How to Be a Better Human - How to find health information you can trust (with Dr. Jen Gunter)

Episode Date: November 8, 2021

While technology and the internet have made accessing information easier than ever, how can we discern between the facts we need to make the right decisions and fictions that could actually cause us harm? Turns out there is a better way to search on the internet and find reliable information, both on- and offline. Today’s guest, Dr. Jen Gunter, is on a mission to help people find accurate health information online. In this episode, she shares tips on how to tell a reputable source from a questionable one, and how to foster a healthy sense of skepticism about the information that pops up into your life—from your social media feeds to random conversations. Dr. Gunter is an OB/GYN and pain medicine physician and a New York Times columnist. In addition to being both a doctor and a mother, she hosts the TED Audio Collective podcast “Body Stuff with Dr. Jen Gunter”: https://www.ted.com/podcasts/body-stuff-with-dr-jen-gunter We want to know what you think about the podcast! Let us know your thoughts by visiting this link https://survey.prx.org/BetterHuman—and get a chance to be featured in a future episode. To learn more about "How to Be a Better Human," host Chris Duffy, or find footnotes and additional resources, please visit: go.ted.com/betterhuman Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Apple Watch Series X is here. It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist, whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping. And it's the fastest-charging Apple Watch, getting you 8 hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series X.

Available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone XS or later required. Charge time and actual results will vary. You're listening to How to Be a Better Human. I'm your host, Chris Duffy. Here's something that I'm pretty sure we all have done before. You feel a little bit sick and you go online and Google the symptoms.

Now, there is a ton of excellent, reliable medical information on the internet. The problem is that there is also a ton of wildly inaccurate, sensational, panic-inducing information out there too. And look, here's a true story for me. I recently had a small cut inside of my lip that I got from accidentally biting it. And so I thought, oh, maybe there's some way that I can make this heal more quickly. So I went online. And next thing you know, I am convinced that I have an incurable viral infection. And then because I somehow clicked an unrelated article on this website, now I also think

that I have some sort of rare kidney disease and maybe I need to send tissue samples to a doctor. It was like deep down this rabbit hole before I stopped myself and realized, hold on, Chris, you have a small cut inside of your lip. You know how you got it. You need to chill out. And on today's episode, our guest is a doctor who spends a huge amount of her time debunking misinformation online and telling people like me to put down the laptop and just walk away. I have been following her work for years, and I'm a big fan of what she does and how she does it. Here's Dr. Jen Gunter. Hi, I'm Dr. Jen Gunter, host of the TED Audio

Collective podcast, Body Stuff, and author of the Menopause Manifesto and The Vagina Bible. I'm sometimes known as Twitter's resident gynecologist. I'm an OBGYN. I'm someone that you might see a lot on social media combating disinformation. One of the things that I think is so fascinating about your work is you really, you're not just about putting out good information. You are also about combating bad information. I always like to compare myself to cars because I don't know anything about cars, right? Like I know nothing about cars. Like when I go there. Absolutely same here. Yeah. So when I'm at the dealer and they're mentioning words like spark plugs or this

needs to be done, I'm like nodding and I'm looking for cues in their face and I'm trying like, and so I try to think that, you know, that's probably how a lot of people know. That's what a lot of people know about their body is the same as my knowledge about cars. The problem is, is, you know, we all get ill. We all, you know, you can all, it's easy to find a different mechanic. If your car breaks down, you can buy another one. I mean, obviously, there's privilege and financial things that go along with that, but you can't just buy another body. And so there's a lot more emotional investment when it comes to your health as well. And it's scary. And so I think, you know, all of these things combine to make misinformation because, you know, we many people don't have

enough starting knowledge through, you know, the fault of the educational system, the medical system. When you're talking about the car metaphor, I have the same thing where I grew up not having a car. I moved from New York City where I didn't need a car to Los Angeles City where I needed a car. And when I was looking at cars, people were like, well, look under the hood. And when I'd pop the hood, I'd be like, OK, well, literally, unless there was just pieces of wood in here, unless it was just filled with wooden blocks that say like fake car part. There's no way I would know what is not supposed to be there. But I do think that an important distinction between that like lack of car knowledge and

