Nicola Guess: How To Tell What's BS in Wellness

What if almost everything you're doing to "optimize" your health is, at best, doing nothing at all? Caitlin sits down with Dr. Nicola Guess—dietitian, Oxford nutrition scientist, and quite possibly the best BS detector in the wellness space. She studies blood sugar and diabetes for a living and dismantles nutrition nonsense for fun. The twist that makes her worth listening to: she used to believe the hype herself, so she doesn't lecture—she just sets the record straight. Together they run the wellness interent's current greatest hits through her unsentimental filter—the cortisol cocktail, apple cider vinegar, the glucose goddess, creatine for your brain, the whole "maxxing" carnival. Some of it survives. Most of it doesn't. There's a thread about the one supplement Nicola actually keeps in her cupboard, and another about why the genuinely good advice is doomed to stay boring forever. The best part: Nicola shares a debunking framework that you can use on anything at all, from a nutrition reel to a headline to a guy trying to sell you on extra insurance. **Resources** Guest's Rec: work on nutrition misinformation by Alex Ruani, UCL researcher Ben's Rec: Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat by Samin Nosrat Caitlin's Rec: Calling Bullshit: The Art of Skepticism in a Data-Driven World by Carl T. Bergstrom and Jevin D. West Also mentioned: Dr. Guess's Substack, Dr Guess's Blog; Stuart Phillips (protein researcher); the Being Well podcast with Rick and Forrest Hanson Let us know what you thought of this episode! Find us on Instagram at @simplifypod. Subscribe to our newsletter on beehiiv here. Also, you can email us at [info@kollomedia.com](mailto:info@kollomedia.com) This episode of Simplify was produced by Caitlin Schiller, Ben Schuman-Stoler, and engineered by João Lucas in Berlin, Germany, for Kollo Media. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.