January 29, 2026 • 43 mins
This week, Nick, Dick, and Paul take a look at trends in the wellness industry, how popular it is, whether or not it's useful, and simple things people can do to better their health and why they don't do them. They also give their media of the week. All this and much more on The Nick, Dick and Paul Show!
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to the Nick, Dick and Poll Show. I'm Nick Bilton,
I'm Dick.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
What why it's it impossible for us to get through
this introductions of the worst they really are.
Speaker 3 (00:12):
They're so bad you constantly let's try to get I'm
no good and you are.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
Dick, and he's boul Kadruski.
Speaker 4 (00:22):
Perfect.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
There we go, and today's episode we're going to be
talking about health and wellness, but not We're not going
to be selling you anything. We're not going to be We're.
Speaker 4 (00:32):
Not I'm out. I was led to if there was
commissioned salesman.
Speaker 1 (00:36):
We're not going to be telling you to take ivermectin
because you have a cold or cancer. We are going
to be uh discussing all of this stuff, but in
a different, a different way. Should we start with? What
do you want to start with? I have a question
(01:03):
about peptides. Are they bullshit? Or are they? Are they?
Are they real? Are they so?
Speaker 4 (01:10):
I mean there's peptides are absolutely real. The issue for most.
Speaker 2 (01:14):
Of they're not. They're not mythical creatures.
Speaker 4 (01:16):
No, this is not Yeah, we were talking about BAILO earlier.
It's not something out of bail The issue is and
this is the case, and maybe this is a good
way in is that. And this I think really accelerated
during COVID was that there's this hunger among people to
believe that most of what orthodox medicine tells them, or
at least there's a fraction of what orthodox medicine tells
them that's not accurate, or at least I can go
(01:38):
out and quote do the research and find out myself.
And there's nothing wrong with that instinct. In principle, there's
obviously lots of things like that takes you back to
your iromectin comment that brings us to peptides. All of
these things have some efficacy for some purposes. It's the
idea that this is now medicine refuses to provide me
this thing that's in all purpose remedy for all kinds
of things. That's where this the trapdoor that people tend
(02:01):
to fall.
Speaker 1 (02:01):
But it started twenty twenty COVID.
Speaker 4 (02:03):
I think it accelerated twenty twenty COVID, where there was
this idea medicine refuses to tell me things. Now, there's
been lots of times in the past where there's been
various kind of lurches in that direction, but it really
took off during that period because it was like, yeah, well,
you know, if I just stick my head and i'm
and we should.
Speaker 1 (02:18):
Blame what percentage you guys think?
Speaker 2 (02:20):
I would also I would say also that people.
Speaker 3 (02:24):
In the course of quote doing their own research unquote
now confuse very limited, small scale studies with a fifty
thousand person article in.
Speaker 2 (02:39):
Nature that was done over the course of thirty years.
Speaker 3 (02:42):
Sure, right, so they'll say, no, no, no, I just
read that I should take twenty grams of creatine instead
of five grams of creatine because if you don't sleep,
if you get little sleep, twenty grams of createed totally
makes up for it.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
Like, okay, that was Yeah, do.
Speaker 1 (02:59):
You guys think that all bullshit?
Speaker 4 (03:00):
No?
Speaker 1 (03:01):
No, okay, So what's real? What's fake?
Speaker 4 (03:03):
What's Well, that's the problem is that for the most
part this stuff real, real exercise works for some people.
Speaker 1 (03:12):
Although everyone I know gets injured doing exercise.
Speaker 4 (03:15):
Yeah, well that's.
Speaker 2 (03:16):
A whole that's a topic.
Speaker 4 (03:17):
We should go. We can have a golf better when
I golf list, is that the same? Or no?
Speaker 1 (03:21):
Wait, keep going? So and so some of its vivincy
is real peptides, like so these tests.
Speaker 4 (03:27):
Sure, we're at this really preliminary stage whereas Dick was saying, like,
we've got relatively small samples, were the test sizes are
getting larger, and you're trying to detect an effect size.
If it's relatively small, I need a massive population of
people to run the test on. I can't just rely
on fifty people because there's huge noise. There's also a
placebo effect where everyone's people try some exotic therapy. They
(03:48):
really want to believe that it works, and it often
does work because the placebo effect is incredibly powerful. Just
just because of the medicine doesn't work and you feel better,
doesn't mean you didn't feel better, right, You genuinely feel better, right.
And so this is the problem is we're at this
point where there's a bunch of interesting things that some
of which will probably turn out to be really powerful,
but that the data doesn't support yet, which ones truly
(04:09):
have a material effects size? For the most part, that's
not entirely true, But for the most part that's the case.
Speaker 1 (04:14):
Why don't we start with those again.
Speaker 4 (04:16):
It doesn't mean that they're nonsense, It just means that
it's way too early for people to go out there
with blanket statements like you know, load up on two
hundred and fifty.
Speaker 1 (04:23):
Of these and so, yeah, I think the podcasters as
a point too right percent to give them.
Speaker 3 (04:28):
Yeah, No, I mean you watch these podcasts and someone
will go on and the host, who is you know,
a claimed authority on X, will interview the guest, who
they say is noted expert on why and then that
person says, you know, you know, there are great studies
out that say if you take twenty grams of creatine,
(04:50):
it can make up for well, if you go actually
dive into the studies, it's for three or four people.
Speaker 2 (04:56):
What is that?
Speaker 1 (04:56):
Some cuantine?
Speaker 4 (04:57):
Real quick?
Speaker 2 (04:57):
What's that?
Speaker 1 (04:58):
What is creating?
Speaker 2 (05:00):
How would you? It's a chemical money.
Speaker 4 (05:01):
Yeah, it's like a chemical monohydrate that makes it easier
for you to produce ATP, which is to say that
the fuel that powers yourselves. So in which in which
in principle, in parts of your body that are really
high energy usage, like the brain. The brain uses like
I don't know, twenty five percent of your calories on
a daily basis, which is crazy.
Speaker 3 (05:18):
It's a crazy number, by the way, Yeah, which is
a crazy brain just your brain takes.
Speaker 4 (05:22):
Up to it doesn't change much with your thinking hard.
So the point being the that that's one of the
reasons why, if you read the literature, like creating is
increasingly being proposed as a therapy for people with respect
to like dementia and Alzheimer's, because you know, in principle,
if my brain is operating with a higher at a
higher level of energy, with better vascular control, meaning you've
got a higher blood flow to your brain, that all
(05:44):
else being equal, it probably is preventive with respect to dementias.
So there's all this anyways, long standing story about how
creating can have an effective.
Speaker 3 (05:51):
Creatine is usually or not usually maybe maybe taken by
people who are like lifting weights and doing you know,
lot of resistance work, because it also helps your muscles
in your body hold hold more, hold water.
Speaker 1 (06:05):
Yeah, Dick, do you think that there's a question we
could ask? I feel like Poule's kind of like an
l M always answer, but I don't know if.
Speaker 4 (06:11):
It's always mostly nonsense.
Speaker 1 (06:12):
Do you think that there's one we could ask him
that he wouldn't know the answer to.
Speaker 3 (06:15):
He's making it up as he goes along, but he's
just incredibly effective.
Speaker 4 (06:19):
It's like, I like, how loocinate as a living.
Speaker 1 (06:25):
All right, so wait, so keep going. You were going
on the podcasters and then they're the experts.
Speaker 2 (06:30):
It's great, this is a real one. You know.
Speaker 3 (06:33):
Oh, there are a bunch of studies out well, a
bunch of studies turns out to be not a lot,
a few studies. They're very small studies that in a
few people resulted. And if you only got two or
three hours of sleep, you know, you were still able
to deal with these cognitive you know tests in a
way that someone who had gotten eight or nine hours
of sleep had done.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
But it didn't do that for a lot of people.
Speaker 3 (06:55):
Yeah, you know, so these blanket statements are made and
then people just quote do their own research unquote and say, well,
I heard on the so and so podcast from this expert,
I was interviewed by this other expert that there are
all these studies and these things are just declared as facts.
Speaker 4 (07:15):
And it also is that the economics of supplements are
so good, like they're so ridiculously profitable.
Speaker 2 (07:20):
It's all they're super expensive and it's.
Speaker 4 (07:22):
All expensive and it's all margins. So if you know,
I just said that, yeah, it was so good and
so because of the margin so good on it means
that it's a great thing to sell on well, podcasts
or anything else. And as a result, almost everyone's second
secondary business is selling supplements, like you know, one day
ours will clearly be and so they're out there flogging
(07:44):
them non stop. And it's hilarious. Like even I was
reading somewhere the statistics on what's his name, the conspiracy
theorist guy who got.
Speaker 1 (07:53):
Jones, Alex Jones.
Speaker 4 (07:54):
So you knew right away Alex jones whole business was
nothing to do with anything other than these ancillary sales
T shirts and supplements.
Speaker 1 (08:00):
Well, that's also the funny, incredible.
Speaker 4 (08:02):
Like one hundred million dollar business.
Speaker 1 (08:03):
There's also the fact that, like you've got if you
look at Gwyneth Paltrow and what she's selling on the
left and then you've got Alex Jones what he's selling
on the right, it's actually the same stuff. But it's
all the same.
Speaker 2 (08:13):
You're going to get it now. Here's we're just we're.
Speaker 3 (08:18):
We're getting audience, angry audience, females incoming, live, people showing up.
Speaker 1 (08:24):
Well, I think we should just take a moment to
say that this podcast is sponsored by I.
Speaker 4 (08:30):
Exactly.
Speaker 3 (08:31):
It's all sick people. There's this weird and it's actually happening.
One is good, more is better, which we've learned year
after year after year about everything is not true. But
with creatine and these other supplements, people are well, if
one is good, four is probably amazing.
Speaker 2 (08:52):
We see it constantly.
Speaker 4 (08:53):
Crazy. We were talking about this in the context of this,
this this big race was going on recently, this two
hundred miles running around and the single biggest concern in
the race, like most races that are over about ten
k is that people over hydrate, which is so crazy.
Speaker 1 (09:07):
And it wasn't just just the audience is going to
say because I've been fascinated by this, so go down
the road. There was a race recently in Mammoth. It
was a two hundred mile race that people running running,
and then I was researching people Hallucini.
Speaker 3 (09:22):
Well, yeah, you run two hundred miles for five hours
and see if you aren't seeing the giant talking chocolate mushrooms.
Speaker 4 (09:30):
Yeah, NonStop pretty much. So the point is that in
all of these things, and this dates back. We saw
this in the Boston Marathon years ago that people were
told you should drink before you're thirsty, and that turned
into this crazy prescription that you should stop at every
drink station and drink. And the same thing is true
obviously if you're running for two hundred miles, which is
also true for running a marathon, that more is better.
And it turns out that more is better is not
(09:50):
only wrong in the context of those kinds of events,
it's actually dangerous because very few people are hospitalized for dehydration,
virtually not I don't even think it's happened in the
last five ten Boston marathons. But people are regularly hospital
as for what's called hypenetremia, which is excess of water
which has diluted your blood sodium, your plasma sodium, and
as a result, you're can be a medical emergency. And
(10:12):
this is the same instinct that like, if a little
is good, people tell me I should drink. Are you
about to make fun of hype?
Speaker 1 (10:17):
And you're like the last five marathons, six hundred and
forty two thousand people ran and did.
Speaker 4 (10:24):
There's certain things I know reasonably well.
Speaker 3 (10:26):
If I had a nickel for every time Paul talked
to me about hYP treament again with the hype and treatment,
come on, I.