that lack of body knowledge is that when we talk about oil changes, I'm not disgusted. I'm not like stigmatized for being like, and is the oil OK? They're not like, you don't talk about that. Whereas with a lot of body stuff, there is this stigma around discussing it. It's considered not polite or people feel this sense of disgust. And you especially have dealt with that because so much of it has to do with people's weird stigmas around gynecology. So how do you combat that on top of the disinformation? People not even want to talk about it in the first place. Yeah, it's a really great point because, yeah, when my tire pressure was low, I wasn't like ashamed or embarrassed to talk about my tire pressure, you know, which I now know how to check.

I feel like I'm moving up on the car notch here. think the most important thing or the best way I think to sort of combat that shame is to talk about it, to be open, to say, look, saying the words vagina and vulva is no different than saying the word elbow or toe. Like, there's no difference. It's just a body part. And our patriarchal society has sort of placed, you know, this inappropriate sort of value on these body parts. You know, you're either, you know, you're either too loose or you're too frigid, right? You know, there's, you know, you're always on this edge of a knife that's governed by shame. And I think that the way we can, you know, just even start to break down that stigma is just to have the conversations. So what advice do you have for people when they're looking for health information online to get actual reliable information and not misinformation? Yeah, so I, you know, I'm a big believer in the internet of all things being the most amazing

library. And like any tool, you have to be taught how to use it. Just like going back to our car analogy, until someone showed me how to use an air pressure gauge, I wouldn't have been able to use it correctly. And it's the same with the internet. The problem is, is we just assume we all know how to use it, right? Because, oh, yeah, well, I shop on Amazon, so I know how to use the internet. And, you know, medical research, reading things and understanding bias and understanding, you know, how news media skew things, all this stuff isn't really well taught. So I think that's part of the problem. You know, the number one advice I tell is don't start your search at three in the morning. You know, everything seems worse at three in the morning.

And, you know, think about like what your, you know, what are what are reliable sources and start there. I mean, I think unfortunately what happens is I think most people don't start with, OK, I need to research my medical condition. I'm going to sit down and make a plan. Right. What happens is people might see something on social media and then go down a rabbit hole. And once you start to see someone who's an influencer giving out sort of medical information, you should probably back up and say, you know, is this a person that I should be listening to?

Because many times they're not. Then I think that we've done kind of a bad job at explaining to people what's something urgent. Like, oh my gosh, you have a fever of 104. That's urgent. You might want to talk to someone about that. You're bleeding. You're bleeding more than you're soaking a menstrual pad every two hours. You should talk to someone about that. So I think that it gets back to sort of really explaining again, what's normal and what's not.

And, you know, I think another big part of the problem in the United States is, you know, there's no national like helpline that you can call and talk to someone. Like in the United Kingdom, you know, with the NHS, they have, you can go on the NHS website and look up so many symptoms. You can call and speak to, you know, a nurse and get information. You can sort of get triaged in a way that you

really just can't in the United States. So I think that, you know, asking your doctor if you've got a medical condition, you know, what are reliable places to get information about that condition? And I always give people a list. I'm like, okay, these are the medical societies I would recommend you go to, or these are the places I would recommend you go to. I have, you know, a lot of, you know, different articles on different subjects that have been, I think, really well written and something that a lay person could understand that I'll also give out. And so I think, you know, doctors need to step up. I think that people who are, you know who have an interest should be, there's lots of like the Khan Academy

and obviously like my TED podcast, there's all kinds of places that you can learn a lot about the body. And I think it's just deciding sort of what's interesting to you or not. Like I wouldn't wanna sit down and read about a car. And so I kind of learn about things that way as they as they sort of come up in my life. And so I think it just depends on your learning approach.

How do you balance as a patient the line between respecting research and expertise and also trusting yourself and your body? Because sometimes in this differential diagnosis moments that, you know, you're with a doctor for 15 minutes and they're asking you questions, but you kind of know what's going on with your body and there's not always the chance to get them to do it. So how do you have that balance where you listen, but also trust yourself?

