In this insightful episode, I am honored to welcome Rainger Haslam, a fervent advocate for science-based health information and a critical voice against the spread of misinformation in the health and wellness community. With a background deeply rooted in the scientific study of nutrition and health, Rainger brings a critical eye to the often murky waters of health claims made by influencers.
Rainger dissects the misconceptions surrounding seed oils and cholesterol, offering a clear, evidence-based viewpoint on their roles and impacts on health. By challenging widely held beliefs propagated by health influencers, he sheds light on the importance of understanding the science behind health claims. Rainger's approach emphasizes the necessity of critical thinking and the value of scientific literacy in evaluating the barrage of health information faced by consumers today. This episode not only clarifies common health myths but also inspires listeners to adopt a more skeptical and informed approach to health advice found online.
The dialogue with Rainger is an essential listen for anyone looking to sift through the noise of health trends and find credible, science-backed information. His message is clear: knowledge, skepticism, and the willingness to engage with genuine scientific research are key to navigating the vast and often conflicting health advice available. Join us for this enlightening conversation that bridges the gap between complex scientific concepts and practical, everyday health decisions.
Key Points From This Episode:
Curiosity in today's society [00:06:19]
Searching for accessible information [00:09:17]
Using technology to reduce screen time [00:12:11]
The standard American diet [00:21:11]
Making science engaging [00:24:08]
Science and medicine being sexy [00:28:01]
Liability in health influencer advice [00:31:14]
The risk of gaining followers [00:36:41]
Health influencers and credibility [00:39:23]
Seed oils and their processing [00:47:09]
Familial hypercholesterolemia [00:58:08]
Misinformation in health advice [01:03:48]
Citizen scientists [01:10:37]
Looking to discover your science and optimize your life?
APPLY FOR HEALTH OPTIMIZATION COACHING
https://calendly.com/andrespreschel/intro-call-with-andres
Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:
Click HERE to save on BiOptimizers Magnesium
People
Books and References
In this insightful episode, I am honored to welcome Rainger Haslam, a fervent advocate for science-based health information and a critical voice against the spread of misinformation in the health and wellness community. With a background deeply rooted in the scientific study of nutrition and health, Rainger brings a critical eye to the often murky waters of health claims made by influencers.
Rainger dissects the misconceptions surrounding seed oils and cholesterol, offering a clear, evidence-based viewpoint on their roles and impacts on health. By challenging widely held beliefs propagated by health influencers, he sheds light on the importance of understanding the science behind health claims. Rainger's approach emphasizes the necessity of critical thinking and the value of scientific literacy in evaluating the barrage of health information faced by consumers today. This episode not only clarifies common health myths but also inspires listeners to adopt a more skeptical and informed approach to health advice found online.
The dialogue with Rainger is an essential listen for anyone looking to sift through the noise of health trends and find credible, science-backed information. His message is clear: knowledge, skepticism, and the willingness to engage with genuine scientific research are key to navigating the vast and often conflicting health advice available. Join us for this enlightening conversation that bridges the gap between complex scientific concepts and practical, everyday health decisions.
Key Points From This Episode:
Curiosity in today's society [00:06:19]
Searching for accessible information [00:09:17]
Using technology to reduce screen time [00:12:11]
The standard American diet [00:21:11]
Making science engaging [00:24:08]
Science and medicine being sexy [00:28:01]
Liability in health influencer advice [00:31:14]
The risk of gaining followers [00:36:41]
Health influencers and credibility [00:39:23]
Seed oils and their processing [00:47:09]
Familial hypercholesterolemia [00:58:08]
Misinformation in health advice [01:03:48]
Citizen scientists [01:10:37]
Looking to discover your science and optimize your life?
APPLY FOR HEALTH OPTIMIZATION COACHING
https://calendly.com/andrespreschel/intro-call-with-andres
Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:
Click HERE to save on BiOptimizers Magnesium
People
Books and References
Andres Preschel: I would rather be a big fish in a small pond and just instead of working to have a wider and a bigger audience, just have more of the right people that I can help in a way that really speaks to my super specific knowledge and area of expertise. Like that's like I want people to trickle in, but I want the right people to trickle in. There is only one supplement that I think almost everyone on this planet should be taking and that's a full-spectrum and highly bioavailable magnesium supplement because, well, let's face it, ever since the industrial revolution, our soil has been depleted. of magnesium and therefore our food is depleted of magnesium and on top of that our modern environments which are inherently overstimulating and stressful are constantly depleting our body of magnesium and unlike other nutrients this is not something your body can produce on its own it literally needs to get it from the diet. And one individual kind of magnesium alone is not enough. You actually need seven different kinds to support over 300 biochemical reactions that help regulate your nervous system, red blood cell production, energy production, managing stress and emotions, etc. And so the folks at Bioptimizers have made it very easy and convenient to add back in what the modern world leaves out. They've created Magnesium Breakthrough. Now I've been taking this for the past two years and the biggest benefits that I've seen are related to my evening wind down sessions and my sleep. I tend to be pretty overactive in the evenings, just totally overthinking everything that I do. And this has helped me wind down and get more restorative, more efficient to sleep. So I wake up feeling way more refreshed, more energized, more clear, more ready for the day. And the way that I see it, sleep is upstream of essentially every other health and wellness related habit and decision. Because if you're sleeping better, automatically you're going to have more regular cravings, you're going to have higher insulin sensitivity, you can derive more of all these inputs like fitness, right? You make more gains, you gain more muscle, you burn more calories, and you wake up feeling refreshed so that you can do it again and again and again, and then beyond the fitness you have more energy to go for a walk, to do fun activities with friends, you are less stressed so you can socialize anxiety-free, and you're also going to be retaining, refreshing, and refining your skills and information much, much better so you won't forget any names. And, yeah, I mean, like I said, over 300 chemical processes that you're supporting with magnesium. And sleep, I mean, wow, better sleep is just a better life in general. So, I found that extremely helpful on a personal level, and I'm sure that you guys will find it helpful too. Your mind and body, and maybe even your spirit will thank you. So anyway, if you want to get a sweet little discount off of this amazing, amazing magnesium supplement from Bioptimizers, all you have to do is visit the show notes. So you scroll down right now, takes just a couple seconds and boom, you'll have access to all seven different kinds of magnesium that your body needs. All you have to do is hit the link and use code KYP from Know Your Physio. KYP. That's all. Enjoy 10 to 22% off depending on the package you choose, whether or not you subscribe. I'm obviously subscribed because I don't even want to think about whether or not I'm going to get this essential supplement in the mail. And yeah, hope you guys enjoy that awesome stuff. And that's all for now. I'll see you guys on the show. Well, hey, Ranger, it's been a long time coming. I've been wanting to have you on the show for several reasons. I'd say among them, while you're a critical member of our NeuroPhysio gentlemen's community on WhatsApp, you have a really good radar for BS in the literature and the novelty and the novel claims people make that typically Get the views but don't necessarily do the research justice. So I appreciate you being a warrior not just in your the way that you carry your life and on a personal and professional level, but also in our intimate community of gentlemen where you make sure that we're Dialed in with the science. So thank you for being a skeptical scientist. Thank you for being a real scientist and for Showing us just how boring science, real science can be, but by definition, how efficacious it is when we actually focus on the outcomes and the procedures. So thank you for your hard work and thank you for the good vibes, man. Welcome to the show.
