Sawbones: A Marital Tour of Misguided Medicine - Grounded for Life

Episode Date: August 14, 2020

This week on Sawbones, we explore The Most Important Health Discovery Ever! We know it's the The Most Important Health Discovery Ever because the book is called Earthing: The Most Important Health Discovery Ever. So there you have it.Music: "Medicines" by The Taxpayers

Saubones is a show about medical history, and nothing the hosts say should be taken as medical advice or opinion. It's for fun. Can't you just have fun for an hour and not try to diagnose your mystery boil? We think you've earned it. Just sit back, relax, and enjoy a moment of distraction from that weird growth. You're worth it. that weird growth. You're worth it. Alright, time is about to books. One, two, one, two, three, four. We came across a pharmacy with a toy and that's lost it out. We were sawed through the broken glass and had ourselves a look around.

Some medicines, some medicines that escalate my cop for the mouth. Wow. Hello, everybody and welcome to Saul Bones, Marleter of Miss Guy and Medicine, I'm your co-host Justin McAroy. And I'm Sydney McAroy. And Sydney, you wanted to open this week's episode talking about animated films.

Is that what I'm trying to do? I wanted to or you wanted to. You wanted to, you said I got a lot to say about these. No one reached out to me about my opinions on watching animated movies. And you just wanted to really put everybody on blast. Is that how I understand it? No, that is not accurate whatsoever. You don't want to talk about animated movies. I just, okay, I don't, but now you've put me in this position. So now

I am forced to. Last week, of course, we reviewed Osmosis Gen. And I would like to... It's weird, is it? It's quite a choice. ...evaluated, explored, osmosis shuns. And I would like to say that my statement that I didn't know who this movie was for is not based on a belief that I don't think adults should or can or would benefit from watching animated movies at all.

I watch animated movies. I watch many animated shows with my children, and I enjoy quite a few of them, not all, but quite a few of them. I think animation is for everyone, contrary to what many listeners believe about me. Osmosis Jones in particular, I'm not sure who it was for, because it didn't seem quite for kids or adults. That was my only point. I didn't know who that was for. If you enjoy animation, please watch it and enjoy it and know that I am happy that you are happy watching your animated whatever, whatever age you are. I think that's wonderful. So just for you personally.

Well, I watch it. I watch animations for babies. No, I watch a lot of animation with the girls all day. And so when it's my free time, I usually want to watch animation with the girls all day. And so when it's my free time, I usually want to watch something live action. That is my personal preference and it is not a value judgment on anything whatsoever. I think we all know like I'm a huge fan of Steven Universe and we watched Apple and Onion together because you were on it, but it was also really great. You watched a ton of anime. We watched a ton of anime.

In the past. Yeah, in the past, I was hugely into Fushigi Yugi growing up. And I mean, neon did not so see even Gellion. But now you've put away childless thing. No, I'm just, stop. I think a lot of people, a lot of, this past week, you don't understand what I have been through listeners.

Please stop tweeting and emailing my wife about animation. Please, it's all she's talked about over the past week is how many everybody is at her for not preferring to watch animated work. Well, no, I think people got the impression that I was saying animation is only for kids. And I was not not saying that and if it came across that way, I apologize. That was not my intention. You just stopped tweeting at my wife. If you need somebody to beat up on, please comment me.

And I have the book sells at work. Everybody's been saying, but have you seen sells at work? I have that book. Take got it for me. So yes, I've not seen it, but I've read it. So it's great. Anyway. Now, the greatest solvents controversy of the past six months has been put to bed. No one's going to tweet about animation anymore. Here's the things I've learned on solvents. Don't come for fluoride. Don't come for animation.

Yeah. There are strong opinions. Very strong. Sydney, we are not talking about as much as I would love to sit here and meditate about I suppose just for another 30 minutes That is not what we are discussing this week No, we are gonna talk about something you had never heard of had never heard of No, that is correct and this this is completely foreign to me this really surprised me I asked Justin I was thinking of doing a show on grounding this week.

And I said, I don't know what that is. And I said, Earthin. Which I think is to my credit, because that means that I have self-policed my own social media feeds enough that I don't get inundated with this kind of stuff. Right? That's impressive. Well, to be fair, part of the reason I know about it is my profession, not social media. Yeah, well, I mean, you know, when you're a doctor in real medicine,

fake medicine is asked about law. I'm not saying in comparison to you. I'm just saying it's like a consumer of fine medical treatments. Ah, well, I was just surprised you'd never heard because it grounding or earthane, whichever term you prefer, has become, it's a very popular, I don't want to already say woo. But, I was the early interviewer, hands. I know, but going to the Paltrow as a fan. Oh, well, okay.