Well, I think part of the problem is it's important to remember that your body is not always a reliable narrator, right? The best example I have in the genital tract is many people have been told for years they have a yeast infection when they don't, and they never actually had the right diagnosis and the right workup. They were just treated incorrectly over and over again. So then when they come in and I say they don't have a yeast infection, sometimes they're like, well,

I know my body. And the problem is, is they actually don't because they weren't, they were given the wrong information to begin with. If someone put you on the wrong pathway at the first point, then all the information that you've gathered actually isn't correct. So it can be really difficult because they also may have originally had the right diagnosis and they may very well be correct. And so I think it's important I, you know, with every patient, I always start and make the list and say, you know, I know that this is a diagnosis that you've come with, but I need to do due diligence and make sure that's correct. And because if you're coming to see me, it's because you haven't improved from your medical

condition, right? So that's it. And that's also a different thing, right? Coming for the first time visit versus if you're coming to see someone like me who sees people who have the treatments have failed them repeatedly. The first thing you have to think is, well, was that original diagnosis correct? Because one of the reasons people don't get better is they didn't actually have that condition. Now, the other reason might be they have a really difficult condition to treat. But you always have to consider it.

We have this thing in medicine and in life called anchoring. So it's just like that same first thing you see in social media. You always have to consider it. You know, we have this thing in medicine and in life called anchoring, right? So it's just like that same first thing you see in social media. We get anchored to the first diagnosis, anchored to the first thing that we see. And you always have to keep in the back of your mind, am I being anchored here inappropriately? You know, it's interesting

because coming into this conversation, I wouldn't have necessarily expected that some of the solutions here are on the two levels where one level is like logistical and legal. And then the other level is this like social cultural piece where it's like we have to talk more about it with regular people who aren't doctors or aren't involved in the health care profession, because then we know what's normal and what's not normal. Or, you know, and I put that in the quotes of, you know, whatever normal exactly is. I like to say typical.

Typical. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Because abnormal, you know, has a different stigma. You know, it's like it makes me think of like Abby Normal from Frankenstein. Yes. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, look, once a week, more than once a week, I teach someone how to wipe themselves after having a bowel movement. Once a week, more than once a week, I teach someone how to wipe themselves after having a bowel movement. And the thing is, is if you are trying to learn how to take care of yourself after having a bowel movement and you go to the drugstore, you would think that you need to buy all these fancy wipes. And oh, you maybe, if there are wipes there, maybe you need to dig around a lot and super

clean. And I see a ton of what's called perianal dermatitis from, you know, from damage around the anal area from over wiping and over cleansing. And, and the problem is, is once people start getting that skin problems, they think they're not cleaning enough. So then they start cleaning more. And where would you go to get that information about? And because we don't talk about like how you wipe yourself, I'm like, you know, and then you have to talk about how hard the stools are and do they pass easily. And, you know, it's our job in medicine to have the conversation just like I'm talking about if it's raining outside or not.

And, you know, that's important. Well, so can you, I mean, since we, since we broached the topic now, can you, is it possible to over the, over the audio only to give us the information of how you should be wiping? Sure. So if you're having bowel movements, so if you're having any kind of discomfort around the anal area, the first thing you want to make sure is your stool is soft and easy to pass. So what happens is people wipe and they see a little bit of stool on the toilet paper. So they go back and they wipe again. They see a bit more and they go back and wipe again and they do it

over and over again. So yeah. So you want to try to blot if possible, not wipe, limit to just kind of one time if you can. Obviously, if you've got diarrhea and it's all over everything, that's a different story. You need to have your diarrhea adjusted or worked on or treated, hopefully. And then that's how you wipe. If you have a bidet, awesome. Also, the only other thing I would add, that's, that's how you wipe. If you have a bidet. Awesome. Also, you know, the only other thing I would add here that, uh, just, you know, this is how my brain works is you talked about Abby normal before.

Definitely perianal is also one of those names can be used in a future one. So yeah, well, Mel Brooks needs to come up with another movie. Yeah. There's Mel Brooks. Feel free to take that. We're going to take a quick break while I try and look up Mel Brooks in the phone book.

