Sawbones: A Marital Tour of Misguided Medicine - Sawbones: Food Sensitivity Testing

Episode Date: November 15, 2019

The market is flooded with at-home tests that let you "take medical care into your own hands" but is that something you even want in your hands? Are they reliable? Also, is Justin really going to give up cereal? Music: "Medicines" by The Taxpayers

Saw bones 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. Hello everybody and welcome to Saw Bones, a meerkat of Miss Guy at Medicine, I'm your for the mouth. Oh. Wow. Hello, everybody, and welcome to Saubone's

Emerald Tour of Miss Guy to Medicine. I'm your co-host, Justin McAroy. And I'm Sydney McAroy. Uh, as huge fans of capitalism, Sydney and I are, uh, Shark Tank, aficionados, would you say? Uh, I- Cause we love capitalism so much. There, we do, okay, let me parse that sentence.

We do watch Shark Tank. I like to see the food products that are introduced. Sometimes I get excited and order them on the internet. So that is the primary function of Shark Tank in my life. I'm not a fan of capitalism. Can I please make that clear? We set up a VPN to tunnel our way into Canada to get Canadian dragons

then from the source. Okay, because we love capitalism so much. We've also seen the British dragons done as well. Then do it for me. Not I would say the Canadian version of this show is the best. It's actually the best. Like half of the things are board games and the other half are hockey products. There's a lot of hockey. It's a deal with snow hockey products, board games and the other half are hockey products. There's a lot of hockey. There's a lot of hockey.

There's a lot of hockey. There's a lot of hockey. There's a lot of hockey. There's a lot of hockey. There's a lot of hockey. There's a lot of hockey. There's a lot of hockey. There's a lot of hockey.

There's a lot of hockey. There's a lot of hockey. There's a lot of hockey. There's a lot of hockey. There's a lot of hockey. There's a lot of hockey. There's a lot of hockey. There's a lot of hockey.

There's a lot of hockey. There's a lot of hockey. There's a lot of hockey. There's a lot of hockey. There's a lot of hockey. There's a lot of hockey. There's a lot of hockey. There's a lot of hockey. tense on the couch because I know that we're about to see someone try to pitch something fake almost every time. I mean, like the vest. Almost. Except for the squatting potting to a few of the sharks will be against it, be against

it on principle, maybe one shark against the rest of the rest are lapping it up, loving it. I've heard about this. They'll say yes, take $100,000. Right. I think they're not having a lot of fun. I think they're not having a lot of fun. I think they're not having a lot of fun. I think they're not having a lot of fun. I think they're not having a lot of fun. I think they're not having a lot of fun.

I think they're not having a lot of fun. I think they're not having a lot of fun. I think they're not having a lot of fun. I think they're not having a lot of fun. I think they're not having a lot of fun. I think they're not having a lot of fun. I think they're not having a lot of fun. I think they're not having a lot of fun. Dr. Who... Because... They were introducing, it was basically a vitamin C echinacea zinc combo pill to help you with a cold, to try to reduce antibiotic reviews, which may have been a sneaky attempt

on the doctor's part to give people medicine who want antibiotics that sort of sounds like an antibiotic, but isn't an antibiotic. Yes, that is what the product was. I believe this, this doctor was intentionally selling snake oil to get people off his back to give him antibiotics. Anyway. Well, I don't know if that's what that doctor was doing. We are not saying he was, but that's still...

I'll say he was. I'm just a guy. Autonomy is key to medical ethics, and you cannot and should not lie to patients and be ethically sound as a physician. So, okay, you've got the legally obligated line. I mean, it is what he says it is. It just doesn't do the things. He says, well, okay, never mind. Okay, anyway, that's not the product today. The point is they had an interesting conversation about consumer-driven healthcare. Yes.

And many of us in medicine have a problem with it, many of us in the country, in the world. Many humans have a problem with this idea because medical care, healthcare is a right that everyone should have access and be able to afford and get freely always. And the idea that it is in a free market system completely undermines that anyway.

And that includes the idea that as the patient, you should just tell the doctor what you want and they should give it to you. It doesn't work very well in medicine, which is why direct to consumer advertising of medications, like pharmaceutical companies do is totally Ridiculous because you don't you have to learn this stuff to know what you need but And so at home lab testing is part of this and we've had some people ask about

the various companies that will do Send you a kit to allow you to collect a blood sample at home and send it in and have them do a variety of lab tests for you. We talked about, I believe we didn't episode on DNA testing, right? Mm-hmm. Had our results. Got a lot of emails. Whichever 23 and me and Custody, whatever it was. Got a lot of emails from folks telling me that I traded away my DNA to some corporate vault. You know, they can make a lot of little justines and that's fine.