Rainger Haslam: Yeah, thank you for having me. I'm really grateful to be able to have this opportunity to kind of share my perspective with people and be interviewed by somebody for a change. I don't run a podcast, but I tend to be a very nitpicky question asker. And so I tend to find myself interviewing people, whether it's somebody on the side of the street or, you know, a great mentor that I've come across. I like to ask questions.
Andres Preschel: Awesome, man. And I think probably the number one prerequisite to driving as much value from science, from this podcast. And honestly, I even consider this the number one prerequisite for the clients who want to work with me. And that's to be curious. Because it's in being curious that we continue to learn, where the learning process is ongoing. And the scientific literature is always evolving. And unless you're curious, you're not going to evolve with it. And so thank you for being a curious guy and for helping inspire hopefully the next generation of curiosity or in current generations, further curiosity.
Rainger Haslam: Yeah, man, I completely agree. I think life without curiosity is a very boring life. I think that's why I tend to push back on a lot of misinformation is not because it is frustrating to hear people say things that are just completely off base. But if you were just to take everything at face value, how boring would life be if you didn't get a chance to at least experience it in another way by questioning, by asking? That's why kids, you know, when they're learning, they ask everything, even if it's just why after, you know, why, why, why, why, why, why, why? They're experiencing by asking a question, building that curiosity and diving deeper. So I love curiosity, man.
Andres Preschel: Why do you think most adults don't get to provoke curiosity like kids do?
Rainger Haslam: This is to me a more cultural issue that I think we face in the States quite a bit. And I think curiosity just isn't generated at the level that it used to be. Everything is very at the tip of your fingertips. So if I don't know what a type of plane is, I can Google what a type of plane is and figure out intricate parts of it. So it's like that information is really easy to get. And there's not really a nudging forward for somebody to build a curious mind in today's society when you have an iPad at your fingertips or a game that can keep you distracted. So I think as a society and as a culture, we've kind of drifted away from building that curiosity into a culture that appreciates that. And there's still cultures that do that. And there's still some level that happens in the United States. I just think kind of the Amazon culture has changed things quite a bit.
Andres Preschel: Yeah, the instant gratification culture that, it's Amazon, it's dating apps, it's Uber Eats, it's Netflix, it's porn. So much of this instant gratification that takes away from the, anything meaningful, because by definition, anything meaningful is gonna take time, it's gonna take real effort, and that is pretty much the definition of delayed gratification. It's an ongoing effort to reap a big reward, a reward that can hopefully change or upgrade your life or the lives of others or the planet as we know it. At least that to me is what any meaningful effort is. So how do you think, before we dive into some of the scientific stuff and just helping people tuning in be better scientists or at least citizen scientists, what do you think realistically more of us should, can and should do to get the right blend between accessible information and real wisdom and an understanding and appreciation for underlying mechanisms that will reveal more than a Google search.
Rainger Haslam: That's a great question. I think a lot of it starts from the state with which you're searching for. So what I mean by that is, you know, before we begin this podcast, you're into breathwork and breathwork kind of allows you to center yourself and bring you into a state of calmness or open-mindedness. And I think a lot of the time when we search for information, especially as people who use social media, we're typically doing it from a spot of vulnerability. So, when somebody gets onto a page on a social media platform and they see a person with the label doctor that's saying, you know, this thing is going to make you the healthiest person on the face of the planet, they're typically searching for that information in a vulnerable state. So, with the kind of plane example earlier, usually people don't randomly think of planes, they see a plane and they want to know what it is and that's a small sense of vulnerability. But a large sense of vulnerability is being in a state of pain or a state of uneasiness or unknowing or caution. And I think if we can kind of bring ourselves to a center first, you know, what's my bias? How am I looking at this? Am I in a state to interpret information? And starting from there and realizing where you want to end up with that information or how you want to utilize that information is a good step in the right process. A simple thing to do just for the common person, if they're going through social media, is take a deep breath before you get on there. and try and build an intention of what you're going on social media for. Am I doing this for entertainment or am I doing this to learn something? If you're doing this to learn something, then try and come from a place where you're, you know, in one piece, where you're not vulnerable, we're not in pain, where you're not, you know, in a vulnerable state that would lead you to being easily misled. And I think that's one of the greatest things that people can take with them to be able to start dissecting information.
Andres Preschel: That's very well said. And before, so with one of the first things you said, I wanted to kind of pitch in and mention how, you know, nowadays, social media, almost any social media site is like a search engine. And so it's like, not only is the algorithm there to kind of give you what it thinks you want based off your previous history, but it's also there to give you exactly what you think you need. When you're in a state of vulnerability and you need an answer now, and then what happens is typically what pops up at the top of the feed is the most novel Bit of information. It's what the algorithm appeals to based on the interest of the masses and that is a Mean most people don't see this but it's like totally disregards what they actually need to get or feel better and to kind of add to The setting of an intention which you just described there is one way that because it's I think it's really difficult like I like between you and me I Even me I have trouble taking a deep breath before I go on social media. I But you know, it's helped me a lot. And I don't mean to sound like condescending or anything, but what I'm trying to say is like, I'm a pretty health conscious person and I know, or at least I think I know the toll that social media and screen time is having on me. But even then it's difficult for me to do it. Even though I know all the benefits, I know how to do the breath work, it's still difficult. But one thing that's helped me a lot is this app called One.Sec, OneSec. What it does is it helps you build shortcuts into your phone that I mean, let's say you want to go on Instagram For example, it'll like stop you It'll have some kind of intervention whether the screen goes black and then you get to see your reflection and it's like you see how dumb you look Or it's like one of them is like you take your finger and you kind of follow a dot around the screen Another one actually has you do breath work like breathe in breathe out. Anyway, there's all these interventions You can adjust the time of the intervention. So it's you know between one second. I don't know 60 seconds and then after you've Gotten through the intervention. It actually asks you. Okay, what's your intention and going on social media? It has a bunch of like You know a bunch of things that are filled out like let's say you're sitting on the toilet or you just want to I don't know laugh or you want to be productive then you can you know input your own Unique intention. The point is that it kind of forces you to pause like once you actually download the app There's no way around it there's really nothing you can do and you can set limits for certain times of the day basically like That has helped me a lot. And then on top of that, it gives you objective data that shows you in fact how much time you're saving, because it actually will then count the interventions like once your brain starts to know that it has to kind of get over a hurdle to get on the social to get your quick hit of dopamine. You're less likely to do it as often a lot of us get into this like Unconscious loop of like we go on our phone to check something some notification. We're on our phones now. Oh my god might as well check Instagram right and it becomes it's like at least for me and for the people that I've seen like this unconscious like mindless like just going into every app on your phone and Anyway, I think this is really helpful. I highly recommend it.
Rainger Haslam: But back to you. I think that's a salient point. Social media is a double-edged sword and technology itself is a double-edged sword and we don't really know the scopes and the bounds of that quite yet. But imagine if in day-to-day life you had something like that app that can help you take pause before you hear a great example of that app is, you know, you're taking a pause before you're going on social media, just some sort of barrier to be able to have a moment to understand, you know, what you're going in to do. And I'm not a social media app technology expert, but I think that's a trending topic in health that needs to be talked about more. So maybe have somebody else on the podcast who's a lot more in depth with that, but I definitely feel that both the benefits and the cons of it for sure.