Speaker 4 (10:33):
Wouldn't be doing this show anyways. So but it gets
this instinct, right, this idea that if a little is good,
people tell me I should drink because I'll feel better,
I should have more. Same thing is true for one
supplement is good, Why not two hundred and fifty?
Speaker 1 (10:47):
Now does AI make this worse or better? Worse?
Speaker 2 (10:50):
Okay, worse for the following reason. And here's why. I'll
give you a specific example.
Speaker 3 (10:56):
And there everyone listening will will recognize this in someone
they know. So I have a friend who has high
cholesterol and decides I'm not gonna I'm not gonna go
on a stat and I'm gonna lower my cholesterol naturally.
So they hop over to Claude or chat GPT and
type in, here's my LDL, I want to lower it naturally.
(11:19):
What do I do you know? Out come the here
come the nineteen things to go? Do you know red rice,
yeast or whatever the heck that is all these things?
I'm sure Again, as Paul and I are saying, sure,
some of these things are great and you should definitely
do them, But then there's you know you should and
add in alphalapoka acid and add in this, and pretty
(11:41):
soon they're taking nineteen things h instead of maybe one
or two things, and then you get into.
Speaker 4 (11:47):
This this, this, even if they are working, and it's
no different than if you watch one of the biggest
issues in eldercare is that they end up on twenty
different medications, right, and then the problem is you're taking
medications for the media. That's right, because of all the interactions.
It's no differ in supplements. Things start interacting with each other.
I take one thing for one purpose, and we were
talking about this earlier. Suddenly it's limiting iron absorption in
(12:07):
amnemic and it's like, wait a minute, I was taking
using this for something else. And so this is the
problem as well. Even if it does work, taking so
many things at once is no different than in elder
care when they're taking twenty different medications and suddenly this
which I'm taking from my heart problem is causing me
to be weak and I fell over and break a hip.
Speaker 3 (12:23):
By the way, they also so these everyone who's I
should say, most people who are typing this in and
then writing it down and going and buying all the
things don't know what most of these things do. Now,
And another friend over for dinner is like, I'm you know,
I'm on a regimen now every day for you know,
trying to get in shape. So I'm taking a bunch
of supplements along with exercising for the first time. So
(12:45):
I typed into you know, chat chipd or Claude. You
know I'm doing this, What should I take? And I said,
before you tell me, before you say anything, I bet
you you're taking Alpha the public accid And he's like, oh,
do you like, are you doing this? Are on the
same you know stack? Reggie Like, no, it suggests that
(13:06):
for most things like I need to lower my cholesterol,
I have a nerve issue, I have a joint issue.
I want to you know, lower the inflammation of my body.
Like He's like, wow, I didn't realize that. I said,
here's my next question for you. What does alfel The
pocas said, do zero idea, just write it. We wouldn't
(13:28):
do this and any other thing.
Speaker 1 (13:29):
And you're essentially getting health advice from Reddit.
Speaker 4 (13:33):
Yeah, that's right. So thirty some thirty, the average thirty
seven year old on Reddit says I should do this, Well,
then I'll do it.
Speaker 1 (13:39):
I'm in I have a brain tumor. You go to Reddit,
you don't ask a doctor.
Speaker 5 (13:43):
Yeah, that's.
Speaker 1 (14:07):
What about these these tests where they can predict or
not predict, They can find if you have like the
pernovos and all those things that the body scans. Yes,
but also like the tests where they can see if
you have cancer from your blood, blood.
Speaker 2 (14:20):
Boods and things like that blood test. Yeah, Paul and
I are gonna have some disagreement here, but you go first.
Speaker 4 (14:25):
I can disagree with me right away and see you
the trouble. Good, Just cut you out, no middleman.
Speaker 2 (14:31):
Now what Dick would say, if he were smart.
Speaker 4 (14:34):
He won't say these things. So these things have really
taken off in recent years in part because the are
ability to detect my new quantities of like of cancrous
material and blood plasmas has actually accelerated a lot. So
you were able to detect lots of things in relatively
small samples quicker than we used to be able to.
And it's also taken off because it's terrific business. So
(14:56):
let's say there's a number of companies out there selling
baskets of tests for any work from one thousand dollars
to five thousand dollars to subscription services of twenty five
thousand dollars. This is good business. The marginal caught them.
The margin on those things is like ninety nine percent, right,
and it's one thousand dollars to do a test. It's
costing them. What's it costing them, like pennies?
Speaker 1 (15:14):
Pennies?
Speaker 4 (15:14):
Well, yeah, so it's great, great business for them. And
so that doesn't mean that they're wrong. It's just it's
important to keep in mind that this is a terrific
business selling you the tests. And again, think about I'll
back into this by saying, think about the people who
are being tested. The people are being tested are generally
the people who have the lowest propensity to actually be ill.
It tends to people who can afford one thousand dollars tests.
Speaker 1 (15:35):
These are not why you're pointing it, dick, you can.
Speaker 4 (15:39):
No, that's right, it's not dick. And so these populations
tend to have the lowest incidences of most of the
things that they're testing for because they're actually all they're
actually fairly healthy, people who take reasonable.
Speaker 1 (15:49):
Cast people who want to look at who are looking
at themselves are going to be the ones that do
the test rather than the ones.
Speaker 4 (15:53):
Right, So the expression they use in the industry, they
call them the worried well right, I'm targeting the worried well,
so they're well, but they're worried. I like those guys,
is I can these baskets of tests are really appealing. Again,
it doesn't mean the tests don't work. It's just it's
important to keep in mind all of these things that
are happening higher up the chain, right, that they're highly profitable.
They're mostly targeting people who aren't likely to be sick
(16:15):
in the first place, because they are the people who
can afford these tests. Who are the worried well, who
tend to be relatively high income and take.
Speaker 3 (16:21):
The scams on the This is where we disagree. I
agree with you completely about the worried well, and that's
going to be a trillion or multi trillion dollar wellness industry.
The supplements themselves are crazy expensive. But then these people also,
these people everyone in the amongst the worried well, is
also on the the daily I don't know whatever athletic
(16:42):
whatever is now AG one and then they're on this,
and then they're doing that, and I take this before
I go to bed, and like with some unknown perhaps
placebo effect on the on the test that you're talking about,
like the you know, the blood test to detect in
cancer particles, cancer material and and the body scans and
(17:02):
so forth. You know, if you've got pink, if a
friend who has pancreatic cancer, we'll probably all know if
somebody who's have pancreatic cancer. If you have pancreatic cancer,
you usually don't detect it until it's spread to some
other part of your body, because that doesn't hurt until
it's in your stomach or your lungs or whatever. And
then you're like, oh my hurts when I breathe, and
then you go find out like.
Speaker 2 (17:21):
Ships too late.
Speaker 3 (17:22):
So the benefit of these blood tests is, Okay, now
you can find it much much earlier.
Speaker 2 (17:28):
And so there's really no other way to derisen.
Speaker 4 (17:31):
But the problem is that you're not going to go.
Speaker 1 (17:33):
You're not going to go in every year and get
a they're good. Are you saying that?
Speaker 3 (17:36):
I'm saying like they're helping people who you would you
would never otherwise find, but positives you wouldn't otherwise find
out until it's too late.
Speaker 4 (17:44):
Right, And that's true. And I mean, so the problem
is that for the most part, where we were talking
about relatively rare cancers, pancreatic cancer let's pick on that
one as an example.
Speaker 1 (17:55):
But they don't just do pank credit cancer.
Speaker 4 (17:57):
They do all kinds, right, But we've got really good
tests for the high prevalence cancers. Colon cancer is a
good example, right, We've got a very good effective right,
and it works really well, and we can actually diagnose
and treat at the same time.
Speaker 2 (18:06):
So my favorite favorite thing to do everything.
Speaker 4 (18:09):
Yeah, it's like a weight loss clenty. So we've for
the higher prevalence cancers. There are very effective tests out
there that do not require this, so mostly those are
those have already been picked off. So we're what we're
talking about for the most part. If you look at
the pages of all the listed indications that the cancers
that might be detected by these tests, most of those
(18:30):
are low prevalence cancers and can't create a cancer. Just
to pick on number is a good example, where it's
about one in ten thousand, right, the incidence rate of
in an otherwise healthy population is about one in ten thousand.
And the problem you run into is that that's a
very low prevalence. Obviously, that's a you know, a vanishingly
small number. Even with a relatively low false positive rate.
(18:50):
It's like on the order of say a half a percent,
which is pretty darn good, and one hundred percent sensitivity,
meaning that if it's there, you actually detect it. You're
still going to say, let's say in a population one
hundred thousand, it's about a ninety five percent chance that
you if a positive a positive test is wrong, it's right.
So this is a huge issue. Wise, this is a
huge issue. Almost all positives are going to be false,
(19:12):
which is most people who people don't like math the reality.
Speaker 3 (19:16):
Is just going to say the problem is our society
is so enumerate, and they'll.
Speaker 4 (19:22):
Also do the chat thing of well, I know a
guy who the inevitable response is, or they'll say this
is my favorite is they'll say, yeah, but what about
if it's you right, Oh yeah, right, let's just ignore
the whole statistics thing that it's like, you know, this
is so wildly unlikely. And so the problem is then
you have to do follow up tests, which are also expensive.
You then may have to do more invasive procedure biops,
which can have other complications and so on. And so
(19:44):
this isn't to say that it's not great to have
early detection of these cancers. It's more just to suggest
that the mass screening of humans for low incidence conditions
is generally a really bad idea because we expensively test
for things that for the most part, we're not going
to find, and we're going to not find expensively with consequences.
Speaker 1 (20:03):
So so you so would your advice? Doctor Paul be
to My dad.
Speaker 4 (20:09):
Used to say that all the time. He said, you're
a doctor, but you're not the useful kind.
Speaker 3 (20:14):
I mean, but isn't this one of those things that's,
you know, blood tests for me but not for thee like, yeah,
so everyone shouldn't do it.
Speaker 2 (20:21):
I of course I'm going to do it. Yes, would
you do it? No?
Speaker 1 (20:24):
No, because the millionaires, because why I have no, Because
it doesn't run in your family because or.
Speaker 4 (20:30):
Yeah, and because the statistics tell me the likelihood of
me getting a false positive is so high, which will
be so stressful and annoying. I want no part of this.
Let's say you have a family history of some specific
kind of key. Whether it's a breast cancer of them right,
or it's a you know, prostate cancer, whatever else obviously
changes the base, right. The point is population, Why is
(20:50):
it a good idea? Like I see companies for example,
offering this is part of their health benefits, so they'll
do executive health screenings where they'll they'll bring you in
for the day, I'll do a bunch of blood pants manals,
I'll run you through an MRI and a CT scan. Honestly,
this is lead gion. This is pure medical lead jon
because they know it's going to turn into a million
follow up procedures. It's insanely profitable, and the likely of
(21:12):
them finding anything, giving the low prevalence of most of
the things they're checking for, is insanely low. And then
of course then.
Speaker 2 (21:18):
The only one person.
Speaker 3 (21:19):
Also, you also now have doctors who insta suggest the
follow up imaging test because they don't want to get suit.
Speaker 4 (21:27):
It's the defense.
Speaker 2 (21:27):
So they're like, if there's any as soon as they.
Speaker 4 (21:30):
Get anything, even if they know it's likely, I've got
off do all of this. It's called they call it
testing cascade. It's this testing cascade I have to do
immediately afterwards. So the answer for me is no. And
I'm very suspicious of whenever people say I know a
guy who, because I know you know a guy who,
that's what happens.
