Bite Back with Abbey Sharp - Seeds Oils, Insulin Spikes, Glyphosate, Oh My! How to Spot Nutrition BS with Dr. Idz

Episode Date: November 5, 2024

On today’s episode of Bite Back with Abbey Sharp, we will be chatting with TikTok nutrition myth buster, Dr Idz. He will be helping us debunk some of the biggest nutrition scandals online including claims that seed oils are inflammatory, that all blood sugar and insulin spikes are dangerous, and that glyphosate in your conventional food is toxic. In our takeaway section, we will leave you with some red flags to watch for when evaluating the content you see online to help you understand if its quackery or evidence-based. Check in with today’s amazing guest Dr Idz!Tiktok: @dr_idzInstagram: @dr_idzWebsite: https://www.schoolofdridz.com/Book:  Saturated Facts by Dr. Idz https://www.amazon.com/Saturated-Facts-Busting-Nutrition-Misinformation-ebook/dp/B0C2Y7KVHPIf you have heard yourself in our discussion today, and are looking for support, contact the free NEDIC helpline at 1-866-NEDIC-20 or go to eatingdisorderhope.com.Don’t forget to Please subscribe on Apple, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts and leave us a review! It really helps us out. 🥤 Check out my 2-in-1 Plant Based Probiotic Protein Powder, neue theory at www.neuetheory.com or @neuetheoryDon’t forget to Please subscribe on Apple, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts and leave us a review! It really helps us out. ✉️ SUBSCRIBE TO MY NEWSLETTERS ⤵️Neue Theory newsletterAbbey's Kitchen newsletter 🥞 FREE HUNGER CRUSHING COMBO™ E-BOOK! 💪🏼 FREE PROTEIN 101 E-BOOK! Disclaimer: The content in this episode is for educational and entertainment purposes only and is never a substitute for medical advice. If you’re struggling with with your mental or physical health, please work one on one with a health care provider. 📱 Follow me! Instagram: @abbeyskitchenTikTok: @abbeyskitchenYouTube: @AbbeysKitchen My blog, Abbey’s Kitchen www.abbeyskitchen.com My book, The Mindful Glow Cookbook affiliate link: https://amzn.to/3NoHtvf If you liked this podcast, please like, follow, and leave a review with your thoughts and let me know who you want me to discuss next!

Just that stress response that you would experience in the supermarket is likely doing far much more harm than this over-cautious approach and demonizing every safe ingredient. The benefit that you get from that is likely very, very tiny compared to the harm that you're getting from just being overly anxious about everything. Hi everyone and welcome to another episode of Bite Back with Abbey Sharp. I have spent my entire career thus far unpacking all the health, nutrition and wellness misinformation that has become so ubiquitous and rampant on social media. To separate fact from fiction, dispute false claims, quell fear-mongering, call out the grifters trying to gaslight you, and put a kibosh on the quackery that often goes unchecked. It is a never-ending job, but thankfully I don't have to do it alone. My guest today is Dr. Idris Mughal, better known as Dr. Ids, who is part of the science

communication army online. He is best known for his evidence-based pseudoscience takedown TikToks and his signature call to action, Time for School. His first book, Saturated Facts, a myth-busting guide to diet and nutrition in a world of misinformation, is a must-read, go-to guide for helping you wade through all of the nutrition bullshit that comes your way. I am so grateful to be fighting the good fight together on the same team, and I'm so excited to have him here on the podcast. Thank you so much for joining me, Dr. Ids. I know we're like part of the same wellness misinformation debunking army online, and I appreciate your content so, so much. Thank you so much. It's a pleasure to be here. And thanks for inviting me.

