Better Offline - Hater Season: Victoria Song & Alex Cranz

Episode Date: February 25, 2026

Better Offline’s “Hater Season” - an ongoing roundtable with tech’s greatest haters - continues as Ed talks with Victoria Song of The Verge about “wellness products,&rdqu...o; bullshit workout metrics and black market peptides.Please support me by subscribing to my premium newsletter - here’s $10 off your first year of annual https://edzitronswheresyouredatghostio.outpost.pub/public/promo-subscription/84rt762qen Alex Cranz: https://bsky.app/profile/cranz.bsky.social Victoria Song:https://bsky.app/profile/vicmsong.bsky.social https://www.theverge.com/authors/victoria-song YOU CAN NOW BUY BETTER OFFLINE MERCH! Go to https://cottonbureau.com/people/better-offline and use code FREE99 for free shipping on orders of $99 or more. --- LINKS: https://www.tinyurl.com/betterofflinelinks Newsletter: https://www.wheresyoured.at/ Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/BetterOffline/  Discord: chat.wheresyoured.at Ed's Socials: https://twitter.com/edzitron https://www.instagram.com/edzitron https://bsky.app/profile/edzitron.com https://www.threads.net/@edzitron Email Me: ez@betteroffline.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Starting point is 00:00:45 on the I-Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I actually drop better when I'm high. It heightens my senses, calms me down. If anything, I'm more careful. Honestly, it just helps me focus. That's probably what the driver who killed a four-year-old told himself. And now he's in prison.
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Starting point is 00:01:52 AllZone Media. Hello and welcome to Better Offline. I'm your host at Zittron. Buy a t-shirt, subscribe to the premium newsletter, pledge yourself to the Zitron's Graveyard Smash, and this is, of course, hater season, and we're joined by two of the greatest haters to ever do it. Victoria's Song of the Verge. Hello, and I hate things.
Starting point is 00:02:23 That's right. And of course, Alex Cranes, and that's just, I'm kidding, that is just me flawlessly saying the word Alex. I hated it. That was the worst pronunciation of my name ever, but I think it works for the show today. It works for the show, and also people say my name wrong all the time,
Starting point is 00:02:41 so I need to get one wrong. Zytron, right? Ed Zytron? Zytron. Zytron is the most... That one I'm just like, do you pronounce everything like the word hi? Anyway, Victoria, we'll start off with you because you told me beforehand, you hate the word wellness.
Starting point is 00:02:57 I'd love to understand why. We have to start with like a soul cleansing for us like they do in those wellness studios that you sometimes get your... yoga in. But yeah, so normally my beat is wellness and health, not wellness, wearables and health tech. And that is increasingly now being co-opted by the word wellness, which is nine and a grift. And so my job has become someone who, it's changed from someone who evaluates technology to someone who is like, is this snake oil? Oh my God, it's snake oil. Let me explain why it's
Starting point is 00:03:36 snake oil. Oh, they want your piss and your pee. and everything is dystopian. And, oh, MAGA's involved now. Okay, well, maha. And just all the news on my beat is just like, okay, what if we didn't, what if we didn't go like a full 60 miles per hour,
Starting point is 00:04:01 zero to 60 into snake oil? What if we didn't do that? What if we didn't do that? What if we didn't do that? What if we didn't do that? What if we didn't take advantage of the fact that our health care system is shit and people have a lot of health anxiety. And when they go to doctors, they don't feel listened to that, you know, we could actually get proper medical care in this country and not rely on big tech who wants to monetize you and your ailments with the guise of being an alternative to actual doctors with medical training. Is it that they want to just use us all as little parts in their expense reports?
Starting point is 00:04:43 Let me take it back. Is it because they just want to make money off of us? Or is it because they can't read science literature and they don't know what they're selling? It's all of it. Why not both? It's all of it. It's just all of it. All of it all at once.
Starting point is 00:04:55 There's just like so many examples of it happening and it feels like it's ramping up. To the point where I feel insane. So like when I was on your show at CES, I was talking. about gray market peptides and how people are injecting themselves with unapproved red at trutide, which is a not yet approved drug, but they're buying it off or they're buying what they say is red at true tide off of TikTok and all of these gray market sellers. And I'm just like, I'm like fairly certain that what you're getting is not actually retitutide based on like, I don't know how drug production works because I've talked to pharmacists and, you know,
Starting point is 00:05:35 interviewed people. Also, generally it feels like random people on TikTok are not usually, like, able to access things of this nature, like, just like, just a random person, just walking around. Just generally speaking, if, you know, nurse practitioners are real, registered nurses are, you know, there's all these different types of nurse categories, and some of them are legitimate, and have a lot of, you know, they're able to prescribe medicines. They're able to talk you through those things. And some of them are like little Sally Joe Johnson from some place who just put a lot of letters
Starting point is 00:06:14 after her name and is actually like a wellness guru. But she's saying like based on the science and the research. And I can tell she has not done the science and the research because when she is reconstituting a peptide, she has not disinfected her hands while she rolls the stuff on her very dirty kitchen encounter, which are videos that I've seen. Videos I've seen. Yeah. I'm just going to say, I'm upset that you're talking about my primary care physician that
Starting point is 00:06:41 way. Like, she works really, really hard to give me all sorts of things that I know are real and not salt water and I inject them into my body. I look and feel great. Listen. I haven't been insured since, you know, a Democrat was in power. I mean, what's the problem here? I mean, there's a lot of problems here, not least the grifters.
Starting point is 00:07:03 Like, there are real people online who are medical professionals, nurses, doctors, pharmacists who are giving decent medical information. I only know which one's decent, though, because I do this for a living. I think if you're the average person, you can see a lot of stuff together. And some of it is true, and it's put next to stuff that is not true. And so by then, it looks a lot smarter. Like I just did, I'm trying out this thing in my newsletter optimizer. that I'm like, it's not called this, but I think of them as wellness marketing report cards. And I just did AG1, which you've heard on every podcast ad, known to man.
Starting point is 00:07:42 I don't know what it is. I was like, is better off line brought to you? You've never heard of athletic screens? It's AG1, it's a greens powder. Oh, yeah. It's like a green powder. Is that bollocks? Yes.
Starting point is 00:07:56 Basically. Would you like your P.P. to be experienced. because that's what it's a supplement made from like a proprietary blend of ground up vegetables and some buzzwords like adaptogens and all that and that doesn't does it not even give you the nutritional benefits of vegetables I mean it I mean the fiber content is like two grams of fiber for a serving which is not that much fiber honestly yeah I feel like you could get more fiber from that but you know like I'm not saying that if you want to drink your daily greens because it's going to get you in the habit and the mindset of doing something healthier for yourself later on in the day.
Starting point is 00:08:32 There's no harm with that. But if you go to their research page and their marketing site, they're going to say, the next generation of AG1 is clinically backed. What does that mean? Clinically back does not mean what you think it means. Not for a supplement. Do you know what a supplement is? Not regulated by the FD-Fucking A.
Starting point is 00:08:53 It's not regulated. Well, first of all, would Hugh Jackman? lie to me because yes Hugh Jackman fucking lied to you because he's tap dancing on the AG one fucking things he's saying
Starting point is 00:09:04 superfood do you know what superfood is it's a marketing label it's not a scientific term it's a marketing label all it means is a nutrient it's a nutrient dense food that's all that that means it's a marketing label
Starting point is 00:09:18 but it's the number one I hate wellness no but this is the thing it's like so number one doctor recommended brand means nothing I'm guessing Which doctors? Real doctors? Victoria.
