Pursuit of Wellness - Exposing Big Food & Pharma: Advertising Tactics, Ozempic Controversy, Healthcare Corruption & How To Create Change w/ Calley Means

Episode Date: July 1, 2024

Ep. # 112 On today’s episode of Pursuit of Wellness, Calley Means joins me for a very in depth conversation about corruption in the American healthcare system. We dig into everything from the negative effects of ultra processed food on our hormone health, to understanding why women are experiencing puberty earlier and earlier. Our diet and nutrition are so closely tied to our overall health, and this conversation emphasizes how to navigate symptoms and treat underlying issues. Leave Me a Message - click here! For Mari’s Instagram click here! For Pursuit of Wellness Podcast’s Instagram click here! For Mari’s Newsletter click here! For Calley's Instagram click here! For Calley's New Book click here! For POW Brand Promo Codes click here! Sponsored By:  Bite is offering our listeners 20% off your first order. Go to trybite.com/POW or use code POW at checkout to claim this deal. Right now, my listeners can receive forty percent off Earth Breeze just by going to earthbreeze.com/pow. AquaTru comes with a 30-day Money-Back Guarantee and even makes a great gift… Today my listeners receive 20% OFF any AquaTru purifier! Just go to AquaTru.com and enter the code “POW” at checkout. Show Links: EP. 106 - Dr. Mark Hyman on The Truth Behind Metformin, Gut Health, PCOS, Fertility Issues, Hormone Health & Ozempic Good Energy Topics Discussed 03:26 - Unpacking “health institutions” and the issue at large 06:41 - American healthcare system 14:40 - Experience as a food consultant  22:55 - Fish in a dirty tank 24:29 - Unpacking Ozempic 25:18 - Making informed decisions and being connected to our soil 26:55 - Processed food industry was created by the cigarette industry 28:26 - Calley’s problem with Ozempic 32:54 - Earlier puberty in females 36:04 - PCOS and signs of metabolic dysfunction 41:24 - Birth control’s effects on PCOS 45:36 - Understanding the labor process 48:59 - Long term effects of being born via C-section 52:04 - How to enact change and policy 57:39 - Shift in nutrition and consumerism 01:01:09 - Talking about Big Pharma and shadow banning 

I want to be clear, if the largest and fastest growing industry in the country, the most powerful industry is predicated on the American people being sick, particularly preying on poor people, we're screwed and they are screwed unless we change that. This is the Pursuit of Wellness podcast, and I'm your host, Mari Llewellyn. What is up, guys? Welcome back to the Pursuit of Wellness podcast. I am your host, Mari Llewellyn, and today we have a very interesting conversation with Kali Means. This conversation blew my mind in so many ways, and I know it will for you too. Earlier in his career, Kali was a consultant for food and pharma companies, and he is now

exposing practices they use to weaponize our institutions of trust. So basically, he used to work on the inside of food and pharma, and now he's on the outside exposing them for the way that they kind of poison us as consumers. He really came on today's show and brought statistics. I was pretty mind blown learning who funds who, why things are done a certain way, advertising. It really kind of like pulled back the curtain on the way the food industry works in America and kind of explained why things are so corrupt and why we are struggling with so many issues with health here in the U.S. Some things we discussed today, unpacking health institutions and the issue at large, the American healthcare system,

experience as a food consultant, unpacking Ozempic, making informed decisions and being connected to our soil, the processed food industry and how it was created by the cigarette industry, earlier puberty in females, PCOS and signs of metabolic dysfunction. Birth controls affect on us. Understanding the labor process, basically how giving birth affects us later in life. Long-term effects of being born through C-section.

How to enact and change policy and make a big difference. Shift in nutrition and consumerism. Talking big pharma and shadow banning, advice for people being stuck in the system, lab testing, and so, so, so much more. Guys, Callie is incredible. He's a New York Times bestselling author. He's the co-founder of TrueMed.

He's written an amazing book called Good Energy with his sister. And he's just doing so much good for the industry. I really feel like we hear so many people out there in the wellness space kind of bashing the way things are done, bashing companies, talking about the issue of health in the US. But this is someone who's truly out there making a difference and putting his money where his mouth is. So yeah, I thought this episode was absolutely incredible. I love this guy. We really connected and let's hop right in. Also a little housekeeping guys. We are skipping Thursday, July 4th. So there will not be an episode coming out on July 4th.

I'm taking a break, which is crazy. And I know you guys are probably busy out and about with the fam for July 4th. So enjoy the day, be safe, and we'll see you guys on Monday. Callie, welcome to the show. Pumped to be here. I am so excited to chat. You are an expert when it comes to the corruption of pharma and food industries. In fact, you used to be a consultant for food and pharma, and now you are exposing them for how they manipulate consumers. I feel like we have a lot to unpack today. Tons of places we can go with this. I actually pulled a quote, which I feel like kind of sums up the conversation and what I've,

you know, done through research of you. It says, these institutions make money when we are sick and lose money when we are healthy. Can you kind of unpack that for us and just talk about the issue at large here? This is such a big issue and there's so much things that sound like conspiracy theories. So I just like to zero in on the pure, unemotional economic fact. And that is that there's been no more profitable invention in the history of American capitalism than a sick child. Healthcare is the largest and the fastest growing industry in the country. And just following the money, following incentives. A hospital makes money when somebody is sick and needs interventions and loses money when

they're healthy and thriving. Pharmaceutical companies make money when there's lifetime interventions. Med schools make money when the sick care system grows. Insurance companies, interestingly, we all say, oh, they want to lower costs. Actually, they are only able to take 15% of profits. They have to pay out 85% by law, and they're able to raise premiums as costs grow. So they're highly incentivized for people to get sicker, costs to grow, because they're able to get 15% of the largest pie possible. So they want the pie to grow. So literally, and I mean literally, every single institution that touches our health makes money when people are sicker for longer periods of time.

So just looking at the pure economic incentives there, right? You want economically that industry, they want people to get sick, stay sick earlier. And the beauty of chronic disease is that when a child, you know, 33% of them now teens have prediabetes, 50% of teens are overweight or obese, you know, 25% of teens have fatty liver disease. That would have been unthinkable, mental health disorders, et cetera. It's exploding. It's a national stain on our country, what's happening to kids. But that's very good because when that kid has prediabetes and they get on that metformin, then they have inevitably the high cholesterol, get on the stat. And when they have, you know,

some signs of being sad and get on that SSRI, which is exploding the rates in, in high schools, they're being told that the cure is in this pill. And you take those pills and you take those treatments for life and you inevitably rack up more comorbidities. So you have this conveyor belt earlier and earlier of people suffering of people racking up comorbidities. So you have this conveyor belt earlier and earlier of people suffering, of people racking up comorbidities, but they're not dying. They're just suffering. And that's a devastating to our human capital. It's devastating to our economy right now, but it's very good for the healthcare industry. And I think one of the biggest issues that we need to unpack in a country, I think the biggest issue in the country is the fact that this industry, which is the largest and fastest growing industry in the country, you know, faster growing than the tech industry, faster growing than AI. It is the

fastest growing industry in the country and the largest. It's an amoeba that's built to grow. And in order to grow, it needs people to get sicker, younger. And that's unfortunately what's happening. And it's happening uniquely in America. I can't stress this enough. You know, I talk about 50% of young adults being overweight or obese. The childhood obesity rate in Japan is 3%. You know, people in Japan live seven years more than Americans. This is actually not, you know, throwing up our hands. We are exporting our medical system and our food throughout the country,

and it's having a bad impact. This is a unique problem in America. Why America specifically? Like what laws do we have or don't have that other countries do, if that makes sense? Like why is this only happening here? Yeah, in America, we spend three times more per capita on healthcare than many other European countries. We actually spend amazingly half as much per capita on food.