Looking forward to dive into the depths of nutrition misinformation. Oh, yes. I think it's time for school, as you say. It is. So let's kick off. Yeah. Let's kick off some like quickfire nutrition myth busting. Number one, are seed oils dangerous? Yeah, so short answer no,

slightly longer answer. As with anything, you know, dosage is very important. Because any kind of fats, oils, no matter what type of oil or fat you're talking about, they are extremely calorically dense. So even if you you know, even if you're in the camp of animal fats are healthy, or vegetable fats are healthy, whichever camp you're in, there is always a tipping point by which too much can be harmful, because it exceeds your, your calorie needs, it exceeds your body's demand for energy. And that can then cause excess free fatty acids in the bloodstream, and the whole host of health issues that come from increasing adipose tissue. Now, what these fear mongers typically from the animal based side, because obviously,

seed oils come from seeds, so they come from plants. What they typically argue is that seed oils are high in something called linoleic acid, a type of omega-6 fatty acid. And they speculate that this can then increase levels of systemic inflammation, low-grade chronic inflammation. They speculate that it can damage your DNA. They speculate that it increases the risk of heart disease. And they also say things like, you know, linoleic acid can increase the conversion to a different type of compound called arachidonic acid. And arachidonic acid is then implicated in lots of inflammatory pathways. However, as I've covered on multiple longer style videos and shorter style videos, is that actually these mechanisms that people

speculate around, they don't hold any weight. So I will say that mechanistically, it makes no sense that seed oils increase inflammation. All of the human observational data, long-term cohort studies and randomized control trials show that vegetable oils or seed oils do not increase levels of systemic inflammation. I covered a review in, I believe, 2017 that looked at over 30 randomized controlled human trials, 10 of them being on seed oils. These studies were done from 2010 to 2016. And they showed that zero out of 10 human randomized controlled trials looking at the inflammatory effects of seed oils, zero of them showed any adverse increase in any systemic inflammatory marker. And three of them showed an anti-inflammatory effect, right? So

you could actually argue that not only is it neutral on levels of systemic inflammation, but when replaced isocalorically, so meaning calorie for calorie, with animal fats, so when you replace animal fats, let's say 100 calories of animal fats with a seed oil, your levels of inflammation could actually decrease, right? So not only are they are they not inflammatory based on all the human control data, they could even be anti inflammatory if you're using them as a replacement for other more harmful fats. I think the bottom line there is that they're fine in moderation. You know, you don't want to overdo that because of course they are calorie dense like any other fat or oil and you know i i feel like canola tends to get a really

bad rep and i think that you know what people actually need to know is it has a very favorable omega-6 to omega-3 ratio which is you know something that we actually should be looking for more often so just something to keep in mind that, you know, these things are typically, you know, there's a lot of fear mongering when it comes to these seed oils and very much unnecessarily. But next, glyphosate in our cereal, should we be concerned about glyphosate in, you know, our oats and our Cheerios and all that kind of stuff? As general public health advice, if it falls below the toxic level based on your weight and based on your size then you have no concern and now the toxic level for glyphosate is so ridiculously high right that i've done these calculations literally on the screen in my videos for example

this bonza pasta situation recently right um you would, if you're 70 kilograms, you would literally have to consume, you know, over 200 servings, maybe even 300 servings of that pasta every single day, before the glyphosate would start to do anything. Right. And believe me, the toxic level of fiber you would get from that amount of pasta, that would likely kill you before the glyphosate did anything um you could even argue any other vitamin or mineral within that pasta would likely harm you before glyphosate did anything so this just shows that like we're concerned about something that has such a high threshold for causing harm whereas all the other essential and beneficial nutrients in there would actually harm you well before that glyphosate did anything. That's a really good point.

Okay, moving on to insulin sensitivity and blood sugars. This is a big topic right now. I feel like everyone is currently obsessed with, you know, this fear over blood sugar spikes or insulin spikes. You know, just to kind of give a little quick overview of just like blood sugar regulation before we kind of get into this trend that we're seeing, you know, I think people forget that our body, you know, a healthy body runs a very tight ship when it comes to blood sugar homeostasis. So anytime we eat, you know, our blood sugars rise, our pancreas pumps out more insulin and

