones so you can talk to your doctor.
Speaker 1: There's nothing inherently wrong with that. It's when you get
Speaker 1: to the sense of marketing and telling everybody you need
Speaker 1: to do this. Everyone needs to have an at home
Speaker 1: lab on them at all points in time. And like
Speaker 1: the kind of the umbrella term for this what I
Speaker 1: call the wellness surveillance state, because I find it very
Speaker 1: invasive that these companies want not just your activity data,
Speaker 1: but your blood and your blood sugar and your metabolic
Speaker 1: data and your urine and your sweat, and they want
Speaker 1: to know about your cycle. You know, once you give
Speaker 1: these companies your data, who's reading the data privacy policies?
Speaker 1: Right when you have wellness versus medical device, where does
Speaker 1: that fall under HIPPA? Which is grossly outdated for health
Speaker 1: tech in the state that we're in right now, it's
Speaker 1: very murky because let's say you trust Apple with your
Speaker 1: period data. And then you sink Apple period data with Aura. Well,
Speaker 1: you've just given that to Aura, so now you have
Speaker 1: to agree to their privacy policies in terms you have
Speaker 1: to so it's not one device you trust them. It
Speaker 1: gets very murky very quickly. You know. The very dystopian
Speaker 1: fear is that corporate wellness programs start putting these things
Speaker 1: out to give you discounts on healthcare and then finding oh,
Speaker 1: will raise your premium but not the other person is premium.
Speaker 1: There's no evidence that that's happened yet, but that is
Speaker 1: the fear, right, This is.
Speaker 2: A legitimate fear, and companies seem to at least be
Speaker 2: aware of this. In the case of Whoop, their privacy
Speaker 2: policy states, quote, we never sell our members personal data.
Speaker 2: This is our promise end quote. And yet they're currently
Speaker 2: facing a class action lawsuit from a user who claims
Speaker 2: their data was shared with a third party without consent,
Speaker 2: and a peer reviewed study found that Whoop exhibited quote
Speaker 2: substantive deficiencies and privacy protection in quote despite having the
Speaker 2: longest privacy policy in the study, coming in at over
Speaker 2: twelve thousand words for reference. That is longer than the
Speaker 2: transcript of this entire episode. So just think of that
Speaker 2: as you listen to the rest of the show.
Speaker 1: The more invasive these things get, the greater the fear
Speaker 1: as to like, well, how is that data being used?
Speaker 1: And can you trust these companies to protect your data?
Speaker 1: Like Aura had a bit of a backlash last year
Speaker 1: because they announced a partnership with Palenteer.
Speaker 5: People are throwing away their or rings because Aura just
Speaker 5: signed a deal with the US Department of Defense and Palenteer. Palenteers.
Speaker 5: Kind of like those movies where they scan someone's face
Speaker 5: and all of the person's information pops up, That's what
Speaker 5: Palenteer does.
Speaker 1: They were working with Palenteer and the DoD for a
Speaker 1: specific set of enterprise use for their ring. They were
Speaker 1: saying that they kept that data separate from consumer data.
Speaker 1: But to the average consumer, that's just like, well, what
Speaker 1: the hell does that mean? You keep them in separate
Speaker 1: data silos? Like do you trust that company?
Speaker 2: But hold on, speaking of which I've seen you move
Speaker 2: in your hands, Is that an AURA ring?
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is an Aura ring. It is I do
Speaker 1: have to test it for a living. I have come
Speaker 1: to terms in peace that my data is out there,
Speaker 1: Like I cannot test wearable tech and not have it
Speaker 1: out there. I just live with that.
Speaker 2: Talk to me about that, though, because a lot of
Speaker 2: people say that exact same thing, which is to say,
Speaker 2: my dad is already out there. If they want it,
Speaker 2: they can come get it. But you're actively going out
Speaker 2: and finding this stuff that is the most privacy invading possible,
Speaker 2: and you're saying, cool, sign me up. It's for your job.
Speaker 2: But what a job? Does that make you nervous at all?
Speaker 7: Uh?
Speaker 1: And my mom really nervous when she was alive. She
Speaker 1: kind of begged me to find a different line of work.