So through corruption, through rigging institutions of trust by this industry that makes more money when people are sick, we've created a situation where we see healthcare as in the doctor's office. We see healthcare as treating something. We don't see healthcare holistically. And that's really been by design. So working for these industries earlier in my career, this is what I call the playbook. It's rigging institutions of trust. Just again, as a pure statement of economic fact, the pharmaceutical industry is the largest funder. They pay the bills more than any other industry for politicians

themselves. They pay politicians five times more than the oil industry. They are the largest funder of research. The pharmaceutical industry is the lifeblood of medical research. When my sister unpacked the incentives from Stanford Med School where she went, 50% of their entire budget somehow touches pharma and the healthcare industry. So they fund the research. Research in elite universities and from the NIH, which is a subsidiary of pharma too, isn't asking why people are getting infertility, isn't asking why people are getting Alzheimer's, isn't asking why diabetes rates are exploding. They're asking how we can profit from those exploding rates. The research completely and utterly throws up its hands and takes it as a given that people are getting sicker. It's only about how to intervene marginally. Of course, these issues

are root cause metabolic problems from our lifestyle and actually pretty simple reasons, but nobody's asking that. Nobody's studying that. Cancers are preventable, essentially a foodborne illness in many cases, and we spend 40 times more researching marginal cures instead of actually how to prevent it in the first place. Cancer, many forms of it, pancreatic cancer, which my mom died from, is as highly tied to blood sugar regulation, diabetes, as smoking is to lung cancer. We say these things are random, but they're not. But we spend no amount of money, time researching that. The last one I'll say is media. And this is a huge one. Mainstream media, 50% of the funding for mainstream media TV comes

from the pharmaceutical industry. This is really important. I've talked about this. Some journalists I've talked to, they're like, oh, you're right. It's not to influence consumers. We're going to buy drugs. They've got us, these goofy ads. It's to buy the news itself. There's not to influence consumers. We're going to buy drugs. They've got us, you know, these goofy ads. It's to buy the news itself. There's not curiosity on mainstream news channels about why we have this explosion of metabolic health crises among kids. It's not being talked about. Whereas when you shift to independent media, when you shift to books that are selling well, when you shift to where people kind of can choose for themselves what they listen to and there's not that corruption of referees of what people are saying, really, it's talking about metabolic health. I mean, from Joe Rogan on down, that's a metabolic health

podcast. They're talking about healthy eating, exercise, sunlight, then all the health podcasts, the comedy podcasts, literally everything is talking about the fact that we're all getting sicker and our kids are getting sicker. This is actually a huge issue, but the media totally has disinterest in that. So that's how this has happened. We have a system where we have a food industry, and we can unpack how this happened, where we've shifted to 70% ultra-processed food that's highly addictive. Makes sense. I mean, from the food industry standpoint, we have addictive, cheap food, much more pronounced in America. That and other metabolic health habits, you know, we get 25% less sleep than 100 years ago. We're so sedentary that 77% of American young adults aren't eligible to join the military. You know, we really incentivize,

I think, metabolic health disasters for our population. But from the industry standpoint, okay, food wants food to be cheap and addictive. Fine. The devil's bargain is that the medical system not only is silent about the fact that-Cola is rigging our systems to subsidize soda, to have 95% of our agriculture subsidies go to ultra-processed food, to have food stamp the lower income nutrition program for our country, 10% of that go to soda. As they're doing that, the medical industry is actually complicit in that. The American Diabetes Association is actually taking money from Coca-Cola. They're not only not speaking out. Imagine that. The American Diabetes Association,

there's nothing more connected to this explosion of childhood diabetes than sugar water, than these drinks that have 70 grams of sugar. They're actually taking money, the American Diabetes Association from Coca-Cola and saying small cans of Coke are a good idea for diabetics. So that's where this all connects. I talk a lot about detoxifying products, your house, really just taking a look at everything you use on a daily basis and figuring

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I mean, it's just so, it's such a glaring issue. And I know we have podcast hosts speaking about it. Like, you know, yourself, Dr. Mark Hyman, Joe Rogan, people are speaking out. But as you said, the media isn't talking about it. I feel like it really isn't loud enough, you know, in comparison to everything else we talk about. And I think we'll end up talking about Ozempic here because, you know, I keep thinking about that right now.

As someone who was a consultant for food and pharma behind the scenes, what was that experience like? And what can you tell us? Like, what was the method behind the scenes? Like, what are they trying to tell us as consumers? Yeah, they're trying to ask who their target audience is trust. So let's take Ozempic as a case study because this is the playbook that I saw. So, okay, so we have an obesity crisis.

80% of adults are overweight or obese. 50% of teens are overweight or obese. This is amazing for the healthcare system. At the JP Morgan Healthcare Conference, there was a standing ovation when one of the analysts said that obesity is one for the healthcare system. You know, at the JP Morgan Healthcare Conference, there was a standing ovation when one of the analysts said that obesity is one of the greatest opportunities and growth areas in the healthcare industry. When they put up a slide saying 80% of the American people are overweight or obese, literally the entire group in the auditorium stood and cheered. So that's how the healthcare industry sees obesity.

Obviously, obesity is from the fact that we're basically force-feeding ultra-processed crap down our kids' mouths and have a totally broken food system. I think that's obvious. What the industry and what we do around these rooms is it's framed in good ways, right? We have this pill. The American patients are lazy. They're not going to eat healthy. Those fail. So we need to get this injection out. Who do we need to pay? Well, people trust doctors. So Novo Nordics has made 420,000 individual payments to doctors in the last year we have on record, 2022. Is that who owns Ozempic? Yeah. So Novo Nordics, a Danish company that's now the 12th most valuable company in the world, the most valuable company in Europe, surpassing Louis

Vuitton, all base 90% of their profit expectations on the American taxpayer paying for Ozempic, not Europe. Europe's not making Ozempic the standard of care for obesity. It's not legal there, correct? It's legal, but when you're pre-diabetic or you're on the verge of obesity, you actually get a medically subsidized keto diet. No. Yeah, which would make sense. Genius, yeah. It's not the standard of care. Additionally, off the shelf, and this is a whole nother layer of corruption. In Germany, Ozempic is 15 times less expensive than it is in the United States through sheer corruption. So yeah. But getting

to the playbook, we pay doctors. So when we want to influence something, people will need to probably fact check this because I don't think it's even, like, it doesn't even sound believable. There are no conflicts of interest rules at universities or at the NIH, literally. It just came out that NIH scientists made over $700 million during the pandemic of payments from pharmaceutical companies undisclosed. Pharmaceutical companies are able to directly pay NIH researchers themselves and academics bribes, consulting payments. So they've made 420,000 individual payments. They've also just totally funded the actual academic and medical groups. So the American Academy of Pediatrics is a very influential organization. So these are third-party

groups, but actually statutorily in Congress, they're able to make the standard of care for their area. You know, the American Diabetes Association for Diabetes, the American Academy of Pediatrics for Kids. 90% of the American Academy of Pediatrics funding comes from pharma. Novo Nordics, this Danish company, is one of the top funders of the American Academy of Pediatrics. Just to be clear, this is for kids? For kids. So Novo Nordics, and I help, this Danish company, is one of the top funders of the American Academy of Pediatrics. Just to be clear, this is for kids. For kids. So NovoNordics, and I help do this a lot, but I'm just giving the playbook. They funded the American Academy of Pediatrics.