Andres Preschel: Definitely, and I think a lot of it comes down to like like what if we think about why do we even have to set an intention to begin with right like I'm sure there's all Different ways that are you know in the next few months or years? There's gonna be so many different ways for us to Set an intention before we go online But then let's think why do we even why have we even gotten there? Like why are we at that point? Which is a whole other question to unpack and I think honestly one of the best ways to unpack it is by having several people on the show that can speak intelligently on everything from dopamine like neuroscientists specialized dopamine to people that specialize in addiction to all kinds of psychologists behavioral psychologists Maybe even some of the app developers themselves people that understand the influence that blue light has in keeping us stimulated and hooked like there's so many different ways that I want to attack this but the reason why Your point I feel so moved to is because I know that this is one of the reasons why we're actually so unhealthy we spend a ludicrous amount of time on our phones a ludicrous amount of energy and and if you look at dopamine for example as Like the molecule of motivation the currency of motivation if you will it's like we're spending it tirelessly Especially in those sensitive hours like the early morning and then late at night you know
Rainger Haslam: Yeah. I have no clue about that stuff. Save that for a neuroscientist. I kind of stick in my own lane of nutrition.
Andres Preschel: But I'll tell you what, as a, as a young and budding scientist like me, I think you can appreciate that while we go in with the intention of like learning something useful, we are often, um, we are often, uh, uh, how'd I put this? Um, discouraged by what we see. We're often left frustrated. And instead of maybe contributing something meaningful, I don't know. I mean, it can be frustrating. It can be frustrating. A lot of people just are so emotional going online. They become keyboard warriors. There isn't a constructive way or an intentional way to have this kind of conversation and help people get the best of both worlds. Anyway, I digress. I would love to focus in on some topics where you really shine. So why don't you tell us a little bit about some of the ways that you hope as a scientist to do the research justice?
Rainger Haslam: So that's a good question and a loaded question. And I think it you know, this might be a running theme of the conversation. I mean, that whole intro is kind of just leading almost to the same point where we tend to think of things in certain lanes or specifics. So if, for nutrition example, so going back to kind of what I know best, I studied nutrition at a college of sciences and, you know, my background was a personal trainer and did that for many years and have always been drawn towards it. When we get information from either a governing body or from some place saying that they're using science to make influential statements across a population, a lot of the times, some of those may not work out. So I think the biggest thing that comes to my mind, at least, is calories in, calories out. That is the trueness of science. If you want to lose weight, you have to reduce calories. There's no way around that. There's no insulin model that has come up to that and taken it out. But oftentimes it's not a really good public application for changing somebody's health. And sometimes, you know, knowledge isn't necessarily the thing that can change someone's health. Just because you know something, like you said with your phone example, doesn't mean that you actually do it. It's just how do we lay those things into place? So in terms of giving the research justice, it's by first understanding what do we use research for? So what we use research for is to kind of discover and explain processes that can then lead into public application. And if we just get stuck trying to solve problems in science that aren't being fixed on the public application side, we're just going to keep running this loop where we think we don't know everything or we think we don't need to know. We think we don't know as much as we should when we know enough to actually have the public become healthier, which is not implementing it. So, I think this is a very common trend amongst social media, speaking of right now, when you see health influencers talk about things. You know, we have scientific research that you can read and it can tell you what the outcome will be within a patient, but if you can't apply it, then people in the public think that it's not working. So, another example is like the U.S. Dietary Guidelines. Most people that have issues with the U.S. Dietary Guidelines have A, never read them and B, never followed them. So, I'm at a butcher of this statistic, but it's around 7-8%, or 5-8%, depending on what research you read, that the U.S. population is metabolically healthy. and you look at how many people actually follow within lines of dietary patterns within the U.S. dietary guidelines, and it's about that same exact percentage, about 5-8%. So, when people see this large, you know, 93% of whatever that's not working and we have, you know, 93% of the population that's metabolically unhealthy, they start to think that there's flaws with the science. So, what they try to do, or what most people think should happen, is you try to correct science with new, novel science. And that's where you get a lot of misinformation on the internet, compared to actually looking at the root of the problem. How are we applying this, and how are we making this efficient for people at a population level? So I think in terms of doing the research justice to kind of pull it all together is understanding what research you're looking at and what you're trying to use it for. If you're trying to keep figuring out mechanisms of how omega-3 works, but you can't get a population to eat vegetables and fish, then what's the point? You're just going to be kind of arguing within that space of science and nutrition to have the application fail every time.
Andres Preschel: Right, right, right. And before we unpack some more of that, because it's a fascinating topic, it's like the knowledge itself isn't enough, which is going to bring us inevitably to a controversial theme. We're going to flirt with the borders of controversy, but I think for a good reason. But before we get there, can you be explicit in letting us know whether or not you are or are not subscribing to the Standard American Diet?
Rainger Haslam: Whether I'm subscribing to a standard American diet?
Andres Preschel: Is that what you said? I just wanted to get that clear. Is that what you said earlier? No, no, no. People should actually follow a standard American diet.
Rainger Haslam: Yeah, so the standard, no, people should follow the U.S. dietary guidelines. So if you look at the U.S. dietary guidelines, right?
Andres Preschel: Completely different things that I want to, I just want to make a point here.
Rainger Haslam: Yes, yes. Okay. Standard, the standard American diet is what we typically associate with the 93% that's metabolically unhealthy, right? So the 7% are, remember, these statistics aren't perfect coming from me because it's just recall. So, but the seven to 8% of people who are metabolically healthy, they fall more in lines with the actual U.S. dietary guidelines. So, that would be things like, you know, high whole foods, essentially. High plant and vegetable intake, whole grains, fruits, you know, two to four servings a day, that kind of thing that you see that people tend to complain about online. Whereas 93% of us follow the standard American diet. And that's the morning.
Andres Preschel: Lectins are the root cause of every disease ever in the history of mankind. If it weren't for lectins there, the dinosaurs would still be around.
Rainger Haslam: Lectins, it has nothing to do with McDonald's for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. It just has to do with lectins. That's obvious sarcasm to listeners who are just listening only and can't see our faces.