Speaker 1: But uh, really, yeah, she did. She was very concerned
Speaker 1: about it. But I have limits as to how invasive
Speaker 1: I will be willing to go. Like I'm not ever
Speaker 1: going to test a BCI, which is a brain computer
Speaker 1: interface like neurrolink. I'm not doing that. Like that's a
Speaker 1: little too invasive for me. It's a conversation I have
Speaker 1: with my editors too. If it feels too invasive for me,
Speaker 1: I am just not going to do it.
Speaker 2: Victoria has a pretty high bar for it too invasive,
Speaker 2: So if she won't touch it, I think that's saying something.
Speaker 2: On the other hand, there are people who will inject
Speaker 2: gray market substances into their body because somebody on TikTok
Speaker 2: told them to do it, And honestly, some of the
Speaker 2: comment sections from unsatisfied customers get pretty weird. After the break,
Speaker 2: Victoria takes us into the affiliate influencer code industrial complex. So,
Speaker 2: in terms of the wellness wild West, we've talked about
Speaker 2: wearables a lot. Not everything you're putting on your body.
Speaker 2: Some of you are putting in your body. Tell me
Speaker 2: about ratatoui.
Speaker 1: Oh okay, So ratitui is kind of a code word
Speaker 1: that wellness influencers and fitness influencers use for Reta True
Speaker 1: Tide ret A True tide is. It gets real technical,
Speaker 1: but it is kind of the latest if G LP
Speaker 1: one medications for Pokemon. This is the latest evolution of
Speaker 1: the Pokemon char Charizard.
Speaker 2: This is the we gov chars are we go ament?
Speaker 5: All right?
Speaker 1: Yeah, so you know Ozambic will go v that's the Charmander, right.
Speaker 1: Then you have Munjaro and zep found that is the Charmelion,
Speaker 1: and Reta truetide is Charizard. It is also unapproved. It
Speaker 1: is currently going through Phase three clinical trials. The only
Speaker 1: way to get the bona fide Reta truetide is if
Speaker 1: you are part of a clinical trial run by Eli Lilly.
Speaker 1: That is the only way. While the influencers are out
Speaker 1: there like I'm on Ritta, I'm on Ratatu. Wee, here's
Speaker 1: my crazy insane wellness results.
Speaker 7: Update that nobody asked for.
Speaker 5: I just finished my fourth week of Ratatu week, and
Speaker 5: I say this, it's amazing.
Speaker 7: Twenty five pounds in four weeks. My strength is basically
Speaker 7: the same. I've lost zero muscle and I did this
Speaker 7: while eating pizza and canes and drinking alcohol every day,
Speaker 7: so safe to say it works.
Speaker 4: Today is actually my first official day working out on Ritta.
Speaker 1: It's like insane. I'm fastard right now. I had so
Speaker 1: much energy, I got all my cardio done. Like literally,
Speaker 1: just get on it. You have nothing to lose. And
Speaker 1: they will say it's past phase three clinical trials. No, no, no, no.
Speaker 1: There are like I believe seven or eight clinical trials
Speaker 1: that are ongoing in phase three and they've completed one
Speaker 1: of those trials and we don't even have the full
Speaker 1: results of that particular trial yet. We have the top
Speaker 1: line results of it. But you know they're out there
Speaker 1: saying it's totally fine. It's safe, and then they'll say
Speaker 1: something that's true, which is our healthcare system sucks and
Speaker 1: that the insurance companies are charging a crap ton of
Speaker 1: money for these JLP one medications that could really change
Speaker 1: your life. They don't want you to have it.
Speaker 2: It is your reminder that REDDA will be if I
Speaker 2: proved by twenty twenty.
Speaker 4: Seven, So find a way to get it now before
Speaker 4: they start charge thousand dollars for a one supply.
Speaker 1: Here's my affiliate code. I have vetted this particular lab
Speaker 1: that's selling research grade Red A True Tide.
Speaker 4: Check the link in my bio.
Speaker 2: You can get yourself some or shoot me a DM
Speaker 2: we can talk about it.
Speaker 4: I've done a ton of research on it.
Speaker 7: If you're struggling to lose weight, I highly recommend you
Speaker 7: look into taking Red A True Tide. If you want
Speaker 7: to pick some up from a trusted source, I have
Speaker 7: link in my bio.