And they stacked that group. And they influenced them with research that NovoNordics also funded. A 68-week trial saying that Ozempic was good for children. 68 weeks of the lifetime drug, not testing muscle loss versus fat loss. And actually the study actually was a severe loss of muscle, but did not take that into account. Used that study,

funded through the American Academy of Pediatrics, which they fund. And the American Academy of Pediatrics very recently said that Ozempic should be a frontline defense for 12-year-olds, not after dietary interventions fail, a frontline defense. This is a lifetime drug that causes suicidal ideation, and most importantly, does not teach that child who's metabolic and dysfunctional a path of curiosity. Yeah. So you fund the medical groups. You fund the media. So one of the doctors from Harvard, the lead obesity doctor who received over $100,000 in the last year we have on record of direct bribes, whose obesity center that they're building at Harvard is predicated on

more and more and more patients getting Ozempic, she goes on 60 Minutes, the most popular news program in the United States, and says that obesity is genetic and that we need Ozempic, she goes on 60 Minutes, the most popular news program in the United States, and says that obesity is genetic and that we need Ozempic and we need it urgently for kids. And actually, it's a civil rights issue because so many lower income people are obese. We have to have government payment, $1,800 a month per patient, government funded Ozempic. It's a national civil rights issue. Before and after that segment, there were ads for pharmaceutical companies. Ozempic advertises on 60 Minutes itself, completely unquestioned. Her conflicts were not questioned. Ozempic is also, yeah, one of the

largest payers of direct, I don't know how a foreign company can do this, but they're a direct payer of politicians themselves. And 250 politicians, members of Congress, are supporting the Obesity Act to steer government money to Ozempic. This is important. And this is, again, the playbook, is that once you have government approval, there's no restraint of how much it could be prescribed. And the reason Ozempic and Nova Nordics is such a valuable company is all based on that approval from the U.S. government. Because the U.S. government's not allowed, based on rules Farmer wrote, they're not allowed to negotiate prices. So it will be $1,800 per patient per month. And the target market is 80% of adults, 50% of teens. So if you

just do the math, this will, if it's prescribed as I expect it to be prescribed, if the gates are open, this is trillions of dollars. And crucially, and I think shamefully, and the real mission I'm on and what I'm actually meeting with a lot of members of Congress on, and I think people are waking up on, is you'd never in a world look at the devastation happening to our metabolic health

and then didn't understand what current policy is and said, okay, you have $1,800 per month to solve this. You'd never say, let people keep poisoning themselves and jab them. And let's not talk about the person on the edge that's highly diabetic, 400 pounds. Let's just talk about the median American. You'd never do that. You'd say, let's fix our food system. Let's invest in regenerative agriculture. Let's stop poisoning our population. And that's my point. We've created a, we've created an environment where we just, it's just no other option than getting sick and drugging. And we can steer healthcare dollars to other routes

and have a bottoms up empowerment, which I know many of us are on. I've heard you use the phrase, if a fish is in a dirty tank, you clean the tank and then the fish gets better. You don't leave the tank dirty and hope that the, or give the fish medication. Yeah, and then the fish gets better. You don't leave the tank dirty and hope that the, or give the fish medication. Yeah. And people hear that and they say, well, you know,

it's hard. Lifestyle change is hard. Yeah. I think that's a really convenient thing for the healthcare systems to say. I don't think and see Americans wanting to be sick, depressed, and kill themselves and basically eat themselves to death. I don't think that's what people want. My mom, you know, abruptly died of cancer after facing a number of other comorbidities, was the standard American patient really in many ways. And she just wasn't told this by the medical system. She was like, oh, statin, high cholesterol, fine. You know, metformin, high blood sugar, that's normal. You know, she wanted to still be here and meet her grandkids. And I think most people do want to live and want to thrive. So I think the problem is incentives. I don't think it's about lecturing people at a high level policy level what to eat. The rubber hits the road is

if that patient is pre-diabetic at a doctor's office, what are they recommended? What are they incentivized to do? They are told, that patient's told, take your statin, take your metformin, and don't even worry about your diet. Literally, the guidance in the American Heart Association, the American Diabetes Association was, you don't need to worry about your diet if you take the drugs correctly. And if that patient, in Europe, is told, actually, you can reverse these things with this certain dietary intervention or exercising, you're statistically gonna die, if you're diabetic by the time you're 30, 11 years younger than an average American.

If they're actually told the truth and incentivized, incentivized to potentially eat healthier and exercise, those things can happen. So I just think it's all about the policy, like where and the standard of care and what a doctor's recommending to a patient. And we're just not following the science right now. So I lost 90 pounds back in 2017.

And I've had a lot of people ask me, if you had had Ozempic back then, would you have taken it? I was in a very different mindset back then. I'm so grateful I didn't have the option because it taught me. I mean, I wouldn't be sitting here right now if I didn't have the option because it taught me. I mean, I wouldn't be sitting here right now if I didn't have to experience what I experienced. I learned everything about nutrition.

I learned about exercise. I learned how to have a work ethic. It taught me everything. Like who I am as a person today is because of that journey. And that would have been stolen from me, I think, had I been on Ozempic. And just to speak to the spending, I have been approached multiple times already to have advertising for Ozempic on my show. And I'm not saying I'm super anti, super pro, whatever. But I just think it's interesting. And I would never say yes to an Ozempic ad on my show, but I just think it's interesting how they're now paying for podcast ads from people like me, which is crazy. Yeah, I mean, I know some of the folks that are running some of those big companies. They know what they're doing is bankrupt, quite frankly,

shilling Ozempic to millennials. It's wrong. It's totally legal. But it's like, I think at some point the systems, and you talk about being in the room, at some point people need to just ask what macro is happening. And again, I just, I can't stress it enough. Like I'm not fully anti-drug. It's like, I think patients should make informed decisions with their doctors. But on a kind of immediate American case, and I've followed your story closely, I truly mean this, like the central goal of America should be to incentivize people being on the journey you went on. Like,

was it not one of the most like and important journeys that impacted every other aspect of your life? It's not like a diet thing. It's truly like having more awe and curiosity for the environment, for what we're putting in our body, for what we're putting in our kid's body. I think this detachment from our soil and our food and our metabolic habits, movement, sunlight,

just our biological needs is a real spiritual crisis in the country. And, you know, it's obviously evidenced in really terrible health and mental health statistics, but also like I tie it to the environment. I mean, we're destroying our soil. Our foods has much lower nutrients. We just don't understand. And we're born with the innate ability and it's encoded in ourselves is to understand that. And it's taken away from us. You know, no other animal in the wild

is like systematically obese or diabetic. You don't have like obese giraffes. And I think these systems, you know, being inside the rooms, it's very calculated taking that away from us. You know, we have these schools designed by John D. Rockefeller, who said, I want a nation of workers, not a nation of thinkers.