All right, but good. The Paltrow's a fan. Oh, well, okay. All right. Got it. And a lot of our listeners wanted us to talk about it. Cora Chris Paul Kyle Whitney Natalie Merritt, Mia Kay, Alena Macy, Audrey Lena, Julie John, Yusuf, Katie, and Adrian. I'll recommend it. This topic. Thank you. It's a good one because it is it is very popular. And I guess with them. Oh, what's his face that has his show about being out on the earth now? You know?

Zach Efron? Yes, that nice young man who has a show about being outside, I believe. Zach Efron is outside. I think that's what it's called. I guess he has talked about it recently. So I went into this by the way. I wouldn't say necessarily with an open mind because-

That ship done sail. Well, I was already somewhat familiar with the idea of it before I started doing this research. And it doesn't, it never quite made scientific sense to me like the theory behind it. So I wouldn't say that I was like ready to be convinced, but like I read all the research, I did have though an open heart because my understanding was that this was something that is

probably, well, almost certainly harmless in most scenarios. And free. And seem nice. And so I thought, you know, maybe this would fall into like as long as you're not using it as a substitute for real medicine If you just like doing this this seems pretty harmless. That was kind of the way I entered this topic Um thinking that that would be my takeaway from it if you like to do it. Why not? You know, but Of course, I didn't think about the monetary aspect. Always got to be a monetary aspect. There's always got to be money. I, you think, we've mentioned this before,

you think I have watched enough pen and teller to know that there's money. There's got to be money in there somewhere. And then I was disappointed. So I should know better. How long have we done the show? I know. So the idea is really simple. Okay, Justin, here's the idea behind grounding or earthing, whatever you prefer. Grounding is a word and earthing is not. So I'm going to go with grounding. We can call it grounding. Humans need contact, physical contact with the earth itself on unobstructed contact with the earth to balance our bodies, our systems. That is the concept.

There are a lot of spiritual aspects to this. Like if you dig back through the history of this concept, there's a lot that connects this to various spiritualities and faiths and belief systems. I'm not going to talk about any of that, because that's not what the show does. We're not talking about the spiritual part. If whatever your faith is, you feel more connected to it by touching the earth. Okay, that's fine. I have no part of that conversation. But there's a science part to it that I think is what we need to talk about. The proponents of grounding or earthing, of course, start out by appealing to our ancients. Obviously. Yes. For the inspiration. And the original connections are pretty vague.

It's that idea that like, well, you know, back in olden times, people didn't have shoes and they slept on the ground. And they were fine. Right. Now, they loved sleeping on the ground because it was so healthy for them. And they loved not having shoes because it really helped connect them to the earth. Now, here's the weird thing that this statement, because I hear this a lot, like people back then were fine. Were they, were they fine? This is always the problem with this. Were they fine though?

Yeah, because I think they would probably enjoy the shoes. No, but they weren't fine because they were dying of like infections that now we treat easily with antibiotics or over-the-counter ointments. They were dying of vaccine preventable diseases. They would get an appendicitis and die because, you know, we didn't have antibiotics or surgery or anything like that. We didn't have any, like we couldn't fix a trauma. You like fall and break a bone and we're like, well, hope for the the best We can't do surgery. We don't have anesthesia or antiseptic technique and also giving birth Cross your fingers and also you know food could be spoiled But we don't know about spoiled food or food poisoning and also the water might be dirty

I heard someone say I think it was David cross like very long time ago say the thing to remember about when you're talking about Ancient teachings ancient wisdom is that you are that you are a lot of time ago say the thing to remember about when you're talking about ancient teachings, ancient wisdom, is that you are referencing things that people thought when they were even dumber than they are right now. So think about that. Like, you're actually talking about people that are dumber than we are in this moment currently. Well, that's, I mean, it's the answer to, what did people do before there were vaccines? They died. They died. I mean, that's the sad answer.

So like, I would argue that people weren't just fine when they were sleeping on the ground and not wearing shoes, but I'm not going to necessarily connect it to their lack of shoes at this point. Right. So we could put the first, I don't know if you wanna say credit or blame for this idea on a German naturopath, Adolf just, just, just.

What is going on in Germany? I feel like they are, it is flip a coin and see what, if you say someone's a German, I feel like it is like flip a coin where they're not there going to be a heroic scientist figuring a bunch of stuff out or like an absolute bad man. I feel like it is always like, that is all you get, it is fire knives over there

in Germany, fire knives. Well, it's weird because there's a lot of like, this like naturopathic kind of stuff that traces, it's not all of it, obviously, but some of it's roots to Germany. And then there's also like homeopathy, which can trace its roots there. But then yes, you're right. They're also real scientific advancements.