We will be right back. The Apple Watch Series 10 is here. It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch Series X is here. It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist, whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping. And it's the fastest-charging Apple Watch, getting you 8 hours of charge in just 15 minutes.

The Apple Watch Series X. Available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone XS or later required. Charge time and actual results will vary. And we are back with Dr. Jen Gunter. I'm curious, Jen, with you yourself, so not as a doctor, but as an individual,

what do you do when there's something that is wrong with you or that feels off, but you're not sure what it is? Oh, like everybody else, the first thing I think about is I have metastatic cancer, you know? So, yeah. So, you know, we're all the same. And then I say, hey, now, like your elbow is sore. Oh, wait, you just got your booster shot. It's not cancer. It's just the fact that you're holding your arm funny. So, you know, like everybody else, you know, your mind goes to the worst case scenario. And then I talk myself out of it. And, you know, I think that, you know, I, I try to, you know, think about if I'm having

persistent symptoms, then, you know, I contact my doctor. But I also have symptoms, you know, I have the ability to use medical terms in my search when I look online, right? And I think that's a big difference. When you search for medical terms, you're going to go to more medical sites than if you're using my butt hurts versus how to treat perianal dermatitis versus my butt hurts. You're going to get completely different searches, right? Yes. And the kind of people who are putting up those responses are definitely different kinds of people. Yeah, exactly. So I think that, you know, knowing that,

one thing I always tell people is, you know, if you're unsure about anything and you're searching, if you just on Google put, you know, like, for example, if it's a women's health thing, anything related to the reproductive tract, the uterus and ovaries, put your question in and then put ACOG, which stands for the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. And that will filter anything from them to the top. And so you could do that.

You could put CDC, you could put WHO, World Health Organization. Of the CDC, there's tons of information about so many medical conditions on the CDC website, the NIH as well. And if it's about the uterus or ovaries or vagina or menopause, if you put my name after in the search, Dr. Jen Gunter, you'll probably find something that I've written about it. So a lot of us have, in general, you know, a lot of us avoid medical care in person because it's scary or it's expensive. And then certainly during the pandemic, I think people even more so stopped going in for in-person meetings. I personally am someone who I used to have a primary care provider, and yet here I am.

I don't have a primary care provider at this moment. And I'll just admit that personally, it's a little overwhelming to think like, how do I identify who is a good doctor and who's a good doctor for me? And because I, you know, I, it sometimes paralyzes me. And so then I don't actually go in for the checkup and I just think I'll go in when something's wrong. And I know that's not I believe that's not how I'm supposed to do it. But how one, how do I overcome that? And then two, how do you actually select the right health care professional for you? What are the things to think about?

Well, you know, I think about asking people who you feel are pretty similar to you. So, for example, like if I, if I want to go traveling, let's just pick Portugal. I might ask a friend of mine who I know kind of likes things about the same things that I do, who's been to Portugal, like what I should do there because that's somebody whose opinion, like I trust and they've already vetted it. So I'm, I'm very obsessive about my dental care. So people know to ask me like which dentist I go to. Um, and so, you know, so you probably have a friend like that. And, you know, you might get the names of two or three. I always say, you know, look your

doctor up online and, you know, put in, you know, vaccine after their name to see if they've got any like hidden anti-vaccine agenda that you don't know about. Probably not. I mean, now, especially that, you know, most people have to be vaccinated, especially in California to work in the healthcare system. So you probably, you know, not going to have that. If they sell things like supplements, you know, that they're, they're going to be biased. So I'd usually tell people that you want to avoid doctors who sell products because, you know, that's bias for, you know, for your primary healthcare, you know, whether you do that for dermatology or whatever is a totally different thing. I think people feel comfortable with who they feel comfortable. I think the most important

thing is, you know, are you going to feel comfortable with this person? And do you think that you're going to be heard? Can you work with them? And it because it's a relationship, it's you're going to be working together. And at the end of the day, do you trust what they say? And the way that I determine like, as you know, like, if I have medical stuff, like, there's things like I don't understand. I mean, I can obviously go look it up. But in the moment, I don't understand it. And I always think, does the person explain it to me in a way that I left the office, and I know what they were talking about? Right? So if I left the office with a good rudimentary understanding of what's going on, as opposed to walking out, like looking at a prescription going, what the, like, did they help you understand

their thought process and what the steps were? And if they didn't, well, then there's a communication problem. And, you know, maybe you need to tell them what you didn't understand. So then they can explain it back. But, but that's just something to kind of think about. Like, if you've left the office and been like, yeah, like that person listened to everything and they gave me a good list of information. And the thing that I always do is like, if it's a medical problem, I always say what we're going to do if this doesn't work. There's never a, we'll go out back into the ether and see what happens.