We set kids in sedentary environments without sunlight, kind of when they're born to play. We shove processed food in their mouths. The processed food industry was created by the cigarette industry. People don't know this, but in 1990, the three largest processed food companies were cigarette companies, Philip Morris, R.J. Reynolds, and others. Still to this day, Philip Morris owns Kraft. Most of the companies were spun out in the

1990s, but cigarette companies literally took their scientists as cigarette companies were declining and put them over to food companies to make the food more addictive. And all those thousands of ingredients that we have in our food are made to our children. It's hijacking our biology and our understanding of like what we're eating. I, you know, truly believe that you don't binge on natural food because our bodies are made over thousands of years to be, you know, with this food, but processed food is not natural. It's hijacking our biology. So yeah, I just think when you look at public policy, the core input is humans in America who are increasingly unable to reproduce, increasingly depressed, overweight, and sick in a lot of ways. Right now, in 2024, we have the highest rates of almost every single chronic

disease in history. Highest rates of cancer, diabetes, autoimmune conditions, we have the highest rates of almost every single chronic disease in history. Highest rates of cancer, diabetes, autoimmune conditions, go down the list, kidney disease. It's the highest ever of every single condition. Something wrong is happening. And again, on the personal level, I truly think there's a way, it's not lecturing people, it's not shoving them into any ideology, but it's like using that $4.5 trillion to spur curiosity and lifelong habits. And my problem with Ozempic is if you could show me that it literally worked perfectly forever, maybe, although I still think if you're eating 20% less ultra-processed garbage, it's going to hurt your cells.

And I think the long-term studies about comorbidities are going to be terrible, like every other chronic disease treatment ever studied, there's never been a chronic disease treatment that's lowered the rates of the chronic disease is trying to treat or overall comorbidities literally stands more heart disease, metformin, more diabetes. It's because it's not, you're still shoving garbage into your body, hurting yourselves. You rack up more and more and more problems. But even if you showed that was perfect, I still don't think it would be the answer because you're just going to have to like, we can't out hack it. I don't think we can out hack our biology. That being said, it's not perfect. Most people go off the drug within a

year. It's about half the people go off the drug to such pronounced side effects. Our gut is highly connected to the rest of our body. I'm very concerned about the mental health issues coming out from it and the suicidal ideation investigation in Europe because we segment everything. I'm really concerned about the muscle loss. I recently debated some doctors on this and everyone agrees with this. Every single person who shows ozympic when they're pushed, they say four to five rigorous strength training appointments a week. And you have to shift to a high protein, low ultra processed food diet. They say you have to do that or you're going to have really bad metabolic issues. It's like, well, let's do the four to five. I don't think there's an epidemic of obesity and issues among

people that are working out four to five times a week and shifting to a high protein, low ultra, low-altra-processed food diet. Let's try that first. Yeah. I mean, how many people are doing that on Ozempic? None. It's a ticking time bomb. It's like, how have we not learned these lessons? There's never been a chronic disease treatment that's lowered the rates of the chronic disease. If you know me, you know I drink a ton of water. I have a giant Hydra flask that I refill like three times a day, and I want to make sure that I'm getting in the healthiest possible water. It's so important to stay hydrated and healthy, but if you're like me, you don't trust your tap water. Having a safe, clean water is the last thing you want to worry about. But unfortunately, according to extensive research by the Environmental Working Group, three out of four homes in America have harmful contaminants in its tap water. We're at the point where you really

can't just drink out of the tap. You need to have some kind of filter. I want my pets to be healthy. I want me and my husband to be healthy. And that's why we use AquaTrue. AquaTrue purifies using a four-stage reverse osmosis purification process. And their countertop purifiers work with no installation or plumbing. It removes 15 times more contaminants than ordinary pitcher filters and are specifically designed to compact chemicals like PFAs in your water supply. We personally have an under the sink option that purifies our water right out of the tap, but you can also get the installation free countertop purifier, which is what we have at the Bloom office. And it's so easy to use and make sure you're getting the healthiest possible water.

Its proprietary purification technology is independently tested by IAPMO to NSF and ANSI standards to remove over 80 of the most harmful contaminants, including chlorine, fluoride, arsenic, PFAs, nitrate, and many more. Long-term exposure to high concentrations of PFAs can lead to adverse health effects like cancer, endocrine disruption, liver toxicity, and that's why I'm so happy that we have Aquatrue. Plus, I can truly taste the difference compared with my old water filter. The pets also drink so much water, especially during the summer, and I want to feel really good about the water I'm giving them. It got delivered straight to my home and was so easy to set up, and I just feel so much better about everything I'm drinking, including

my tea and coffee. Aquatrue comes back with a 30-day money-back guarantee and even makes a great gift. Today my listeners receive 20% off any AquaTrue purifier. Go to aquatrue.com that's A-Q-U-A-T-R-U dot com and enter my code POW at checkout. That's 20% off any AquaTrue water purifier when you go to aquatrue.com and use code POW, P-O-W. I'd like to talk about women's health. We discuss that a ton on this podcast. We talk about PCOS, hormone regulation, and I know we're seeing hormonal dysregulation start as early as middle school. Like girls are having their period at age 10, 11, which is wild. Why is this happening?

And then we'll go into PCOS and fertility and all of that good stuff. Well, what everyone wants a white male talking about infertility and women's health. But I do think there's really, really important things to learn here. Yeah, let's talk about it. No, no, no. You have the stats. No, no, I think that there are key things from the incentive angle that is really important

and is actually one of the areas I and my wife and my sister, who I wrote this book with, are extremely passionate about. So let's break it down. The New York Times recently said women particularly are hitting puberty earlier and earlier. And the headline front page, nobody knows why. The stories are astounding when people go to Europe. I have friends actually who go to Europe. This is maybe TMI, but their breast shrink, this is actually very common. We are having so many hormone disrupting chemicals in our food that it's causing very pronounced reproductive and

sexual issues. And it's also leading to a pronounced decrease in the puberty age because our food is filled with thousands of chemicals that I help lobby and create rig studies saying all these chemicals are healthy. They're in the US food. They're not in other foods. Glyphosate, for example? Glyphosate. Glyphosate's a huge one. Glyphosate is totally being phased out in Europe. And Bayer that owns it, who I used to consult for, is producing studies saying it's just fine. I would actually just say, let's step back and just use common sense, right? We have these poisons throughout our food.