Speaker 3 (21:45):
But I know in fact I had a colonost being afterwards,
they're like, you know, all fine, all good though only
this is my primary care physician. The only thing is
your colon doesn't look structurally like other colons.
Speaker 2 (21:57):
When while you get an MRI, I was.
Speaker 3 (21:58):
Like, it's like it doesn't look at it like it's ugly.
I hate that it's not hot. It's not a hot colon.
I wouldn't post this. I wouldn't post this selfie of
your call and any of the social thanksule this is
really amazing, Like.
Speaker 2 (22:16):
I mean what it like goes left where it's supposed
to go right, like did you it's a.
Speaker 3 (22:20):
Vertical and no, no, because this is one where I
was like, I'm gonna roll with I'm gonna let this one.
Speaker 2 (22:24):
I'm gonna let this one go.
Speaker 4 (22:25):
Let this one go. This doesn't seem worth the follow up.
Speaker 1 (22:28):
So you guys totally against the like pronobos of like,
which is a total Silicon Valley fat. Everyone I know
there does it all the time. Like it's it's like,
what are you doing on Sunday of going to get
a body scam twelve dollars capucino, Like is do you
think that there's any benefit of these things?
Speaker 4 (22:45):
Sure? But then you're arguing from exceptions, there will always
be someone who benefits.
Speaker 3 (22:48):
Yeah, and there are from there are we I mean,
I know multiple stories of I went and got this
thing and it felt totally fine and it found a
golf ball size tumor you know wherever in my call.
Speaker 4 (23:00):
But that's oh, that's the expl But that's always the problem, right,
So you're forced to argue from the exceptions rather than say,
turn it around and say, should this be in health
insurance plan? Should we be in society be willing to
pay for this for everyone if it's so useful, And
the answer, of course is no, because here's the problem.
The problem is it's going to lead to all of
these incidental findings, all of these false positives, all of
(23:20):
these testing cascades. So if you, as an individual say,
you know what I just this is something that makes
me feel good about myself, go crazy. But as a
population it doesn't work.
Speaker 1 (23:30):
Isn't part of the problem right now? So biotech is
having a not a great time, right There's been no
biotech IPOs in the last year.
Speaker 4 (23:37):
These GLP won things.
Speaker 1 (23:39):
Well, we should discuss the deal in the peptides, but
real quick. But so there haven't been these advancements in
medicine that we have expected, but there have been these
private company versions of it. So you get these stories.
It's like goes back to what we're talking about earlier.
You get these stories of people are like, I know
a guy on a podcast who knew a guy who
(24:00):
found a golf ball sized tumor and is weird looking
colon and then it just and so that is it's
kind of filling a void. Is that accurate?
Speaker 4 (24:08):
Yeah? I think that's I hadn't thought of it that way,
but I think that's interesting way of thinking about it
is that people feel like in every other walk of life,
I'm seeing this constant pace of innovation. Why are you
biotech people keeping it from me? Right? I Worris the
chat j GPT of life sciences. I need I need more stuff, right,
And so people are hungry for it. They find it
because there is a constant flow of things. It's just
it's mostly low evidence, small sample sized, low effect, you know,
(24:30):
low size, and what happened.
Speaker 3 (24:32):
So that's that getting back to your original when we
first got started, you know, hey, what's going on with us?
It's peptide stuff I'm hearing about. People are so people
are hearing it because their friends are taking.
Speaker 2 (24:44):
Them for all manner of things.
Speaker 3 (24:47):
They don't have any idea what they do, but they've
heard they're great and people we should be taking them,
I mean for pain, for recovery, for ated, for like
you name it. And there's so much misinformation out there
about them. Meanwhile, the studies on these things particularly are
super small, super yeah, super small sample size, lots of them,
(25:10):
mostly in Eastern Europe so far, not really in the US.
So not that there's anything wrong. Look, I'm not there's
nothing wrong with Eastern Europe. There's some very's terrific. There's
some very fine people over there.
Speaker 2 (25:22):
In Eastern Europe.
Speaker 3 (25:24):
Editor castle, terrific, castles, vampires, they've got they've got it all.
But you'll see the missing. I was leaving a rest
This is seared into my brain. Was leaving a restaurant
the other day in Manhattan, and as I'm walking out,
this guy is talking to the three other people at
his table and says, well, growth hormone and HGH, that's
(25:48):
all peptides now, And I left thinking, Yeah, that couldn't go,
couldn't That's gonna go very badly for some people it's
all getting Yeah, there's like as if it's as if
these things are a rebrand of HGH. You know, like
what so you wonder like how did how did you
(26:09):
get how did you get there?
Speaker 4 (26:11):
But I think some of it one of the things
that I find really interesting. And there's been some interesting
stuff lately about this, But how lifespan the increase in
human lifespan is sort of a rest It's not growing
as much as it was mid century for a whole
bunch of different reasons. And but the amount of time
people spend ill towards the end of their lives is growing, right,
(26:32):
So this is more called the morbidity versus mortality. Probably
when you diversus how how crappy you feel for the
last x many years? And people see that we're going
to live in an aging population, And I think one
of the light and fears people I need to do
something to prevent that from happening to me.
Speaker 3 (26:46):
I don't want the last twenty years. I don't want
to see me hobbling around on fourteen different medicine.
Speaker 4 (26:51):
And yeah, so some of that is this feeling like
there must be something medicine can do, even if it
can't increase my lifespan. There must be something we can
do about spending the last twenty years in ill health.
And so that's part of the hunger for these kinds
of things. Yeah, I mean.
Speaker 1 (27:04):
And it's also everything's a meme. We've talked about this before,
but like everything's a meme and it's all we see
one thing and then it becomes that it spreads on
TikTok and Instagram and this, that and the other, and
that's how everyone gets their information. And there's there's no
decided upon agreement of what is real and what is not,
and so it's all play well.
Speaker 4 (27:25):
And it's also that there's only about three things that
move the needle in terms of actually human health.
Speaker 3 (27:31):
Right, which are, let me guess someone's going to be nutrition,
sleep exercise.
Speaker 4 (27:35):
Nutrition, sleep, exercise, and then I may be a distant
Fourth is having a good circle of friends, right, And
that's it. Those are the high evidence things that have
moved the needle the most with respectex or with respect
to human health. And people don't like any of those.
I don't have that much control over my sleep. I
hate eating that crappy food you keep trying to make
me eat. Don't even try to make me run, and
(27:55):
most of my friends are idiots, so it's like, screw it,
I want peptids, right.
Speaker 2 (27:59):
Yeah, you know, or could do some of those new peptids.
Speaker 4 (28:03):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, this is an easy decision.
Speaker 1 (28:29):
Going back to what you were just saying about life expectancy,
why is is it slowed down because somebody you're taking
the average from all these people that have died from
fentanyl and covid and things like that, or is it
slowed down for everyone?
Speaker 4 (28:43):
No, it's slowed down across the board. It's partly though,
because there was this dramatic effect. Both covid and fentanyl
had a huge effect on us lifespans in terms of
the aggregate figure. That's true, but the bigger issue was
that most of the gains is the story that medicine
doesn't tell very well, but most of the gains in
longevity in the last hundred years were a single which
was reduced infant mortality, and so that fed into the
(29:05):
entire statistics. So once we brought into mortality down to
basically zero, I mean, very very low levels, that led
to much longer aggregate figures in terms of total lifetime
because people weren't dying in the first two years of life,
and you don't get that gain twice, right, And it's
a similar story to a lesser degree. With antibiotics, we
don't get that game twice. So then you're left with
(29:25):
what do we do at the end of life? Maybe
we just load people with peptides.
Speaker 1 (29:28):
And hope I've remectin.
Speaker 4 (29:30):
So that's it is that it's kind of a confusion
about where gains and mortality came from. That they mostly
came at the front end of the curve.
Speaker 3 (29:37):
So we can we also make sure I also want
to talk about like things that actually work in ways
and exercise exercise regimens. One of the things I've noticed
as as I've gotten older is my exercise regiment has
changed from I used to just lift weights four days
a week and then run two days a week or
(29:59):
psych you know, cardio two days a week, live four
days a week, and I've migrated to still doing a
bunch of resistance training and weights, but adding in mobility work, and.
Speaker 1 (30:10):
Uh, what's mobility work?
Speaker 2 (30:11):
What's like flexibility mobility work?
Speaker 3 (30:13):
Making sure you know coil squats, not just doing weighted
back squats or front squats, but like the coil Squad,
Dragon squats, single egg squad love the dragon squat.
Speaker 2 (30:25):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (30:28):
Squad.
Speaker 2 (30:29):
I mean, I'm not gonna get up and demonstrate it
right now, although.
Speaker 3 (30:31):
I could imagine you're like, basically it's basically thoracic rotation
of your spine as you as you do a single
egg squat into it on YouTube channel. You can see
it all on my listen. Just subscribe to my only
fans Coil Squad account and you'll be fun No, but
(30:52):
so so it's I think there's you know, it's funny
as this former huge crossfitter guy from ten years ago
doing his you know, you see these fitness bros always
doing the age is just a number. I'm like, yeah,
wait till you get to sixty and it turns out
it's a little more than just a number. You know,
I'm still doing the my same amount of burpies and like,
(31:15):
you know, and just keep on doing that stuff and
or doing the one you know, I only go to pilates,
or I only go to soul cycle, or I only
go to berries. Like that constant, constant repetition of just
doing the same few things, even though it seems like no,
we do four or five different things.
Speaker 2 (31:30):
In berries. You really have to vary.
Speaker 3 (31:32):
Or should be varying your work out much much more
than that, or sooner or later you're gonna get injured.
Speaker 1 (31:38):
Yeah, why is it? How do you get injured sooner
or later from doing the same thing over and over?
Speaker 3 (31:41):
Isn't your body just you're activating the same muscles and
not activating other muscles. And you know, it's the same
thing as like go run on pavement, you know, for
every day for five years, and then go run in
the sand.
Speaker 2 (31:55):
You're like, oh, wait a minute. Now, it's like I think, and.
Speaker 4 (31:58):
It's like all your emotions are like in line. And
let's say you're always running or cycling and then suddenly
I have to jump sideways to do something. I'm a
good right tear doctor.
Speaker 3 (32:06):
Do tons of tons, do tons of lateral lateral movement
work now, which is great for tennis. And if you
don't do that and you're just running, oh, I don't
know what happened. I'm in great cardio shape, and then
I went to play tennis and I tore my achilles. Yeah,
you're not doing any lateral movement work. So that kind
of mobility work. I'm doing a lot of reflex work
now just to keep my you know, hand eye coordination,
(32:26):
stuff like drop this town of ball, you know, catch
you at the other hand, all that stuff.
Speaker 4 (32:31):
Nick, just look at all the stuff does.
Speaker 1 (32:33):
Literally I'm looking at you and I'm like, the fuck
is he talking? Drop tennis?
Speaker 2 (32:40):
Reaction work? It's I mean, it's.
Speaker 3 (32:43):
Great, it's it's also scary when you haven't done reaction
work and reflex work, and then you do it for
the first few times and you realize, wait a minute,
I gotta do that again my left I didn't do
it right on my left hand that time. And then
you realize, oh, I'm naturally a lot slow or in
mental and physical reactions totally from my left side, then
(33:04):
my right side.
Speaker 2 (33:05):
What it's crazy.