And I think that's very, you know, I know as someone who's had, you know, my kids have had a lot of very serious health problems, that that is awful to be sent out into the ether. And you're just, that makes you anxious. And I think it makes you worry more. And none of those things are good for, you know, for your health. I feel like it's very important and it's intuitive and yet it was not obvious to me that you should be looking for a healthcare

provider who you understand, but who also understands you, right? That the understanding is two ways. I think that that's, that's makes a lot of sense. And yet that's not something I would have gone in thinking about. Yeah. I mean, and it's important for us as doctors to recognize, you know, who might be more anxious about their health, who might not be anxious enough about their health, you know, that it goes both ways. And so we give our patients, you know, warning signs, things that you need to worry about,

things that you shouldn't worry about. We're gonna take a quick break, but we will be right back with more from Dr. Jen Gunter right after this. The Apple Watch Series 10 is here. It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist, whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping.

And it's the fastest charging Apple Watch, getting you eight hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series 10, available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone XS or later required. Charge time and actual results will vary. And we are back. The whole team here at How to Be a Better Human would like to thank you for listening. And we would love to hear what you think. If you can click on the survey in the show description or leave us a review on Apple Podcasts, we would love to hear what do you like about the show? What would you like to hear more about next season?

We want your feedback. OK, and now back to this episode. And we are talking medicine and misinformation with Dr. Jen Gunter. like to hear more about next season. We want your feedback. Okay. And now back to this episode. And we are talking medicine and misinformation with Dr. Jen Gunter. Going back for a moment to debunking and to misinformation. How do you identify? Obviously, if I showed you the information you would know, but how do you identify then when you're looking at disinformation? Like what's the warning sign? How do you vet a source on this? Well, if they're leading with fear, then that's a problem because that's not how we teach medicine.

If you look at the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology, if you look at the American Academy of Pediatrics, if you look at the American Academy of Family Physicians, if you look at their stuff on their website, they don't start with COVID-19 vaccine is gonna make you infertile, right? They start with the, here's the background information on COVID-19. Here's why it matters. This is why the

vaccine is safe. So they basically have like, if you think about like, like rhetoric, right? They have grounds, they have claims, they have, you know, they back those claims up. So, so they have a real, like they make a case in a non-fear-based way. So one is that they lead with fear. That's a real warning sign for you. Are there other things that you look for that you think like, oh, hold on, this is something where we probably should not be using this as a health information source? You know, any site that has anti-vaccine information is unreliable.

Any site that has anti-vaccine information is unreliable. Basically, if they scare you about vaccines, which are perhaps the greatest medical invention of all time, then that site is unreliable. And I would say number two is if they're selling product. You know, if they're a doctor who's selling supplements or, you know, then that's something that, again, can lead to a lot of unreliable information. Look for other conspiracy theories too, like fear of fluoride, right? Things like that. If there's conspiracy theories that are presented as truth, then that is unreliable information. And it can be, I just want to make this point, it can be very difficult because I'm going to give an example of Goop, right? Gwyneth Paltrow's site. They actually have some valid

information on there and they have a lot of incorrect, harmful information and they present them both equally. And so how do you as a consumer tell the difference? So they link to lots of doctors who are anti-vaccine or vaccine hesitant. They've featured many of them as experts. They featured an AIDS denialist, a doctor who's an AIDS denialist as an expert. And so you should say that if they have featured one anti-vaccine person, then you just can't trust that site in general. So I just think that's why it's super important to be mindful of the site that you start with. And that's why you shouldn't just be sitting down and Googling. Or if you Google, instead of just clicking,