And they say, well, where's the research? They're funding the research. It's just not good to be eating these neurotoxins, these hormone-disrupting neurotoxins. So that's leading to earlier puberty. And then you have a situation where, you know, just from the overall health of children, as we talked about, it's a disaster. You know, there's clearly everything is going up all at once. So you have kids getting those prediabetes diagnosis, having obesity, having high cholesterol. And then instead of doctors telling them, well, this might actually be the signs of your cells malfunctioning. This might be signs of, it is signs of underlying

metabolic dysfunction. That's probably going to lead to more depression, more infertility, more things down the road. No, instead of addressing these warning signs, we talked about in the book, symptoms should be seen as gifts. I mean, if you have, you know, a little bit of obesity, a little bit of, I've had people say that their autoimmune conditions and getting more curiosity about their diet has been the best thing that ever happened to them. I mean, you've talked about, yeah, acne. These are all signs. And instead of seeing these symptoms as gifts, the kids are told, no problem. Just, you know, we're not changing lifestyle behavior. So then we get into reproductive age. And I don't think there's anything more stark.

And this isn't just a woman issue. It's happening to both. Male sperm count is plummeting. Male infertility is skyrocketing. But let's focus on PCOS. I think we all know many people who are struggling with PCOS, the leading cause of infertility. So after kind of ignoring the warning signs, after a step function increase in all these metabolic issues among kids, you get to trying to have a kid PCOS, which is now affecting up to 26% of women of childbearing age. I mean, it's an epidemic right now.

So you go to an OBGYN's office. I know them. I know many OBGYNs from Harvard and top schools. They're incentivized on procedures. If you figure out how to reverse that PCOS and have your kid naturally, they hate that. Their cars and mortgage are paid for and their entire salary is based on the number of procedures and the number of interventions, the number of drugs they prescribe. Like birth control. Like birth control, like hormone pills, and the IVF is huge. So that's the simple economic fact. They are high-fiving when you come in and they think you're going to get IVF. And they're absolutely pushing you. Oh, let's not take a risk. We should probably just go with that. So that's the economic incentive.

And that's not a conspiracy. That's just the fact. I talk to OBGYNs all the time. I'm not trying to call anyone out, but that's just the truth. Okay. They obviously got into this for their reasons. They're not trying to harm you, but their economic incentive is absolutely that they make much more money when you are on a path of procedures. Let's take what PCOS actually is. PCOS isn't related to diabetes and insulin resistance. It is insulin resistance. It literally is insulin resistance. We talk about this in the book. It is not only something that studies show the keto diet intervention can dramatically reverse. It is a blaring warning sign of metabolic dysfunction that if not gotten under control will lead to more comorbidities and probably an earlier

death. So it is actually a welcome, it should be a welcome warning sign of that metabolic dysfunction. I have yet to meet a woman in traditional medicine route whose doctor has informed her that what this disease actually is, what this condition actually is, that it is insulin resistance. Now, I am not here to lecture anyone, any woman on what they should be doing. I do emphatically think that all patients should have the correct information to be able to make an informed decision. And again, in Europe, this is highly understood. And there's actually steps. In many countries, there's steps. And it's in Europe, this is highly understood. And there's actually steps. You know, in many countries, there's steps.

And, you know, it's food interventions, it's supplement interventions, and then up to IVF, which is a great option. But it's a very invasive and gruesome procedure that should not be encouraged. And I think many patients, most patients, with the correct information would want to go up that stair ladder. And that's just not even given as an option. So I think, again, there's two big issues with the fertility crisis right now where, you know, gestational diabetes is skyrocketing, miscarriages are skyrocketing, PCOS is skyrocketing. Sperm count, erectile dysfunction. All these things are absolutely exploding. Our bodies, in my opinion, are just crying out, like, hey, this is our core evolutionary function, and we're not trying to even reproduce anymore.

And instead of seeing that as a warning sign, instead of seeing that as the root cause of something much more important that's going to cause other issues that we really need to get a hold of with simple methods. We're pilling it and we have advertisers trying to say, get the Ozempic, get the birth control pills, get the Viagra. All these things, again, it's not a blanket thing, but it's not a deficiency. Erectile dysfunction is not a deficiency of Viagra. It's actually your body crying out of metabolic issues. The statistics and correlations between other comorbidities and early death

with people with untreated erectile dysfunction are very, it's a very serious warning sign. So that's my issue with fertility. And it's very personal because my mom's first real warning, she was very healthy, thin in her 20s, 30s, was really what we think is gestational diabetes with me. I was born at 12 pounds and she got high fives from the doctors.

And, oh, it's so cool, a big baby. That's a direct sign of metabolic dysfunction for the mom, a baby over much over nine pounds. It's a blaring warning sign of metabolic dysfunction, not told. And then that kind of started and was one of the first signs of her cascading metabolic health issues, you know, standard American things. As I said, Stans, Metformin, up the ladder. I pray and wish, you know, and the reason we wrote this book, quite frankly, is because

if my mom was told, hey, great, great job, got a big baby, that's a sign of actually an underlying issue. Hey, you might die earlier and you might suffer more if you don't. We can use these things as a way to maybe spur the path of curiosity and lifelong habits that you went on. So that's how I see the fertility issue. Just an interesting note back to the puberty conversation. And this might be TMI as well, but I grew up in the UK and Switzerland for the most part. And I moved to the US when I was 10. I didn't hit puberty till I was like 16 years old.

And every girl around me was getting it fifth grade, sixth grade. And it's just interesting to me. It's not that I was eating a super healthy diet in the UK, but I was eating baguettes, ham, cheese, things that were not necessarily covered in glyphosate. So I just wonder if that had anything to do with it. I want to know your thoughts on post-pill PCOS. This is a term I've heard a lot. I wonder, as women, if we're not put on birth control, which most of us, I mean, I was on it for 10 years, as are many women, would I still have PCOS symptoms had I not gone on the pill for that long?

I can't speak to that specifically, but I would just say we need to appreciate how these treatments are very seriously impacting our physiology. I mean, I'm not here to say the birth control pill isn't great, but I don't think it would be approved today if it was up for approval. I mean, this pill was made in the 1950s. It was the first chronic disease treatment. And it actually started and unlocked the chronic disease pharmaceutical industry that we have today because people could see that they could convince people to be on one pill for a long period of time. And I think the medical system kind of has it both ways where they say, well, this is gonna so dramatically impact your core evolutionary function

and be like an extremely powerful pill that you're taking every day for life, affecting some of your core physiology. And it's like low side effect. It's like, that's kind of this bill we've been sold. It's like, well, let's just have an honest conversation. A lot of these pharmaceutical products that we're pushing on us that are very safe, on the one hand are like, you know, changing our

immune system, changing our hormones. And on the other hand, they're saying it's just fine. I mean, these things have real impacts. And I think I, is this how I would describe it? My high level philosophy. I take what your question and tie it to the fact that there's a 30 to 35% C-section rate and everyone says that's fine. And the fact that there's all these interventions in the birth process and in the kind of reproductive process, it just doesn't stand to reason that we've kind of like, we've fooled with so many aspects of our health, particularly our reproductive function, and then say everything is fine. It's like, we have no idea. We will in a hundred years look back on day and say, we haven't known an iota about the miracle of producing life. You know, I was born

with a C-section. It's a very important and giving birth is very dangerous and some interventions are very important, but a 35% rate where we kind of cascade these issues. Every birth story you hear is a disaster these days. It's like, well, there was this issue, there was this issue. It's a cascading group. I don't think doctors necessarily want that, but it's very profitable that's happening. And just messing with the, you know, watching my wife give birth, we did a natural process. It was, I think, one of the most empowering, amazing moments for her. It was just beautiful. And that's being taken away. I think women are being told they can't do it. And I think they're being bullied.