Speaker 3 (33:07):
You're like, it's it's and then you know, you get
better and better and better. But if you don't do
any of that stuff, then you're eighty two years old
and you go down the stairs and your trip and
you like, why didn't I grasp Why I wasn't able
to grasp the handrail fast enough on my left hand?
Speaker 4 (33:20):
Everything happened too fast?
Speaker 1 (33:21):
Yeah, And then and then there's that statistic. I think
you told us that if you if you fall. What
eighty five or under eighty five you're dead essentially over
eighty but yeah, over eighty dip in the hospital, right,
you had to get in.
Speaker 4 (33:32):
It's this.
Speaker 3 (33:32):
Then you're in the Then you're in the death spiral of
literal death spiral of I'm in the hospital. I can't move,
my muscles are acting more.
Speaker 2 (33:40):
You know.
Speaker 4 (33:41):
Yeah, you get in this cascade of problems right when
suddenly it's not the fall that killed you. It'll be
some secondary infection like pneumonia or whatever else. Because your
system's activated to deal with one problem and it doesn't
have enough capacity to deal with two, and the second
one the second one gets here, right. That's the thing though,
I mean, in all this stuff, which is crazy, is
that people are so desperate to avoid doing things that work.
(34:01):
That's that's the part that I find. Really.
Speaker 3 (34:05):
It's not like nobody wants to I'm going to go
into aquanox in my allo you know, gear and do
mobility work. Like, no, dude, I'm going to like go
in and bench two plates. You know, I'm going to
go in and do like military style strict pull ups.
You're not gonna go do mobility work.
Speaker 1 (34:23):
I go and oil.
Speaker 4 (34:25):
Coils on your YouTube, on your YouTube channel.
Speaker 1 (34:28):
My YouTube channel, on my own fans. Wait, I have
a question, So if we so we've seen all these
technological advancements in every form of our life. It's robots
delivering food. I actually ordered food from a robot the
other day. It fell over. I had to rescue it. Literally,
it tipped. I was so excited that it was. I
was getting my first po like around the corner. I
(34:48):
was so excited. I was filming because I knew the
kids would want to see it.
Speaker 2 (34:51):
And I was sitting there filming and take a fast turn.
Speaker 1 (34:54):
Don't know what happened. It was on the side anymore,
it fell over.
Speaker 4 (34:56):
It's one of those ways.
Speaker 1 (34:58):
I have a photo I can show you. Guys.
Speaker 4 (34:59):
It was.
Speaker 2 (35:00):
You're going to be prosecuted for tipping the robot over.
Speaker 4 (35:02):
I've heard about.
Speaker 1 (35:03):
And I was sitting there and I'm waiting, and five
minutes goes by, and six and I'm like, what the
fuck is going on? And I walk over and there
it is. It's like on its side and it's like
help me, I can't get up. And I helped it
up and then it just and then I had to
walk back with it to my house because it wouldn't
give me the food on the street. I had to
follow it. So well, yeah, anyway, of.
Speaker 2 (35:21):
Course it's not going to give you the food on
the street. You could be anybody.
Speaker 4 (35:23):
Where are you going with this?
Speaker 1 (35:24):
I'm just saying, so the driverless cards, there's robots that
can almost deliver our food. That we've got l ll ms.
We've got all these technologies and yet we haven't had
like a a new more mortality Texans.
Speaker 3 (35:39):
Like, I'm saying, there are all these advances, and yet
in human health, what have you done for me lately?
Speaker 5 (35:45):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (35:45):
But why why have there been no advance when there
But then okay, if there have, why are we not
living longer?
Speaker 4 (35:53):
Well, because that's a different problem. So human mortality is
evolution came out. It didn't doesn't need us after we
after we have kids, right, So all of the problems
we're having right now are largely because they were never
selected against. Because by the time we reach the ages
that we have all of the diseases, heart diseases and cancer,
we were all dead by this.
Speaker 3 (36:11):
Yeah, the kids are off and running around in the
forest and collecting barriers on their own.
Speaker 4 (36:16):
You died at age forty five historic it didn't matter,
and so evolution never selected against those genes. So we're
the byproduct of that. We're carrying a whole bunch of things,
some of which were probably good for us whenever we
were younger, that are now maladaptive, that are now going
to cause these problems, and evolution doesn't care. So you're
fighting that force, which is just a really difficult force
to fight against that you shouldn't be alive.
Speaker 1 (36:38):
And yet we have all these like the Brian Johnson's
of the world that believe that they can stop right right.
Speaker 3 (36:45):
I mean, by the way, I'm taking the other side
of that, that lust one that they're not.
Speaker 2 (36:49):
Going to be death there somewhere somewhere in there.
Speaker 3 (36:53):
It's covering so there I might not be tomorrow, but
there's going to be a little death, yeah, at least one.
Speaker 4 (37:01):
But that instinct and we've talked about this before, but
that instinct towards you know, whether it's the don't die
movement or the biology science will save us, or I'll
live forever through my legacy, this is you know, as
long as it's been modern humans three hundred thousand years plus,
that's instinct his existence. So it's no particular surprise that
that continues. And whether it's Brian Johnson or whoever else,
(37:22):
it's just what people refuse to recognize as the forces
they're fighting against, which is that we're at a point
now where most of the things we want to fight
against are things that evolution ever selected against. So it's
wired throughout us, and that's wh you're get into this
issue where people start doing things like it'll sell senescence treatments,
these idea that we can treat cells so they don't
die as quickly and then don't become a burden on
(37:42):
the body for more information that actually that has other problems,
So you're treatments increasingly have side effects that metigate against
them actually working because the system itself is our decrepitudes
kind of built in.
Speaker 1 (37:56):
So what you're saying is we're just all going to die.
Speaker 4 (37:58):
Yeah, I know that's a shocker.
Speaker 1 (37:59):
But should we move on to our media of the week. Yes,
let's uh, Paul, you want to start.
Speaker 4 (38:09):
Well, I was talking earlier about how I was saying
one of my I was thinking about this in the
context of Frankenstein and some of the monster movies that
are out right now that this is this idea of
increasingly looking at these from the standpoint of the monster.
And this has become a thing, as in my single
favorite book of that kind, which I just finished rereading recently,
is John Gardner's Grendel, which is I guess, kind of
(38:30):
the og of those sorts of books in that it
took the perspective of the monster intell retelling the story
of Baiowulf from the standpoint of Grendel.
Speaker 1 (38:39):
I haven't read it well.
Speaker 4 (38:41):
Gardner is an absolutely tremendous writer, So just from this
pure standpoint of writerly craft, he's up there for me
with Carmick McCarthy, like he is generally one of the
greatest writers in English language. What I like about Grendel
is that it's not just this, hey, here's a fresh perspective.
I'm going to look at it from the standpoint of
the monster. Is the monster becomes so much more interesting
(39:02):
than any of the main characters, well then Beowulf, who's
not particularly interesting in the first place, but then anyone
else in it. And he's not just sympathetic and did
he write it, do you know? Fifty eight?
Speaker 5 (39:11):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (39:11):
And this is literally the og villain origin story, right
I'm gonna do this take from the perspective of the monster.
Speaker 4 (39:19):
The monster.
Speaker 2 (39:19):
It's it's the first kind of way before the movies.
We're doing this. It's the og villain origin story. When
I read it, don't worry about it.
Speaker 4 (39:28):
Way before like Wicked and all these That's that's not
quite interesting. Is all of this stuff has now become like,
if you think about it, people mining IP. Your industry
mining IP to get create news that actually gardeners Now.
Speaker 1 (39:39):
It's my industry. Like I'm I'm the one.
Speaker 2 (39:41):
You are, You're the representative in our local rep.
Speaker 1 (39:45):
Your guys industries are way worse than mine.
Speaker 4 (39:47):
Is this the we're on it?
Speaker 5 (39:48):
Now?
Speaker 4 (39:48):
Whose industry is the worst? This is the bottom? All right?
It's all bad? So that's what That's what I like
is it was an the Og versus that is a
wonderful writer. And the strangest thing about it all for
me is it is completely neglected. It's like you literally
bring it up in people who.
Speaker 1 (40:04):
I've read a million books. I haven't read it. So
there you go, boom read it.
Speaker 3 (40:09):
What do you got a mine? Is Ford maddox Ford's
The Good Soldier. It might be the saddest book ever.
But it's basically, you know, short story, short about two couples.
From the perspective of the narrator.
Speaker 2 (40:25):
Was one of the men and one of the couples
John Dowell, I think his first name is John. His
name is Dowe Dell.
Speaker 3 (40:30):
And hidden vulnerabilities and affairs are revealed, resulting in madness
and despair and suicide. Yeah soon with a big with
a big closing number.
Speaker 4 (40:42):
And it's but it's it's a wonderful book. One of
the things fantastic that I love about that book, and
I love it about Ford Maddix Ford in general, is
that he again this is the og stuff. He was
kind of the o g unreliable narrator guy. Everything you
learn seems completely straightforward and trustworthy. But it becomes clear
that without no spoilers that lots of is completely unreliable.
That's right, but told in a way that seems completely
(41:03):
accurate and true. And so this this idea of this
rug pull of I don't actually know any more what
the truth is in this story. And that's which is
true and almost in any sort of greed a couple's relationships.
Speaker 2 (41:13):
Also great name Ford, Maddox Ford, love that name.
Speaker 4 (41:17):
Yeah, it sounds like something from The Hitchhiker's Guide to
the Galaxy.
Speaker 3 (41:20):
Yeah, or it's just a really cool name. I think
if your name is Ford Madox Ford, you get to
do whatever you want.
Speaker 4 (41:25):
Or you should do car commercials. Yeah, part Maddox Sword
here with the latest to.
Speaker 3 (41:32):
Ford Ford Manx words for it doesn't work really, there's
too many for it. There's a third Ford. It's got
to be Ford Maddox Sports Chevrolet Dealership.
Speaker 1 (41:41):
Which mine is. I just read Jordan Harper's she writes Shotgun.
It's not it's just a it's like a modern book.
It's like a good it's just a really fun they're
making it into a movie right now.
Speaker 2 (41:53):
Of course it reads like a movie.
Speaker 1 (41:55):
It reads like a movie.
Speaker 4 (41:56):
It's uh, it's the genre or whatever.
Speaker 1 (41:59):
How would you just have this genre?
Speaker 2 (42:00):
Is it?
Speaker 1 (42:00):
Like it's kind of like an el Roy kind of
but it's very cinematic and uh, I just read it
in like a.
Speaker 2 (42:12):
Very cinematic like a like a Elmore Leonard book kind of.
Speaker 1 (42:16):
Yeah, it's set where set in l A remember, Yeah,
it's set in La Korea town and something like that.
It's a it's a really fun I can see. It's gonna.
I think it'll be a great movie. But it's just
a fun page turner and these characters and you're and
you're kind of rooting for this right for them, for
this girl to you know, I can't. I don't want
(42:38):
to give it away. It's a really good you'll like it,
I think, oh you'll hate it, probably actually, so I
hate it.
Speaker 4 (42:43):
I hate uh, maybe you like it.
Speaker 1 (42:45):
I don't know.
Speaker 4 (42:45):
I love so. I'm it's a little pulpy, yeah, no,
but I love Elmore Lemard Leonard l Roy, uh dashal Hammett.
Speaker 1 (42:54):
I tried to read, uh, that Raymond Chandler book that
you recommended, little sister. I did not like it.