you should say, what's that site? What's that site? What's that site? Which is the first one that I should go to? Because that's going to start whether you're going down a good path or whether you're going down a rabbit hole. So to me, those are sort of the two easy ways to sort of say, nothing's gonna be 100%, but if you're gonna try to limit your contamination, those are sort of two easy tools to start with. Yeah, it's interesting because I think that one of the things that is most challenging these days

as a person who's trying to find reliable information is that it used to be that you would look at the source of the information, right? It was pretty clear that if you look at a copy of the New York Times, the newspaper, that it was different than if a man walks up to you in the parking lot of the grocery store and hands you a piece of paper scrawled in crayon that says, the president is a crook. You'd be like, okay, well, this is a piece of paper with crayon and this one is a newspaper. I'm going to trust the newspaper more. But online, the crayon newspaper and the news, the crayon paper and the newspaper, they look

kind of the same in the Google results. So you have to decide, like, which one is the crayon paper and which one is the source. Yeah. In fact, the crayon paper one might even look slicker. It's true. Depending, you know, or they've figured out how to leverage social media better. But, you know, I mean, I think at the end of the day, it is hard to get very accurate information because of the way information is monetized in our society. Like if you go back to, you know,

the Women's Health Initiative, which was this big study, randomized, double-blinded, placebo-controlled trial looking at menopausal hormone therapy, and it was halted early because of risks of breast cancer and heart disease. However, that's not the full story. There were all kinds of issues with how the trial was halted, with how the data was presented. But if you go back and look at the headlines from the New York Times, from the Washington Post, from reliable news sources, they were all fear-mongering. So I think that it's super important that people always have to remember also that fear sells. And if you go beneath the headline, often the actual article is actually really very good. It's just the headline is sometimes,

you know, but that's what a lot of us read. Many of us just read headlines. And so that would be the other thing I would encourage people do is to always go past the headline. With issues, when we're dealing with issues like COVID-19, where it's new, and so often there are open questions that haven't been definitively answered yet. People are working on them, but because it's new, there aren't all the answers in. How do you find information and then also stay open to it possibly shifting in the future as more data comes in? Well, I think it's important to acknowledge that it really sucks to be living at during the time of developing brand new medicine about something we didn't know before, right? So when you get your vaccine for rubella, you've got decades, maybe a century of medicine behind that.

You've got decades, maybe a century of medicine behind that. And so we're used to medicine that has had 10, 20, 50 years of stuff behind it. When we first heard about the virus, we had like a month of information, right? So I think it's super important that people understand that the scientific method is about questioning. And sometimes a question, when you get an answer, it changes what you believed, and that's okay. And the analogy I use, and this is a really important one, is you get on an airplane

and you're gonna fly from San Francisco to New York. And when you get on the plane, the skies are clear, the route is great, the pilot says it's gonna take us five hours smooth flying all the way. You're an hour into the flight and all of a sudden a crazy storm comes in and the pilot's got to change and he's got to change his altitude

and he's got to change everything. And now you have turbulence. Do you say to the pilot, you promised us clear skies. This is terrible. You're an awful pilot. You don't think about flying. Or you say, oh, wow, the weather can change.

And I'm so glad that you are changing your flight pattern so you don't fly us directly into a tornado, right? And so that's what's going on right now. And I think the problem is many of us in science understand that. We understand that there's new things and we take questions. And uncertainty about the medicine is hard because we have so much uncertainty overall. But I tell people just to kind of think about, pretend you're on a flight and pretend that there's new information that comes along and don't you want your pilot to use that new information? It doesn't mean the original information was bad. It just means that we now have more data. So when we think about things that we need to talk about, right? I mean, we've talked about poop, we've talked about periods, we've talked about genitals. Who should be talking about those? Who should be talking about periods? Who should be talking about vaginas? Who should be talking