I don't know, but at the end of the 1800s, early 1900s, he kind of started popularizing natural path in general, but also these beliefs that like a return to nature is the way to health, right? Like a return to the way we used to live when we were more connected to the earth. Like natural remedies, raw foods, fasting, just drink a lot of water. There's a lot of focus on clay in his writings, the importance of clay. Like, you know, we've talked about that before. That's an idea. He also had some other ideas like he thought gymnastics were bad for you because they're artificial.

He thought vaccines were poison and that technology was in a front to nature. That one, okay. In addition, he advocated for walking on the ground barefoot and sleeping on the ground as a way to reconnect to the earth. And this was all by the way, part of his medical, but also spiritual beliefs. This was definitely connected to his faith as well. Like this was a way to be closer to his belief system was also to return to this simpler way of living. But then it was also supposed to give you good health.

So it was like both connected. On a positive note, he was anti-homiopathy. Great. Which tells you something about homiopathy. Even this guy. Even this guy. No, it was fit. There was also a French agronomist who followed in those footsteps, Mateo Tvera, who wrote a series of letters.

And I've read some of them. B-S. I, who wrote a series of letters. And I've read some of them. BS. I still was up the series of letters. No, it's fascinating. It's the kind of writing that is very lovely. It's almost like it sucks you in and you're reading it and you realize like I have no idea what I've been reading for the last five minutes, but it felt nice in my brain as it resonated there. So I can see how it was persuasive. The idea is that we have this sacred mission on Earth,

that's what it's called, and it has to do with the fact that there is a natural electricity in the Earth, and also all around us, and we act as like antenna for it, and the way that we can maintain life, I don't know, indefinitely, maybe, is to connect with the earth appropriately, ground ourselves with the earth so that the passage of electricity can move through us and we can stay alive. Okay.

So. Okay. Sure. I'm just saying all of this is what would inspire Okay. Okay. So. Okay. Sure. I'm just saying all of this is what would inspire the guy that we're going to talk mainly about in this episode, Clint Ober. Okay. Ober was a cable installation guy in the 1990s.

He worked for a started, I believe, a major cable installation company. So he understood very well cables like electricity. That hard thing. I just depicted it in the hip-film cable guy. Exactly. Exactly like that. I assume. I've never seen that, but I assume. It's very dark. After retirement, he alludes to in his writing some sort of health issue, some sort of challenge that he encountered with his health. And it sent him on this sort of spiritual journey, health journey around the world to try to like reconnect with himself and understand himself and how, where he fits in and that kind of thing. All very normal, I think, after facing a big health challenge. In his travels, he describes this sitting on a park bench kind of situation where he's looking around at all the people walking around him, and it occurs to him that the problem is that everybody is wearing shoes. or health because our shoes are usually made of an insulating material, rubber, plastic

or something like that, that keeps us from connecting with the natural electricity of the earth. And maybe if we weren't wearing shoes, we would all feel better because of course our four bears did not wear shoes and they were fine, although we've established they weren't. Or if they did wear shoes, he allows for this. They were made of like hide, like leather, which is conductive. Right. So we need conductive shoes or no shoes to help us. We need to be grounded just like a cable has to be grounded in the earth. I would say as a rule that scientific truth does not find you on a park bench. Truth about human

experience, I could say strength. A lot for a scump. Thank you Sydney. Yes, of course, that timely film forest gump. But I would argue that scientific truth is found in a lab, is found in books. Scientific truth very rarely occurs to one while sitting on a park bench. I don't know. Wasn't Newton sitting under a tree. Yeah, but Newton, there's the difference, right? Newton was sitting under a tree. Let's say he was on a park mesh, an apple fell tree. I think Newton was like, oh, I get it. Okay, here's the whole bit. Let me lay it out for you. Apple fell on me. He's like, Oh, God, this hurts. I'm going to take the rest of the afternoon off and then start working on this

thing, right? People like to imagine it's like house. It's like when house has his house moment in every episode where somebody says something random and he's tossing the ball in the air and he goes, he catches the ball and he's like, oh my god, gravity. And I got it. I wish everything worked that way.

Yeah. It's one of those things that feels like it should be true, right? This makes sense. You know what? Maybe the problem is all the shoes. Except, what's the problem with dog? Because we're living much longer. No, so it doesn't make sense. You know what? Maybe the problem is all the shoes. Except what's the problem, dog? Cause we're living much longer now.