Andres Preschel: Cool. Okay, so then let's talk about knowledge. Simple facts and information is not enough. There has to be some way to incentivize the knowledge and the value in that research. And a fun way to describe this, me and my team and my fellow people in my network, other young budding citizen scientists and content creators and such, we say we're making science sexy. So what does that mean? That means that we actually tell a story through the things that we're doing and how we're doing them. We try to get people to visualize a lifestyle where this makes sense to them and where it feels like they Are in that rhythm of doing right by their body by their health and it just makes sense to them But also, you know making sure that we're also capitalizing on like, right? What's the algorithm liking as far as how should reels be formatted? And how long should they be and how what color should we use and what kind of fonts should we use and how do we make this? More engaging, right? So there's a way to kind of I think there's a sweet spot where you can find where you can look at the research as a scientist, but then you can also look at, again, as a scientist, the application in order to do it just because that's why the research is around. The research isn't around for people to keyboard warrior all day on Instagram and do nothing differently with their lives. The research is there to actually make a change in your life. So I think that there's a sweet spot in abiding by those, that scientific criteria, but also understanding what do people actually want? How do they want this information to be delivered to them? And that's where, I mean, the spectrum of screwing up, doing it right and screwing up is so vast and so bio-individual and so subjective on both the creator's end and the user-facing end. Just to give you some examples, There is someone in my network, close friend of mine that I've had on the podcast now twice. She's gone viral making science sexy. That's actually, she uses that line as well. Her name is the glucose goddess, Jessie Nchauspe. So she has now, but I have problems with her, so I'm glad that you do so that we can dissect them and show people way, way the pros and cons here. Okay. Um, but the point is that I think, and of course I'm her friend, I have my biases, but I think that. Her overwhelming mission is really changing the planet. And the way that we view science, the way that we apply science, it's making science fun, it's making it engaging. And she's amassed 3.2 million followers. She's a best-selling author. I've seen her grow from 30,000 followers. And I've seen that she's made a huge difference in people's lives. Now, is her focus in the science and the nitty-gritty details, the outcomes, the procedures, as devoted as it was when she was at 30K? It's probably a little different, right? So you might have shifted her gears slightly just to be able to appeal to a larger audience of people that need to make a change. And similarly, if you go back on my Instagram posts, and I'm kind of providing this context. I genuinely want to hear what you have to say, and I want to kind of take you through my perspective real quick. So in my case, if you go back to my oldest Instagram posts, I used to spend over 20 hours on a single post to make one point with all the best research, all the references, everything. I had like 10 slides. I would get so frustrated at Instagram for only having 10 slides, but I would spend 20 hours making those and maybe two people spent greater than 20 seconds looking at the stuff. But however the way I like to see it is at least that if someone scrolls down and wants to see all right How did this guy even get started at least they see that I have somewhat of a backbone and appreciation for science But of course, I I'm gonna admit I've been guilty of misinterpreted Misinterpreting or going abiding by the novelty more than the research Because sometimes I want to help people get a point across or even open up a conversation or a curiosity That maybe then leads someone in the direction of trying to figure out what's right from wrong and what works for me So that's a loaded context, loaded, loaded, loaded. But I know that you specifically, you're a scientist, but you are not an expert in like the social media science as far as the creative process goes. And so I'm just trying to let you know and fill you in on what it looks like on my end. And hopefully together we can find a happy medium where we're making it sexy, but doing the research justice.
Rainger Haslam: I think that's what a lot of this comes down to, is the state of medicine and nutrition and health sciences has not been sexy. It really hasn't. One thing that I'll congratulate influencers on is bringing that aspect and making it digestible as far as the things they say and gaining a lot of traction. There's this kind of If you really conversate with me a lot, I'm not super pro-pharma and I'm not super pro-naturalistic. I try and stay in the middle and figure out what works best because as somebody who's more pragmatic like myself, the goal is to do what works and do it in a way that's sustainable. And one thing that science and medicine, just because of the nature of how it evolves, it just isn't sexy, right? At this point in time, or at least leading up to this point in time, it hasn't necessarily been sexy. We haven't had it like an Einstein type of person in a long time. Even still, these Hubermans or these glucose goddesses, they will say things off base because of exactly what you said. They're very good at selling a narrative. That doesn't mean that all their information is incorrect, but it tends to be when you're selling a narrative, you have to really be conscious of which line you want to follow. And there's different, I guess, spectrums of what this information does. And there is going to be a downside to everything that you say online and social media, whether or not you give 100% accurate information or you just give complete BS just to sell a book or whatever the case may be. And the reason being is because people have to interpret that into whatever they feel is right to their quote unquote truth, which I believe there's no such thing in the world as truth. Everybody has their own feeling of, you know, that's my opinion on truth. Everybody has their own feeling of what they like to digest and ingest for information and use in their lives. So, social media influencers have done a really good job of being a narrator, being a storyteller. But it's on the far end of the spectrum where medicine failed that a lot of the health influencers I see take part. This thing didn't work, so we're going to really push the narrative and stuff that's never been tested or never been looked at and push that narrative on this side. And so, without a doubt, from somebody who's building an academic background, it is so much cooler to hop on and hear, you know, a Huberman's, you know, nice smooth voice and, you know, he just says all the right things and it sounds super cool and he's jacked and looks good. So it's very easy to digest that information versus my professor who's telling me about, you know, mechanisms in class and then explaining to me, okay, does this actually pull out in statistics? Like nobody really wants to talk about confidence intervals online because confidence intervals don't sound cool.
Andres Preschel: Like your whole life is built on confidence intervals. Your whole life. Literally information that you get every structure.
Rainger Haslam: Yep, like you travel everything everything we know and so we can get into the specifics of why I disagree with glucose goddess on a lot of things, but The main point of the story which you're bringing up is and I don't have the perfect answer to so I don't have this answer Formulated yet. I don't think many people in science have this answer formulated and And I think it's kind of being worked out right now on social media with people like Lane Norton and all the other people that kind of call BS on the internet. It's kind of like in this flux of figuring out how do we tell a good story and make science sexy? And we as scientists, if you want to call me that, we don't really have that figured out yet, where influencers do. Now, it's much more difficult when you're coming at things from a scientific perspective, because you have to be accurate. So, somebody like a glucose goddess can say whatever she wants, because she's not, you know, she has no liability. And a lot of where I kind of get upset with people on the internet, when you see somebody like a glucose goddess, a Gary Breka, or people that kind of just spout information with no knowledge of what they're talking about, is that they have no liability. So, if you're in medicine and you hold a doctor's degree, which is what you see with people who are doctors that are on social media that no longer carry their degree, it's because there's consequences. So, without that liability in place, you can make things really sexy. So, I guess the issue moving forward, and you can respond to this, is if there's no liability there, sorry, if there is liability there, how can you make things sexy and digestible in a way that gets information across, that's very easy to follow and very nice and enjoyable to listen to, and have it reduce as much of that risk as much as possible? Because on the far end of the spectrum, you will have people that injure themselves from health influencer advice, so to speak. But you'll still have that with a scientific approach. It's just, we're trying to cut down. We're trying to minimize the risk as much as possible. And I think that's why talking about these things is super important. But go ahead.
Andres Preschel: Yeah, absolutely. And I was going to make a joke and say that, you know what's worse than losing your medical degree? what getting canceled getting canceled by dr ids or elaine norton on instagram yeah that's probably i'm just kidding but but uh i mean maybe maybe some people would say would say that's the case right now in 2024 and where priorities are and you know you see the amount of people that are making a generous living beyond what any doctor could ever dream or at least most doctors ever dream of making by spewing out misinformation, that might be the case.
Rainger Haslam: And let me clarify too, I don't inherently think that every social media influencer is a nasty person, or doing it strictly for money. There's definitely people that are like that, that I have opinions on. But I think everything starts from a place of, they found something that works really well for them, And they want to share that, just like you were talking about. Because there's nothing more important in this life, to my opinion, than having everything that is encompassed in the scope of health, feeling good, having good relationships, having a body that's not in pain, having a body that can function well and help you live to express your highest life or whatever you want to call it. And so they found something that lets them achieve that. And so they think they need to share that with the world. And for example, it's not so much, I wouldn't even say God complex. It's like your natural human instinct is to give back, but things change. Like you say, as you gain followers and you gain traction, you gain money. Now it kind of gets a little hairy and you start thinking, okay, now I'm making good money and I'm helping people. but where does that help actually kind of run out? And that's what I get concerned of with information that goes on the internet is how much of that information is actually going into helping this situation that we're in as the United States of America versus how much of it is harmful. And I think the majority right now is, is very harmful as far as the information that's given out on the internet. And if you want to, we can totally get into like specific claims that people make of like why they're off base and why they can really harm people.