Speaker 2 (43:00):
Come on, not like god, oh god, it was something
wrong with you.
Speaker 1 (43:05):
So painful, no taste. All right, all right, that's a wrap.
Welcome to the Nick, Dick and Poll Show. I'm Nick Bilton,
I'm Dick.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
What why it's it impossible for us to get through
this introductions of the worst they really are.
Speaker 3 (00:12):
They're so bad you constantly let's try to get I'm
no good and you are.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
Dick, and he's boul Kadruski.
Speaker 4 (00:22):
Perfect.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
There we go, and today's episode we're going to be
talking about health and wellness, but not We're not going
to be selling you anything. We're not going to be We're.
Speaker 4 (00:32):
Not I'm out. I was led to if there was
commissioned salesman.
Speaker 1 (00:36):
We're not going to be telling you to take ivermectin
because you have a cold or cancer. We are going
to be uh discussing all of this stuff, but in
a different, a different way. Should we start with? What
do you want to start with? I have a question
(01:03):
about peptides. Are they bullshit? Or are they? Are they?
Are they real? Are they so?
Speaker 4 (01:10):
I mean there's peptides are absolutely real. The issue for most.
Speaker 2 (01:14):
Of they're not. They're not mythical creatures.
Speaker 4 (01:16):
No, this is not Yeah, we were talking about BAILO earlier.
It's not something out of bail The issue is and
this is the case, and maybe this is a good
way in is that. And this I think really accelerated
during COVID was that there's this hunger among people to
believe that most of what orthodox medicine tells them, or
at least there's a fraction of what orthodox medicine tells
them that's not accurate, or at least I can go
(01:38):
out and quote do the research and find out myself.
And there's nothing wrong with that instinct. In principle, there's
obviously lots of things like that takes you back to
your iromectin comment that brings us to peptides. All of
these things have some efficacy for some purposes. It's the
idea that this is now medicine refuses to provide me
this thing that's in all purpose remedy for all kinds
of things. That's where this the trapdoor that people tend
(02:01):
to fall.
Speaker 1 (02:01):
But it started twenty twenty COVID.
Speaker 4 (02:03):
I think it accelerated twenty twenty COVID, where there was
this idea medicine refuses to tell me things. Now, there's
been lots of times in the past where there's been
various kind of lurches in that direction, but it really
took off during that period because it was like, yeah, well,
you know, if I just stick my head and i'm
and we should.
Speaker 1 (02:18):
Blame what percentage you guys think?
Speaker 2 (02:20):
I would also I would say also that people.
Speaker 3 (02:24):
In the course of quote doing their own research unquote
now confuse very limited, small scale studies with a fifty
thousand person article in.
Speaker 2 (02:39):
Nature that was done over the course of thirty years.
Speaker 3 (02:42):
Sure, right, so they'll say, no, no, no, I just
read that I should take twenty grams of creatine instead
of five grams of creatine because if you don't sleep,
if you get little sleep, twenty grams of createed totally
makes up for it.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
Like, okay, that was Yeah, do.
Speaker 1 (02:59):
You guys think that all bullshit?
Speaker 4 (03:00):
No?
Speaker 1 (03:01):
No, okay, So what's real? What's fake?
Speaker 4 (03:03):
What's Well, that's the problem is that for the most
part this stuff real, real exercise works for some people.
Speaker 1 (03:12):
Although everyone I know gets injured doing exercise.
Speaker 4 (03:15):
Yeah, well that's.
Speaker 2 (03:16):
A whole that's a topic.
Speaker 4 (03:17):
We should go. We can have a golf better when
I golf list, is that the same? Or no?
Speaker 1 (03:21):
Wait, keep going? So and so some of its vivincy
is real peptides, like so these tests.
Speaker 4 (03:27):
Sure, we're at this really preliminary stage whereas Dick was saying, like,
we've got relatively small samples, were the test sizes are
getting larger, and you're trying to detect an effect size.
If it's relatively small, I need a massive population of
people to run the test on. I can't just rely
on fifty people because there's huge noise. There's also a
placebo effect where everyone's people try some exotic therapy. They
(03:48):
really want to believe that it works, and it often
does work because the placebo effect is incredibly powerful. Just
just because of the medicine doesn't work and you feel better,
doesn't mean you didn't feel better, right, You genuinely feel better, right.
And so this is the problem is we're at this
point where there's a bunch of interesting things that some
of which will probably turn out to be really powerful,
but that the data doesn't support yet, which ones truly
(04:09):
have a material effects size? For the most part, that's
not entirely true, But for the most part that's the case.
Speaker 1 (04:14):
Why don't we start with those again.
Speaker 4 (04:16):
It doesn't mean that they're nonsense, It just means that
it's way too early for people to go out there
with blanket statements like you know, load up on two
hundred and fifty.
Speaker 1 (04:23):
Of these and so, yeah, I think the podcasters as
a point too right percent to give them.
Speaker 3 (04:28):
Yeah, No, I mean you watch these podcasts and someone
will go on and the host, who is you know,
a claimed authority on X, will interview the guest, who
they say is noted expert on why and then that
person says, you know, you know, there are great studies
out that say if you take twenty grams of creatine,
(04:50):
it can make up for well, if you go actually
dive into the studies, it's for three or four people.
Speaker 2 (04:56):
What is that?
Speaker 1 (04:56):
Some cuantine?
Speaker 4 (04:57):
Real quick?
Speaker 2 (04:57):
What's that?
Speaker 1 (04:58):
What is creating?
Speaker 2 (05:00):
How would you? It's a chemical money.
Speaker 4 (05:01):
Yeah, it's like a chemical monohydrate that makes it easier
for you to produce ATP, which is to say that
the fuel that powers yourselves. So in which in which
in principle, in parts of your body that are really
high energy usage, like the brain. The brain uses like
I don't know, twenty five percent of your calories on
a daily basis, which is crazy.
Speaker 3 (05:18):
It's a crazy number, by the way, Yeah, which is
a crazy brain just your brain takes.
Speaker 4 (05:22):
Up to it doesn't change much with your thinking hard.
So the point being the that that's one of the
reasons why, if you read the literature, like creating is
increasingly being proposed as a therapy for people with respect
to like dementia and Alzheimer's, because you know, in principle,
if my brain is operating with a higher at a
higher level of energy, with better vascular control, meaning you've
got a higher blood flow to your brain, that all
(05:44):
else being equal, it probably is preventive with respect to dementias.
So there's all this anyways, long standing story about how
creating can have an effective.
Speaker 3 (05:51):
Creatine is usually or not usually maybe maybe taken by
people who are like lifting weights and doing you know,
lot of resistance work, because it also helps your muscles
in your body hold hold more, hold water.
Speaker 1 (06:05):
Yeah, Dick, do you think that there's a question we
could ask? I feel like Poule's kind of like an
l M always answer, but I don't know if.
Speaker 4 (06:11):
It's always mostly nonsense.
Speaker 1 (06:12):
Do you think that there's one we could ask him
that he wouldn't know the answer to.
Speaker 3 (06:15):
He's making it up as he goes along, but he's
just incredibly effective.
Speaker 4 (06:19):
It's like, I like, how loocinate as a living.
Speaker 1 (06:25):
All right, so wait, so keep going. You were going
on the podcasters and then they're the experts.
Speaker 2 (06:30):
It's great, this is a real one. You know.
Speaker 3 (06:33):
Oh, there are a bunch of studies out well, a
bunch of studies turns out to be not a lot,
a few studies. They're very small studies that in a
few people resulted. And if you only got two or
three hours of sleep, you know, you were still able
to deal with these cognitive you know tests in a
way that someone who had gotten eight or nine hours
of sleep had done.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
But it didn't do that for a lot of people.
Speaker 3 (06:55):
Yeah, you know, so these blanket statements are made and
then people just quote do their own research unquote and say, well,
I heard on the so and so podcast from this expert,
I was interviewed by this other expert that there are
all these studies and these things are just declared as facts.
Speaker 4 (07:15):
And it also is that the economics of supplements are
so good, like they're so ridiculously profitable.
Speaker 2 (07:20):
It's all they're super expensive and it's.
Speaker 4 (07:22):
All expensive and it's all margins. So if you know,
I just said that, yeah, it was so good and
so because of the margin so good on it means
that it's a great thing to sell on well, podcasts
or anything else. And as a result, almost everyone's second
secondary business is selling supplements, like you know, one day
ours will clearly be and so they're out there flogging
(07:44):
them non stop. And it's hilarious. Like even I was
reading somewhere the statistics on what's his name, the conspiracy
theorist guy who got.
Speaker 1 (07:53):
Jones, Alex Jones.
Speaker 4 (07:54):
So you knew right away Alex jones whole business was
nothing to do with anything other than these ancillary sales
T shirts and supplements.
Speaker 1 (08:00):
Well, that's also the funny, incredible.
Speaker 4 (08:02):
Like one hundred million dollar business.
Speaker 1 (08:03):
There's also the fact that, like you've got if you
look at Gwyneth Paltrow and what she's selling on the
left and then you've got Alex Jones what he's selling
on the right, it's actually the same stuff. But it's
all the same.
Speaker 2 (08:13):
You're going to get it now. Here's we're just we're.
Speaker 3 (08:18):
We're getting audience, angry audience, females incoming, live, people showing up.
Speaker 1 (08:24):
Well, I think we should just take a moment to
say that this podcast is sponsored by I.
Speaker 4 (08:30):
Exactly.
Speaker 3 (08:31):
It's all sick people. There's this weird and it's actually happening.
One is good, more is better, which we've learned year
after year after year about everything is not true. But
with creatine and these other supplements, people are well, if
one is good, four is probably amazing.
Speaker 2 (08:52):
We see it constantly.
Speaker 4 (08:53):
Crazy. We were talking about this in the context of this,
this this big race was going on recently, this two
hundred miles running around and the single biggest concern in
the race, like most races that are over about ten
k is that people over hydrate, which is so crazy.
Speaker 1 (09:07):
And it wasn't just just the audience is going to
say because I've been fascinated by this, so go down
the road. There was a race recently in Mammoth. It
was a two hundred mile race that people running running,
and then I was researching people Hallucini.
Speaker 3 (09:22):
Well, yeah, you run two hundred miles for five hours
and see if you aren't seeing the giant talking chocolate mushrooms.
Speaker 4 (09:30):
Yeah, NonStop pretty much. So the point is that in
all of these things, and this dates back. We saw
this in the Boston Marathon years ago that people were
told you should drink before you're thirsty, and that turned
into this crazy prescription that you should stop at every
drink station and drink. And the same thing is true
obviously if you're running for two hundred miles, which is
also true for running a marathon, that more is better.
And it turns out that more is better is not
(09:50):
only wrong in the context of those kinds of events,
it's actually dangerous because very few people are hospitalized for dehydration,
virtually not I don't even think it's happened in the
last five ten Boston marathons. But people are regularly hospital
as for what's called hypenetremia, which is excess of water
which has diluted your blood sodium, your plasma sodium, and
as a result, you're can be a medical emergency. And
(10:12):
this is the same instinct that like, if a little
is good, people tell me I should drink. Are you
about to make fun of hype?
Speaker 1 (10:17):
And you're like the last five marathons, six hundred and
forty two thousand people ran and did.
Speaker 4 (10:24):
There's certain things I know reasonably well.
Speaker 3 (10:26):
If I had a nickel for every time Paul talked
to me about hYP treament again with the hype and treatment,
come on, I.