So it doesn't make sense. No, it doesn't. And I mean, you can see where it ties into like his background and like in like cable and grounding and that kind of thing. But anyway, so if the story ended with like, so he recommended everybody should spend some time walking barefoot and like camping. Oh, okay, but of course that's not where the story ends.

You can't charge people for telling them to walk barefoot, I don't know why you probably could. I'm sure somebody does, but also like, you know, doctors might get in the way because we would point out things like, well, you do need to be careful about like stepping on things or like hookworm or sleeping outside isn't always an option.

So we have to find a way to ground ourselves inside. How can you get grounded and earthed in your house in the convenience of your own home? I don't know. So Ober built a bed, a grounded bed. Basically he attached a grounding wire from his bed to a rod outside. Okay. And then he slept on his bed that was now grounded to the earth. I think like metallic duct tape was involved in this process. Okay.

And he noticed, after sleeping on this grounded bed, he noticed a huge difference in his own personal symptoms of chronic pain. And he also noticed his sleep was improved. And he wanted to share his discovery. So he made some for his friends. He grounded their beds. And they were all like, you're right. This is great.

I love my new grounded bed. Or you just don't want to insult your maniac friend that came over and tied a wire to your bed. Then a couple years later, his first... They didn't want their asleep and he didn't ask. This was my theory. I'm just kidding. I'm sure it was. His first experiment, and many of these experiments,

by the way, are kind of like led by Mr. Oberg. But his first experiment was kind of a makeshift. He took like a random group of older people that he found like he had a nurse help him find old people in pain. And then he grounded half of them and sham grounded the other half. Like it looked, they thought they were grounded,

but they had like a spacer between themselves and the grounded part. The whole blind. Right. Yes. And he published the, well, he, I don't publish printed, put, made a PowerPoint.

Somehow he shared the results of this and it was just overwhelming that the people who were grounded had better sleep and better pain, like less pain and the people who weren't. Well, that should be, I feel silly for a dog in this guy, that should be enough for you, Dr. McRoy, he did research, it's fine.

So he wanted to share it with the world, of course. Yeah, me too. So he found a cardiologist, Steven Sinatra, who, who looked at this research and was impressed in a writer named Martin Zucker, who it looks like writes a lot of these kinds of books. Like he's teamed up with a lot of different people to write a lot of wellness.

We'll use that word, wellness type books. And in 2010, Earthin, the most important health discovery ever was published. God, that's a good title though. It's a good title. You gotta give it up. That's a good title. Who's not gonna read that?

And it got a lot of attention, as you may imagine, since it is the most important health discovery ever. And from other doctors, there were two physicians in Poland who were related, who specifically kind of lashed onto this and wanted to do more research in this area after reading this book. And again, if all of this just amounted to people reading a book and for whatever pseudoscientific reasons saying, well, maybe I'll go outside barefoot occasionally. That would not be a big deal. But as I've already said, over maintains, you need to be able to ground yourself

in the house. And so in order to do that, you gotta have products, right? You gotta have stuff you can buy. Yeah, a line of grounded products. So you can go to their website. There are mats to take with you. Like there, there's the grounded bed idea, which is like a mat that you lay on your bed.

You don't have to buy the whole bed. You just like get the grounding mat for your bed. So there's like a grounding mat. There's a grounding pillow case to put on your own pillow so that you can get the whole set, the whole bed going. There's like a mat, you can take a travel mat, you can take with you. There are bands to wear around your body that are supposed to focus on like

your gut balance. There are patch kits, which are like little patches that you attach to like electrodes all over your body. So you can just like do some, do a touch up here and there. Yeah, it's a little bit of grounding. As you need it, there's a chair that is called the ultimate relaxation chair that is build as grounded zero gravity, heat, and pulsating massage relaxation chair for the low low price of $3,399. A bargain.

Yeah. So there are all kinds of things you can buy. And I know what you're thinking is like, but does it work? Because so far all we know is that he did this study. It looked like it worked. Actually, this cardiologist and these two doctors in Poland agree that it works. So I don't think he's worth any credit card. I'm buying this chair.

I'm going to get into the research. But before I do that, let's go to the billing department. Let's go. The medicines, the medicines that ask you let my car pour the mouth. OK, my chair will just be here in a couple of days. So I do need to go ahead and hurry this up. So I can clear space for it. Uh-huh.

I can do it. OK. So I'll probably. I have some bad news for you. Now, as you read, you can go to, like to the Irthing Institute online to read more about this whole story. But I mean, there's a book, obviously, there are other books you can buy about Irthing. When you said online, I got so disappointed.