Starting point is 00:09:32 Dr. Huberman? Don't trust Dr. Huberman? You know, I had a... That is actually the guy on there. No, I had a doctor who said, hey, have you listened to the Huberman podcast? And guess what I did? I fired them as an I found a new doctor.
Starting point is 00:09:45 I didn't say you're fired. But I was like, I can't trust you if you believe that man who just basically also partners with AG1 to make AGZ, which is like a sleep thing. And it's just, okay, look, okay? So I went through, I went through their clinical studies, their quote unquote clinical studies. What did you say? Was it good?
Starting point is 00:10:06 Here's the thing. When you have a drug or a medical treatment, it goes through clinical trials to make sure it's efficacious and safe. And to find out what the efficacious doses. This is a supplement. It is not regulated. This is not required. So they're just doing voluntary clinical studies to show marketing because it's like, hey, guess what? We saw an improvement in the gut microbiome and all this other shit, which is like, again, your gut is your second brain.
Starting point is 00:10:38 Your gut and your brain talk to each other. It can affect your cognition and your mood if you don't have the proper amount of gut bacteria in there. We have research saying this, okay? And so they're going, well, we got strains of probiotics in an 80s. Now, this is the original formula because their website is very, very trickily, trickle-y laid out. And so I go there and I go like, okay, let me look at this peer research. You look at the graphs in this peer research that's linked there. Well, first of all, the sample size is 20, like, what, 30 people?
Starting point is 00:11:10 Negligible! Negligible! No, but just for the sake of argument, how many people do you generally want in a clinical trial? Statistically, like 105 or so. like 100 people, we sometimes see that in the clinical trial. You want as many people that will be statistically significant for the population that you're studying. So you need a ton of people different races. 30 people is not significant.
Starting point is 00:11:34 30 people is not significant. What is the population they're selling to? Everyone who might have tummy problems. Oh, I was like, if it's like dumbasses who exclusively get their medical advice from commercials on their Instagram and TikTok fees. That's still a higher population than three. 30 people to be sick. I was hoping I'm losing the ability to speak. I can't say statistically because I'm so mad.
Starting point is 00:12:01 Listen, okay? I go through their little study. You have to go through the methodology. They're saying double blind, placebo controlled. Okay, that's great. Gold standard, sure, whatever. 30 people. Let me look at the graphs.
Starting point is 00:12:16 You know what's the graphs of the placebo and the pre and post AG1 usage? Statistically, the bottom. cars are the same. Is the change in the gut microbiome in the room with us? No, it's not. Nothing. Oh, they pooped a little more. Well, I should hope so if you have fiber.
Starting point is 00:12:35 If you want to, like, have a better gut. Just have some Greek yoga in the morning. It changed my life. Oh, you know what killed me? If you want to poop more, just eat grease. You want to kill me, the line that said there was like an increase
Starting point is 00:12:48 in these two strains of probiotics because it's an ingredient in AG. Oh, man. Wait, so they increased, they measured something that they were adding, okay. Yes. That's like saying, we found corn in your poop because you ate corn. That's so cool. That's the thing I get targeted with these like mushroom coffee things or melatonin coffees or sleep coffee.
Starting point is 00:13:15 Like weird hot chocolate shit on it. There was a period when that was all they targeted me with and it didn't do shit. I refuse to do it. I'm not paying $30 for like five hot chocolates. Go fuck yourself. It's disgusting. Yeah, I spent $4 on biotin and it didn't do anything for my nails. So I too get it.
Starting point is 00:13:37 Okay, so here's the thing. Supplements are not regulated. So is the supplement that you're actually getting? Actually, the supplement in an efficacious amount? I don't fucking know. I took 10,000 milligrams a day. If it's a proprietary blend, like AG1 uses proprietary blend, you don't know how much of each thing is in there. You just don't.
Starting point is 00:14:02 You don't. Listen, if you're going to have greens powder because you want to kickstart your day and you want to have a healthy habit to start your day with, go off. Queen, I love that for you. But to call it clinically backed, I find disingenuous. And I see this often a lot in wellness. It's always there, they are the ones that back to the study, right? Like, we see this a lot with. They did pay for the study.
Starting point is 00:14:30 They paid for it. That's also good. All the fake meets said, we're going to be the healthiest. We're going to be the best. We're going to be so good for you. And it was like, oh, who did the study? We did. Oh, did you do any studies that you didn't directly pay for?
Starting point is 00:14:42 No. I want to be fair. They did publish and peer-reviewed journals. And nine out of ten times you are going to see people at least partially fund the study because it's very hard, especially in this climate, to get research funding for a truly independent peer-reviewed study that's third party that has no affiliation with the company at all. It's good to look at it holistically with making sure they have really good methodology
Starting point is 00:15:08 and that their findings make fucking sense based on their marketing. So, like, if they were to be super honest about what they found, it would be like you're not going to die from having AG1 and there's a potential that you might see some benefit. Well, I'm reading here that they... That's what it is. What is a nutritional gap? Because it claims that there is a nutrient.
Starting point is 00:15:33 It helps. They demonstrated a statistically significant and positive impact on closing common nutrient gaps. This just means you didn't have enough of the nutrient. Yes. So it's like, so this is what else pisses me. off. So that marketing site is just like the next gen of AG1 is clinically backed. And then you scroll all the way down to the peer reviewed studies. And you're like, oh, look at these published peer reviewed
Starting point is 00:15:59 studies. That is for the old formula of AG1. And all those statistics that you just saw on that, that's for the new formulation of AG1. Guess how many peer reviewed published studies they have on that? Zero. Because they only have abstracts that have been presented. And like abstracts, like, I'm going through the abstracts. And it's just like the sample sizes, I think the largest sample size is like 120 people, but most of them are like 24 people who are healthy. So is this kind of like FDA approval grift in wearables? Okay, first of all, wearables are not FDA approved. They are FDA cleared because we approved drugs.
Starting point is 00:16:34 That's what I mean. What's the difference? All right, no, Victoria, got to explain. Sorry. Because it's a marketing thing. Basically, you're just saying that it's adhered to a certain degree of safety and protocols. So, yes, you're going to be hippocomplying if your FDA cleared. You are going to have done some testing to make sure it's safe.
Starting point is 00:16:52 And you only require this kind of clearance for class, I believe, class two medical devices or higher. Class two means intermediate risk. Class three is just like, oh, there's a significant risk in using this. And class one is like a tongue depressor. So you have some class one medical devices that are like the little stick that the doctor sticks in your mouth when you go, eh. Like that, that's a class one medical device in some cases. And those are just FDA listed. Class 1, FDA listed. Class 2, FDA cleared.
Starting point is 00:17:22 And then you have stuff like drugs, which must be FDA approved. So there is like a nuance to those particular meanings. But with wearables, to get the clearance process, it's for stuff like screening, right? So like you get an AKG and it says, we're not diagnosing you with atrial fibrillation, but homeboy maybe go to a doctor and see if these things make sense. That is a cleared. generally, an FDA cleared feature. Because it's either a class, that's a class two feature, basically is what they're saying.