insulin is kind of like the key to unlock, you know, the cells to let the glucose into our cells and to our muscle cells, for example, where we can perform tasks and move and all that stuff. The more sugar in our blood, the more insulin gets pumped out. And then of course, if our blood sugars get low, because maybe we haven't eaten, our body can release another hormone called glucagon, which then converts our stored glucose glycogen into glucose into the blood. And also our liver can also manufacture, you know, sugars by gluconeogenesis. So it's a very tightly run ship. And I think people forget this, they think that, you know, they have to, you know, manufacture a perfect diet in order to maintain this blood

sugar regulation every minute of the day. But we're seeing certain creators push this glucose revolution, really overblowing the impact of seeing any little blip in blood sugars, particularly in even healthy people. What is the real risk here? Yeah, good question. So perfect, perfect summary of a normal, normal human physiology. You know, I think just the, just the rationalization of our bodily systems somehow sparks some like huge debate in lots of people. It's really, really silly. What I will say is, if people hyper fixate on keeping everything super steady, when actually our body can do that for us, right, you run the risk of several things. Number one, you run the risk of almost a psychological mindset that food quality is based on the

glycemic index of the food, which is just is very, very silly, because you negate extremely nutritious foods that contain carbohydrates, like whole grains, like oats, like, you know, just boiled potatoes. Boiled potatoes are fantastic, contain tons of nutrients, right? Extremely high on the satiety index, extremely beneficial when people want to manage their total weight. You know, there's lots of lots of beneficial foods and compounds that do tend to cause a rapid rise, or, you know, perhaps say a more prolonged rise in blood sugar. Now, the issue is, is that if you hyper fixate on keeping everything low, not only can you miss out on essential nutrients from these foods that we just mentioned, but you can also cause deleterious

effects on other metabolic parameters. So the reason I say that is because what are the main strategies people use to keep blood sugar low, they increase their dietary fats, or they could, you know, reduce carbohydrates, for example, right? Now, let's go with increasing dietary fats. A lot of these people that talk about how any blood glucose spike is harmful because you don't see it in nature. It's not natural to have massive glucose spikes, right? They are typically more proponents or advocates for animal-based fats, right? Generally across the board. The people that demonize these things, they typically are advocates for animal fat sources so right the issue with this is is that by controlling or inadvertently controlling blood glucose

you're now causing derangements in your blood lipids because now your ldl is going up your saturated fat intake is going up your your your apob is going up your total cholesterol is going up your triglycerides might even go up so like why like it doesn't make sense if you genuinely want to improve your health why are you trying to fixate on correcting even though it's not a correction on normalizing one metabolic parameter but you're sacrificing an entire other category of parameters, which are equally as harmful. Like, you know, you, you, one could argue that prolonged blood glucose is maybe as harmful or slightly less harmful than prolonged elevated ApoB or LDL cholesterol, right? So like, where does the logic stem from by fixating on one metabolic parameter and then leaving out or

just ignoring or denying evidence about other metabolic parameters um that's another that's a logical fallacy that a lot of these people do and they use to justify this kind of hyper fixation on blood glucose control the second thing i would say is um people creators that we, everyone is aware of, that do demonize these things, they make the claim that any spike in blood glucose is harmful, right? And they try and justify that by saying, well, when you you when you get this spike, you then have a crash. And this crash causes you to have low blood sugar, and then you get lethargic you get moody you get depressed you eat more it stimulates cravings and that's actually not true like as much as people's anecdotal experiences they do they do state that it is what i want people to understand is

is that a result of the blood glucose change or is it a result of the characteristics of the food they're consuming right and the reason i say that is because we have controlled human data showing that i've cited in a very recent video so check it out if you haven't watched it that show that if you take a group of people healthy or diabetic or whatever there are multiple studies done on this on different demographics, if you take a group of people, and you give one group, you know, a sugary beverage that contains 80 grams of sucrose 8080. Right? That's a huge amount of sugar in one drink. Yeah. And then you give the other group you give the other group flavored water, just zero calories, or just a non artificially sweetened beverage with just zero calories, no sugar, right? Now, the differences in between their mood,