Speaker 1: You can buy it on TikTok in five minutes. I did.
Speaker 1: I bought a vial and like five minutes to prove
Speaker 1: a point, I had a ten percent influencer affiliate code discount.
Speaker 2: And you actually bought this, and so this is something
Speaker 2: anybody can be doing.
Speaker 1: On TikTok's something anybody can do. On TikTok, you'll find
Speaker 1: influencers going like, here's how you reconstitute rehdta, because they're
Speaker 1: not selling it to you. When you get actual GLP
Speaker 1: one prescriptions from the doctor, you're probably getting pens where
Speaker 1: it's pre mixed and you just like inject it. It's
Speaker 1: the appropriate dosage. You are going to see a doctor
Speaker 1: every month to talk about your levels and py trading
Speaker 1: your dose, talking about side effects and managing those symptoms
Speaker 1: with rehta. Right now, you're geting some guy on TikTok
Speaker 1: who's not a real doctor saying like, yeah, you should
Speaker 1: use two point five grams, and here's how you use
Speaker 1: an online peptide calculator, and here's how you reconstitute Amazon
Speaker 1: link in my bio to buy syringes that I use.
Speaker 4: You just got your ratitude and you're confused on how
Speaker 4: to reconstitute it. I'm going to break it down as
Speaker 4: simply as possible so even your grandma could understand this.
Speaker 3: I just opened this individually wrapped in slin syringe. I
Speaker 3: pulled some airback into it, and I am going to
Speaker 3: puncture the top of the backwater and then push some
Speaker 3: of that air in. And by the way, this is
Speaker 3: not medical advice. This is for research and entertainment purposes only.
Speaker 1: They are buying syringes off of Amazon. They are buying
Speaker 1: bacteriostatic water off of wherever, which is sterilized water, and
Speaker 1: they are mixing these things themselves, and they are injecting
Speaker 1: it to their bodies. And then you read the comments
Speaker 1: and they're like, I got like a huge rash from
Speaker 1: the injection side. Is that normal? I'm vobbiting my brains
Speaker 1: out because they didn't dost properly. Are they actually injecting
Speaker 1: reta true tide into their bodies. I've talked to pharmacists,
Speaker 1: I've talked to doctors and anercrinologists, and they're just like,
Speaker 1: ain no fucking way, excuse the French, ain't no way
Speaker 1: that that's the real reta true tide. You do not
Speaker 1: know what you are injecting, you don't know what it's
Speaker 1: cut with. And they're saying, like, get third party testing
Speaker 1: to verify. Well, why how are you trusting a third
Speaker 1: party lab when there is no Like usually pharmacists and
Speaker 1: compound pharmacies have like a sheet that kind of tells
Speaker 1: them here the active pharmaceutical ingredients, here's the sourcing. FDA
Speaker 1: have come out and said we don't have those available
Speaker 1: for reta true Tide. There's like a warning letter that
Speaker 1: was put out, so I don't know that these people
Speaker 1: are actually injecting retitrue tide into their bodies. And you
Speaker 1: have really irresponsible wellness influencers out here who are just like,
Speaker 1: here's why you need to mix tures appetide and read
Speaker 1: a true tide. Chirs appetite is majaro and z that bound.
Speaker 1: Here's how you mix them. Yeah, here's how you mix them.
Speaker 1: You microdose with this and then you microdose with that.
Speaker 1: And it's sort of just like, no, oh, that's so
Speaker 1: easy to find on TikTok. It is not hard to
Speaker 1: find these videos.
Speaker 5: Why I'm taking truzetpetide and read a True Tide together, guys.
Speaker 5: And actually this picture last year was just truzepetite, So
Speaker 5: can you imagine how much better this is about to be?