Starting point is 00:17:57 Now, if you don't want to do that because it's a very expensive process, you just go, it's wellness. Wellness isn't regulated because it's for your information only. Education is fun. So whoop a couple of months ago, they had this blood pressure feature that they came out. And the way that this feature looked, it looked like it was telling you, your assistant. and your diastolic and your systolic reading and telling you whether your blood pressure was high, medium, or low. And the FDA was like, ha ha, no, you did not go through the clearance process for this.
Starting point is 00:18:30 You're telling people what their blood pressure is. And we was like, ha, ha, no, this is a wellness feature. It's just for your education. This wasn't meant to give you a reading. And the FDA was like, it kind of looks like a reading. It kind of looks like you're giving a diagnostic judgment. So that needs to go through the clearest process. And then Woop was like, ha ha, we disagree.
Starting point is 00:18:53 Innovation. Yeah. And so then I just read a story on Politico today that ORA, the smart ringmaker, is now lobbying in Washington to get a third category of devices, like a separate third category of classification called Digital Health Screeners that wouldn't go through the very cumbersome clearance process, but would, be more legit wellness. So, yeah. That makes sense, though. I don't know that with the aura rating. I don't know that that's going to make things clearer or easier.
Starting point is 00:19:27 I don't know. You know, I think for the customer, for the consumer, we need a total radical rethinking of all of this because it's gotten complete, like the plot. I think that these. I think for the companies making a third device that's like, here are things that can identify, but should never, ever be taken by themselves, should always be used in context with the doctor, like the aura ring or the Woot Band for blood pressure. I'm like, that kind of makes sense.
Starting point is 00:19:57 It's just the line is already blurry. I'm not hating enough. No, I feel like we're hazy. The line is already blurry between wellness, what is a wellness? Like, the blood pressure, not the blood pressure, the blood oxygen reading on your Apple Watch. What is that? Is that FDA cleared? Or is that a wellness?
Starting point is 00:20:15 I think that anything that measures your body should have to be far more rigorously checked because I have a different reading on my aura ring, my Apple Watch, my headphones, everything seems different. If I was relying on this information for anything other than punishing myself, I would be very worried. Like if I was sick in some way. Oh, yeah. Also, this whole aura being able to check if I'm sick thing, it has never caught it.
Starting point is 00:20:41 It has once. It caught when I was really depressed once. I'm sorry, I shouldn't laugh at that. What did he say? I was hysterical. No, it just, I got a note. I'm in bed at 2 o'clock in the afternoon because, you know, depressed, sleeping. And I get a note and it's like, oh, you're having major symptoms.
Starting point is 00:20:59 I'm like, yeah, no shit, sir a lot. I haven't gotten out of bed today. Thank you for joining. But, like, it just said by temperature. It's caught when I was coming down with something once. And then it caught when I was incredibly anxious another time. I was just like, oh, you think I'm sick? well, I'm sick with anxiety.
Starting point is 00:21:17 I'm just alive. That was one time. I'm just. I'm just breathing. I love it. I loved it when it was like, no, you're deathly sick. And I'm like, no, I'm just depressed. But honestly, thank you.
Starting point is 00:21:27 Thank you for seeing depression as an illness or a ring. You were just like, sick in the brain. You were sick in the brain. Yeah. Then I got out of bed. That's great. Yeah, that was because it said you needed to stand up. Pretty much I got like the text and I was like,
Starting point is 00:21:40 ooh, time to get out of bed. No, every time I see it. that note being like, you need to stand up, I genuinely mutter fuck off every time. How dare you? My ass goes where my ass... I'd never stand up. I'm currently standing up because I've been sitting too long, but again, this is my beat. So, yay. Another podcast from some SNL late night comedy guy, not quite. Unhumor me with
Starting point is 00:22:10 Robert Smygel and friends. Me and hilarious guests from Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman help make you funnier. This week, my guest, S&L's Mikey Day and headwriter Streeter Seidel help an a cappella band with their between songs banter. Where does your group perform? We do some retirement homes. Those people are starving for banter. Listen to humor me with Robert Smigel and friends
Starting point is 00:22:32 on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Run a business and not thinking about podcasting, think again. More Americans listen to podcasts than ad-supported streaming music from Spotify and Pandora. And as the number one podcaster, IHearts twice as large as the next two combined. So whatever your customers listen to, they'll hear your message. Plus, only
Starting point is 00:22:52 IHeart can extend your message to audiences across broadcast radio. Think podcasting can help your business. Think IHeart. Streaming, radio, and podcasting. Call 844-Ehart to get started. That's 844-844-I-Hart. Hey, I'm Jared Adano. You might know me as that loud guy who yells out, help on the internet. Help! Somebody! Please! But there's so much more to me than that. I'm an actor. I'm a comedian. And recently, I've become quite the helper myself. And on my new podcast, Hope from a Hypocrite, I'll be changing lives, helping people in need with my sage advice and thoughtful solutions. Sike, I'm a comedian.
Starting point is 00:23:32 I'm not qualified to give good advice. Join me and my comedian friends as we riff rant and recommend some of the most legally dubious advice known to man. If I'm calling you, even if you're on your phone, let it ring twice. One ring is too scary. Cream of chicken soup. Hey, cream a chicken soup.
Starting point is 00:23:53 This is Help from a Hypocrite, the worst advice from the dumbest people you know. Listen to Help from Hypocrite as part of the MyCultura podcast network available on the IHartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Will Ferrell's Big Money Players and IHeart Podcasts presents soccer moms. So I'm Leanne. Yeah. This is my best friend Janet. Hey. And we have been joined at the Hipsons High School.
Starting point is 00:24:15 Absolutely. Now a redacted amount of years later We're still joined at the hip Just a little bit bigger hips Wider This is a podcast we're recording it as we tailgate Our youth soccer games In the back of my Honda Odyssey
Starting point is 00:24:27 With all the snacks and drink Sidebar Why did you get hard seltzer instead of beer Oh they had a bogo Well then you got it Do you want a white color or something here? Just take it What are y'all doing?
Starting point is 00:24:38 Microphones are you making a rap album Oh I would Come on Could you imagine? I would buy it Cuts through the defense It's like a hot knife through sponge cake. That sounds delicious. Oh, you're lucky I'm not a drug addict.
Starting point is 00:24:52 You're lucky I'm not an alcoholic. You're lucky I'm not a killer. I love this team and I'm really trying to be a figure in their lives that they can rely on. Oh. Listen to soccer moms on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Anywho, wellness. Really fucking pisses me. off. This chat GPT health thing as well, like, I just think that these companies should be in prison,
Starting point is 00:25:25 all of them for doing that stuff. The AI companies using these things as promises to help you get healthier, mentally, physically, and everything in between is such garbage. Because, like, let me tell you something. You know what I've been doing for a while now? I've been messing with these AI guys. I love to have a chat with them. I love to be like, hey, this is what's going on in my life? How are we doing? How you feeling about it? You talk to the chat box? AI. In this guy? Oh, yeah.
Starting point is 00:25:50 I love. Always in like the incognito mode. So that it only saves a little bit of it. And then every time it tells me to do something. And when I go back and tell it the next time in chat, it's forgotten. And I love it. Highly recommend incognito mode. But it's terrible advice.