their hypoglycemic symptoms, or their subjective appetite were not different, right? And the only variable you're changing is the glycemic impact of that product. Now, people then might say, okay, but when I have a bag of Haribo Tanfastics, right, I then do feel sloppy, like later on, like maybe two hours later. Okay, now my question still remains, was that a result of your blood sugar going up and down? Or is it a result of something else? I would argue it's a result of the other characteristics of that food, like the palatability, right? Like the texture, like the water content, like your psychological relationship with that food, right? Like the fact that you just love sweet, tasty foods, right? There are other factors around these foods that could be responsible for your change in symptoms. And it's not down to

purely the fact that your blood sugar is going up, right? Our body very, very tightly regulates our blood glucose. Even if we do have a slight reactive hypoglycemia, as we call it, it would only be slightly marginally low for a very, very short period of time, right? I'm not saying it's going to be low for hours, it's going to be low for a matter of minutes, right? These symptoms don't arise in a matter of minutes. Now, if you're insulin resistant, and you're type 2 diabetic, of course, we should be mindful of the types of foods we're consuming and their impact on blood glucose. But there are very, very easy fixes if you want to consume, let's say, a bowl of oats, right? And maybe you want to top a bit of a sprinkle of a little bit of sugar on it. Okay, fair enough, just by itself, oats with no fats, you know, and just the

fiber from the oats, you might get a slightly prolonged blood glucose elevation. And it might be high a little bit too long if you're insulin resistant. Okay, very, very simple solution. Don't cut out the oats, just add some berries to it, add a nut butter to it, right? Add some fiber to it. Let's focus on adding things to foods, not so much taking them away. So important. I think that that's key. Like we, we, we, we are always thinking about what we need to cut out. And that just kind of gets into that restrictive mentality that people, obviously, they're just going to throw in the towel the minute they realize, well, I really like oats. So I really like bread or really like pasta. Um, and know, from my perspective, I always kind of worry

with these obsessions over something like your blood sugar levels and constantly testing your blood sugars before and after, especially in healthy folks. Like this can very easily become just another form of orthorexia, this heightened anxiety around every food you put into your mouth. And I think it really just detracts from, you know, the important things when it comes to metabolic health, which is like, you know, when we want to improve insulin sensitivity, it comes down to the big picture, daily exercise, maintaining a healthy body weight, especially paying attention to that visceral fat, eating and adding fiber protein, healthy fats, like you said, to stabilize blood sugars over time, stress management, sleep hygiene. And, you know, the ironic thing is that stress can also increase blood sugars and then constantly

surveilling your numbers before and after a meal is stressful. So it's funny people, you know, they're not thinking big picture. They're thinking about, Oh, whether or not my blood sugar goes up, you know, uh, right after I eat a bowl of oatmeal. That's, that's not actually useful when it comes to, you know the the added anxiety and stress response that you get from you know being in a grocery store and like being confused about oh my gosh I was told that this increases blood sugar and this you know I can't i was told i can't eat that ingredient what do i do now like just that stress response that you would experience in the supermarket is likely doing far much more harm than this over you know over cautious approach and demonizing every safe ingredient uh that you know the benefit that you get from that is likely very, very tiny

compared to the harm that you're getting from just being overly anxious about everything. Yeah, correct. 100%. And speaking about overly anxious about everything, except for a very small little subgroup of foods, I want to talk about the carnivore diet, because like, there has just been this over, well, I was, I thought this was just like a stupid trend but it just keeps going um you know there are so many people on the internet claiming that this animal based diet or carnivore diets are the cure to everything from digestive issues to acne to the elusive quote-unquote inflammation as we kind of earlier spoke about earlier. What is your take on this trend? Yeah, the carnivore diet has really gained traction for lots of reasons. I think one,

you know, obviously, big, popular creators, you know, alpha male Jim Bro, you know alpha male Jim bro you know and also alpha females now coming up in the ranks of carnivore creators um all of these people that are very you know anti-western medicine anti-government guidelines anti-FDA European Union like all these types of creators they're feeding off of already the ever increasingly um skeptical uh people people's opinions they have around government guidelines around you know uh countries don't want you to be healthy don't want you to be well you know do the opposite of what any government tells you. It's kind of just like the golden ticket for a lot of these people. They're kind of using these narratives and using these conspiracy theorists