Speaker 2: Speaking of what's easy to find on TikTok, though, I
Speaker 2: want to hit you with a counterpoint from the TikTok comments,
Speaker 2: which is a sentence I thought I'd never say, but
Speaker 2: let me just read some of the comments. So here
Speaker 2: we go. The FDA needs to keep an eye on
Speaker 2: the disgusting ingredients that they put in food and on
Speaker 2: artificial food and leave GLP alone. Another one our food
Speaker 2: is straight out poisoned. So it's not about safety, it's
Speaker 2: about competition. And the last come out I want to
Speaker 2: read is that's fine, China got us covered because a
Speaker 2: lot of these peptides are coming from China. Not that
Speaker 2: I'm advocating that, Oh, it was much better when we
Speaker 2: were all just really xenophobic and terrible and racist, but
Speaker 2: it's kind of wild to hear that somebody trusts a
Speaker 2: random influencer who is selling them stuff from a place
Speaker 2: that they don't really know much about, rather than the FDA.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's kind of where this is so insidious, because
Speaker 1: you know, you have something that's very true, right, which
Speaker 1: is that Eli Lilly Norvoonordisk they have basically patented these
Speaker 1: DLP ones and they want to charge what they want
Speaker 1: to charge for it, And the insurance companies are like,
Speaker 1: these are hala expensive. We're going to put very restrictive
Speaker 1: conditions onto who can get these. But you know, you
Speaker 1: have a lot of people who could potentially benefit from
Speaker 1: these medications. There's a lot of research being done about that.
Speaker 1: And so we live in a fat phobic society, and
Speaker 1: you have a lot of people who are just very
Speaker 1: desperate who could benefit from the medications, who are being told,
Speaker 1: for arbitrary reasons, you can't get it or you're going
Speaker 1: to have to pay one thousand dollars a month for it.
Speaker 1: So there's a grain of truth there that they're digging into.
Speaker 1: But then they go and say, oh, yeah, so the
Speaker 1: FDA doesn't care about you. The FDA exists because people
Speaker 1: died all of these regulations, and the drug approval process
Speaker 1: exists because people died in the past when we didn't
Speaker 1: have these regulations. But you can see how insidious it
Speaker 1: gets because you take something that is very true, that
Speaker 1: is very emotionally true, that is just like in capitalism,
Speaker 1: very true that these drug companies want to make money
Speaker 1: and our healthcare system sucks, and we're going to put
Speaker 1: it with you shouldn't trust healthcare institutions. And this influencer
Speaker 1: is here and you have a parasocial relationship with them.
Speaker 1: They're using words like science backed, clinically backed. You're not
Speaker 1: thinking about the fact that they are profiting off of
Speaker 1: selling these peptides to you. They get a cut from
Speaker 1: the affiliate code. It keeps me up at night. Honestly,
Speaker 1: it's tough. It's tough to watch it happen. And you know,
Speaker 1: I write about it, and then I get called the
Speaker 1: big pharmachell like you're defending the big farmer companies, Like yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I've had commenters tell me I am a big Pharmachelle
Speaker 1: and it's like, no, I just don't want you to
Speaker 1: put an approved drug sourced from God knows where into
Speaker 1: your body. I agree with you that the affordability thing
Speaker 1: is a problem. I think it's wrong, and there does
Speaker 1: need to be regulatory overalls, and the pharmaceutical companies do
Speaker 1: need to be held accountable for being so greedy. But
Speaker 1: for God's sake, can we have like critical thinking skills
Speaker 1: and not inchect something that you bought dubiously offline into
Speaker 1: your bodies using sypringes. When I challenge you, I challenge
Speaker 1: you to find an influencer who is properly disinfecting everything
Speaker 1: the surfaces, using gloves, washing their hands before they disinfect things.
Speaker 1: When they teach you how to reconstitute these gray market
Speaker 1: peptides because I asked a pharmacist and she was like,
Speaker 1: oh no, they are missing several steps. So oh no, yeah.
Speaker 2: Okay, we should probably acknowledge why this wellness wild West
Speaker 2: exists in the first place. Part of it in the US,
Speaker 2: at least, is the high cost of healthcare. If you're
Speaker 2: worried about being able to afford to see a doctor,
Speaker 2: you might also want to look for an alternative. There
Speaker 2: is also another factor here. People want to be liked,
Speaker 2: and there is money to be made and telling people
Speaker 2: that we would like them more if they just looked
Speaker 2: a little younger, or a little thinner, or a little prettier.