And Justin thought, you know what, that's not good enough for me. I need to give my blood to more companies. Yes, so I've just been saying it out, Higley Piggley, Willie Nilly, whoever will take my blood. You want my, Samuel Jackson and the negotiator said, you want my blood, take my blood. Well, Justin gave his blood to Everly well and we are not

We're not sold sold it no well They you paid them to give them your blood to give them my blood. Yes, that's correct Yes, and we're talking about Everly well just because it was it was a shark tank company It was lurganeer invested in it. So it's relevant. It was the one we used It seems to be a pretty popular one in this space, but there are lots of companies doing this, so just to be clear. But we'll talk about your food sensitivity testing results. I'll talk about the first of my results right now, and that's that my Facebook ads are screwed. I am getting some things now that I know. To my world. I know you've been in this club for longer than I said, getting some things.

Avertise me. Some people see the J-man as a bit of a mark now, I would say. When it comes to, we wanted to start with the food sensitivity testing. That was the one we targeted because I think it's a good example of something that sounds on the surface very scientifically sound and pretty easy to understand. And then once you dig into it, falls apart pretty quickly. But if you don't have some sort of scientific degree,

you've never studied or tested this stuff or you don't have access to somebody to help you understand the results, you could be fooled by this pretty easily. And, and it fooled to the tune of some money. So I think it's probably the most, or at least one of the most problematic of these at-home lab tests that I found,

the food sensitivity testing. The idea that food makes us feel good or bad is not a wild one. We all know that... We've all felt good while we were eating long john solvers and then felt bad 15 minutes later. We've all been there or it fizzoles. One would offer very good when the breadstick hits your mouth. No, no, no, no, no, no, please bring more. They're happy too. But then later, you have to, that's what they don't tell you about the free, free breadsticks, it's always all the ones that they put in you. You have to then take out in

your body. Yes. You know what I mean? And carry with you throughout the day. And you, they, they feel so heavy in there. Oh, now I'm hungry for the slowly. No. Dang it. And so the, the idea that I know I feel bad when I eat certain things, I know I feel better when I eat other things, what could be the reason?

And I mean, it's good to be looking at your diet and thinking about the foods you're eating. That's not a bad thing. We should be. More and more, we see that it's the idea of watching what you eat, I think for so long, unfortunately, was tied to a weight thing, and it shouldn't be. It should be tied to a how I feel and how I can make my body function the best thing.

And I think all that is true, and all that can exist in a scientifically grounded evidence-based environment. It doesn't have to be at the whims of whatever company has come out with a fake test and can market it the best. But unfortunately, that's what's happened. I want to, before we get into the food sensitivity testing, the idea of at-home lab testing, just as a consumer, what do you think of it? That's how I think of myself.

As a consumer of a product, that, I mean, because that's what it is, you weren't a patient. You can sit, like you bought something, you did a test at home and you were sent the results to interpret on your own. So what is that experience like? Because they don't just do foods in sensitivity testing, they do real things like a thyroid test.

You know, how do you, a vitamin D level? How do you see that? It's hard for me because we do this show. So like I'm, I'm, you know, I know enough to be dangerous, I guess, with, with regards to these things. I would say that it doesn't feel, it can feel unnerving. I think to get these results, then not have any way to sort of interpret them. I think to get these results then not have any way to sort of interpret them. I think though, if I'm talking about the basic human part of it, I think that there is something about the idea.

I think it's tied up in identity. A lot of it, I think people want to think, you know, you want to think that you're like special and have different stuff about you that nobody else has or like understand yourself a little bit better. And so I think the idea that like, oh, that's something about me. I'm very sensitive to this. I think that's part of it.

I think that also though, what we're talking about is, the belief, often misguided belief that there's something, one little thing out there that if you just change this one thing, you'd feel great and everything would be better. And I think it's a very human thing. Do you believe? No, unless those things are sleeping more and drinking more water, I don't think that's usually the case.