Starting point is 00:26:05 The advice is consistently terrible. The advice is consistently like treat yourself better. And it's like, I haven't gotten out of bed in three days. And it's like, you're doing okay. I mean, I have, I've gotten out of bed in three days. Doing great. But like, you know, you'd say something, you'd say something real. extreme like that of like clearly you're not doing okay and it's like hey happens to all of us
Starting point is 00:26:24 you just sit in bed for another week and you're like claude no claude what are we doing that's bad advice also just the kind of shit advice you could get from literally anyone oh i i hadn't thought about feeling better when i felt sad i thought i've been deliberately feeling sad more because i thought that's what would make me feel better thank you chat gpte it's just fucking And then when you ask it, you ask it for, you're like, okay, I want to work on my fitness. V gives much better advice than God every single time. Like, that's what your optimizer, like, fancy lines should be. I don't know what those are called.
Starting point is 00:27:05 Tagline? But it needs to just be, yeah, tagline. Your tagline needs to be better advice than Claude or OpenAI when it comes to help. Did you see the chat GPT ad for running when it was like, no, it was like, no, it was like, Here's some running advice. And one of it's like, run with someone else, so you're accountable. Run three times a week. It's like, fucking hell.
Starting point is 00:27:24 I'm so glad we are spending $50,000 a GPU on this bullshit. There was a... Yeah, I was like, you can just get that by Google. There was a Wall Street Journal article about Runa, which is an... They market themselves as an AI-powered running app, and they were acquired by Strava last year. If you're on Running Talk at all, you've probably seen people talk about Runa. It's massively popular. and the Wall Street Journal article was hilarious
Starting point is 00:27:48 because it's like, people are getting injured using this because they just listen to the AI. And like, I've used Runa and I have a very hard time sticking with that app because I find the program way too aggressive. So they came out with like a new mode that's like, hey, we made it less aggressive because a lot of you were getting injured and complaining. And I was like, ha-ha, it's almost like to use Rana properly,
Starting point is 00:28:12 you also have to know when to ignore it, which is not the point of what they say AI should be. So I also hate AI in fitness. Well, I mean, it's also like the thing with fitness is even with a good routine, even with a good, like I have had to, I did the same routine for a year. I've had to pare it back because I kept getting injured because I'm getting older. Like you actually have to be able to like know when your body feels. That's the worst part of it is, yeah, like you want to.
Starting point is 00:28:45 want it to be like a trainer, and it can talk to you like a trainer. It can give you that thing. But the trainer is going to go, hey, I notice you went really hard today and your knees inflamed. Maybe take a break for the rest of the week. A bad trainer will be like, no gain. I've had trainers do that. Every single.
Starting point is 00:29:02 But AI is always going to be a bad trainer. Because it's not going to see it, right? I mean, they keep saying that they're going to make it better. I've yet to test an AI coach that I feel would give me the advice that I actually need. I have to sit there with myself and be like, oh, how are we feeling today in our body? Where are we feeling pain? Should I push it? I could push it. But what's my goal? You know, like I have this conversation with myself in my head. How many of these constantly? AI coaches that you see are like actually programmed from the ground up to help with this.
Starting point is 00:29:35 And how many are just large language models with like the aura one, right? Where it's just kind of like the large language model with a little bit of fancied-off. on it. So you're like, oh, I'm not getting anything. Most of them are just kept an obvious book report summaries. They just prompts, though, because you can't really, for you to do a trainer that was a specialized level, you would have to have a shit ton of words. And like, they're also fucking chatty too. I'm just like, Jesus Christ, you need to like give me several less paragraphs about,
Starting point is 00:30:06 like, I don't need the shit. And then you'll tell them, like, please stop being so chatty. Please be more concise. And they're like, oh, yeah, okay, got it. two prompts later, just an 800 word essay about your fitness. They hear you, and they want to gently push back on your plans for your exercising routine. I just never get that. We have different AIs, clearly, but like it's just...
Starting point is 00:30:28 Claude's so nice. I refuse to let them be nice to me. I say they are not allowed to be complimentary beyond 1%. I'm only allowed to get one percentage of complimenting from these dipshit bots. I'm using incognito mode. it remembers nothing. Right. It is incredible.
Starting point is 00:30:47 So you'll tell it anything. It's going to forget from the next time. So you never program it. So Claude is always just like, hey, friend, I'm just like that one person who just sort of smiles and nods at you a lot. And like... That's not very helpful. I love it. I mean, I don't...
Starting point is 00:31:02 For that. It's not very helpful. I just... I don't love it from like a usefulness standpoint. I love it as like a sociological experiment. Does that make sense? I love to play with it and kind of be like, oh, what are you trying here?
Starting point is 00:31:16 What are you hoping to accomplish? But nine times out of ten, it does not actually help me. Every time I've had AI try to help me with fitness, try to help me with sleeping better, try to help me with writing. Garbage, garbage. Because you're always getting regressed to the mean. And when it comes to health, well, we're going to go against the wellness versus the medical thing again
Starting point is 00:31:36 because if they're giving you diagnostic advice, they could be liable for that. So they're only going to give you the most generic regression to the mean wellness advice that applies to everyone and is common sense. And it's like, well, if it's common sense, well, I didn't fucking need you to tell me it's common sense that I, like, that's why a lot of the AI fitness is just regurgitated book reports. It's, it's the AI going like, hey girl, you ran 3.1 miles today. And this time, that's faster than your other time. And yay, that's not what I need from you.
Starting point is 00:32:08 Thank you, Pablo. My cat is screaming at me. But, um, oh. Yeah. Yeah. I just, I would never tell these things anything about myself. I just, like, I've naturally, my autism screen are built into my brain, just like I cannot trust. I would never tell a website my secrets. Oh, I get that.
Starting point is 00:32:28 I get that. And then sometimes I just do. No, that's fine. Incognito mode. And I'm like, you know what? Let's hope you never leaked the incognito mode stuff. Let's hope you're real. Yeah, but also you're incognito mode, unless you're just like,
Starting point is 00:32:42 I'm Alex Cranz. Let me tell you my life story. Yeah, every single time I'm like, hi, my name's Alex Cranes. Hello. Share some things. Look me up real fast. Okay, now let's chat.
Starting point is 00:32:51 Yeah, I just, also with fitness, like fitness has been a big part of my life for the last few years, especially. And it's like, the best advice I've got from, is from regular people who have been like,
Starting point is 00:33:02 you're going too hard or just stop heart hurting yourself. That's the biggest thing. Not like I'm self-harming, but like, I would push myself too far. It would always be like, My wrist hurts.
Starting point is 00:33:13 It's like, well, have you tried not fucking boxing dickhead? And it's like, I don't think Chad GPT would say it. Mostly it's like friends of mine being like, yeah, you need to rest. Because in my, I don't know, being a little personal here, in my head, I'm like, I should train more, I should lose weight. Like, I push myself quite hard. A large language model telling me anything about that isn't going to help, partly because I'll be like, I'm not, a website does not impress me.
Starting point is 00:33:35 Like, I don't trust your judgment. And also, most of the time, the mean advice around lifting is, I'm so sorry, but the best lifting advice ever got was lift volume, not heavy. And then people would be like, oh, I like lifting heavy things, put them back down. It's fine, but it's like, does not work for a lot of people I've met. Oh, you mean you're not in the church of CrossFit progressive overload? What is that? Just what does, I know about CrossFit, but I saw how they do pull-ups and I just stopped listening to them.