Speaker 1: And I think we don't talk about it a lot
Speaker 1: because regardless if you lose weight for whatever reason, people
Speaker 1: will praise you. So you could have lost weight through
Speaker 1: very toxic behaviors, but many people in your life meaning
Speaker 1: well will say, great job, keep it going.
Speaker 2: We've been talking about doing stuff to your body. Victoria
Speaker 2: has gone far enof down this rabbit hole. To know
Speaker 2: what this stuff can do to your mind, begin into
Speaker 2: that after the break. So just to be clear here,
Speaker 2: influencers aren't just recommending weird injectables to their followers. One
Speaker 2: trend is based on actual, tested, legitimate medical technology. It's
Speaker 2: just that technology isn't really meant for consumer use. I'm
Speaker 2: talking here about a continuous glucose monitor or CGM. So
Speaker 2: these are small devices that are inserted under the skin,
Speaker 2: and they're originally developed for people with diabetes to monitor
Speaker 2: their glucose levels. But now you can just buy these
Speaker 2: things over the counter, and wellness influencers are encouraging people
Speaker 2: to use them to track their metabolism.
Speaker 1: There's influencers who will tell you that you have to
Speaker 1: optimize your metabolism, one of them being a potential Surgeon
Speaker 1: General candidate, Casey Means, who co founded a CGM company
Speaker 1: and has a book called Good Energy about metabolic dysfunction
Speaker 1: being the root cause of all everything in your life.
Speaker 6: What's really important for people to realize is that metabolism
Speaker 6: is actually the foundation of all health. It is the
Speaker 6: core foundational pathway that drives all other aspects of health.
Speaker 6: And so one thing that the glucose monitors for us
Speaker 6: is just give us more awareness and agency into what
Speaker 6: the trends of our glucose are over time, as opposed
Speaker 6: to a literally one data point snapshot once a year
Speaker 6: in the doctor's office, which is what the majority of
Speaker 6: us are used to.
Speaker 1: So you know, they are saying like, oh, if you're
Speaker 1: an athlete, you could use the CGM, or if you're
Speaker 1: trying to lose weight, there are weight loss CGM startups
Speaker 1: that are like, oh, this is the easiest way for
Speaker 1: you to lose weight is to monitor everything you eat
Speaker 1: and see how it spikes your glucose.
Speaker 6: I want to share with you some of my worst offenders,
Speaker 6: my worst glucose offenders.
Speaker 1: Calm the magnesium drink.
Speaker 6: I drink that every single night.
Speaker 3: It spiked my glucose significant Also, what spike my glucose
Speaker 3: by melatonin.
Speaker 1: Guns And then you know, you kind of fall into
Speaker 1: this mental trap of wanting your glucose to stay within
Speaker 1: this range when it's perfectly normal. I have talked to many, many,
Speaker 1: many endocrinologists and diabetic experts who are like, it's perfectly
Speaker 1: natural and normal for your blood glucose to spike above
Speaker 1: that level and then it'll fall back down into the
Speaker 1: normal level. But you have influencers out here who are
Speaker 1: kind of gamifying staying within a specific range at all time.
Speaker 1: And is that useful? I don't know that that's useful.
Speaker 1: Like I've used them. I found out that I had
Speaker 1: fatty liver disease through the use of one, but not
Speaker 1: before I got really scared that I was diabetic because
Speaker 1: my results were not looking the way that they should.
Speaker 1: And it took me, i want to say, about a
Speaker 1: year and a half at a very long time. So
Speaker 1: did I have a positive experience from using a CGM
Speaker 1: and testing them through my job. I think the experience
Speaker 1: was really mixed because it made food eating very contentious for.
Speaker 2: A while for me.
Speaker 1: What do you mean, I'd be at Thanksgiving and I'd
Speaker 1: be like, oh, can I eat that in this order?
Speaker 1: Or will it spike my glucose That's very kind of
Speaker 1: borderline disordered eating thoughts. It's not the end of the
Speaker 1: world if you're glucose spikes. Like I know all of
Speaker 1: this stuff already. That doesn't mean I wasn't prone to
Speaker 1: falling into those mental traps if I was using it
Speaker 1: too often.