to kind of gain traction. That's just a very sad thing in and of itself. I think the second thing is that when people are trying this extreme elimination diet, you know, some people that have been plagued with certain health issues for most of their life, they're, they're, you know, likely seeing some kind of temporary benefit from excluding a lot of these plant fibers, these, you know, indigestible plant foods that might be individual triggers to certain people and what i think is they think they are becoming healthier because of the carnivore diet as opposed to the fact that

they're simply avoiding their triggers and just being healthy right so like if you were to eat a plant-based diet and all you did was identify your individual triggers and and cut them out but you're still eating plant food you know would you have a greater response than if you just went carnivore there's no evidence for that and actually there are there are millions of vegans who would who would say the exact same thing. They would say, well, you know, I cure all of my ailments or autoimmunity or, you know, I suppressed my skin condition by going vegan. So, you know, who's right, who's wrong? relying on individual people talking about their story is that they are conflating the benefits from avoiding individual triggers with the benefit of the total dietary pattern and that's very very dangerous because for example i could say based on a known testimonial right uh what's his name professor how is it from you know he did the famous twinkie diet in in the u.s he literally ate nothing but twinkies oreos biscuits and cereals for like two

months and he lost 27 pounds he improved his blood lipids he improved all of his metabolic markers he improved his cardiovascular risk score. And he ate nothing but Twinkies. So, you know, I, you know, there is even a case to be made that if you want to rely on testimonials, then surely the Twinkie diet is healthy because of this professor guy. Should all be just eating Twinkies to lose weight. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Whereas all he did was restrict his calories and he lost weight and then experienced health benefits from the weight loss.

So it's like you're conflating your current state of health with your dietary pattern when actually you can use the same logic to apply it in a carnival diet. Whereas yes, your skin might've cleared up. Yes, you might've lost 20 pounds. Yes, you might no longer be having regular flare ups of your, you know, inflammatory bowel disease, or whatever it is, you know, your eczema or asthma or whatever it is. But don't be so quick

to attribute that to the dietary pattern. Let's just understand that you've cut out your individual triggers, and now you're experiencing benefits. So now, if we can't rely on testimonials, because there are testimonials saying a million different things, what can we rely on? Okay, well, you can rely on the overwhelming amount of human data showing that dietary patterns that are majority plant-based, right, have extremely positive long-term health outcomes, even in substitution analyses where you substitute 3% of animal foods with plant foods, you see a drastic improvement in long-term health outcomes, in cancer outcomes, in cardiovascular disease outcomes, and even in human randomized control trials, where you assign people to actually follow the dietary guidelines. There's a study back in I think 2012, that took American adults, I'm not

sure if they had comorbidities or not, but they followed the dietary guideline recommendations, and most of them saw improvements in their metabolic health, right? And so and what does the dietary guideline recommend for the US and the UK and elsewhere? Well, it recommends a majority plant based diets, right? So, you know, we should just try and remain objective, realize that there is a testimonial to point to any direction. You know, I often cite the carnival cringe page on Instagram. They're fantastic because they literally post thousands of testimonials of people following the carnival diet for months that have seen worsening in their health,

worsening in their autoimmunity, worsening in their blood markers, you know, even weight gain, funnily enough. You know, I would think it's pretty hard to gain weight on just steak and flipping eggs because it's, you know. Well gain funnily enough you know i would i would think it's pretty hard to gain weight on just steak and flipping eggs because it's you know well with enough butter yeah yeah that's the thing right it's like like you said if if you can even stomach that amount of animal food i physically couldn't i find it horrendous um but you know there's a test there's a testimonial for literally any direction you want to look at so why don't we just put a bit more faith into the scientific process and realize that