Starting point is 00:34:09 Like, I'm not going to shit on CrossFit. some, it's very hard to explain. No, I have numerous friends. You've used it. I just, it's a philosophy of working out that is very different from a lot of other things. Right. There we go. And it's really all about pushing yourself to your physical limits, which for some people, that can be a really useful thing. If you are over the age of 35, maybe be careful because you're going to hurt yourself. I mean, and it's like, you're under the age of 35. Go do your. CrossFit.
Starting point is 00:34:42 I think CrossFit has like, it's because it's a franchise and so each CrossFit Gym can be very different. I think there's like a million different CrossFit out there and it depends on which CrossFit person you know in your life as to what CrossFit they do. Some of them do the Marjorie Taylor a green version of CrossFit. Some of them do a much more reasonable version of it. I love her little pull-up. Oh, they're like, I think they're called kipping pull-ups.
Starting point is 00:35:09 Yeah, yeah. That's what I was saying. Those weird pull-up. cross fare, the ones where you're just like, I'm going to break my fucking neck. Yeah. Oh my God. It looks like the way I would try to do a pull-up as a child. And you'd be told, no.
Starting point is 00:35:23 It looks like not being able to do a pull-up. Yeah, that's what it looks like. Because they're difficult. It's an interesting look. But yeah, no. So it's the other thing that I'm going to back to the hate instead, like less thoughtfulness, more hate. I hate wellness influence.
Starting point is 00:35:42 Like not every wellness influencer. There's some that are like not horrible and who actually talk about science and are quite responsible and like thoughtful in their wellness content. They are not the majority. The majority is just like, oh my God, I drink 81 every day and I have so much energy now. Or they'll be like, oh my God, come with what I eat in a day and it's just disordered eating. Or, you know, they're like, protein, protein, protein, max. And it's like, well, protein is nice. what you do need to eat your other macros.
Starting point is 00:36:14 And, uh, or, you know, it's just these little nuggets of science or nutritional, um, like best practices that get buried with disordered eating habits that get buried with pseudoscience that are just like not that helpful for people to know, but it sounds real. And then, you know, because they are your parasycial friend, a lot of people start to trust them. and then they start doing stupid things in their life. And these are all people who are just generally by and large, miss or underserved by the healthcare system. They don't want to go to a doctor who's going to dismiss their pain
Starting point is 00:36:52 for the bazillion's time because that's the only thing that's affordable in their insurance network. But I just really hate that, one, influencers, whether they mean to or not, I'm sure some of them are well-meaning, whatever. They are profiting off of your discomfort and your sense. search for something that's more affordable. I hate that because a lot of them don't take the time to do their due diligence. And so they're taking sponsored money from these powders that you don't need objectively, but saying, oh my God, this is how I cured everything holistically because I have
Starting point is 00:37:24 to eat clean. What is eating clean? What does that mean? Wash your fucking vegetable. What does eating clean? It's like just eating healthy, but they're like, I eat clean. I don't eat processed foods. I don't eat sugar. I don't eat this. And you know, a little sugar in moderation is fine. You 100%. Everyone eats sugar. Yeah, there's no... Everyone eats sugar.
Starting point is 00:37:42 Or it's people who say like, oh my God, fruit has a high glycemic index, so it's bad for you. It's a fucking fruit. Like, it's fine. I once had a doctor. I was with a diabetic patient who's a family member. And I was once with them and the doctor was like, they can never eat a banana. And I was like, what if their blood sugar is low? Not with that.
Starting point is 00:38:02 They can't eat a banana. And I'm like, okay, so they just die? Like, they can eat a banana. They just shouldn't eat it if they're blood sugar is low. blood sugars high, or they're not, you know, thinking about it. But who is this culpable? Is it these fitness influencers? Or is it the entire industry, including the Googles and the YouTube's and the entire industry? I actually think it's one abstraction higher, which ties into AI as well, which is everyone wants a simple solution. They want to work out a way to lose weight that is not working out
Starting point is 00:38:35 consistently in eating less calories, though I realize it's not even as flat as that, because everyone's body is kind of different. They want something that will give them a quick answer without them learning anything. They want a fitness plan that will tell them something they don't already know. It's called GLP1.
Starting point is 00:38:54 I can also just that. I'm going to hit you over the head. No, I mean, I think JLP one fucking rocks. I think when it's used right and when it's used helply. Yes, exactly. When it's used, right, when it's used. You know what? If it's someone for weight loss and they're using it with the instruction of a doctor,
Starting point is 00:39:09 things great. Like it's just as long as you're not just like, I don't know, getting it illegally off of TikTok and illegally is probably not the term. Well, that's KLP 3. Well, no, you can also go get compounded versions of GLP 1, which are in a dubious state at this point in time because it used to be okay to compound it. And then when there was a shortage, the FDA, I love that.
Starting point is 00:39:32 And then once the shortage ended, they were like, no, no, no. So then these compounding pharmacies started like altering the formula a little bit, adding a little bit of vitamin B12 or just different components in it so that they weren't like carbon copies of what the pharmaceutical companies were like, hey, hey, hey, this is copyrighted, fuck off. But, you know, like that's also in of itself a problem because a lot of why are people going to these compounding pharmacies for their GLP ones?
Starting point is 00:39:57 It's because insurance companies make you fit a very narrow criteria, even though it could potentially help you with a number of different things. Like, we have to understand that GLP ones are very recent for non-diabetic use. Like, there's not a whole lot of data out there. Right? For, not a year, but it's like in the span of medication, not that long. Like, you know, scientists study these things for a very long time. And I think we're about, what, a decade, 15 years on GLPs, less for the, for the, um, the Monjaros and all that stuff. But, but, And it's like, you know, we don't, the vast majority of the clinical studies that have been done on these medications have been on obese or diabetic populations. We don't know what a bodybuilder who is just taking this to like optimize themselves. We don't know what the impact on their bodies will be. We find some promising research with people with PCOS and fatty liver disease, which I have both of those, which is why my doctor is also like, you know, GOP makes sense for you and the metabolic dysfunction that you have. So it's not that doctors aren't using these in the arsenals to treat people who fit certain criteria, but there are people who could benefit from it who don't fit these arbitrary insurance criteria.
Starting point is 00:41:18 And so we have created this market, this alternative market for them to go to that can be fine in some spaces if you do your research and you do your vetting and you find a legitimate compound pharmacy that follows the rules. Or you could get it from some gray market guy named Bob Bo, Tim B, and I don't know what you're putting in your body. So, like, we're creating these things because we have made things so restrictive, so bad, and then we are monetizing the alternative solution, which is, you know, ultimately giving a lot of health anxiety to people, because why should they have to track their pee to know their hydration? Just look at the color of your pee.
Starting point is 00:42:02 I don't know. Like, you know, instead of putting the systemic things in place, I could help people with their health and marketing these as tools. It's like all of a sudden, oh, you can get your blood test because maybe you live in a rural area and you don't have time to go to the doctor. So, ORA will, ORA will get your blood test for you. And now you can track your metabolites and your blood in the ORA app. With no doctor's advice. With no doctor's advice. Well, you could ask maybe the AI in the app or whatnot.