I did want to go to the physical Irthing Institute. I don't think there's a physical place. And there's a store called Ultimate Longevity, where you can buy all this stuff. And if you look on their site where you can buy stuff, you start to see some things that might set off some red flags if you're a fan of the show. One, they have a system that is there to reduce EMF in your home.

They have to an EMF free zone system that you can have installed to go. You're already looking ahead. I can see. All right. No, I just want to go inside. Yeah. And on a side note, the idea of electromagnetic fields that are harming you in your house, yeah, is it plays big into all this. That's part of if you accept that we need to be grounded to be balanced with the earth and it has to do with the flow of electrons, which I haven't, I haven't really specified. That's his theory is that this natural electricity from the earth is in the form of a ton of like free electrons that are floating around on the earth's surface.

And the only way that you can get these free electrons into your body is to go like put your bare feet and hands on the earth. And then you get this flow of free electrons into your body that are gonna go around and fight all those. That's where things get kind of wild. Like they're gonna fight all the free radicals in your body and they're gonna fight all the... The... What else does he say? The... What you need him as an eye oxidants, he throws that in there. Like all these kinds of like, well none of this really, I don't know what you're trying to say, but then it just comes back to like, will they balance you? Which I don't know what that means either. But the EMF plays a big part in this because EMF sure, the reasons that our electrons are so out of whack is part of the argument. There are lots of reasons, stress, modern life, blah, blah, blah.

But the main thing is. Yes. And we should do a whole show on EMF because it's fine. But the other thing is adaptogens. He sells something called the ultimate adaptogenic elixir, which says on the page, based on ancient wisdom and sacred science, sacred science, I don't know how to, that's a lot to unpack, but.

Wow. Can I just read this one bit here? Sure. Our ancestors considered them, they're talking about plants, the plants are in the ultimate adaptogenic elixir. Our ancestors considered them sacred and superior to all of their plants in the planet and named them tonic herbs because they knew that if these plants were grown harvested, made into

extracts and married blended in balance properly, the finished extractor lickser would resonate once innate divine frequency through transference, toning, awakening one's miraculous divine blueprint on all levels, body, mind, and soul. Is there something in this elixir that makes your sentences just absolutely wild, just like claws on claws on claws? Is that necessary to the process? It's to hide the fact that it's one sentence. It's to hide the fact that it, they can't even tell you

how it's supposed to work, whether or not it does work or not. They can't even tell you because nobody, you're not gonna call me like a genius. Again, adaptogens are a whole other show because they, you can't, they know one, even the people who are proponents of them, don't know how they work or why they would work or what they would actually do other than again,

it's this idea that you need to be balanced. There's this weird idea that like health is balanced and I, because we do this show in my mind, I trace it back to the four humors, like what we're really talking about as the humoral system of medicine. Oh, so you want to bring my humors into balance. Well, we already know that's not how the body works, but I feel like they're kind of calling to that same idea that that's really what health is, is balance. And then I think, again, we're getting into some spiritual things which do benefit from

balance, but that's not medicine. That's something else. Anyway, what does the data say? I don't know. You tell me. So, there are not tons of studies, I would say. There are studies on this. Not as many as you would think if it was

the most important health discovery ever, whatever they say. But there, and many of the ones that do exist have been funded by over. What do you think the most most important? How does scarry ever is? Ooh, I mean, vaccines are way up there. I think like cell theory. Like cell, germ.

Germ theory of disease, penicillin. Discarry the cell. Cork. I mean, I could maybe narrow it down to a top five. That's a rough, that's a tough question. That'd be a good episode of top five. Top five. I hope grounding has to make top five, though.

It's important. A lot of the studies do seem to be the same sort of group of researchers over and over again. So it's not like independent researchers all over the planet are finding the same. Right. Not every single one. Summer, summer, very small, all are small the same. Right. Not every single one. Some are very small. All are small, some are incredibly small. There are no like giant, you know, multi-center,

hundreds or thousands of participant studies. Some are observational, some are not blinded or not controlled. There's one that is literally just one guy who is both the subject and the investigator and then writes about his own experience. Folks, the study sizes still get much smaller than that. And then there's one that I particularly like point five, I would say. There's one that I particularly like where eight guys have to like live in a hotel and do tow raises every day and then have like a lot of blood work done.

Coming this fall. We finally reached the bottom of the barrel. Come watch eight men, Duto raises. They have to hold barbells while they do it. Oh, okay. Well, that's a little bit more exciting, but they also have to talk to their future spells. While wearing a mask. Amazing. This Carol Baskin in that one. Of course, they all, all the studies,

because you can link to them from this website. All the studies say it works. Yeah, I haven't got one yet that didn't know. No, but it depends on what you mean by work. A lot of the data is, Well, a lot of it's subjective. What is, is. And that's why, I mean, we talk about this a lot when it comes to snake oil.