And, you know, I think we're, who even knows what the lack of, you know, the microbiome issues by not having a natural birth or the hormonal issues for the woman of what a natural birth signals to the rest of their body. Then we have all these problems with breastfeeding. It's just this cascading issue where we're pumping women with a bunch of hormones,

we're doing unnatural things, and then we're throwing up our hands and wondering why all these bad things are happening. So I think it is kind of always just getting a little bit back to basics. It's not being a Luddite and not embracing technology, but I would say we should be embracing technology and innovation more to understand our core evolutionary biology, what our core cellular

needs are, and fixing that, not trying to hack the fact that we're being poisoned. The whole birthing process is interesting. I've done a lot of research about it just because I'm curious. And I've heard when you're in the hospital, number one, they're trying to get you out of there as soon as possible, right? To get the bed free. And then number two, they're, while you're in labor, asking you, oh, do you want this? Do you want this?

Do you want this? And you're kind of being pressured to take medications that you're not really aware of. Is that true? Oh, absolutely. So just backing up, my principle is trust the system on acute issues, things that are going to kill you right away, and don't trust it on chronic issues. Birth is an interesting case because giving birth 100 years ago was more dangerous than a woman having breast

cancer today. It is an absolutely something where medical interventions on the 3% to 5% of edge cases are really important. I want to be really clear on that. I do think the medical system has used that power and used that trust to over-medicalize the process. So what I'm seeing a lot is you're kind of in that crisis situation, which I think is brought on. So you've got the Pitocin, you're inducing, that leads to another issue. So you've started the first kind of, the tipping point is you've started this cascade through the Pitocin, the inducement, the pain mitigation. You have all these unnatural processes. You have, you know, IVs just going into the mom in very different ways. And that cascades to more issues. So once one of those interventions cascades to a

new issue, it's like, oh, we got to do this. And the mom is sitting there, you know, in fear. We had a situation where even with the natural birth, they were trying to put antibiotics into my wife. And we've talked about that. It's really problematic. You know, if you need an antibiotic, take an antibiotic, 100%. We absolutely over-prescribe them. And it's really powerful and important with birth, with the baby's microbiome forming,

and all these things of that we don't even understand, to try to avoid as much as possible that baby being flooded in any way with any antibiotics. It's problematic. Just without thinking, they tried to give my wife antibiotics without even like need it. So you absolutely should try to be an advocate, but it's a very scary situation.

But this is what happens when we over-medicalize processes. And yeah, I think Casey talks about this very eloquently in the book. I think that robbing of agency from women during childbirth, which I think it's the most transformative and important act any human of either gender does and life-defining and amazing, having a bunch of tubes, having a bunch of interventions, seeing it as something you need to time. I think that's really problematic and systemic of how our

awe and curiosity of our general biological function has kind of been taken away from us. I think it's a huge kind of problem. And yeah, I'd really urge folks to try to be, well, I'd urge moms to honestly do whatever the hell they want. But I think you should be well aware that these interventions cascade and often lead to really suboptimal experiences. I agree. Like I would like to know all of the medications I'm going to be offered before I go in there so I know. I've also heard a lot of people in my generation are having these crazy allergies because they were born through C-section. They're not getting the necessary fluids on the eyes and the face when

they're born naturally. I was born naturally, which I actually just recently found out. And that like, I'm very grateful for that because I do think it makes, I personally notice a difference in the health of someone born via C-section versus natural? Yeah, it's always sensitive talking to parents and giving parenting advice, right? But I do think we also need like some real talk. So the system is totally rigged against kids. I think, you know, with the stats we talked about,

with the harrowing stats on childhood chronic disease, you know, I do, a large part of me does blame the system. I think, I don't think parents are systematically trying to poison their kids, which is what's happening. I think there's some addiction tendencies where parents are metabolic dysfunctional, overweight, and trying to justify their behavior by making it normalized and giving their kids that same food. I mean, I think there's a lot to unpack. And I think it is frankly frankly, a lot from the trillions of dollars of incentives that I saw that are rigged against the American people. But this book is kind of twofold because it's kind of me on the systemic angle,

my sister, who's, you know, and it's got genius bottoms up tips. And I do think it's two parts. And I think we should speak plainly to parents. I think there's going to be two classes of people in the next generation. I mean, it's kids that are being, you know, hormones are completely being disrupted by ultra-processed food who are sedentary, who's basically cells are just like not set up for success. That of course impacts the brain with mental health issues, developmental issues. I mean, obviously there's luck of the draw here, but we are literally almost systematically looking at the attributes our kids

cells need to thrive and depriving them of that. And I think really from the point of birth forward, I mean, yeah, 100%. We have no idea how all these interventions of birth are impacting our kids' microbiome, impacting their development. It's not good, I can promise you. And then you get to the food, you get to the sedentary, you get to the environmental toxins, you get to sleep dysregulation. You get to these basic things where we're basically all at once assaulting kids. Then we give them smartphones,

weapon of mass destruction for chronic stress. But you really can just like look at the metabolic needs that a child has, chronic stress, sleep, exercise, food. And parents that are doing a better job at that and really resisting the advice in the normal system, I really do think are setting their kids up for better success. And I think the kids that are following the standard American kind of incentive structure, I really truly worry about our human capital and our country right now. I mean, we are almost doing a science experiment of giving these kids everything that we know is like wrong for themselves. And it's impacting their bodies and their brains. So

I think you talk to any parent right now who has high school or, you know, kids are kind of in that range. It's very, very concerning. I've yet to meet a parent that doesn't think this is the biggest issue in the country. I'm curious, speaking about this, you know, I'm coming from a place of privilege because I have the knowledge, I have the resources. When I eventually have children, I know what to feed them and what to do. But for people who are listening or not listening, who maybe don't have the same resources, like, are they set up to be able to create this life for their kids? Can they afford it? This is my framework of the theory of change. I don't think we can lie to ourselves. We have to get policy changed for people at the neediest end of the spectrum. They're not probably listening to this podcast. They're not buying our products. And that's just the fact. I don't think, I think sometimes you're like, oh, we can all change

this from the bottoms up. I want to be clear. If the largest and fastest growing industry in the country and the most powerful industry is predicated on the American people being sick, particularly preying on poor people, we're screwed and they are screwed unless we change that. My theory of change is that movements start first by preaching at the converted. So I do think it's important that the most popular podcasts, including this one, people are waking up, taking bottoms up change, buying your product. My company, TrueMed, the entire goal of our company, what we do is we drive tax-free money and incentivize people to save tax-free, like 40% on healthy products. We have to steer and help people that are on that path of curiosity,