Andres Preschel: Yeah man and I think my stance has changed a lot and just speaking as an influencer and someone who's spent the past five years creating a career from my social media presence. I would have never imagined that at such a young age, I would have the audience that I have, the impact that I've had, or make the income that I make doing what I do. But my perspective on social media has changed a lot. And nowadays, bro, I honestly, and that is motivated to post. And I've never been someone that cared about followers. I know what it takes to have massive following. But that's not interesting enough to me because I see a lot of people sacrificing so much for the sake of getting more likes, more follows, more whatever. They sacrifice a lot of their credibility, they sacrifice their soul, they become sellouts and they just kind of, I don't know, they're not real people anymore. I mean, not to make this too personal, but I'm just less motivated to post because I'm a little more focused now on just being the best that I can be and the most honest I can be for the people that are in my community that are already part of the community that are a little more integral to my mission and what it's all about. I'm not here to try to find every random person all over the world and try to tell them I'm right and that everyone else is wrong. And I think a lot of people online grow from this kind of novelty. But to me, that's just not the way to do it. I'd rather keep it small, niche down and speak to the stuff that I know best and the stuff that is not going to be controversial, but that's not sexy and I'll take it. And you know, yeah.
Rainger Haslam: And I think, you know, with that, with that, um, I guess predicament, you know, the risk goes up, right, as you gain more followers. And so, I think what you're doing is more of a. The bigger you are, the harder you fall. Yep, the thing that you're doing sounds to me more responsible, you know, even though you're not gonna reach a wide audience, you have a little bit more room to play with as far as advice that you're giving and people that can connect with you on a more intimate level, where somebody gains a lot of traction and they have this huge population of people that are following them. So you said, what, three million are following her? So, let's assume that 3 million of those people, that 10% of them actually follow the advice, because we know a lot of them are just kind of there to watch and they don't really do anything with that. But 10% of 3 million is like 300,000. So, you have 300,000 people that have the potential to either be helped or harmed by information that's thrown out lackadaisically. So, I think that's where we get into trouble with social media instead of having more of that community connection and being able to relay things in a way that help our community and our friends think and do better. And that's kind of the point of my mission is to speak to, quote unquote, the community of people that really want to try and push the needle forward. And I don't think we can push the needle forward by you know, super on one side of the health spectrum and super on the medical side of the health spectrum. What do I mean by that? It's like you have doctors that go on social media that say that they can cure disease with diet alone. Like every disease on the face of the planet, they can cure with diet alone. And I've heard multiple doctors say that. And to me, that's It's sad because somebody will take that information and then they will ignore mainstream medical advice and die or not seek out care because Steve Jobs was a great example. So I don't know if you know Steve Jobs' backstory, but I think he died of pancreatic cancer. And even somebody as smart and as intelligent as that, you know, went to one side of the spectrum without considering everything that can happen because it sounded natural and it sounded safe. But when you take the risk of doing nothing is a risk in itself. So by doing nothing and having a healthy diet, he died very early or died from pancreatic cancer that could have possibly been saved through like standardized medicine. So, we need to find a way to kind of weave these things together and bring people together on both sides of the spectrum. A lot of medicine is a lot of a system issue. It's not really a doctor issue that doctors don't know or doctors aren't doing anything. It's just doctors don't have time in the day within 15 minutes of a community of people that need to be seen to have these one-on-one in-depth conversations that people on the far side of the health spectrum will take advantage of and use to sell products or have conversations and coach people in that way. That was kind of a tangent, but I think it's something really important to think about.
Andres Preschel: Yeah, and I think, for example, Huberman is an outlier in the sense that, relatively speaking, he is far more scientific than any other health influencer, at least the vast majority of them. He's not always right. He has his biases. He also has a financial incentive. I mean, he does provide free, no cost to consumer content, but then he also has premium content. He also has affiliate relationships, whatever. I think he's an outlier in the sense that he just, the hand fits the glove perfectly. He has the look, he has the credibility, he has the story. He, the way that he is, he honestly stays humble. Like the guy's jacked and covered in tattoos. When was the last time you saw him posing on social media? Never.
Rainger Haslam: I'm not the biggest fan of Huberman, but I am a fan of Huberman when he stays to his specific domain of science and I think he's really valuable for that.
Andres Preschel: So I was going to say that one thing is when you amass such an audience and you get so many requests because people appreciate the approach that you take to doing the science justice, then you might be motivated, you might have some incentive to go a bit beyond your scope. under the impression that, oh no, but it's the way that I look at things that give me the credibility, but it's also yours to say. Yeah, like your PhD project, you pursue a PhD, you're an expert in something tiny. Of course, you have a deep and intimate relationship with scientific methods, But the scope of what you know is very limited. And the idea is you collaborate with other people and you do something for science that speaks to your specific credibility. But anyway, to kind of just… I don't want to make this about me, but I just want to… Put this put this somewhere so that people tuning into this podcast that know me know why maybe I've been less active and and to kind of go with what you're describing as one of the biggest issues with social media that I've seen as well on the other on not the other side, but Similar background just on the other end and I would rather be a big fish in a small pond and just instead of working to have a wider and a bigger audience, just have more of the right people that I can help in a way that really speaks to my super specific knowledge and area of expertise. Like that's like I want people to trickle in, but I want the right people to trickle in, you know, because that to me, at least to me, and I have my bias and I'm not always right. And I, and I, and I know I fuck up. I know that I fuck up. But I take full responsibility. I know how to say I'm wrong or I don't know. I know how to apologize. I'm not an AI chatbot that can't do any of that. But I'd rather people trickle in than just kind of go by novel claims and spend all my time and energy on what's the most viral content that we can make and how do I start the reel saying, I'm a physiologist and hey, here's novel this and here's what you need to do day by day. And oh, buy my ebook. That to me is so fucking broken. I'm so turned off by it nowadays.
Rainger Haslam: And it's no different than, that's kind of what I feel like I see among social media right now is the same reason why people turned away from medicine in the first place is the same reason that people are turning towards exactly what the health space is doing right now. You know, it's these quick fixes of this kind of Amazon culture of here's something that sounds cool and fancy that's going to fix you really quick, but really it has no effect. And that's kind of how we treated medicine. So I don't think that treating health the same way is going to lead to anywhere sufficient. Um, so I guess that's kind of the motivation of what I like to think about. Um, but we should get into specifics before we run out of time of things. Yeah, let's do it. That's great.
Andres Preschel: Enough about me and my social media and enough about, uh, human and glucose goddess who I love. But, uh, so yeah, let's, let's go ahead and jump into specific examples.
Rainger Haslam: Yeah, I think some good examples for me that I kind of find myself, people that actually ask me that I feel comfortable with talking about is seed oils. We got to talk about seed oils while I'm here. And lipids and cholesterol. I'm very fortunate to have, you know, Thomas Dayspring as a mentor in my life who's been absolutely pivotal in the way I think and the way I want to give back to the community. So I just had to throw him on blast for being an amazing mentor. Who is he? Who is he and what does he do? So Thomas Dayspring used to be a senior editor for the National Lipid Association. He's one of the most well-known lipidologists on the face of the country. He's had, if you've never heard the interviews with him and Simon Hill, that's a really good three-part series between Simon Hill and Thomas Dayspring. Amazing interview. As well as Tom also had a six-part series with Peter Attia on his podcast. Both of them are absolutely phenomenal.