not every study is funded by big soybean and just understand that perhaps there's not some kind of worldwide conspiracy across multiple countries and healthcare systems that are all trying to get you to eat more plants and get you to be more sick. It's just a ridiculous narrative to try and frame. One of the things that's very hard about our job is that it sometimes feels like we're fighting magic. We're fighting against like mysticism. And as healthcare providers, you know, we are bound to our colleges to practice evidence-based care. Like you've been talking about, let's look at the research, let's look at the science, which means we can't just make

flippant sensationalized statements online as we see so many content creators do with no recourse. And it's very hard to pit science against this mysticism because as you know, nutrition science is notoriously, you know, challenging and conflicting. It's never going to be definitive. It's not going to be a quick fix or a singular secret. It's kind of basic stuff. Like it's really just that like eat a balanced diet, move your body, drink water, manage your stress, get good sleep. But it's so hard for people to get on board with these basic principles that we know would produce way better outcomes than focusing on these singular insignificant details like, you know, don't eat ingredients that you can't pronounce or whatever. And I think, you know,

one of the things that I was thinking about when you're talking about the carnivore diet is that there's also this like, with a lot of these diet trends this they're designed to be exclusive right like they're designed to separate the halves from the halves knots and you know who can afford the privilege of following these random prescriptive food rules like only eating beef like in this economy beef only like it Like it's crazy. And I always think about that episode of, you know, Jimmy Kimmel where he interviewed a bunch of people like, you know, what is gluten? And people were like, oh, I just know it's toxic. I just know it makes you fat. I just know it's bad.

But nobody knew what gluten actually was, right? They just knew that there was a bit of a status symbol around ordering the gluten-free pasta when you go out for dinner. So I think that that also plays a really big role, unfortunately, in a lot of these trends that, you know, who can actually, who can afford to pay attention? And this idea, this perception that, you know, I can take care of my diet by only eating gluten-free organic non-GMO and making a big stink about glyphosate and x y and z versus oh you must not like care enough about your health to to make these same make these same strides yeah yeah it's the demonization of anything cheap um anything accessible anything shelf stable

how ridiculous do you have to be to be the kind of person that literally makes videos showing a piece of bread and that, oh, because it hasn't gone moldy in four days, this is now somehow bad for you. advancements in food policy and you know like uh food manufacturing where we can make products cheaper more accessible you know not everyone can afford a bloody fridge you know that might sound like a crazy concept but fridges are bloody expensive they're really expensive and like yeah you know a lot of these shelves i think i've seen almost every kind of shelf stable food get demonized at one point or the other, right? Long life milk, right? Milk that doesn't have to go in the fridge. Right? It's just ridiculous. That milk is saving people's, saving people's lives, feeding people's children. Oh, yeah. Yeah. It's, it's most definitely preventing many people's, you know, chronic nutrient deficiencies. It must be protecting many,

many children's bones, you know, protecting lots of different things. It's just like people need to have insights and awareness of the situation. Number one, number two, not everyone is, um, privileged enough to adopt whatever it is that you're prescribing for people. And number three, if you don't have a genuinely evidence-based criticism of a compound, then just don't bother saying it. It's not an argument to just say that it's, oh, this is cheap processed food. Poison, toxic, right.

Yeah, I know. It's like when I hear influencers or creators say, oh, X, Y, and Z is toxic, it's poison. If they're not telling you the dose at which it's poison, then you should literally just write them off right away. It's a red flag right there for me. We talked about the elitism kind of piece. We talked about, you mentioned, you know, especially post-COVID life and I think social media, like there's a huge distrust in authority at large, which includes traditional health care professionals like you and I and the scientific community at large and official government agencies. I want to circle back to something you mentioned earlier on in the interview, which is this idea of nature's fallacy, because I think this plays into a lot of the wellness trends. And it's something that I think people are kind of blind to in a lot of ways. Do you want to tell me a little bit about, you know, nature's fallacy and how this plays out online? Yeah, so this is very, very common.