write the books, do the podcast, create great products. But that's happening. You just had Nicholas on from Sweetgreen. Like Sweetgreen is crushing it. People are voting with their wallets. People are like, there's clearly, I mean, this issue is resonating. I mean, you look at what's happening with RFK. You look at the political environment. I'm meeting with people from both sides of the aisle. This issue of kids being poisoned and then drugged for profit is absolutely setting people's hair on fire. People are waking up. So that's happening by preaching to the converted. As that culture changed and more and more people join this movement and more people buy these products,

read these books, kind of get outraged by this, hopefully listen to this podcast, make changes in their own bottoms-up life, then I think you can have the cultural force to change policy. And changing policy is not hard, to be very clear. It is a step-function difference between what's happening here and happening in Europe and happening in Japan. My framework, which I'm working with a number of leaders across the aisle on, are stop recommending poison and stop subsidizing poison. We recommend kids to eat sugar. The USDA says that a child should have 10% of their diet added sugar. People listen to doctors. The head of the NIH, head of Harvard Medical School, the president, et cetera, should

be urgently saying we need a metabolic health reset among kids. Just saying that, we listen to doctors. I mean, literally just like the science should be clear on that. And then we incentivize this ultra processed toxic food. It's not the free market at work that a sweet green salad has to be 16 bucks and a Big Mac is like two bucks. That's actually subsidies. The cost of that Big Mac is not reflected and the incredible benefit of that salad

and what's in that is not reflected. This is not the free market at work. That's a rigged system, these price disparities. So there's a way to just change the incentives. But yeah, that's my theory. It's advocate, it's incentivize these healthy products and path of curiosity for people on that journey. And then what we're doing is we're actually taking the CEOs of our companies we're working with, Nick at Sweetgreen, Nick Green from Thrive Market, and other leading companies. We are taking them and we're advocating together. So we actually have a coalition of dozens of health and wellness leaders. And one thing we're doing is we're taking

these stories of people taking Bloom and doing the CrossFit CEOs on this coalition as well. Actually, really, literally, we should be sharing your story. I mean, literally, like people that have literally done exactly what you did, which is reverse obesity, reverse other risks of chronic conditions by largely going outside the system and explain how money in the system should be incentivizing more stories like you. Those stories really resonate. And we're kind of using the change happening of so many people you're talking to this podcast to educate leaders who do care about those stories and then tie those to policies to incentivize more of that for the neediest people. And we've got to, but you know, I always go to this, you know, Medicaid, which is the, which is the health program for lower income Americans. We spend more as a government on

mitochondrial disease, mitochondrial issues like diabetes than the defense budget. The thing that's bankrupting our country, when you look at the budget, is a lower income diabetic person. We as taxpayers are paying millions of dollars for that person right now and not helping them. So what if Medicaid, you know, you have somebody that's, you know, 20 and on the verge of diabetes, what if we paid them to exercise? Like, what if we actually like incentivize like they do in Sweden and give them a of diabetes, what if we paid them to exercise? Like, what if we actually like incentivize like they do in Sweden and give them a card to, you know, go to a farmer's market and like educate them and like have them be able to buy,

like enable them to buy healthy food for their family and educate them on that with targeted dietary plans. Like people want to be healthy. They follow incentives. We could do that. And that would be so much cheaper because right now we subsidize food that's causing trillions of dollars

of downstream health impacts for us. We literally subsidize it, then it causes trillions of dollars downstream impacts. And then because the pharma and the healthcare industry has completely bought off our system, we just pay for that as taxpayers. So that's my theory of change. Do you think that there's a shift in, I mean, I feel like there is a shift in what people are consuming. I feel like people are moving away from mainstream media. They're listening to podcasts. They're on social media. Hopefully, they're getting this information.

Do you think that's happening or do you think there's, I mean, I think I've heard you say this actually. There's nutritionists being paid by the big food industry to say things that are making us sicker. Yeah, I think there's a bottoms up. There's absolutely, I mean, I think we're seeing a bottoms up revolution happening. Yeah. I mean, I was blown away. I mean, my sister and I are both running companies and haven't had paid PR or anything for the book. And it debuted, it sold 66,000 copies in its first week. It debuted number one. And I was really proud of that. And I was really surprised. I think there's something- Tell us the name of the book really quick.

Good Energy. Good Energy. Good Energy is the name of the book. We're in with my sister, Dr. Casey Means. Right after our mom's death, we really wanted to put these issues, really prevent the needless deaths that are happening, I think, in the standard American patient where people are getting comorbidities, then eventually the small things, because they're not solved and the root causes and address lead to big things. And we're dying earlier in the United States now. So we're suffering more and then we're dying earlier. And we talk about metabolic health. We talk about the systemic issues

and we talk about really a handbook for tips based on Casey's just genius on outlining really tangible tips. But, you know, that was a small data point of just like people are clamoring for this. I mean, again, you look at the top podcast charts, you look at the top books, people are buying bio-wearables

and doing all these companies like Function Health, Dr. Hyman's company. People are clamoring to pay out of pocket for better things. I think the distrust that's grown of our institutions, particularly our medical system, I think it's a very positive thing. I think we should be very proud of what the medical system has done for acute issues, You know, things that were gonna kill us right away, as I said, but it's lost its way. And I think this is part of the American system. I actually, this is a story of like love. My sister and I are on to kind of like

get this message out. I think it's a story of optimism. I don't think in China they're having, you know, podcasts all the time. The most popular podcast, basically bashing the existing system. Like, I think this is all part of the system. It's good. I think people are waking up. And again, where I'm trying to play is like, take that, the problem from a public policy perspective is this is becoming a

huge issue, this kind of poisoning of the American people. But when I worked for the food and pharma industry, we were able, the second there was a bill, like the food stamps, it was like, okay, lobby, lobby, lobby on that issue. Like, let's make, they're able to target their efforts. So what I'm really trying to do is use those tactics, both of the company and the associated coalition. It's like, let's use those tactics of channeling this voice of people and this frustration of people, but we've got to target to specific issues, specific executive orders that we're drafting, specific bills, and then have the momentum from a coalition of people that are frustrated about this, like letting leaders know. That's how, frankly, you get policy change. That's

what the soda companies do and the pharma companies. They have a bunch of old people call and be like, don't take away my drugs. It's like, this is just how it works. You need to be more organized. And we're trying to do that. That's where I'm trying to play. So I was telling you before my conversation with Dr. Hyman was incredible, but we also spoke about the medical industry, pharma, and potentially putting out content like that gets shadow banned or pushed out of the algorithm because... And also, then I think of RFK. I actually met him at Gold's Gym once. And he's silenced all the time. Why is that happening? Or how is that happening? Well, it's the same thing. It's followed the money. So again, I don't go to conspiracies.