about gynecology? Well, I think that there's room for all different kinds of people because expertise does come in different forms. So you can have, obviously, somebody like me who is a board-certified OBGYN who is a specialist in vulvar diseases. Well, hopefully, you're going to take my opinion one way. But also, too, there also are amazing patient advocates. There's also bad doctors who present bad information. And there's also people who are patients who are well-meaning, but they're spreading disinformation. And I think that's part of the challenge is sorting that out. And so does the information that you're hearing from this one source, does it align with other sources? Does it match up? You can basically get a second opinion

with your information and you should do that. There's a chance that this is just a repetitive question, but in case it's not, I'm curious. For people who are listening, what are the three biggest things that they should do to combat disinformation online around health and body issues? So don't share what is obviously a bad content to you just to laugh at it, right? Because sharing puts it in somebody else's feed. So don't do that. Two, always read beyond the headline because the headline might not be what you think it is and consider the source.

Who is sharing this information with you? Why are they sharing it? Who wrote it and why? Right. So those are probably the three things that I would consider. We're coming close to the end of our time together. So I'm curious, what's your favorite part about being a doctor? It seems like you really love what you do.

Um, well, I, I, I really like helping people out of problems that, you know, they had something that was really, really impacting their life. And, and it's better because it sucks. It sucks to have things that impact your life. It sucks to have a part of your body that you think is broken. And it's not, and it, and it can be helped or improved. And so I think that there's a lot of joy in that. There's a lot of joy in that. There's a lot of

joy in helping people understand how their body works. And so, you know, I hate misinformation. I hate it. And so when you see someone who comes in and they've been given all kinds of, bad information from online or from previous physicians, and you set them on a better course, and they're so, they're like, I can't believe I had this itch for 15 years. And now I don't. And you're like, yeah, like I've really improved that person's quality of life. And that's a great feeling. So we always end our interviews with the same two questions. The show's called How to Be a Better Human. What is one idea or book or movie or piece of music or what's something that has made you a better human? Oh, I always plug my very favorite book in the world, Watership Down.

I don't think enough people of sort of newer generations have read it. It's got cute animals, but it's also got the, you know, it's an important lesson about totalitarianism. It's important lessons about climateism. It's important lessons about climate change. It's important lessons about working together. And it's a wonderful read. And I think that book, you know, made me see a lot. I read it when I was very young, and I still go back and read it over and over again. And last question, what's one way in which you personally are trying to be a better human right now? I am trying to be a better human by not getting in as many fights online. That's a good one. That's a hard one, but it's a good one.

It's really hard. It's really hard. You know, I mean, it's just it's so hard. But now instead of posting on someone's Instagram, I reported you for medical misinformation. I'm just reporting them. I feel like I'm growing as a human. I love that.

Well, Dr. Jen Gundry, thank you so much for being on the show. I'm so excited to go and listen to more episodes of your podcast, Body Stuff. And I'm gonna go take my car and get my oil checked right now. So I appreciate it. And learn how to check the tire pressure. I. And learn how to check the tire pressure.

I'm going to learn how to check my tire pressure. That's my project for the end of today. I'll let you know. I'll let you know what the pressure in every one of my tires is. Thanks for being here. Thanks so much for having me. That is it for today's episode. I am your host, Chris Duffy, and this has been How to Be a Better Human. Thank you so much to our guest, Dr. Jen Gunter. You can hear her podcast, Body Stuff, wherever you're listening to this one.

On the TED side, this show is brought to you by Abhimanyu Das, who has a good head on his shoulders, Daniela Balarezo, whose nervous system is top of the line, Frederica Elizabeth Yosefov, whose auditory nerves are second to none, Ann Powers, who knows that the leg bone is connected to you by Jocelyn Gonzalez, who triages my audio. Pedro Rafael Rosado, who gives my narration much-needed CPR. And Sandra Lopez-Monsalve, who prescribes listening to this podcast once a week.

Thanks to you for listening. Please share this episode with anyone you know who has a body. And we'll be back next week with more How to Be a Better Human. In case nobody's told you, weight loss goes beyond the old just eat less and move more narrative. And that's where Felix comes in. Felix is redefining weight loss for canadians with a smarter more personalized approach to help you crush your health goals is here losing weight is about more than diet and exercise it can also be about our genetics hormones metabolism felix connects you with online licensed health care

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