Speaker 4 (10:33):
Wouldn't be doing this show anyways. So but it gets
this instinct, right, this idea that if a little is good,
people tell me I should drink because I'll feel better,
I should have more. Same thing is true for one
supplement is good, Why not two hundred and fifty?
Speaker 1 (10:47):
Now does AI make this worse or better? Worse?
Speaker 2 (10:50):
Okay, worse for the following reason. And here's why. I'll
give you a specific example.
Speaker 3 (10:56):
And there everyone listening will will recognize this in someone
they know. So I have a friend who has high
cholesterol and decides I'm not gonna I'm not gonna go
on a stat and I'm gonna lower my cholesterol naturally.
So they hop over to Claude or chat GPT and
type in, here's my LDL, I want to lower it naturally.
(11:19):
What do I do you know? Out come the here
come the nineteen things to go? Do you know red rice,
yeast or whatever the heck that is all these things?
I'm sure Again, as Paul and I are saying, sure,
some of these things are great and you should definitely
do them, But then there's you know you should and
add in alphalapoka acid and add in this, and pretty
(11:41):
soon they're taking nineteen things h instead of maybe one
or two things, and then you get into.
Speaker 4 (11:47):
This this, this, even if they are working, and it's
no different than if you watch one of the biggest
issues in eldercare is that they end up on twenty
different medications, right, and then the problem is you're taking
medications for the media. That's right, because of all the interactions.
It's no differ in supplements. Things start interacting with each other.
I take one thing for one purpose, and we were
talking about this earlier. Suddenly it's limiting iron absorption in
(12:07):
amnemic and it's like, wait a minute, I was taking
using this for something else. And so this is the
problem as well. Even if it does work, taking so
many things at once is no different than in elder
care when they're taking twenty different medications and suddenly this
which I'm taking from my heart problem is causing me
to be weak and I fell over and break a hip.
Speaker 3 (12:23):
By the way, they also so these everyone who's I
should say, most people who are typing this in and
then writing it down and going and buying all the
things don't know what most of these things do. Now,
And another friend over for dinner is like, I'm you know,
I'm on a regimen now every day for you know,
trying to get in shape. So I'm taking a bunch
of supplements along with exercising for the first time. So
(12:45):
I typed into you know, chat chipd or Claude. You
know I'm doing this, What should I take? And I said,
before you tell me, before you say anything, I bet
you you're taking Alpha the public accid And he's like, oh,
do you like, are you doing this? Are on the
same you know stack? Reggie Like, no, it suggests that
(13:06):
for most things like I need to lower my cholesterol,
I have a nerve issue, I have a joint issue.
I want to you know, lower the inflammation of my body.
Like He's like, wow, I didn't realize that. I said,
here's my next question for you. What does alfel The
pocas said, do zero idea, just write it. We wouldn't
(13:28):
do this and any other thing.
Speaker 1 (13:29):
And you're essentially getting health advice from Reddit.
Speaker 4 (13:33):
Yeah, that's right. So thirty some thirty, the average thirty
seven year old on Reddit says I should do this, Well,
then I'll do it.
Speaker 1 (13:39):
I'm in I have a brain tumor. You go to Reddit,
you don't ask a doctor.
Speaker 5 (13:43):
Yeah, that's.
Speaker 1 (14:07):
What about these these tests where they can predict or
not predict, They can find if you have like the
pernovos and all those things that the body scans. Yes,
but also like the tests where they can see if
you have cancer from your blood, blood.
Speaker 2 (14:20):
Boods and things like that blood test. Yeah, Paul and
I are gonna have some disagreement here, but you go first.
Speaker 4 (14:25):
I can disagree with me right away and see you
the trouble. Good, Just cut you out, no middleman.
Speaker 2 (14:31):
Now what Dick would say, if he were smart.
Speaker 4 (14:34):
He won't say these things. So these things have really
taken off in recent years in part because the are
ability to detect my new quantities of like of cancrous
material and blood plasmas has actually accelerated a lot. So
you were able to detect lots of things in relatively
small samples quicker than we used to be able to.
And it's also taken off because it's terrific business. So
(14:56):
let's say there's a number of companies out there selling
baskets of tests for any work from one thousand dollars
to five thousand dollars to subscription services of twenty five
thousand dollars. This is good business. The marginal caught them.
The margin on those things is like ninety nine percent, right,
and it's one thousand dollars to do a test. It's
costing them. What's it costing them, like pennies?
Speaker 1 (15:14):
Pennies?
Speaker 4 (15:14):
Well, yeah, so it's great, great business for them. And
so that doesn't mean that they're wrong. It's just it's
important to keep in mind that this is a terrific
business selling you the tests. And again, think about I'll
back into this by saying, think about the people who
are being tested. The people are being tested are generally
the people who have the lowest propensity to actually be ill.
It tends to people who can afford one thousand dollars tests.
Speaker 1 (15:35):
These are not why you're pointing it, dick, you can.
Speaker 4 (15:39):
No, that's right, it's not dick. And so these populations
tend to have the lowest incidences of most of the
things that they're testing for because they're actually all they're
actually fairly healthy, people who take reasonable.
Speaker 1 (15:49):
Cast people who want to look at who are looking
at themselves are going to be the ones that do
the test rather than the ones.
Speaker 4 (15:53):
Right, So the expression they use in the industry, they
call them the worried well right, I'm targeting the worried well,
so they're well, but they're worried. I like those guys,
is I can these baskets of tests are really appealing. Again,
it doesn't mean the tests don't work. It's just it's
important to keep in mind all of these things that
are happening higher up the chain, right, that they're highly profitable.
They're mostly targeting people who aren't likely to be sick
(16:15):
in the first place, because they are the people who
can afford these tests. Who are the worried well, who
tend to be relatively high income and take.
Speaker 3 (16:21):
The scams on the This is where we disagree. I
agree with you completely about the worried well, and that's
going to be a trillion or multi trillion dollar wellness industry.
The supplements themselves are crazy expensive. But then these people also,
these people everyone in the amongst the worried well, is
also on the the daily I don't know whatever athletic
(16:42):
whatever is now AG one and then they're on this,
and then they're doing that, and I take this before
I go to bed, and like with some unknown perhaps
placebo effect on the on the test that you're talking about,
like the you know, the blood test to detect in
cancer particles, cancer material and and the body scans and
(17:02):
so forth. You know, if you've got pink, if a
friend who has pancreatic cancer, we'll probably all know if
somebody who's have pancreatic cancer. If you have pancreatic cancer,
you usually don't detect it until it's spread to some
other part of your body, because that doesn't hurt until
it's in your stomach or your lungs or whatever. And
then you're like, oh my hurts when I breathe, and
then you go find out like.
Speaker 2 (17:21):
Ships too late.
Speaker 3 (17:22):
So the benefit of these blood tests is, Okay, now
you can find it much much earlier.
Speaker 2 (17:28):
And so there's really no other way to derisen.
Speaker 4 (17:31):
But the problem is that you're not going to go.
Speaker 1 (17:33):
You're not going to go in every year and get
a they're good. Are you saying that?
Speaker 3 (17:36):
I'm saying like they're helping people who you would you
would never otherwise find, but positives you wouldn't otherwise find
out until it's too late.
Speaker 4 (17:44):
Right, And that's true. And I mean, so the problem
is that for the most part, where we were talking
about relatively rare cancers, pancreatic cancer let's pick on that
one as an example.
Speaker 1 (17:55):
But they don't just do pank credit cancer.
Speaker 4 (17:57):
They do all kinds, right, But we've got really good
tests for the high prevalence cancers. Colon cancer is a
good example, right, We've got a very good effective right,
and it works really well, and we can actually diagnose
and treat at the same time.
Speaker 2 (18:06):
So my favorite favorite thing to do everything.
Speaker 4 (18:09):
Yeah, it's like a weight loss clenty. So we've for
the higher prevalence cancers. There are very effective tests out
there that do not require this, so mostly those are
those have already been picked off. So we're what we're
talking about for the most part. If you look at
the pages of all the listed indications that the cancers
that might be detected by these tests, most of those
(18:30):
are low prevalence cancers and can't create a cancer. Just
to pick on number is a good example, where it's
about one in ten thousand, right, the incidence rate of
in an otherwise healthy population is about one in ten thousand.
And the problem you run into is that that's a
very low prevalence. Obviously, that's a you know, a vanishingly
small number. Even with a relatively low false positive rate.
(18:50):
It's like on the order of say a half a percent,
which is pretty darn good, and one hundred percent sensitivity,
meaning that if it's there, you actually detect it. You're
still going to say, let's say in a population one
hundred thousand, it's about a ninety five percent chance that
you if a positive a positive test is wrong, it's right.
So this is a huge issue. Wise, this is a
huge issue. Almost all positives are going to be false,
(19:12):
which is most people who people don't like math the reality.
Speaker 3 (19:16):
Is just going to say the problem is our society
is so enumerate, and they'll.
Speaker 4 (19:22):
Also do the chat thing of well, I know a
guy who the inevitable response is, or they'll say this
is my favorite is they'll say, yeah, but what about
if it's you right, Oh yeah, right, let's just ignore
the whole statistics thing that it's like, you know, this
is so wildly unlikely. And so the problem is then
you have to do follow up tests, which are also expensive.
You then may have to do more invasive procedure biops,
which can have other complications and so on. And so
(19:44):
this isn't to say that it's not great to have
early detection of these cancers. It's more just to suggest
that the mass screening of humans for low incidence conditions
is generally a really bad idea because we expensively test
for things that for the most part, we're not going
to find, and we're going to not find expensively with consequences.
Speaker 1 (20:03):
So so you so would your advice? Doctor Paul be
to My dad.
Speaker 4 (20:09):
Used to say that all the time. He said, you're
a doctor, but you're not the useful kind.
Speaker 3 (20:14):
I mean, but isn't this one of those things that's,
you know, blood tests for me but not for thee like, yeah,
so everyone shouldn't do it.
Speaker 2 (20:21):
I of course I'm going to do it. Yes, would
you do it? No?
Speaker 1 (20:24):
No, because the millionaires, because why I have no, Because
it doesn't run in your family because or.
Speaker 4 (20:30):
Yeah, and because the statistics tell me the likelihood of
me getting a false positive is so high, which will
be so stressful and annoying. I want no part of this.
Let's say you have a family history of some specific
kind of key. Whether it's a breast cancer of them right,
or it's a you know, prostate cancer, whatever else obviously
changes the base, right. The point is population, Why is
(20:50):
it a good idea? Like I see companies for example,
offering this is part of their health benefits, so they'll
do executive health screenings where they'll they'll bring you in
for the day, I'll do a bunch of blood pants manals,
I'll run you through an MRI and a CT scan. Honestly,
this is lead gion. This is pure medical lead jon
because they know it's going to turn into a million
follow up procedures. It's insanely profitable, and the likely of
(21:12):
them finding anything, giving the low prevalence of most of
the things they're checking for, is insanely low. And then
of course then.
Speaker 2 (21:18):
The only one person.
Speaker 3 (21:19):
Also, you also now have doctors who insta suggest the
follow up imaging test because they don't want to get suit.
Speaker 4 (21:27):
It's the defense.
Speaker 2 (21:27):
So they're like, if there's any as soon as they.
Speaker 4 (21:30):
Get anything, even if they know it's likely, I've got
off do all of this. It's called they call it
testing cascade. It's this testing cascade I have to do
immediately afterwards. So the answer for me is no. And
I'm very suspicious of whenever people say I know a
guy who, because I know you know a guy who,
that's what happens.
