... that you might enjoy listening to on a podcast or whatever.

Yeah.

And that's because people often realize that social media and smartphones are synergistic.

They're designed to, to work, to, to go hand in hand.

So they're designed to work synergistically.

Um, if you are addicted to social media, there's a good chance you're ad- you're addicted to your smartphone and vice versa.

And they are mobile marketing platforms.

What are your thoughts on those?

Just briefly then, can we talk about the difference between a drug that's gone through clinical trials and the other stuff that doesn't have to go through clinical trials? What's the difference? And is there things that people need to know to help them differentiate between something that is robust, a drug effectively, pharmaceutical intervention, versus things that are in that gray space that are not?

Yeah, you raise a super important point.

And that is the other stuff that you mentioned, these are not treated as medicines or medical devices more often than not.

So the manufacturers are not legally obligated to provide any kind of caveat other than the fact that this is not intended to diagnose or treat any medical condition.

Now, the difference between the manufacturing process of a new drug is that there are four stages.

There are preclinical studies where they're just figuring out how the thing works.

They might test it on cells.

How has that happened? Have you got any thoughts on that?

For you, what are some of the things that you've seen over the most recent times that would be good examples of that, either within nutrition, sports, health more broadly, or anything that we can get to give people a clear example of where they might see this pop up?

Yeah, there's a clear black and white example that comes to mind is vitamin D because it's one of these areas where there is a lot of very important scientific messaging and clinical messages that people need to understand about vitamin D and that deficiency is no good and it's actually bad.

fairly common, and there are some people in high-risk groups of vitamin D.

And if you are vitamin D deficient, and that's normally, I say, diagnosed with a blood test, you go to your doctor, they might do a blood test for vitamin D deficiency, or just lump it in with a bunch of other labs, And you can actually determine your vitamin D levels, and then there'll be a normal range.

And your physician might then say, okay, your vitamin D levels are fine, or they're slightly lower than they should be.

I recommend either changing your diet or going on a supplement regimen.

And if you have extreme vitamin D deficiency, they might even recommend vitamin D injections over a short period of time.

the one that provides the most favorable outcome.

Should the broader conversation about what people can say and sell, let's call the wellness industry, should it come down to regulation or how much of it should and how much of this is actually on the consumer to not want to be lied to? How much does the consumer just want to be lied to?

Yeah, it's like, you know, if you do a poll with athletes, you know, 75% of them say they don't mind being lied to by their coach into using a placebo if it helps, if it works, you know.

They don't mind taking something that works only in their, psychosomatically in their brain.

If it works, it works.

And it's the same with patients.

You do polls with patients.

They don't mind taking a sugar tablet even if in their mind it eases their chronic pain, you know.

Early 30s, I think.

Mm-hmm.

So it makes me sound like I'm very knowledgeable, but actually there are a lot of things that I don't know about, in which case I'll have to go back and do some reading.

But no, I, I've read, uh, extensively about the sauna research, and it's, it's very interesting because there are some genuine benefits of using... of getting regular saunas.

You know, it can help with, um, just reducing blood pressure, reducing heart rate, helping people to relax, and overall enjoyment.

Um, but it, once again, and this is a common theme of what we see in health and wellness, is that the benefits tend to be overstated and extended beyond what the literature says.

A lot of the evidence for the benefits of sauna come from something called the Kuopio study.

Um, and Kuopio is a, is a, a small town in, uh, Finland, and obviously it's, uh, as you might have guessed, it's, uh, known for its prolific use of the Finnish sauna.

[laughs]

[chuckles]

I think that is a pretty good rule of thumb.

Unfortunately, we live in this information age, especially with social media, where information is shared and information spreads, not because it's true, but because it's popular or because it resonates in some way.

And actually, if, if something trends online, it's, it's less likely to be true.

It's more likely to be embellished or completely fabricated because it's the sensational stuff, the stuff that goes against the grain, especially against the kind of scientific consensus, that's the stuff that ends up being more popular, and that's the stuff that trends.

So if, if something is, unfortunately, if something is trendy, if something claims to expedite your training, your processes, your health, then it's probably gonna be bullshit.

Uh, in terms of trying to answer your question, it is like in terms of the, the, the red flags that I would look for, first of all, if something...

or elaborating on some of the simil- some similar topics?

And what this person produced was basically as if you took

tookA list of correct references, broke them up into their constituent parts, dumped them on the floor, and then reassembled them incorrectly.

It, it's like, it's like the body parts, but now instead of your arm being attached to your trunk, it's attached to your head, and then your foot is attached to your hand.

That's what- The Frankenstein references, I guess.

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

[laughs] And you ask them about it, and they have no idea what you're talking about.

Because, and I suppose this is the problem, is that people are uncritical users of AI, and they just assume that they're getting something correct.

[chuckles]