Andres Preschel: Yeah. For those who don't know, um, Simon Hill is a plant based evidence-based scientific, you know, influencer creator, podcaster. Yeah. He's great. I love, he'll have his work.
Rainger Haslam: And so, um, But yeah, those are kind of the two things that I feel comfortable speaking about enough. But I think a lot of the times when I hear influencers say things, and so to Glucose Goddess, she has this thing where she talks about cholesterol in a way that's just dangerous. And then for people talking about seed oils, it's just such a funny conversation because people don't carry any logical consistency with when they talk about seed oils. So, for people that don't know, in the kind of health and fitness space, seed oils, things that come from seeds or plants, vegetable oil, which is also known as soybean oil, have kind of built up to this topic because of what kind of happened from the 70s to the 80s. And so, seed oils were processed in a way back then that we don't process them anymore that actually led to health complications. But nowadays, people think that that process is carrying on because of the kind of historical content of seed oils versus what they are now. So, to give some background, a lot of people in the health and fitness space will say that seed oils are negative because they're high in omega-6, and omega-6 is also correlated with this pathway that we find in atherosclerosis that leads to anything they want you to think, like inflammation, heart disease, and all sorts of things like that. And when you look at the literature as far as like omega-6 and seed oils, it can be kind of confusing because you have to know what question is being asked and what population is being observed. So backtracking yet again, the biggest problem with health influencers is logical consistency. And where they say something like a seed oil is bad, and you have a lot of friends that probably do this that are biohackers. They say seed oils is bad, but then they'll go and inject a non-FDA regulated black market peptide into their ass and say it's healthy. You know, there's no logical consistency as far as risk being taken from somebody who's afraid to eat, you know, oil.
Andres Preschel: And I've been that person. Okay. I've injected things in my body that I didn't know enough about and I don't think the person injecting them knew enough about, but I don't consume seed oils.
Rainger Haslam: Yeah. And it's, it's just, it's, it's this funny thing that you, if you really start to pay attention, you start to realize the flaws that people come to when they think about topics. So seed oils is kind of the big thing and oftentimes on social media there's like this iconic scene of there's like a woman speaking about how you know canola oil is made and so there's like this heavy machinery that they show this kind of like sludge looking you've probably seen it right the sludge that comes out and everybody's like oh gross why would you ever eat seed oils because of how it's processed but like seed oils came to that position because animal fat was not Uh being readily produced around world war ii to have it do the same functions So oils animal fats were before seed oils animal fats are used as machine lubricants So you'll hear this thing on social media don't eat seed oils because they're machine lubricants and they had to change the animal fats were also machine lubricants Animal fats were machine lubricants until about World War II where you could not process enough animal fat to manufacture machines or keep them running. And even today, animal fats are still used as lubricants on machinery. So like tallow, tallow that's not considered usable by the FDA, or sorry, the USDA to go into the food market is still used for pharmaceutical production and for steam rollers. So, heavy machinery is the same use that we had for animal fats that we had for seed oils. But seed oils gets the bad rap because it started off as, you know, really most people's problem I think is like canola and trans fats. And trans fats are a separate issue. So, when we talk of seed oils, in today's culture, when somebody tells you that a seed oil is unhealthy, it's because of a lot of research that was associated with trans fatty acids. So, for people that don't know what trans fatty acids are, there's things called polyunsaturated fats, monounsaturated fats, saturated fats, and then trans saturated or trans fatty acids. So the trans means that there's typically hydrogen added. So if you looked at a molecule of a polyunsaturated acid, basically what you're looking at is this carbon chain with hydrogen sticking out on both sides, but in a polyunsaturated there's typically two carbon to carbon bonds. And those carbon to carbon bonds bend the structure and it makes it more fluid. So when you look at things like olive oil or canola oil or soybean oil, they're fluid at room temperature because of those bends. The bends kind of push other parts of the lipid away and so they're more fluid. You're more hydrophilic. Hydrophobic. Hydrophobic, yes. A monounsaturated is just one carbon to carbon bond. A trans fatty acid is where the carbon to carbon bond is still there, but they add an extra hydrogen so that that bend gets a little bit straighter.
Andres Preschel: So it gives it properties of a saturated fat, extends the shelf life, keeps it more stable at room temperature.
Rainger Haslam: And a saturated fat, what that is, is there's no double bonds of carbons. There's basically just hydrogen carbon, hydrogen carbon, hydrogen carbon, and it's a very straight stack structure. That's why it's solid at room temperature. Things like butter, coconut oil, those things, or sorry, not coconut oil, but like margarine and all those sorts of things that are kind of solid at room temperature are saturated fats.
Andres Preschel: Animal fats. Coconut oil can harden up.
Rainger Haslam: Yes, yeah, yeah, totally. And so, you could still see on the market fully hydrogenated oils because they're no longer trans fats. When you fully hydrogenate an oil, you actually get rid of that carbon-to-carbon bond and you have a saturated fat, so it's not a trans fat. So, trans fat is where you have those hydrogens that are stacked around the carbon-to-carbon bond, but it still remains. Very technical, but the reason that I bring that up is because that trans fat, that adding that hydrogen to the other side of the carbon is usually only done with vegetable and seed oils because animal fats typically are saturated in nature. They don't need hydrogens added to them to make them more straight, stacked and solid at room temperature. So from like the 1960s to the 1970s, you had margarine and everybody knows margarine. It's not butter. It's not butter. It's definitely not butter. And the health implications that came from eating trans fatty acids were detrimental to human health for the same reasons that saturated fat and excess consumption of calories is detrimental to human health, but just to a little bit more higher degree. And all this stuff was figured out through nutritional epidemiology, not randomized controlled trials, which I think that's a big win for nutritional epidemiology. But seed oils nowadays don't contain those saturated fats. And when we use them in humans, we actually see better health outcomes. But this is, you know, with the replacement of saturated fats to seed oils or, you know, saturated fats to polyunsaturated fats is what people typically mention. and there's only health benefits. We never see, you know, maybe in rare cases, but everything has a side effect for some people. We don't see negative health outcomes with people that eat higher amounts of polyunsaturated fats from seed oils. Canola is the biggest offender in people's mind, but if you look at the Norwegian dietary guidelines, they don't use olive oil because, you know, olives don't really grow in that part of the world. They use canola oil and they have very healthy populations, much more than the U.S., and they're more adherent to their nation's dietary guidelines. So, why would we be seeing health in those people from this terrible oil that you should never eat, when we have these populations that are doing good on it? And for me, seed oils is a big contentious topic for no reason. There's no reason to be afraid of seed oils. The biggest contributing factor besides trans fatty acids that lead to negative health outcomes in seed oils is when people eat them with what they're associated with, processed foods, muffins, cereals, crackers, sugars, shit. Can I cuss on this podcast? Yeah, bro, yeah, you're good. You typically find seed oils wound up in these products that are just not good for human health. They don't fall in line with dietary guidelines. The dietary guidelines of the United States don't recommend eating excess consumption of oils, saturated fats, or sugars. They want you to moderate those things. And they don't want you eating processed foods like, you know, sandwiches, McDonald's, or oils that are deep fried for a long time. That's where you will have a seed oil that could be healthy and become a trans fatty acid because of the heating process. So, if you go to McDonald's, yeah, you're going to get trans fats from seed oils, because the fry oil has been in there for God knows how long, and you probably have some worker that's picking their boogers and flicking it in there as well, too. So, that's where it can be a problem. But if you're going to go put a seed oil on your salad, you're probably going to be healthier if you're removing saturated fats from that equation. Another, sorry, last little thing that I always think is funny, going back to both logical consistency and seed oils, is a lot of people will be concerned of the processing of seed oils, because if you're using a refined seed oil, which the US dietary guidelines don't recommend either, they want you to eat unrefined foods. If you use a refined seed oil, a lot of the times you're going to get hexane-extracted oils, and so you hear people talk about hexane extraction, this harmful neurotoxin, which it is, and bleaching and deodorizing, and they don't care any logical consistency into anything else they do because they will use things like herbal supplements or cocoa butter as a common thing that's extracted in those ways. So if those things are produced on a mass scale, they're also extracted the same way that seed oils are, but nobody's complaining about refined cocoa butter or herbal products like essential oils. People will even tell you to ingest them and there's no regulations for hexane on those things or for cocoa butter those but not for essential oils. But people will still use those when there's a limit to how much hexane can be in canola oil which is not damaging to somebody. And bleaching and deodorizing is kind of a process that uses steam. A lot of people hear bleach and they think like bleach the actual stuff that you pour to get stains out of your shirt. It's not that. It's typically like steam or exposing it to heat that kind of takes away from those properties that we wouldn't want on a food scale. So it's kind of a long-winded seed oil thing, but if you have any questions, fire away.