So the appeal to nature fallacy is the idea that just because something is natural, it's automatically better. And just because something is synthetically made or artificial,'s it's just inherently worse for you um now this fallacy is clearly a fallacy because it can be dismantled very very quickly so for example if you just enter a forest any and literally any forest with lots of plants lots of trees lots of you know anything growing from the ground uh there will be several dozen things in there that if you were to take a bite of it, you could literally die. Um, those things are all natural. You know, does that mean, you know, deadly nightshade? That's a natural plant. You know, are you going to be making that? Are you going to be making deadly nightshade tea? Yeah. Asbestos is natural. Mercury is natural,

right? Heavy metals, heavy metals in soil water food they're all natural are you when's when's the next time you're going to be consuming a you know a lead pill for example right if you're going to make the argument that something is bad for you you can't rely on whether it's artificial or naturally occurring you can't rely on that because there are so many loopholes for so many things so we have to just think a bit more objectively just be a little bit more um what's the words be a little bit more balanced in our approach and understand that yeah there are many logical holes and places where these types of narratives fall. And that's the exact reason why it's called a fallacy. It's called a logical fallacy because it's so prevalent amongst the population. And it's so easy to dismiss. fear mongers is which is quite interesting that i that i thought about recently is that if you look at the whole demonization of seed oils the demonization of glucose spikes and the carnivore

diet probably three of the biggest uh health misconceptions or health myths that need to be debunked in the social media space currently, right? All of these three, if you were to draw a Venn diagram, seed oils bad, glucose spikes bad, carnivore diet the best, in the middle, they all stem from the same place, which is natural is better, right? Artificial is bad. Because, because let me explain explain because they say seed oils aren't naturally occurring therefore it's bad right you have to press them you have to add hexane to them you have to manufacture them they're industrially in industrially processed right glucose spikes are bad well in nature sugars are bound with fiber and they're bound in a food matrix and most fruits don't rapidly spike your blood glucose.

Therefore, all glucose spikes are bad, right? And the carnivore diet, let's eat like our ancestor hunter-gatherers who ironically never actually had a primarily animal-based diet. Most of their calories came from plants, which is the funny thing. Nor did they live past like 30. Yeah, yeah, yeah. funny thing nor did they live past like 30 yeah yeah let's just let's just allow them the premise that our ancestors were animal animal-based eaters all these three narratives stem from the same logical fallacy which is the appeal to nature fallacy and as we've just demonstrated it falls

on its face in many many many places so all of those three can be debunked with with one argument and you talk a lot you know about all this kind of stuff and a lot more in your book saturated facts what do you hope people walk away with after reading your book if there was just like one take-home message what would you what do you want to be not everything you hear and see online is as it seems and once you understand their rhetoric or their reasoning you can very very quickly decide for yourself whether something has scientific weight or it doesn't right so it's more it's more like a toolbox to get you to understand their main messaging points the main logical fallacies used by these people, and to empower you to then decipher fact from fiction, right? Because if I'm explaining how these things are inaccurate,

then you can apply that messaging and those tools to anything else that you read or see online. Yeah, and it'll be forever coming. Yeah. You know, there's never ending stream of this crap. Literally in my concluding sentence, in my concluding page, I talk about how, look, just next year, right, there will be a dozen more circulating prevalent health myths that I've not covered in this book.

But don't worry, because now you know the arguments they use, you can straight away figure out for yourself. You don't need me in your ear. You don't need my videos in your ear every day. And you don't need my book every day, right? Just use the principles and the logical reasoning that I've helped you to understand and apply them to all content you see online. Once you do that, you can then decide and have a much more informed opinion on lots of these topics. That's amazing.

Yeah, such a great resource. Thank you so much, Dr. Ids. You are a treasure trove of just like fascinating facts on nutrition. And I always appreciate a fellow healthcare professional just calling out the grifters and taking down those problematic wellness myths. So thank you again for joining me. Thank you so much.