Speaker 2: You know, I recently interviewed a philosopher who studies games
Speaker 2: and also gamification, and this optimization thing comes right into
Speaker 2: that because SAE, even not as far as you know,
Speaker 2: glucose monitoring, let's say, just weight loss tracking, sticking to
Speaker 2: macros or you know, calorie counting can be productive for
Speaker 2: some people, but it can also get you into a
Speaker 2: point where you're not enjoying anything you're eating, or where
Speaker 2: you're just literally like eating pizza or eating prepackaged food
Speaker 2: because you know the exact calories that are in it,
Speaker 2: because you're starting to focus only on the numbers. And
Speaker 2: this is something that I find really interesting about the
Speaker 2: wearable tech that you talk about so much and that
Speaker 2: you cover, is that there's a way in which we've
Speaker 2: kind of been sold the idea that the more you track,
Speaker 2: the better it is. You know, what's measured gets managed. Right, Yeah,
Speaker 2: sure that's not untrue, but there's a way in which
Speaker 2: it can kind of make you sick in another way,
Speaker 2: incredibly maybe mentally.
Speaker 1: Oh, health anxiety and wearables, it is the dark side
Speaker 1: of it. There was a study done and they found
Speaker 1: that this elderly woman did like nine hundred kg readings
Speaker 1: in a year because she got so scared. And that's hm,
Speaker 1: that's more than one a day, right. I think about
Speaker 1: that study all the time, because I actually write about
Speaker 1: it quite often at the verge where I say I
Speaker 1: have mandatory wearable breaks if I find myself getting two
Speaker 1: into streaks. If I find myself falling into these habits
Speaker 1: of perfectionism, I will take a break. I'll talk to
Speaker 1: my editors and be like, I'm going to focus on
Speaker 1: a different type of product for a little bit because
Speaker 1: it's impacting my mental health that way. And I have
Speaker 1: found those techniques for like ten years of covering this space,
Speaker 1: and so I hope to share that wisdom with people,
Speaker 1: but it is anxiety inducing. I do find myself falling
Speaker 1: into some traps at times, and perfectionism type a personality.
Speaker 1: What say you, I think a lot of us have that.
Speaker 1: I think it's very human to be that way. And
Speaker 1: let's be real. You are the product in a wearable life.
Speaker 1: It's not just health, it's also AI. The reason why
Speaker 1: they are pushing this concept of AI wearables right now
Speaker 1: is that you don't take a wearable off. They can
Speaker 1: collect so much data on you. They can say it's
Speaker 1: personalizing your health feeds into this optimization longevity narrative, and
Speaker 1: what they're really doing is profiting off of all the
Speaker 1: data that they're collecting on you. Because you are the product.
Speaker 1: You make the AI better because you're wearing it, and
Speaker 1: the AI learned so much more about you because you're
Speaker 1: wearing it.
Speaker 2: This is your job, Like you're actually in the trenches
Speaker 2: testing just about everything. I mean, you're basically running like
Speaker 2: a twenty four to seven experiment on yourself. Yeah, all
Speaker 2: of these different things. What would you say to somebody
Speaker 2: who is thinking about picking up that or a ring,
Speaker 2: or who's thinking about subscribing to that service where you
Speaker 2: get blood tests and you send it away, or who's
Speaker 2: thinking about getting some other kind of wearable or wellness device.
Speaker 1: All anyone wants is to live a healthy life. That
Speaker 1: It's very simple, right, What are the keys to a
Speaker 1: healthy life? Every doctor will tell you it's the same
Speaker 1: three things, the same three things. No one's going to
Speaker 1: want to hear this, but it is the same three things.
Speaker 1: Sleep seven to eight hours a night, eat balanced meals,
Speaker 1: exercise multiple times a week. That's it. That is what
Speaker 1: is in your control. But nobody likes to hear that,
Speaker 1: and we all want shortcuts. So it's a very like
Speaker 1: I joke that my beat is the cursed beat, the
Speaker 1: dystopian beat. But you know, I initially got into it
Speaker 1: because I do was trying to live a healthier life.
Speaker 1: And then I do live a healthier life. I do.