Andres Preschel: Right. So like the bleach noun and bleach verb are two very different things.
Rainger Haslam: Very different. Very different. And people will tell you, you know, you're getting bleach seed oils and whatever, but it's just steaming it to change the color from kind of a yellow to a more opaque, clear fluid.
Andres Preschel: Right. And so, so yeah, I mean, and just like olive oil too, like not all olive oils are made the same, right? Like a lot of people have not made this shift towards olive oil, but then the olive oil ends up being laced with the same shit or it's just like, uh, avocado oil is avocado oil.
Rainger Haslam: If it's not pressed, avocado oil is a big thing that people say you should have over seed oils. But if it's, if it's not pressed, it's produced the same exact ways that canola refined canola oil are produced. Right. There's not a lot of logical consistency with people that are carrying these beliefs. Right. And the whole contentious topic around this is what are these things doing to heart disease, cholesterol, lipids? We're usually, so there's different layers again, there's different layers for determining how harmful something is in medicine or how harmful something is in nutrition. And the difference between like what we use to monitor certain disease states. So the way you can think of this as like causal risk factors versus like a secondary investigating risk factor. So, a great example is like LDL cholesterol is causal in the pathway of atherogenesis and heart disease, but triglycerides are not. They're more of like a secondary risk factor that we think of versus like the actual thing that's causing the event. A lot of people, what they'll say in kind of the nutrition health space that I'm noticing a lot of is like, you don't need to worry about this causal thing, LDL cholesterol, because what's more important is that you're metabolically healthy or you're triglyceride to HDL ratio. False Aladino is a huge offender. Gary Breka is also a huge offender. Glucose Goddess is a huge offender for this. And it's just not the case.
Andres Preschel: So it's like independent of metabolic health. LDL cholesterol will still kill you.
Rainger Haslam: Yes. So, the biggest example that we have or that we use is people with this disease called familial hypercholesterolemia. I myself have this disease and it's something that I deal with and I'm very on top of. And familial hypercholesterolemia is not what we call, it's a phenotypic disease, not a genotypic. And what we mean by that is it's a set of characteristics, it's not a certain gene. There are people that do have a single gene that affects that, but it's more of an influencing of multiple different genes that give you this condition. And people who have familial hypercholesterolemia, whether or not you have the one gene or whether or not you have one of 2,000 genes that can affect this process that have it, they start off life metabolically healthy. The only thing that's wrong with them is their LDL cholesterol or apolipoprotein B. And those numbers are excruciatingly high to the point where these people who have a singular gene die in their 20s to 30s because they're having myocardial infarctions or atherosclerosis. And so, it's a very detrimental disease, but those people are metabolically healthy otherwise. Some people will make the case that, you know, well, it's because of the gene pathway that they're not able to filter it out, and that's what's causing the disease. But the thing is, with causal risk factors is we see them apply to a wide variety of people. So, if I have a causal risk factor like LDL cholesterol, or better yet, apolipoprotein whether or not somebody has a genetic variant or whether or not they influence that marker to be high, both of those groups are at increased risk of further developing disease. And when we look at this thing called Mendelian randomization, where we randomize people by sets of genes rather than, you know, having them go through a trial so we can kind of look back, people who have genes that work in the opposite end of the pathway have better outcomes. So they not only have normal risk, but they also have less incidence and less risk than somebody who would have genes that would lead them to having higher ones. So a causal risk factor is something that can be explained on both ends. If you, you know, in this instance, lower it, it's better. If you raise it, it's worse. But also, when you intervene with a drug on that particular function that the body is trying to utilize, or whether you intervene with nutrition, if it is causal, we will then see that those things will also contribute or reduce risk in those areas. And that's what we see with things like LDL cholesterol. And one of the problems that I had with Glucose Goddess is that she says that it's not the number that matters. It's whether or not you have small particles or large particles. And we should probably back up because I don't think you said that people have talked about lipids on your podcast. But to try and push this into a quick, because I know we're getting close to time here, to push this into a quick synopsis, your body produces this molecule called cholesterol. And this molecule is super important for hormone production, cell membrane function, cell signaling function. It's a vital, essential molecule that we have in our body. but people conflate the fact that, uh, that's why you want it high. But every cell in your body has the ability to produce cholesterol independent of the plasma level of cholesterol. So whether or not… Right.
Andres Preschel: If you're eating less, your body's going to produce more.
Rainger Haslam: Um, the, the dynamics of ingestion are a little tricky. We can get into that another time. But essentially, uh, if you have lower levels of plasma cholesterol, you're not going to be deficient. unless you take it like really low, like five milligrams per deciliter, which is absolutely unheard of. And people will say that plasma cholesterol is important for growth and for testosterone, it's like things that you hear Paula Saladino say. But when you look at children that have low levels of this cholesterol molecule in plasma, their levels are extremely low. So, when you're going through puberty and when you're going through being a baby, you're at like 20 milligrams per deciliter, which is the unit of measurement that we use. So, cholesterol is this molecule that can be made by every individual cell in the body. It is super important, but the stuff that's made in your plasma is a different conversation than the stuff that's found being produced in your cell. The stuff that's in your plasma is typically influenced by diet and what your liver is producing. And when it's producing too high of a level, that's where things become complicated because that cholesterol in the plasma is not helping to create cell membranes. It's getting stuck in your arteries and those arteries essentially for lack of nuance become clogged and you have a thrombotic event and you have a heart attack. Sorry, a lot of information to digest.