A lot of it is based on testimonial. And like, these studies, I would say, are not that far from just testimonials. Like, does it, it made me sleep so much better. My stiffness and achiness was so much better. So it's very subjective. And I'm not saying that these people didn't experience any Benefits it's just that's a really hard thing to measure if you're just asking questions of these participants Who I mean who knows what they're

Why they came into this how were they selected? Did they already like some of them it seems like we're recruited through like massage therapists or those kinds of like where they already, like some of them, it seems like we're recruited through like massage therapists or those kinds of like, where they already maybe prone. Open minded. Open minded, you know, so I don't know, but I don't know all that data because I don't have, it's not given to me. But the other stuff that isn't subjective,

it's just kind of weird. Like sometimes they did EEGs, which is how we measure brain activity and brain waves, which can tell us some things about the brain, but not all things about the brain can be found out through EEGs. EMGs, which are measuring muscle contraction and reactivity and that kind of thing through some of them

and the nerve conduction and how those signals are passing through and where they're getting through. Sometimes they're just doing like surface conduction of the skin, electricity on the skin, type measurements. Some of it is live blood analysis, which we've talked about on the show before is fake. Some of them are just standard blood tests.

They're just checking like a complete blood count or a chemistry panel before and after various things. And I don't know what to do with any of that. They take all that data and go, so obviously it works. For me, it's weird because it's like, it's like if you were trying to lose weight. And you did something, like we're talking in a scientific experiment.

You did something and you were going to see if it helped you lose weight. environment. You did something and you were going to see if it helped you lose weight. And so you measured your head circumference and then did the thing and measured your head circumference again and went, see, I lost weight. And I would go, what does any of that have to, like, how does that prove anything? Like the measurements don't, I know what those things mean. And I know what they can tell me, but I don't know why they would tell me anything about your pain level or your sleep or... Do you know what I'm saying? There's just random numbers that are thrown out

and like look at the change in the alkaline phosphatase and it's like, okay. I don't know what that means. So anyway, the data I would say is weak to put it mildly, and would need to be done appropriately double-blinded by multiple investigators in different centers who are not already being funded by the guy who's selling products based on this.

What can it help with? What do they say it can do for you? Because we've talked about pain and sleep, which again are somewhat subjective and you could, you know, we know from the show that you can often sell people things that aren't real, that will convince them, you know, through the placebo, a fact that it did help them with their pain or their sleep.

And, but what about the other things? I need somebody to make a police hire the animating acts, get them back together. And I need a song where they're just singing this list that we can play for every one of these like, when you- The fantasy is, anemia autism asthma arthritis anxiety burns and bipolar it's like that that's just the beginning. It's and if you'll notice

it's an alphabetical order because on their website they they just have the whole alphabet there and you can click on each letter of the alphabet and it'll tell you all the things that start with that letter that it helps with. So that is why I I have it in this order. But as you said, all those things, blood pressure, cold, cellulitis, complexion, circulation, chronic fatigue, children are listed on there,

so it'll help with children. Listen, okay, listen, I'll try anything at this point, folks. Depression, digestion, diabetes, eyes, electro sensitivity, frequent urination, fibromyalgia, gum disease, groundedness, hernias, headaches, kidney disease, leg cramps, lupus, Lyme, MS, memory, pets. Pets? Yes, you can ground your pets.

Nomonia Parkinson's, there are products for that too. Of course, plantar fasciitis, panic attacks, pain, rheumatoid arthritis, strokes, sinus problems, stress, sleep, sex, skin, tendonitis, tinnitus, thyroid, veins, and then these other blocks of quote unquote, multiple complaints in both men and women. And then there's a lot of other, even less specific stuff about like, it fights inflammation, it stops free radicals, it is an antioxidant. And this is when they start to talk about indirect

things about how because it blocks inflammation, chronic inflammation, that's always the thing, right, with all this stuff. It helps with chronic inflammation, which stops tumorigenesis, which stops cancer. So then the cancer gets thrown in there, but indirectly, because that's where you get really cracked down on. It's just a nice perk. It's not saying it cures cancer. We're just saying it will fix the problems that cause cancer. They do mention that you got to be careful with Lyme,

and I think they're talking about the concept of chronic Lyme disease with this, because when you start grounding, you can have this like inflammatory reaction as all the hidden spire quits die off. So you gotta go slowly with grounding if you have chronic Lyme. Yeah, that's kinda like, when you have two made up things at the same time,

it's kinda like a humidifier, do you humidifier next to each other. You just gotta be careful. It's so careful. There are lots of testimonials. There's an interview where he was on Goop, he was featured on Goop in an interview. You know they've gotta get into grounding.