Starting point is 00:42:29 And it's not just ORA. There's a lot of companies that are kind of pursuing this line. And it comes from a place of, like, yes, there is a gap in the health care system. Traditionally, we're trying to fill that gap. And there are some people who that will help. I'm not going to lie and say that there's no people that could benefit. But at the same time, the vast majority of healthy people don't need that. They don't need that health anxiety in their life.
Starting point is 00:42:50 But we're just putting it on them because it's like, well, if you don't, you're going to die. And so it's just like, I would love for there to be more common sense and wellness. I would love us to have responsible conversations about whether or not you need to track X, Y, 70 biomarkers. You don't need to track 70 fucking biomarkers. You really don't. That data will not help you. It won't. It won't.
Starting point is 00:43:15 Is it kind of like, have you guys done it? Because I'm just curious, is it like when you go and you would pay to give someone all of your genetic material so they could test it to find out whether or not like who your family was? Right, like your family makeup. We call it longevity tech, which is just another word for fucking bullshit. Sorry, wellness. Hell yeah. But like it's this weird, you know, who is the bloody barreness, who's bathing in the blood of virgins to appear younger and live longer? It's the same kind of fear from Silicon Valley where they're like, we are deathly afraid of death.
Starting point is 00:43:51 So longevity tech. And you can optimize your life. And you can study all these metrics about yourself. And then you'll be able to live a better healthier life. having to go to the doctor as often. And it's just like, there's a lot of problems with this narrative. And you have Maha co-adopting it in some ways. I've seen health tech become weirdly right wing over the last couple of weeks and months
Starting point is 00:44:16 when I'm just like, I don't know how I feel about this. I don't know how I feel about RFK Jr. going like every American wear wearable. I'm just like, why? It's supposed to lighten one bullshit. We can't know everything. There is a world of mystery. and also even knowing all of this stuff doesn't do anything.
Starting point is 00:44:34 I've said this before on the podcast. I have four years of sleep data, if not more, and I cannot tell you anything. Other than generally I sleep about seven and a half hours. No, that's my actual secret to all of this. It's the only reason I can put out 10,000 words a week is I sleep seven and a half to eight hours a night without fail. I prioritize to sleep.
Starting point is 00:44:56 And it's funny because it's like, of all the fitness things, sleep supplement, sorry, different supplements I've tried, weird tricks, sleep. I don't even mean it in like a facetious way. I just mean like, yeah, this, it's the one thing I can be like, yeah, when I do that, I feel better. When I don't sleep, I feel way worse. Yeah, I mean that, that's why they say sleep, diet, and exercise. It just always boils down to like those three things. And yes, there are conditions that kind of make it difficult for certain people over others. you have metabolic dysfunction, yeah, well, the diet part is going to be a little harder for you,
Starting point is 00:45:32 and there are treatments for that. That makes sense. But it fundamentally will always boil down to sleep, diet, and exercise. Another podcast from some SNL late-night comedy guy, not quite. Unhumor me with Robert Smygel and friends, me and hilarious guests from Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman help make you funnier. This week, my guest, S&L's Mikey Day and head writer Streeter Seidel, help an Acapella band with their between songs banter. Where does your group perform? We do some retirement homes. Those people are starving for banter.
Starting point is 00:46:15 Listen to humor me with Robert Smigel and friends on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Run a business and not thinking about podcasting, think again. More Americans listen to podcasts than ads supported streaming music from Spotify and Pandora. And as the number one podcaster, IHearts twice as large as the next two combined. So whatever your customers listen to, they'll hear your message. Plus, only IHeart can extend your message to audiences across broadcast radio. Think podcasting can help your business.
Starting point is 00:46:43 Think IHart. Streaming, radio, and podcasting. Call 844-844-I-Hart to get started. That's 844-8-4-I-Hart. Hey, I'm Jared Adano. You might know me as that loud guy who yells out, help on the internet. Help! Somebody!
Starting point is 00:46:59 Please! But there's so much more to me than me. I'm an actor. I'm a comedian. And recently, I've become quite the helper myself. And on my new podcast, hope from a hypocrite, I'll be changing lives, helping people in need with my sage advice
Starting point is 00:47:14 and thoughtful solutions. Sike, I'm a comedian. I'm not qualified to give good advice. Join me and my comedian friends as we riff, rant, recommend some of the most legally dubious advice known to man. If I'm calling you,
Starting point is 00:47:28 even if you're on your phone, let it ring twice. One ring is too scary. Oh, cream of chicken suit. Hey, cream. Cream and chicken suit. This is Help from a Hypocrite, the worst advice from the dumbest people you know. Listen to Help from Hypocrite as part of the Mike Coutura Podcast Network available on the I-Hart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Starting point is 00:47:52 Hey, I'm Deanna Maria Riva, actress, mother, lover, and a Gen X woman walking through life one hot flash and hormonal crying jag at a time. You ladies know what I mean. I'll bet you a paramed apostle chin here you do. So let's talk about it. Join me on my new podcast. How hard can it be with Deanna Maria. where I call on my Gen X squads from Ohio to Hollywood as we navigate midlife's most fantastic BS. All of a sudden, I'd had hanginess happening on my own.
Starting point is 00:48:18 I was like, what the hell is that? I was married when I had her, so I didn't even consider how empty that nest was going to be. Mood swings, night sweats, fupas, sex drive. Wait, what sex? Dating at 45. How can it be getting naked at 50 with the new guy? That one's kind of hard. Well, that's lighting. They say we can't polish a turd, but we're sure going to try.
Starting point is 00:48:40 So let's get blunt with laughs, tears or tears of laughter, and dive into it unfiltered and unbothered and ask, How Hard Can It Be? I cannot believe I'm about to say this out loud in public. Listen to How Hard Can It Be with Diana Maria Riva as part of my Cultura podcast network available on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I also want to be clear about something, though,
Starting point is 00:49:06 because it was lost earlier. We've had emails about it. I think it's fine. There were some people I've got emails from, I forget when it was brought up in the past, where it's like, oh, the judgment of people who use GLP to lose weight. I think it's fucking,
Starting point is 00:49:20 I've had weight issues my whole life. I think however people want to lose weight, as long as it's done in a safe manner, as long as it's done. I'm on one. It's fucking sick. It's absolute magic. It's fucking cool.
Starting point is 00:49:32 I love it. It makes sense for me. As long as it's not depriving diabetics of getting the things they need, though. Exactly. Right. That's the one thing.
Starting point is 00:49:38 Right, like as long as the diabetics and people with metabolic issues who need it to survive are having it and we don't have a shortage, it's really great. For me, it's like, oh, I talk about it. I call it the wing index. V's had to hear about this before. There's something called the wing index. The wing index. How many wings do you eat before you were on a GLP one versus how many do you eat after? Because some of us like, V and I were talking.
Starting point is 00:50:06 I was like a 15 wing girlie. And now I'm a six. And I look at that and I'm like, that's sad. But then I'm like, was 15 good? No, it was delicious. It was wonderful. Yeah, I was going to say. It was the best thing in the world.
Starting point is 00:50:21 Do I miss it? My wing index was four and now it's half of one. That's not great. I'm having a different experience with JLP St. Crances. It's a little more complicated. Because everyone's different. And also, I didn't want to be on one. I was told to be on one because of metabolic dysfunction was causing weight gain.