Andres Preschel: No, no, no. I would love to explore this topic further with you. You know, what I think would be a lot of fun is bringing Tom on the podcast and doing a three-way where together we can help the folks tuning in make sense of lipidology in a very practical way to make the best decisions about their
Rainger Haslam: We could even try and do that, but I would definitely refer to Tom. Tom is a little exhausted on speaking of this, but his podcast with Simon is a great, great way to start. I think that's, you know, we can always try to do that. And I'd more than love to have him on here and have him come and chit chat with you. But he has already put out like two really good works with Atiyah and Simon Hill that I think it's not necessary. Yeah, two guys that are very thorough.
Andres Preschel: Very thorough podcasters and very, very, very good scientific evidence-based creators as well.
Rainger Haslam: And the whole point of this conversation of being able to flex a little bit of lipidology is that we hear people say things that don't have this understanding of what they're talking about and they're giving information. So where does that lead us? So, if you take somebody's advice about something that's causal and very serious, and you just say, listen, I don't want a glucose spike. Glucose is really bad for my health. So, that's all for today's show.
Andres Preschel: Thank you so much for tuning in today. For all of the show notes, including clickable links to anything and everything that we discussed today, everything from discount codes to videos to research articles, books, tips, tricks, techniques, and of course, to learn more about the guest on today's episode, all you have to do is head to my website, AndresPeruchel.com, that's A-N-D-R-E-S-P-R-E-S-C-H-E-L.com, and go to podcasts.
Andres Preschel: You can also leave your feedback, questions, and suggestions for future episodes, future guests, so on and so forth.
Andres Preschel: Thanks again for tuning in, and I'll see you on the next one. Have a lovely rest of your day. is a whole other topic to explore is, would you say it was chastised? Being chastised by the community that you subscribe to that fulfills your biases and that creates this sort of echo chamber in your online community. But then when you do something that doesn't fulfill their bias and you get the wrong result, they make you look bad. Yep. Yep. How about we do a part two where we explore this a little more in depth, because I think this is one of the biggest issues.
Rainger Haslam: I would love to, man. I do have to say, though, Gary Breka, this is one thing that I had to say before I got on here. That guy is not smart.
Andres Preschel: So I, yeah, I mean, look, I had a chance to meet Gary and some of his acquaintances. We have people in common. We have mutual friends. We met. I spoke with him a little and got his contact info and thought it might be a good idea to get on the show. Regardless of your input, I was going to try and drill him, but currently where I stand, yeah.
Rainger Haslam: You think I should? I think you should. I think you should drill him. I think you should ask him why he thinks that thyroid hormones are methylated. I think that's a good one. I think you should ask him why he thinks that ghee butter is vegan. I know I brought these examples to you, but my simple explanation is, you know, you hear people say things on the internet like Gary who say that, I just have to throw this one in here just for funsies because it's just so present in my mind. People throw around big words with confidence and they say things and people believe them just because they say them with confidence. Yeah. And they say it with conviction, but when you hear somebody say that T4, which is the thyroid hormone, and T3, which are thyroid hormones, you hear Gary say that T4 is methylated in the gut to turn into T3, right? And he says it with such confidence that you're like, yeah, this dude's smart. That's why he's working with Dana White. That's why he's the man. But you listen to the word of those hormones. Do you know what the actual words for the hormones are? What do you mean by the words for the hormones? T4 and T3, do you know what those represent? So, T4 is a thyroid hormone that gets converted to T3. The name of T4 and its long chemical name is tetraiodothyronine. So, tetra meaning four, iodo meaning iodine, and thyronine relating to the thyroid. T3 is triodothyronine. So, tri relating to three, iodo relating to iodine, and thyronine relating to the thyroid hormone. It's not trimethylthyronine. There's no methyl groups that exist on thyroid hormones, so you can't methylate it in the gut. And so these influencers will say things like, oh, doctors don't know this because it doesn't exist.
Andres Preschel: Doctors don't know this because they won't know this because it doesn't make any sense.
Rainger Haslam: But it's just kind of funny. I had to wrap up that because that thought was so salient in my head is like I had to wrap up this thought is like influencers say things with so much confidence that they know what they're talking about and that doctors don't know. And the reason that your doctor doesn't know that T4 is methylated to T3 is because it just doesn't exist.
Andres Preschel: And, and I, I would go as far as to argue as a lot of doctors probably can't, don't know about the, the influence the gut might have on T3 or T4. And so they might be like, Oh, they might not give you the best answer. They might be able to say.
Rainger Haslam: Yeah, I would hope somebody would take a standard chemistry class to get that one, but.
Andres Preschel: Well, look, I'll tell you what, man, I would love to have him on to see, um, Just to drill him and to see if we can separate fact from fiction and see if, in fact, a lot of the novelty, as we described in the very beginning of this episode, is doing the research justice to some capacity and in some fashion. Maybe it's not totally efficacious, but maybe it is serving as a way to inspire people to be more curious. Who knows? I think we'll leave it to that episode. And believe me, I will be very diligent and I'll stand by the science and we'll see what happens.
Rainger Haslam: Yeah, man, if you ever want to do this free on that one. But thank you again. Let me just take a second. Like, thanks for having me on. I just want to say, like, I work in medicine. I work for a medical facility and I go to college. All my opinions and thoughts are my own. They're not medical advice, obviously. But the reason for me wanting to be on here and I'm very grateful for you having me on here is that If you're really suffering through something and you're having a hard time, you should seek medical and professional help. And before going to health influencers on Instagram and trying to find some sort of health secret, just have a conversation with your family about what you're going through and what you're feeling and just that expression of feeling vulnerable. having that conversation with somebody to let them know like, hey, I'm not okay and I need help, I think is one of the most influential things you can do for your health before subscribing to some fancy sexy thing that you see online. So thanks for having me, man. I really, and I'm not a doctor, I'm not a PhD, I'm just a student, but I think it's important that we as, like you said, the up and coming group of scientists and people who want to lead the charge in making this country and world a better, healthier place, should be able to question and should be able to challenge people that are doctors in a good, healthy, skeptical way, not in like a conspiratorial way, but to actually be on the front lines and call out these people so that we can build the future that we want to see of merging things together and actually bringing people to a place of happiness and health if we can. So thank you for having me.
Andres Preschel: Thank you, man. And I really believe that it's conversations like these that are going to help the next generation of people find the right blend between the science and the science that they get excited about so that they can make their lives better and feel better and happier and more fulfilled and live longer and spend more time on this planet doing what they love with the people that they love. So I really hope that this isn't a perfect conversation. You know, there's a lot of unknown. But I think that the theme and the curiosity that we have hopefully inspires others to be curious, to question, to be skeptical, and to be real citizen scientists. That's what we need, is citizen scientists. So yeah, man, thank you so much. Yeah, thank you. So that's all for today's show. Thank you so much for tuning in today. For all of the show notes, including clickable links to anything and everything that we discussed today, everything from discount codes to videos, to research articles, books, tips, tricks, techniques, and of course, to learn more about the guest on today's episode, all you have to do is head to my website, AndresPreschel.com. That's A-N-D-R-P-R-E-S-CHEL. E-S-P-R-E-S-C-H-E-L.com and go to podcasts. You can also leave your feedback, questions, and suggestions for future episodes, future guests, so on and so forth. Thanks again for tuning in and I'll see you on the next one. Have a lovely rest of your day.