Been a pleasure and health misinformation epidemic. And with the never-ending stream of so-called experts online, the spread is only going to pick up steam. And between persuasive anecdotes, sensationalized soundbites, and enticing before and after images, we can't help but eat it up. We have been born and raised into this pervasive diet and wellness culture, so it's never going to be easy to just turn it off. Science communicators like Dr. Itz and I have a full-time job just debunking and demystifying the bogus diet trends to shore. And sadly, we will never run out of things to unpack.

Our goal, however, is not just to help you understand why you can safely use canola oil when you're cooking or why you should eat more than just red meat, but rather to give you the tools to help you think critically about any and all health and wellness content in your feed. Before we call class dismissed, as Dr. Ids would say, I want to share some questions that I want you to ask yourself the next time you're hit with a seemingly sensationalized headline or hook. Number one, what is the source? What are the qualifications of the author or creator to give that health advice? Are they a doctor, a dietitian, a personal trainer? Now, while having an official title doesn't guarantee an evidence-based suggestion or response,

I mean, one of the most popular animal-based enthusiasts right now is an MD, but it can definitely be a helpful first layer to screen for BS. Number two, are they citing academic research or personal anecdotes? Personal testimonies and anecdotes can be incredibly convincing, but they are not real science. So look for creators who cite or list peer-reviewed academic research done on humans, not mice, or official recommendations from regulatory websites like the CDC or FDA, not just another blog. A trustworthy source should also contrast new or novel findings with previous research and discuss any kind of limitations or considerations. Cherry picking data just to

justify one's MO should definitely necessitate an immediate scroll. Number three, are they qualifying their claims? Knowing that a supplement or product can improve your health is great, but if they're not telling you by how much, the recommendation is completely baseless. So for example, spicy food can boost your metabolism, but you would have to eat three jalapeno peppers to burn a dismal 4.5 calories, which is like less than the calories that you consumed in the peppers. This is also important when people make claims that a food or food component is toxic or bad. Like anything can be toxic at a certain dose, even water. And if they're not telling you the dose that makes the poison, run.

Number four, are they using absolutist language? Nutrition science is notoriously difficult to interpret for causation with absolute certainty because there are a million potential confounders that play a role in an individual's response to a treatment, nutrient, or food. So you'll notice that legitimate science communicators will often use words like may help or may support rather than absolutist or sensationalized phrases like cure, miracle, magical, instant, fast results, guaranteed, 100% risk-free. Nothing in life is guaranteed. So that should be an immediate red flag. Number five, are they using jargon without an explanation? A lot of wellness grifters will use a specific cocktail of words

that are extremely emotive and yet very, very vague, and then combine trendy buzzwords with complicated scientific language that they never actually unpack. The recognizable buzzwords, let's say like toxins, captures the vulnerable audience, while the jargon makes them sound credible and intelligent, even though it's all just like a big ruse to try to prevent people from questioning their statements. It's their way of saying, just trust me, I can say big words. You don't have to question my take. Good science communicators will use neutral, plain language when possible, and offer an explanation of complicated concepts. Finally, are they making radical recommendations for the masses? Bodies are unique.

So outside of like the basic pillars of good health, like hydration, eat a balanced diet, move your body, etc. There are very few universal tips or diet hacks. So if a creator is making a statement that their way of eating is the only healthy way to eat, or even the best way for the masses, that is a hard pass. So next time you see a media headline or a creator in your feed making a statement that you feel may have the power to shape your wellness choices, I want you to go through this checklist before you share or buy in.

Remember, we are collectively responsible for the proliferation of misinformation and truthful scientific information. Do your best to evaluate the validity of the content you're seeing before feeding into the algorithm with positive engagement. Unless, of course, you're sharing the BS content with myself or Dr. Ids to unpack en masse. Fighting problematic wellness culture misinformation requires a massive concerted effort that goes well beyond experts like Dr. Ids and myself. So we really need as many soldiers as we can to win this war.

Alas, you can count on me to be in the trenches week after week. I will be here on my podcast, on my YouTube channel, TikTok, or my Instagram page, ready to bite back. Thank you guys so much for listening. Abby Sharp here, signing off with science and sass, and as Dr. Id itz would say class dismissed