Starting point is 00:50:44 And so I needed the extra help to kind of fix the metabolic dysfunction and reverse some negative trends in my liver. So that was like a very lengthy conversation I had with my doctor over three, four months. So, you know, it was an informed decision to go on it. And then as soon as I went on it, I started having close. clown nightmares and that was not fun. I did not realize that's why I had nightmares. But yeah, apparently GLP1 can create really vivid nightmares early on. I thought I was just having a moment and V told me and I was like, oh.
Starting point is 00:51:19 I thought it was clown specific. Oh, no. I had a dream that my spouse's ex was chasing me on a cruise ship with a knife and I was like, this bitch is crazy. And then she turned into Pennywise the clown from it. And I was like, oh, no. really crazy and then I woke up almost screaming and apparently it's because like a small percentage of people who take gLP ones have crazy dreams on them and like I was on the intro dose
Starting point is 00:51:49 when I was getting these side effects and my doctor was like you know most people don't get side effects on the intro dose you are special girl and I was like oh cool great so you're telling me that food aversion is not normal on the intro dose because I can't look at food sometimes times. And it's a very, it's a very troubling. This is why I like the doctor I've had for the last few years in Vegas, because I don't get any of this normal people. I don't hear about the mean or the media. And I just did, he doesn't try and pretend that I am like similar to other people because I am not. Like it, and most of the time it's just me being like, is this bad? And he's like, no.
Starting point is 00:52:28 I feel like the entire problem of everything we're talking about in these conversations is this trying to push everybody towards the mean, trying to make everyone like everyone else in a way that's literally not, like not. I feel like the mean is also a terrible way to do health in general, just the amount of food you need. It should be personalized, right? Like we're all different. Everybody's got different things.
Starting point is 00:52:57 Some people got heart issues. Some people got fatty livers. Some people got the diabetes. Sorry. I'm of an age. The beatus. I will always think of him every single time. Mr. Brimley.
Starting point is 00:53:12 Yeah, Mr. Brimley. And, you know, everybody is a little different. And when we don't allow for that, when these fitness influencers and these companies push things and say, this is going to fix you, it's a flat out lie because they don't know and they can't promise. that and they shouldn't. And like, I know we, we're kind of going all through it. I still get really upset with the companies like Google who are profiting enormously off of this stuff. They have no issue, just raking in billions in cash from advertisers and from these influencers and from viewpoints just to make a buck. They're just like, yeah, this is just an industry. You are the product now. I hate that. I hate that you are the product now. Your attention is a product. Your body is a
Starting point is 00:53:57 product. Everything about you is being monetized to be a product and it's like you don't do the buying anymore. You are the data. Smart glasses, why do they want to put cameras on these smart glasses so that they can get data from the camera? Why do they want to put... Everybody always
Starting point is 00:54:12 wants to record their first person point of view. Of course. That's not what the commercial said. It looks like boiled ass. Here's a hater moment. I think the video from those things looks weird. I think it looks strange. I don't like it. I feel like I'm sitting on top of somebody's head.
Starting point is 00:54:33 I mean, because you are. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I know, I know that's why. Like, it's, but that's not a pleasant feeling. I don't want to be ratatooie. Just like the vertical video wasn't attractive, right? Like, one now we're all used to vertical video. I like my 69 situation, 1610. Yeah. Yeah. I want to see everything around you. I want a classic wide frame. Yeah, it's just, I'm, I am really, I do think we're going to, like, no one, no one fucking believes me, but I do think a lot of this stuff is going to go away the moment they realize how actually expensive it is to run this ship. And on top of the fact that just, no one's really making any money out of this AI health stuff because where's the product?
Starting point is 00:55:18 It's like, yeah, I ask. You are the product. Yeah, but like, you are the product. But they don't know how to productize it from there. They don't know how to, like, make a ton of money from that, evidence being that nobody has made a ton of money from that. Even Claude, the supposedly most important thing ever, that is, only about $100 million a month in revenue. Andrew Huberman probably makes that from various snake oils. He boils in his garage.
Starting point is 00:55:45 The thing about health, though, it is the most valuable thing you have. I think Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez said something along these lines several years ago, and it's stuck in my brain, where it's just like you will most people unless you know most people right will basically do anything to live a little bit longer that's rich people that's poor people nobody wants to die i mean like there's a few select there's a select few who uh court death for whatever reason but most people don't want to die they want just a little bit more time and so health is your most valuable possession that you have it's priceless because as soon as your health goes, your quality of life goes. And I think companies know this and they know if they can scare you,
Starting point is 00:56:33 if they can fearmonger you into saying, we have a solution so that you will live longer, people will pay out the nose for that. And they're just waiting to get that thing that will be like, oh, you will do this. Like smart watches, when it was just counting your steps, didn't fucking matter. They were having a hard time getting people to buy those things. The fashion, Apple Watch edition, yeah, that didn't work either. But as soon as the Apple Watch was like, well, save your life if you have a cardiac event. Yeah, people started buying them. They started becoming a thing.
Starting point is 00:57:00 That was kind of cool, though, like it could do the EKG thing. But I'm sure that there's something bad. I would argue Apple is a big reason why we have this. I mean, obviously there's like the Alex Jones and the Joe Rogans of the world and everything like that. And the whole, like, influencer economy and love to push your protein powders. But a big part of this was Apple back at, this is my hater section. A big part of this was Apple. When Apple came out, they launched that watch.
Starting point is 00:57:25 did fuck all. Nobody knew what to use it for. I had one. I called it my great regret, capital letters every single time, even when I said it out loud. And that was because it was useless. And they were desperate to find a use for it. They found a use with the EKG stuff. And it was a genuinely useful thing. People started buying it for that reason, right? I cannot tell you how many people I know who bought a watch for an elderly parent so that they could have that extra safety net. And now they're like, okay, well, we still have to make money off of this, but we already did that, and we have to grow. And we have to keep growing. If we don't grow, we don't grow, we die. And so what do they do? They push further into wellness in places where Apple and a lot of
Starting point is 00:58:09 these companies have zero business being, and they're doing it exclusively because they're like, we need new markets to sell our products. That's it. I will say Apple is much more responsible in the wellness space than other. They do a lot. in clinical research. They are very clear about what their products do and don't do. I do not hate Apple as much in this space as other kind of more snake-oil-y, which I'll call it. They did kick it off. They kicked off the advanced health features. But like, that's the, again, here's the difference. Here's the distinction. Health features versus wellness features. They're different. There's a different grade. Doesn't Apple one of the ones who did push wellness because some of their features,
Starting point is 00:58:51 couldn't, weren't immediately approved, weren't being like, yeah, they just weren't approved. And so they were like, oh, this is a wellness feature initially. Well, it was more like they were, they, I wouldn't say it was them that were the first ones, because EKG, I think was the first time we saw like a big difference in terms of like the alerts. Anything that is diagnostic, they very much go through the, it's not diagnostic, but anything that's diagnostic adjacent, they will go through the clearance process for. But again, to answer the question. I asked you guys earlier, blood oxygen, that's a wellness feature because there's nothing
Starting point is 00:59:25 that you do with that information. It's just a spot check. It's not telling you that you have sleep opnia. It's not telling you that you have anything. It is for your fun that you get to see that what your blood oxygen is. And so that is a wellness feature. And okay, cool, cool, go off. That Apple risks a lot of time and effort and lawsuits to put into their watches and are now, aren't they still embroiled in a lawsuit about it? They're still embroiled in a lawsuit about it, but they're no longer banned from importing it. So, you know, you can still have those features on the thing. But, you know, blood oxygen, I don't think is that useful of a metric. If you're, if you need it, just get a pulse eximeter. I don't think a smart watch is, you know, I've had some readers tell me that they
Starting point is 01:00:05 find it useful for their parents with respiratory issues, but I just think you should have a pulse oxymeter because this is going to be a gruesome story. But when my mom was dying, like actually the day she died, um, it was because she was having respiratory fill. from ALS, her lungs were paralyzed, basically, and she couldn't breathe and get enough oxygen into them. So her blood oxygen was dropping rapidly. And, you know, I had the pulse excimeter, and she was getting to a point where her blood saturation levels were, like,
Starting point is 01:00:35 in the high 40s to low 60s, which is death time, because anything under 90, you're supposed to go to a hospital. So, you know, that was, my family's full of doctors, so this was supervised, right? My family's full of doctors, and they all knew what that meant. And, you know, I'm a wearables reporter. My cousin was freaking out. She thought the pulse oxymeter couldn't possibly be saying 48 because that meant death.