Speaker 3 (21:45):
But I know in fact I had a colonost being afterwards,
they're like, you know, all fine, all good though only
this is my primary care physician. The only thing is
your colon doesn't look structurally like other colons.
Speaker 2 (21:57):
When while you get an MRI, I was.
Speaker 3 (21:58):
Like, it's like it doesn't look at it like it's ugly.
I hate that it's not hot. It's not a hot colon.
I wouldn't post this. I wouldn't post this selfie of
your call and any of the social thanksule this is
really amazing, Like.
Speaker 2 (22:16):
I mean what it like goes left where it's supposed
to go right, like did you it's a.
Speaker 3 (22:20):
Vertical and no, no, because this is one where I
was like, I'm gonna roll with I'm gonna let this one.
Speaker 2 (22:24):
I'm gonna let this one go.
Speaker 4 (22:25):
Let this one go. This doesn't seem worth the follow up.
Speaker 1 (22:28):
So you guys totally against the like pronobos of like,
which is a total Silicon Valley fat. Everyone I know
there does it all the time. Like it's it's like,
what are you doing on Sunday of going to get
a body scam twelve dollars capucino, Like is do you
think that there's any benefit of these things?
Speaker 4 (22:45):
Sure? But then you're arguing from exceptions, there will always
be someone who benefits.
Speaker 3 (22:48):
Yeah, and there are from there are we I mean,
I know multiple stories of I went and got this
thing and it felt totally fine and it found a
golf ball size tumor you know wherever in my call.
Speaker 4 (23:00):
But that's oh, that's the expl But that's always the problem, right,
So you're forced to argue from the exceptions rather than say,
turn it around and say, should this be in health
insurance plan? Should we be in society be willing to
pay for this for everyone if it's so useful, And
the answer, of course is no, because here's the problem.
The problem is it's going to lead to all of
these incidental findings, all of these false positives, all of
(23:20):
these testing cascades. So if you, as an individual say,
you know what I just this is something that makes
me feel good about myself, go crazy. But as a
population it doesn't work.
Speaker 1 (23:30):
Isn't part of the problem right now? So biotech is
having a not a great time, right There's been no
biotech IPOs in the last year.
Speaker 4 (23:37):
These GLP won things.
Speaker 1 (23:39):
Well, we should discuss the deal in the peptides, but
real quick. But so there haven't been these advancements in
medicine that we have expected, but there have been these
private company versions of it. So you get these stories.
It's like goes back to what we're talking about earlier.
You get these stories of people are like, I know
a guy on a podcast who knew a guy who
(24:00):
found a golf ball sized tumor and is weird looking
colon and then it just and so that is it's
kind of filling a void. Is that accurate?
Speaker 4 (24:08):
Yeah? I think that's I hadn't thought of it that way,
but I think that's interesting way of thinking about it
is that people feel like in every other walk of life,
I'm seeing this constant pace of innovation. Why are you
biotech people keeping it from me? Right? I Worris the
chat j GPT of life sciences. I need I need more stuff, right,
And so people are hungry for it. They find it
because there is a constant flow of things. It's just
it's mostly low evidence, small sample sized, low effect, you know,
(24:30):
low size, and what happened.
Speaker 3 (24:32):
So that's that getting back to your original when we
first got started, you know, hey, what's going on with us?
It's peptide stuff I'm hearing about. People are so people
are hearing it because their friends are taking.
Speaker 2 (24:44):
Them for all manner of things.
Speaker 3 (24:47):
They don't have any idea what they do, but they've
heard they're great and people we should be taking them,
I mean for pain, for recovery, for ated, for like
you name it. And there's so much misinformation out there
about them. Meanwhile, the studies on these things particularly are
super small, super yeah, super small sample size, lots of them,
(25:10):
mostly in Eastern Europe so far, not really in the US.
So not that there's anything wrong. Look, I'm not there's
nothing wrong with Eastern Europe. There's some very's terrific. There's
some very fine people over there.
Speaker 2 (25:22):
In Eastern Europe.
Speaker 3 (25:24):
Editor castle, terrific, castles, vampires, they've got they've got it all.
But you'll see the missing. I was leaving a rest
This is seared into my brain. Was leaving a restaurant
the other day in Manhattan, and as I'm walking out,
this guy is talking to the three other people at
his table and says, well, growth hormone and HGH, that's
(25:48):
all peptides now, And I left thinking, Yeah, that couldn't go,
couldn't That's gonna go very badly for some people it's
all getting Yeah, there's like as if it's as if
these things are a rebrand of HGH. You know, like
what so you wonder like how did how did you
(26:09):
get how did you get there?
Speaker 4 (26:11):
But I think some of it one of the things
that I find really interesting. And there's been some interesting
stuff lately about this, But how lifespan the increase in
human lifespan is sort of a rest It's not growing
as much as it was mid century for a whole
bunch of different reasons. And but the amount of time
people spend ill towards the end of their lives is growing, right,
(26:32):
So this is more called the morbidity versus mortality. Probably
when you diversus how how crappy you feel for the
last x many years? And people see that we're going
to live in an aging population, And I think one
of the light and fears people I need to do
something to prevent that from happening to me.
Speaker 3 (26:46):
I don't want the last twenty years. I don't want
to see me hobbling around on fourteen different medicine.
Speaker 4 (26:51):
And yeah, so some of that is this feeling like
there must be something medicine can do, even if it
can't increase my lifespan. There must be something we can
do about spending the last twenty years in ill health.
And so that's part of the hunger for these kinds
of things. Yeah, I mean.
Speaker 1 (27:04):
And it's also everything's a meme. We've talked about this before,
but like everything's a meme and it's all we see
one thing and then it becomes that it spreads on
TikTok and Instagram and this, that and the other, and
that's how everyone gets their information. And there's there's no
decided upon agreement of what is real and what is not,
and so it's all play well.
Speaker 4 (27:25):
And it's also that there's only about three things that
move the needle in terms of actually human health.
Speaker 3 (27:31):
Right, which are, let me guess someone's going to be nutrition,
sleep exercise.
Speaker 4 (27:35):
Nutrition, sleep, exercise, and then I may be a distant
Fourth is having a good circle of friends, right, And
that's it. Those are the high evidence things that have
moved the needle the most with respectex or with respect
to human health. And people don't like any of those.
I don't have that much control over my sleep. I
hate eating that crappy food you keep trying to make
me eat. Don't even try to make me run, and
(27:55):
most of my friends are idiots, so it's like, screw it,
I want peptids, right.
Speaker 2 (27:59):
Yeah, you know, or could do some of those new peptids.
Speaker 4 (28:03):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, this is an easy decision.
Speaker 1 (28:29):
Going back to what you were just saying about life expectancy,
why is is it slowed down because somebody you're taking
the average from all these people that have died from
fentanyl and covid and things like that, or is it
slowed down for everyone?
Speaker 4 (28:43):
No, it's slowed down across the board. It's partly though,
because there was this dramatic effect. Both covid and fentanyl
had a huge effect on us lifespans in terms of
the aggregate figure. That's true, but the bigger issue was
that most of the gains is the story that medicine
doesn't tell very well, but most of the gains in
longevity in the last hundred years were a single which
was reduced infant mortality, and so that fed into the
(29:05):
entire statistics. So once we brought into mortality down to
basically zero, I mean, very very low levels, that led
to much longer aggregate figures in terms of total lifetime
because people weren't dying in the first two years of life,
and you don't get that gain twice, right, And it's
a similar story to a lesser degree. With antibiotics, we
don't get that game twice. So then you're left with
(29:25):
what do we do at the end of life? Maybe
we just load people with peptides.
Speaker 1 (29:28):
And hope I've remectin.
Speaker 4 (29:30):
So that's it is that it's kind of a confusion
about where gains and mortality came from. That they mostly
came at the front end of the curve.
Speaker 3 (29:37):
So we can we also make sure I also want
to talk about like things that actually work in ways
and exercise exercise regimens. One of the things I've noticed
as as I've gotten older is my exercise regiment has
changed from I used to just lift weights four days
a week and then run two days a week or
(29:59):
psych you know, cardio two days a week, live four
days a week, and I've migrated to still doing a
bunch of resistance training and weights, but adding in mobility work, and.
Speaker 1 (30:10):
Uh, what's mobility work?
Speaker 2 (30:11):
What's like flexibility mobility work?
Speaker 3 (30:13):
Making sure you know coil squats, not just doing weighted
back squats or front squats, but like the coil Squad,
Dragon squats, single egg squad love the dragon squat.
Speaker 2 (30:25):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (30:28):
Squad.
Speaker 2 (30:29):
I mean, I'm not gonna get up and demonstrate it
right now, although.
Speaker 3 (30:31):
I could imagine you're like, basically it's basically thoracic rotation
of your spine as you as you do a single
egg squat into it on YouTube channel. You can see
it all on my listen. Just subscribe to my only
fans Coil Squad account and you'll be fun No, but
(30:52):
so so it's I think there's you know, it's funny
as this former huge crossfitter guy from ten years ago
doing his you know, you see these fitness bros always
doing the age is just a number. I'm like, yeah,
wait till you get to sixty and it turns out
it's a little more than just a number. You know,
I'm still doing the my same amount of burpies and like,
(31:15):
you know, and just keep on doing that stuff and
or doing the one you know, I only go to pilates,
or I only go to soul cycle, or I only
go to berries. Like that constant, constant repetition of just
doing the same few things, even though it seems like no,
we do four or five different things.
Speaker 2 (31:30):
In berries. You really have to vary.
Speaker 3 (31:32):
Or should be varying your work out much much more
than that, or sooner or later you're gonna get injured.
Speaker 1 (31:38):
Yeah, why is it? How do you get injured sooner
or later from doing the same thing over and over?
Speaker 3 (31:41):
Isn't your body just you're activating the same muscles and
not activating other muscles. And you know, it's the same
thing as like go run on pavement, you know, for
every day for five years, and then go run in
the sand.
Speaker 2 (31:55):
You're like, oh, wait a minute. Now, it's like I think, and.
Speaker 4 (31:58):
It's like all your emotions are like in line. And
let's say you're always running or cycling and then suddenly
I have to jump sideways to do something. I'm a
good right tear doctor.
Speaker 3 (32:06):
Do tons of tons, do tons of lateral lateral movement
work now, which is great for tennis. And if you
don't do that and you're just running, oh, I don't
know what happened. I'm in great cardio shape, and then
I went to play tennis and I tore my achilles. Yeah,
you're not doing any lateral movement work. So that kind
of mobility work. I'm doing a lot of reflex work
now just to keep my you know, hand eye coordination,
(32:26):
stuff like drop this town of ball, you know, catch
you at the other hand, all that stuff.
Speaker 4 (32:31):
Nick, just look at all the stuff does.
Speaker 1 (32:33):
Literally I'm looking at you and I'm like, the fuck
is he talking? Drop tennis?
Speaker 2 (32:40):
Reaction work? It's I mean, it's.
Speaker 3 (32:43):
Great, it's it's also scary when you haven't done reaction
work and reflex work, and then you do it for
the first few times and you realize, wait a minute,
I gotta do that again my left I didn't do
it right on my left hand that time. And then
you realize, oh, I'm naturally a lot slow or in
mental and physical reactions totally from my left side, then
(33:04):
my right side.
Speaker 2 (33:05):
What it's crazy.