I just go to the economics. The pharma is, we talked about the largest funder of mainstream news. They're also one of the largest funder of YouTube ads. They have a direct line. And this has been under discussed. I mean, it came out a lot with the Twitter kind of stuff, but they, this is like, again, I just, let's be super explicit. Working for the pharma companies,

we saw advertising as public affairs lobbying expenditures. What do I mean by that? I mean, it was like literally a way, okay, let's give Google millions of dollars. We're probably definitely getting it banned here or shadow banned. They need the truth to get out. We love you, big pharma.

Google's great. Google's great. It's probably people that used to work there, but they have, I mean, it's just logic, right? If you're giving someone millions of dollars, you have a direct line to them. And then of course they have the blanket of credibility. Oh, that's misinformation. Here's a study. I got shadow banned for talking about food colorings being harmful. Oh, like red dye? Yeah, and we're on a war path with, we're working on a number of different things

at TrueMed just to kind of advocate this issue. But Jason Karp, who founded Who Chocolates and Vani Hari, Food Babe on Instagram and a couple others. We have this like loose coalition where we're taking on Kellogg's. I think they're actually gonna take the dyes out because we have 100,000 signatures

and we're really putting some pressure on them. But one of the things I said about the red dyes, which are tied to neurological, which are ADHD, are not basically allowed in Europe. They like fact-checked that with a study that's totally paid for by the food companies saying, oh, it's glyphosate. And they've done it with glyphosate too. Glyphosate's totally fine. They just call Google and like, this is not right. There's a study saying glyphosate's fine. So that's how it works. It's that simple. It's the money and the

credibility. It's the institution of trust. They've got the studies. They've got, you know, the NIH saying this, they, they've got all this credentialing, Harvard med school. It all ties together to influence people. The members of Congress tell me all the time, they're like, I don't like this. They're like, I don't like the fact that kids are sick, but anytime I do anything on nutrition, I got a lobbyist in my office, just pounding studies down my throat saying you're anti-science. you restrict ultra-processed food. I talked a while back about, everyone was giggling about the NIH study and Tufts Nutrition School that said lucky charms are healthier than beef. Literally, that's what the NIH study said. And Joe Rogan tweeted about it. It kind of became a thing. It was kind of this funny, like, kind of talking point

of how ridiculous it is. The problem is that study, the purpose of it was to influence childhood nutrition guidelines. So, and it's very real because you get that study. It looks ridiculous. Lucky charms are healthier than beef on the score. But then they go into school boards,

they go into other pots of money and say, no, no, you don't need fresh food. You can do lucky charms. The grains and lucky charms are fortified and totally healthy. And it's, you know, so that's what those studies are used for. It's all kind of like this rigged. But yeah, that's how I see the Google thing. It makes me think of the twin study on Netflix, the vegan and the, it was funded by Beyond Meat. Bizarre. Anyways, I think you gave us some really good information about how we can fix this problem. And I really admire what you and your sister are doing. I think the book is incredible.

I love the mission. For someone listening who maybe feels like they are stuck in the system, maybe they're on medication, they're eating processed food, they don't know where to begin, what would you recommend? So I would say this is a mindset issue. It's very scary. You know, I have friends who are on SSRIs and they're psychiatrists, like that's very dangerous to go off of those. You know, it's very dangerous to go off your stat. They use the fear against you.

My high level parameter, I can't speak to an individual case, but my high level parameter is the acute versus chronic framework. I just can't stress this enough. If you aren't imminently going to die, if you have a chronic, you know, the borderline cholesterol, the prediabetes, the obesity, you should be empowered to experiment and investigate this off-ramp from the pharmaceutical treadmill that you are absolutely incentivized to be on.

I just would strongly recommend reading a book by Mark Hyman. We literally wrote this book, Good Energy, to not solve everything, but start people on a journey. We wrote this for people that are maybe on the journey to give their friends who wants to start. That's the purpose of this book. I just say there's much

less risk generally in getting off of that pharmaceutical treadmill than it's being told to you. The record of accomplishment of the medical system in managing, preventing, or reversing chronic diseases is a record of utter shame and failure. They literally couldn't be worse. Your doctor deserves to be listened to, but does not deserve the benefit of the doubt on that. And so many people have transformed their lives and call it the best experience of their lives by starting to question and starting to look at more root cause interventions and get off those meds. But I have friend after friend, I'm sure you do, who are on this path and their cardiologist is shocked at their cholesterol levels. They still try to keep

them on the stands. Oh, just out of abundance of caution. Just go outside the system. And, you know, I think it's a worthy goal to try to be on as less chronic disease pharmaceuticals as possible. You know, they say Ozipic can help jumpstart. They say that these drugs can help jumpstart better habits. There's no evidence of that. There's really none. These are moral hazards. It's a free country. I'm a libertarian. Take Ozempic if you want to take it. It's not a long-term solve. It's a crash diet. Statins are a temporary thing that the second you go off, and then you're back to where you were. It's just like these things aren't curing anything. So that's one important thing. Just have the confidence to question what your doctor is saying on chronic conditions

and realize that the answers are actually much more simple in many ways than you're led to believe and most other animals are able to come up with them. I also think more resources are popping up now. I mean, I know a lot of people struggle to get ways, then you're led to believe that most other animals are able to come up with them. I also think more resources are popping up now. I mean, I know a lot of people struggle to get the lab testing that they want. And now, you know, Mark Hyman just released Function Health. There's ways you can go about it. So guys, if you're listening, I hope you're inspired. I know I'm pretty shocked right now. I knew sort of a surface level of everything happening, but you really just dove deep and I appreciate you exposing the industries

that need to be exposed. I'd love to hear where everyone can find you online. Where can they buy the book? Give us all the info. Awesome. Well, I'm on the socials, Instagram and Twitter at Callie, C-A-L-L-E-Y-M-E-A-N-S. Just trying in any way I can to change these incentives. So Good Energy is

available wherever you buy books. My sister and I put our heart and soul into this. And my company is TrueMed, truemed.com. And a quick pitch on that, it's born out of this mission. You can go there and hundreds of brands from your gym memberships, supplements, we really vet the brands. It's the best brands and all clinically vetted. In three minutes, you can qualify to use your HSA, FSA dollars on that. So people are buying their Pelotons, CrossFit memberships, supplementation with tax-free dollars. And it's a way not only to save thousands of dollars, but we're really building a community of people

that I think are feeling emboldened to use their medical dollars, not to be on the sick care system, but to take root cause actions, which is perfectly appropriate under the law and what we should be encouraging. Fantastic. Thank you so much.

Thanks for joining us on the Pursuit of Wellness podcast. To support this show, please rate and review and share with your loved ones. If you want to be reminded of new episodes, click the subscribe button on your preferred podcast or video player. You can sign up for my newsletter to receive my favorites at marilowelland.com.

It will be linked in the show notes. This is a Wellness Out Loud production produced by Drake Peterson, Fiona Attucks, and Kelly Kyle. This show is edited by Mike Fry and our video is recorded by Louise Vargas. You can also watch the full video of each episode on our YouTube channel at Mari Fitness. Love you, Power Girls and Power Boys. See you next time. The content of this show is for educational and informational purposes only. It is not a substitute for individual medical and mental health advice and does not constitute a provider patient relationship.

As always, talk to your doctor or health team.