Starting point is 01:00:59 So I was like, well, I got Apple Watch. Let me put this on my dying mother. Oh, no. And let me tell you, it couldn't read it. There was no reading. Fucking hell. Did it put up an emoji or anything? No.
Starting point is 01:01:14 It just was like, it just said it couldn't get a reading. No, she put it on and it immediately said, you should try standing. Yeah, I mean, like, this is not a story that I frequently tell. Sorry. Just because it's a sad story. And then I'm also just like, I feel guilt because I'm just like, oh, I put an Apple Watch on my mom while she was. No, no, no, no, bullshit. You put some, you tried to, you tried to, you tried to, you tried to, and you truly.
Starting point is 01:01:40 You were trying to confirm. Also, your mother was dying. You could have done anything in that, like, like, you reacted more normally than I would if such a thing was happening. I had my, don't worry, I reacted not normally later that night. Again, completely forgivable considering. Yeah, yeah. Kind it to yourself. But no, I was just very much like, well, what are the opportunities for a wearerblest tester to be with someone who is very identifiably, identifiably below 90 in terms of a pulse oxymeter and to see whether this feature actually works on someone who is so low?
Starting point is 01:02:18 And my finding was, no, this is why you need a pulse exceitator. Because if you are someone who has to worry about that, you shouldn't really rely on a smart watch wellness. Clearly con. It's the same with like, I was going to say, same dark story, similarly dark, but my mom's still alive. But she had a stroke and had to go on a heart monitor. And she was like, well, why can't I just use my Apple Watch? Because it's got a fib detection. And they were like, because it's a garbage heart rate monitor, you need one like over your heart.
Starting point is 01:02:47 We want to see every beat of that thing. Your wearables aren't going to do that. And her mind was blown. And she hated it. And we ended up using the Apple Watch. It's only for healthy people with a baseline. Like that's all these wearables are. It's just establishing what your baseline is.
Starting point is 01:03:04 And accuracy is actually not the most important thing for most wearables. It's consistency. So if it's consistently inaccurate by the same amount, you can still use it to judge changes in your baseline. But yeah, obviously I live and breathe this shit. So I get really mad when I see influencers just talking out their fucking ass about clinically back this. And they're like, it's clinically proven. Nothing's clinically proven.
Starting point is 01:03:29 Critical proven doesn't mean shit. It's a marketing term. Especially, you know, I actually interviewed a doctor and I was just like, what is clinically whatever meant? And then she was just like, there's a whole wide range of what clinically backed or clinically tested means. It could be, in certain cases, depending on how a study is designed, it could be someone just self-reporting their results in a scientific setting, and that is technically clinical. So, you know, next time you hear clinically validated, clinically proven, and marketing materials, I want you to put your little thinking cap on and go, but is it really? Is it really?
Starting point is 01:04:09 What is that mean? Look, what does that mean? What are they actually studying? How are you? How are they validating this thing? Like, I just want you to take the extra critical thinking step and just don't go like, wow, science words. Like, that's all I want for people to next time you see an influencer in a Lulu Lemon set going, oh my God, this greens powder is clinically proven to help your cognition. No. Well, that's not what clinically. That gets into that whole four humors thing we've been seeing, right, where everybody's talking about your cortisol and all your other different hormones.
Starting point is 01:04:43 And if I hear one more time, if I hear one more someone talking about inflammation, I was like, if it was this easy to release our cortisol, no one would have stress. Like, you know how you get rid of cortisol? Lower your cortisol levels?
Starting point is 01:04:59 Be less stressed in exercise. That's it. That was that I've been getting random itching when I fall asleep and I've read so many things like, yeah, maybe you're stressed. It's like, cool, thank you. Or maybe you have dry skin,
Starting point is 01:05:12 moisturized. Do you moisturize it? Yeah, I do. I do, and it doesn't work. So, I mean, it's probably something fun. Someone's going to email me. If you email me and say it's like a, just want to be clear, any listeners who email and try and diagnose me,
Starting point is 01:05:27 I don't want to fucking know, and I'm going to blast you. Everyone email him and tell him he's am laxed him. Any kind of diagnosis, I must be fucking clear. I will light you up like a Christmas tree. And on that note, I think we can call it there, as we've heard a wonderful hateer session. Victoria's song, of course, from The Verge. Victoria, always a pleasure to have you.
Starting point is 01:05:50 Thank you for having me. I hate everything. And Alex Cranz, love having you too. Oh, my God. I hated every part of this podcast, so and every part of the world right now. Did I get my hate up? Perfect.
Starting point is 01:06:06 That was great. The hateometer I've got going is absolutely losing it. But this was lovely. Thank you, everyone, for listening. This has been lovely. You'll have monologue, of course, this week. And yeah, catch you soon. Thank you for listening to Better Offline.
Starting point is 01:06:26 The editor and composer of the Better Offline theme song is Matt Rosowski. You can check out more of his music and audio projects at Mattisowski.com. M-A-T-T-O-S-O-S-K-I.com. You can email me at E-Z at Better Offline.com or visit Better Offline.com to find more podcast links and, of course, my newsletter. I also really recommend you go to chat. Where's your ed dot at to visit the disc. and go to our slash better offline to check out our Reddit.
Starting point is 01:06:54 Thank you so much for listening. Better Offline is a production of Cool Zone Media. For more from Cool Zone Media, visit our website, coolzonemedia.com, or check us out on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Another podcast from some SNL, late-night comedy guy, not quite.
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Starting point is 01:08:49 You're good for 300 crimes? Yeah. We got two. I'm ready to go right up to present day. Listen to Crimless on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. I actually drop better when I'm high. It heightens my senses. It calms me down.
Starting point is 01:09:08 If anything, I'm more careful. Honestly, it just helps me focus. That's probably what the driver who killed a four-year-old told himself. And now, he's in prison. You see, no matter what you tell yourself, if you feel different, you drive different. So if you're high, just don't drive. Brought to you by NHTSA and the Ad Council.
Starting point is 01:09:33 This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed Human.

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