Speaker 3 (33:07):
You're like, it's it's and then you know, you get
better and better and better. But if you don't do
any of that stuff, then you're eighty two years old
and you go down the stairs and your trip and
you like, why didn't I grasp Why I wasn't able
to grasp the handrail fast enough on my left hand?
Speaker 4 (33:20):
Everything happened too fast?
Speaker 1 (33:21):
Yeah, And then and then there's that statistic. I think
you told us that if you if you fall. What
eighty five or under eighty five you're dead essentially over
eighty but yeah, over eighty dip in the hospital, right,
you had to get in.
Speaker 4 (33:32):
It's this.
Speaker 3 (33:32):
Then you're in the Then you're in the death spiral of
literal death spiral of I'm in the hospital. I can't move,
my muscles are acting more.
Speaker 2 (33:40):
You know.
Speaker 4 (33:41):
Yeah, you get in this cascade of problems right when
suddenly it's not the fall that killed you. It'll be
some secondary infection like pneumonia or whatever else. Because your
system's activated to deal with one problem and it doesn't
have enough capacity to deal with two, and the second
one the second one gets here, right. That's the thing though,
I mean, in all this stuff, which is crazy, is
that people are so desperate to avoid doing things that work.
(34:01):
That's that's the part that I find. Really.
Speaker 3 (34:05):
It's not like nobody wants to I'm going to go
into aquanox in my allo you know, gear and do
mobility work. Like, no, dude, I'm going to like go
in and bench two plates. You know, I'm going to
go in and do like military style strict pull ups.
You're not gonna go do mobility work.
Speaker 1 (34:23):
I go and oil.
Speaker 4 (34:25):
Coils on your YouTube, on your YouTube channel.
Speaker 1 (34:28):
My YouTube channel, on my own fans. Wait, I have
a question, So if we so we've seen all these
technological advancements in every form of our life. It's robots
delivering food. I actually ordered food from a robot the
other day. It fell over. I had to rescue it. Literally,
it tipped. I was so excited that it was. I
was getting my first po like around the corner. I
(34:48):
was so excited. I was filming because I knew the
kids would want to see it.
Speaker 2 (34:51):
And I was sitting there filming and take a fast turn.
Speaker 1 (34:54):
Don't know what happened. It was on the side anymore,
it fell over.
Speaker 4 (34:56):
It's one of those ways.
Speaker 1 (34:58):
I have a photo I can show you. Guys.
Speaker 4 (34:59):
It was.
Speaker 2 (35:00):
You're going to be prosecuted for tipping the robot over.
Speaker 4 (35:02):
I've heard about.
Speaker 1 (35:03):
And I was sitting there and I'm waiting, and five
minutes goes by, and six and I'm like, what the
fuck is going on? And I walk over and there
it is. It's like on its side and it's like
help me, I can't get up. And I helped it
up and then it just and then I had to
walk back with it to my house because it wouldn't
give me the food on the street. I had to
follow it. So well, yeah, anyway, of.
Speaker 2 (35:21):
Course it's not going to give you the food on
the street. You could be anybody.
Speaker 4 (35:23):
Where are you going with this?
Speaker 1 (35:24):
I'm just saying, so the driverless cards, there's robots that
can almost deliver our food. That we've got l ll ms.
We've got all these technologies and yet we haven't had
like a a new more mortality Texans.
Speaker 3 (35:39):
Like, I'm saying, there are all these advances, and yet
in human health, what have you done for me lately?
Speaker 5 (35:45):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (35:45):
But why why have there been no advance when there
But then okay, if there have, why are we not
living longer?
Speaker 4 (35:53):
Well, because that's a different problem. So human mortality is
evolution came out. It didn't doesn't need us after we
after we have kids, right, So all of the problems
we're having right now are largely because they were never
selected against. Because by the time we reach the ages
that we have all of the diseases, heart diseases and cancer,
we were all dead by this.
Speaker 3 (36:11):
Yeah, the kids are off and running around in the
forest and collecting barriers on their own.
Speaker 4 (36:16):
You died at age forty five historic it didn't matter,
and so evolution never selected against those genes. So we're
the byproduct of that. We're carrying a whole bunch of things,
some of which were probably good for us whenever we
were younger, that are now maladaptive, that are now going
to cause these problems, and evolution doesn't care. So you're
fighting that force, which is just a really difficult force
to fight against that you shouldn't be alive.
Speaker 1 (36:38):
And yet we have all these like the Brian Johnson's
of the world that believe that they can stop right right.
Speaker 3 (36:45):
I mean, by the way, I'm taking the other side
of that, that lust one that they're not.
Speaker 2 (36:49):
Going to be death there somewhere somewhere in there.
Speaker 3 (36:53):
It's covering so there I might not be tomorrow, but
there's going to be a little death, yeah, at least one.
Speaker 4 (37:01):
But that instinct and we've talked about this before, but
that instinct towards you know, whether it's the don't die
movement or the biology science will save us, or I'll
live forever through my legacy, this is you know, as
long as it's been modern humans three hundred thousand years plus,
that's instinct his existence. So it's no particular surprise that
that continues. And whether it's Brian Johnson or whoever else,
(37:22):
it's just what people refuse to recognize as the forces
they're fighting against, which is that we're at a point
now where most of the things we want to fight
against are things that evolution ever selected against. So it's
wired throughout us, and that's wh you're get into this
issue where people start doing things like it'll sell senescence treatments,
these idea that we can treat cells so they don't
die as quickly and then don't become a burden on
(37:42):
the body for more information that actually that has other problems,
So you're treatments increasingly have side effects that metigate against
them actually working because the system itself is our decrepitudes
kind of built in.
Speaker 1 (37:56):
So what you're saying is we're just all going to die.
Speaker 4 (37:58):
Yeah, I know that's a shocker.
Speaker 1 (37:59):
But should we move on to our media of the week. Yes,
let's uh, Paul, you want to start.
Speaker 4 (38:09):
Well, I was talking earlier about how I was saying
one of my I was thinking about this in the
context of Frankenstein and some of the monster movies that
are out right now that this is this idea of
increasingly looking at these from the standpoint of the monster.
And this has become a thing, as in my single
favorite book of that kind, which I just finished rereading recently,
is John Gardner's Grendel, which is I guess, kind of
(38:30):
the og of those sorts of books in that it
took the perspective of the monster intell retelling the story
of Baiowulf from the standpoint of Grendel.
Speaker 1 (38:39):
I haven't read it well.
Speaker 4 (38:41):
Gardner is an absolutely tremendous writer, So just from this
pure standpoint of writerly craft, he's up there for me
with Carmick McCarthy, like he is generally one of the
greatest writers in English language. What I like about Grendel
is that it's not just this, hey, here's a fresh perspective.
I'm going to look at it from the standpoint of
the monster. Is the monster becomes so much more interesting
(39:02):
than any of the main characters, well then Beowulf, who's
not particularly interesting in the first place, but then anyone
else in it. And he's not just sympathetic and did
he write it, do you know? Fifty eight?
Speaker 5 (39:11):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (39:11):
And this is literally the og villain origin story, right
I'm gonna do this take from the perspective of the monster.
Speaker 4 (39:19):
The monster.
Speaker 2 (39:19):
It's it's the first kind of way before the movies.
We're doing this. It's the og villain origin story. When
I read it, don't worry about it.
Speaker 4 (39:28):
Way before like Wicked and all these That's that's not
quite interesting. Is all of this stuff has now become like,
if you think about it, people mining IP. Your industry
mining IP to get create news that actually gardeners Now.
Speaker 1 (39:39):
It's my industry. Like I'm I'm the one.
Speaker 2 (39:41):
You are, You're the representative in our local rep.
Speaker 1 (39:45):
Your guys industries are way worse than mine.
Speaker 4 (39:47):
Is this the we're on it?
Speaker 5 (39:48):
Now?
Speaker 4 (39:48):
Whose industry is the worst? This is the bottom? All right?
It's all bad? So that's what That's what I like
is it was an the Og versus that is a
wonderful writer. And the strangest thing about it all for
me is it is completely neglected. It's like you literally
bring it up in people who.
Speaker 1 (40:04):
I've read a million books. I haven't read it. So
there you go, boom read it.
Speaker 3 (40:09):
What do you got a mine? Is Ford maddox Ford's
The Good Soldier. It might be the saddest book ever.
But it's basically, you know, short story, short about two couples.
From the perspective of the narrator.
Speaker 2 (40:25):
Was one of the men and one of the couples
John Dowell, I think his first name is John. His
name is Dowe Dell.
Speaker 3 (40:30):
And hidden vulnerabilities and affairs are revealed, resulting in madness
and despair and suicide. Yeah soon with a big with
a big closing number.
Speaker 4 (40:42):
And it's but it's it's a wonderful book. One of
the things fantastic that I love about that book, and
I love it about Ford Maddix Ford in general, is
that he again this is the og stuff. He was
kind of the o g unreliable narrator guy. Everything you
learn seems completely straightforward and trustworthy. But it becomes clear
that without no spoilers that lots of is completely unreliable.
That's right, but told in a way that seems completely
(41:03):
accurate and true. And so this this idea of this
rug pull of I don't actually know any more what
the truth is in this story. And that's which is
true and almost in any sort of greed a couple's relationships.
Speaker 2 (41:13):
Also great name Ford, Maddox Ford, love that name.
Speaker 4 (41:17):
Yeah, it sounds like something from The Hitchhiker's Guide to
the Galaxy.
Speaker 3 (41:20):
Yeah, or it's just a really cool name. I think
if your name is Ford Madox Ford, you get to
do whatever you want.
Speaker 4 (41:25):
Or you should do car commercials. Yeah, part Maddox Sword
here with the latest to.
Speaker 3 (41:32):
Ford Ford Manx words for it doesn't work really, there's
too many for it. There's a third Ford. It's got
to be Ford Maddox Sports Chevrolet Dealership.
Speaker 1 (41:41):
Which mine is. I just read Jordan Harper's she writes Shotgun.
It's not it's just a it's like a modern book.
It's like a good it's just a really fun they're
making it into a movie right now.
Speaker 2 (41:53):
Of course it reads like a movie.
Speaker 1 (41:55):
It reads like a movie.
Speaker 4 (41:56):
It's uh, it's the genre or whatever.
Speaker 1 (41:59):
How would you just have this genre?
Speaker 2 (42:00):
Is it?
Speaker 1 (42:00):
Like it's kind of like an el Roy kind of
but it's very cinematic and uh, I just read it
in like a.
Speaker 2 (42:12):
Very cinematic like a like a Elmore Leonard book kind of.
Speaker 1 (42:16):
Yeah, it's set where set in l A remember, Yeah,
it's set in La Korea town and something like that.
It's a it's a really fun I can see. It's gonna.
I think it'll be a great movie. But it's just
a fun page turner and these characters and you're and
you're kind of rooting for this right for them, for
this girl to you know, I can't. I don't want
(42:38):
to give it away. It's a really good you'll like it,
I think, oh you'll hate it, probably actually, so I
hate it.
Speaker 4 (42:43):
I hate uh, maybe you like it.
Speaker 1 (42:45):
I don't know.
Speaker 4 (42:45):
I love so. I'm it's a little pulpy, yeah, no,
but I love Elmore Lemard Leonard l Roy, uh dashal Hammett.
Speaker 1 (42:54):
I tried to read, uh, that Raymond Chandler book that
you recommended, little sister. I did not like it.
Speaker 2 (43:00):
Come on, not like god, oh god, it was something
wrong with you.
Speaker 1 (43:05):
So painful, no taste. All right, all right, that's a wrap.
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