Speaker 1: I'm pretty much in the best shape and health I've
Speaker 1: been ever. But it's not to say that it didn't
Speaker 1: come at a cost. It did come at a cost,
Speaker 1: a lot of cost to my mental health. I talk
Speaker 1: with a therapist very frequently anytime I think of myself
Speaker 1: just kind of going off the deep end with these devices,
Speaker 1: and then she'll be like, I think it's time you
Speaker 1: take a break, And I'm like, you're right. Let me
Speaker 1: go talk to my editors about that. So what I
Speaker 1: would say to anyone who is thinking about it is
Speaker 1: to really go in with a strong why, Like why
Speaker 1: do you want it? What is the goal that you're
Speaker 1: trying to achieve. If your goal is that you want
Speaker 1: something to help you be more active, get the minimally
Speaker 1: viable thing to help you get more active. If you
Speaker 1: think a or a ring is that for you because
Speaker 1: it has no screen, you just want to do your
Speaker 1: general fitness tracking great, try to limit yourself to checking
Speaker 1: once a day. You know, don't get too invested in
Speaker 1: these numbers. It's about seeing baseline trends over a long
Speaker 1: period of time. If you feel yourself starting to change
Speaker 1: your life to fit the ring, give yourself permission to
Speaker 1: take breaks from it. Like at one point, I was like,
Speaker 1: I got to close these rings. It's eleven forty five.
Speaker 1: Let me do jumping jacks at forty five pm so
Speaker 1: I can get the ten calories needed to close a ring.
Speaker 1: You need a break, You need a break. I know
Speaker 1: people who have done this. I know people who have
Speaker 1: been like I have COVID. Do you think I should
Speaker 1: go outside for like a fifteen minute walk so I
Speaker 1: can close a ring? And I've had friends say that
Speaker 1: to me. Do you like, do you think I should
Speaker 1: do this? And I'm like, no, you need to rest,
Speaker 1: Like that's insane.
Speaker 2: I haven't used one of these enclosed the ring. It's
Speaker 2: like finish your numbers for the day or something.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So the Apple Watch just you have three different
Speaker 1: rings for like how many exercise minutes you get during
Speaker 1: the day, how many minutes you stand up, and how
Speaker 1: many calories you burn in the day. First of all,
Speaker 1: I'll also say that calorie burn and calorie metrics are
Speaker 1: wildly inaccurate, So don't get too obsessive about any of
Speaker 1: these numbers. These are tools meant to help you. It's
Speaker 1: just you know, you got to have a good support network.
Speaker 1: You've got to have a very strong reason why and
Speaker 1: kind of stick to that reason why and use the
Speaker 1: minimally viable methods. You do not need more data. Like
Speaker 1: I said, the three tellers are two sleeps, eight hours tonight,
Speaker 1: eat it all balanced meal most of the time, and
Speaker 1: exercise like.
Speaker 2: That's it, all right, doctor song, All right, doctor.
Speaker 1: I'm not a doctor, but I am telling you that
Speaker 1: all doctors will tell you to do that.
Speaker 2: So yeah, big thank you to Victoria for coming back
Speaker 2: on the show, and thanks to you for listening to
Speaker 2: kill Switch. And by the way, we talked a little
Speaker 2: bit about peptides in this episode. If you want to
Speaker 2: know more about what exactly peptides are and where they're
Speaker 2: coming from and who's using these things, we got a
Speaker 2: whole episode about that and we'll link that in the description.
Speaker 2: Or if you want to know something else, you can
Speaker 2: email us at kill Switch at kaleidoscope dot NYC or
Speaker 2: on Instagram. We're at kill Switch Pod and wherever you're
Speaker 2: listening to this, it would be amazing If you leave
Speaker 2: the show a review. It helps other people find the show,
Speaker 2: which helps us keep doing our thing. And this thing
Speaker 2: is hosted by me Dexter Thomas. It's produced by Sena Ozaki,
Speaker 2: dar Luck Potts and Julia Nutter. Our theme song is
Speaker 2: by Me and Kyle Murdoch and Kyle also mixed the show.
Speaker 2: From Kaleidoscope, Our executive producers are Ozwalashin, Mangeshati Gadour, and
Speaker 2: Kate Osborne. From iHeart, our executive producers are Katrina Norvil
Speaker 2: and Nikki E.
Speaker 3: Tour.
Speaker 2: Catch on the Next One, Goodbye,