This is so Goop. But one of the, and Goop, by the way, if you're not familiar, is Gooneth Paltrow's lifestyle website, where you're not familiar, is going with Paltrow's lifestyle website, where among other things she talks about wellness and a lot of questionable medical, pseudo-scientific things. But he says, one of the first serious illnesses I dealt with was a hospice patient suffering from crippling arthritis. This is Oberk himself. He was, and this is a hospice patient suffering from crippling arthritis. This is Ober himself. He was, and this is a hospice patient, by the way, which to qualify for hospice means that it is likely

that this patient will pass away in the next six months. That is likely. He was unable to leave his bed and his nursing daughter had to help me lift him out of the bed to install the grounded sheet. A week after my visit, I got a call from the patient who told me that a squirrel had chewed through his ground wire. It was significant for two reasons.

First, this man who had been unable to walk was now active enough to leave the house and check the wire. Second, the effect of grounding was so dramatic that he noticed immediately when the connection was disrupted. He later told me that the grounding reduced his inflammation and that the burning pain he felt had finally subsided and he lived six or seven years longer. So I mean, there you go. He talks about like after these sorts of experiences,

he was looking into grounding for fighting age. That's the ultimate, that's the ultimate like, all these things lead to one, one path, which is how do we stop aging and live forever? Right. I always find like these wellness things end up there. So the deal is that there is no solid evidence that this does anything.

I mean, the theory behind it, that there are all these free electrons out there, and all you have to do is touch the earth and you get these electrons, and they only exist on the surface of the earth, like which earth, like grass or dirt or sand, or what if there's snow, is that a problem? What about my driveway?

Does it matter if it's cement or asphalt? None of that is clear. Our dirt sucks and can't grow anything. Is it okay? Do I need to get some fresh soil? I don't think any of those are answered by what the earth will balance you. And I know that probably there's no harm in walking

outside on the earth, right? Like I walk outside barefoot a lot. But you know, you do want to be careful about like dead mice. You never know. That's what came to mind. That's what comes to mind for me from walking outside barefoot. There's a dead mice. I step on it. Oh my god. That's my whole week. Well, my mom always said I would step on a bee.

I would not turn around barefoot. I would not turn around barefoot. I would not turn around barefoot. You came me. Well, no, that would hurt. But there are, I mean, I guess it depends on where you live, right? Because like there's broken glass. There's like the old don't step on a rusty nail.

You're going to get tetanus. That was always my biggest fear growing up because I don't have to get another tetanus shot. You should get your booster anyway. I finally learned. But the point is, I guess there are some risks. I mean, I don't want to engage in hyperbole. There are risks to walking around outside barefoot. And there are risks to sleeping outside,

depending on the weather or where you are. Also, there is hookworm, which we've talked about on the show before, from walking around barefoot. So... She means her isn't facing it completely. He's trying. That's not the one he's after. No, guinea worm?

Yes. Yes, sorry. But the... But he'll come for hookworm neck. That's what I'm saying. He's gonna wrap up the guinea worm here real soon and then hookworms neck on his hairless. Absolutely.

I have faith. Yeah. But I don't want to be pedantic. I don't want to be pedantic. I don't want to say that like, if all this guy was saying is, I think you would feel better if you stood outside in bare feet. I'm not going to give somebody a hard time for that. You know, it's nice to be outside.

I enjoy being outside. I think if people enjoy being outside and also seek medical professionals for their medical problems, I think that's all great. Please wear your sunscreen. But like, I think that's all great. But then you get to the products. There's got to be the products. And I mentioned this website where there are products. Of course, if you just do a quick search, there are tons of earthing products out there that you can buy. That there are socks you can buy, there are all kinds of special earthing shoes and sandals that you can buy that are made of materials that will conduct the free electrons from the earth into your body, in stylish sandals.

There are tons of products out there and that's my problem is twofold one. It doesn't meet our test here because you can pay a lot for some of the, as I mentioned, that chair is over $3,000, but even like the smaller products, they sell are a couple hundred bucks here, 80 bucks there, you know, 50 bucks for these shoes, whatever. So you might be getting ripped off, which I guess if you have all the money in the world is your business, if you want to buy special or thing sandals But not everybody does and some people are gonna read this and think it sounds just believable enough that maybe they'll give it a shot because they're scared and they're sick and they're desperate

Nothing else is worked and nothing else is worked and they'll spend money on this kind of thing and that's healthcare system in America It's broken so they can't afford it anyway Exactly and you don't you yeah, you don't trust the healthcare system in America is broken so they can't afford it anyway. Exactly. And you don't, yeah, you don't trust the healthcare system. So by way of that, you don't trust your doctors because they're part of the American healthcare system that scares you and intimidates you because it is so bad and broken. So you do this instead, and that's the big part.

You do this instead. That's the final point. That's my worry with stuff like this, is if you think you could cure your, what, what in that list do you want to fix? Do you want to fix your MS? Do you want to fix your circulation? Do you want to fix your thyroid disease? Do you want to buy these products to try to, and when I say fix, I'm, I'm using this as you shouldn't do this, fix autism. That's, they always throw that in here and it's so, in all these fake medical things, it's

so frustrating. Do you want to address neurodivergence by buying a $3,000 massage chair? People with autism don't need fixed. Exactly. You said it before and I think it bears saying again, like different life experiences. They need to be supported just like, everybody else on planet earth. And so irritating. And I think that's the frustrating thing.

If this is a spiritual thing, like the German guy was doing it because it was his spiritual belief. Now, he also said vaccines were poisoned, so he, I don't think we would have been buddies. Um, but you're selling people something and you're taking their money, but you're also giving them hope and you might be leading them away from medicine that could actually help them. Like they could be going to doctors for any of those above diagnoses that I mentioned and actually getting help and getting better and instead they're wasting their time on earth and their money on you and your stuff,

which if it's your personal belief, you go sleep outside and walk barefoot as much as you want, but once you start ripping people off, it's not fair. Then you're on our neighborhood and we're gonna take them down, take them down take them out. I don't know if he's gonna I'm worried he's gonna come for me. Yeah, this is not probably doing living people. But I mean you know again I think that the science is incredibly weak and if you want to prove that any of this makes sense you got to do I mean something else. You gotta do a lot more research

and it can't just be the same people who've already bought into it. You have to have open-minded outside researchers to reproduce these experiments on large scales and appropriately controlled methods measuring something that actually means something. I mean, like the data you collect has to be meaningful. It can't just be random lab tests and studies

and imaging and it can't be testimonials. Testimonials don't mean anything. Thank you so much for listening to our show. If you would like to buy a second hand never used grounding chair at a much reduced sticker price, please get in contact with me. Thank you, the taxpayers for the use of their song medicines as the intro and outro of our program.

Thanks for your support during the max fun drive. Yeah, thank you all so much. We're gonna continue to upload episodes of fast and furious and Justin and Sidney. I know I've been lax on that. There's four up there. We've recorded five and six. We just need to watch seven

and eight. I think it just goes to be hard to say goodbye to Paul. I think that we're both kind of treading it. We don't want to. Anyway, you know, I think that's actually true. I know. I'm not. Yeah, I'm not. Yeah. But I didn't know if you were being patients, but yeah, no, I am having a hard time. Yeah. Yeah. Um, because it's about family in the end, said so if you think about it. All family, ain't blood, and all blood ain't family. That's what it says on the Facebook meme. I don't even, does it ever say that in the movie?

I've, I, now every time I see that Facebook meme, that's all I can wonder, will I ever find that in the movie? Thank you, but thank you for your support during that. It really, especially in these, trade weird times, it is a lot. Thank you for all your feedback on animated films and television series. I don't ever want to tell anybody

that they shouldn't enjoy the harmless thing they enjoy. And I never want to give anybody a hard time because there is no age on what movies or books or TV shows are OK to still enjoy. I happily read Archie Comics to this day, so I am the last one to throw shade. Thank you so much for listening to our show. Be sure to join us again next week for Salbond,

until then my name is Justin McRoy. I'm Cindy McRoy. And it's always, don't drill a hole in your hand. Maximumfun.org. Comedy and culture. Artists don't. Audience supported. Hi, I'm Allie Gertz. And I'm Julia Prescott. And we host Round Springfield. Round Springfield is a Simpsons adjacent podcast where we talk to your favorite Simpsons writers,

voice actors, and everyone is working the show to talk about shows that aren't the Simpsons. So we're going to be talking to people like David Exkoen, Eardley Smith, Tim Long, about other projects they've worked on. Sometimes projects didn't go well. Some failures, some rejections, some failed pilots, some failed life events. Yeah, we just talked to all the failures of the Simpsons. Yeah. So if you really love your Simpsons trivia and want to get to know the people who have worked on the Simpsons a little bit better, come by around Springfield. Every other week on MaximumFund.org or wherever you get your podcasts.