There's a few other things, obviously. But do you think it's empowering to have access to this information? I mean, because you could do that. I might have to borrow it, so my wife's like nonsense. No. But seriously, do you think, I mean, because that's the whole idea right, that it should be your information, you should be able to access if you can pay for it. That's the idea from these companies is that it's your

It's your TSH why can't you buy it? What's TSH? It's a thyroid simulating hormone. It's part of a thyroid test So it's your lab value. Why shouldn't you be able to go pay a company? Stick your finger, give them some blood and get the result back. Why does a doctor or some other health professional? Why do they have to be in the middle of that interaction? That is what these companies would say. It's your info. You get it. Don't let doctors keep it from you.

I know, but they're just like, I don't know, a medical perfect. I don't know how to interpret any of it. I don't know what any of it means. And do you know if you need that test, that's the other question is not just how do you interpret the result? Because if everybody needed all these tests. We would be right. But do you need it? I don't know.

There's a reason we- I don't feel tired a lot. You know what I mean? I feel tired a lot and I'm carrying a little bit more weight than I wish I did. Maybe that's the problem. Maybe the secret problem all along has been the thyroid thing.

See, I'm just now hearing about the thyroid thing. Is this something I need to say to me? Why are you even withholding it from me? Well, that's the thing. So part of the problem with these tests is that all tests are somewhat imperfect, right? There is not there. It's you can't find any test that every time we do it, it will give us all true positives and all true negatives. And it never gets anything wrong ever not once ever in the existence of the test, right?

So the reason that we, if you look, there are guidelines for who we screen for different things. We're talking about screening tests, meaning you don't have symptoms. You're just supposed to get this test now. Something like a mammogram. Right. At a certain age, you get a mammogram. At a certain age, you get a colonoscopy.

It doesn't matter if you're having symptoms or not, this is the age where we recommend, hey, you should get this done. Those are screening tests. There's a reason we only do them at certain ages or in certain parts of the population, otherwise the results become less robust. They're less meaningful if you just broadly apply them

to everybody. We target them at the populations that are most likely and that gives us better, more reliable results. Once you start diluting it out to everybody, the results become less reliable because you're testing people who are very unlikely to have the thing, but you're going to get false positives sometimes, and then all of a sudden the test falls part. And so that's part of the problem with this. The other thing is, sometimes you're doing this for a diagnostic purpose, like you said,

you're tired, do you need a thyroid level? A lot of us are tired, not all of us need our thyroid's checked. Now, there are certain times in your life where I would say otherwise in certain people, but the idea that everybody who feels tired should get a thyroid lab, well, we're gonna do a ton of unnecessary thyroid testing and you're paying for it.

But somebody who's trained in medicine can help you decide if you need a thyroid test or not in order for you. And so that's part of the problem with these tests is that we have guidelines that we follow. The United States Preventive Services Task Force gives us guidelines to tell us who to screen and when. And then we have all of medical school that teaches us what diagnostic test order. You don't want to just get them all all the time. And some of the tests don't make any sense anyway. They offer lime testing. Lime testing, as we've talked about on this show before,

Lyme disease testing is fraught with problems. The actual real deal tests that doctors do, we don't do it all the time for everybody because if we did, we'd get tons of false positives and people would be diagnosed with Lyme disease who don't have Lyme disease. So you should never just order these tests. There are doctors who are ordering these tests unnecessarily. This isn't just for the consumer. These are medical professionals who are ordering it, ordering it in patients who shouldn't have it ordered. You've got to talk to somebody who knows what they're doing and it's putting people at

risk for getting a random Lyme disease test. They get a positive result. So then they reach out on the internet and what do you find? A lot of misinformation from quote unquote Lyme literate physicians who will then take you into their care, charge you tons of money, and put you on antibiotics maybe for years that you didn't need. So there's huge risk to doing a test that you didn't need and getting a false result, right? There are other tests they do, they do things on this knee-specific panel, something called a sleep panel. That's the other thing.

something called a sleep panel. That's the other thing. The tests, the panels that they, that you order aren't called like cortisol level. It's called sleep health or sleep test sleep panel. There's one called an ad-home thing. Yes. There's one called a heart health panel. There's a metabolism panel. These sound like things we all need, right? It's really easy to think, well, whatever, I don't know what those, what are they testing those? Well, if you go, you can look, you can find out what they test for. But if you don't have, I mean, do you know what cortisol and cortisone and melatonin would mean? What those levels, when you get them back,

what they'll mean? They change throughout the day. They fluctuate depending on who you are and what you do. And they've never been validated as a reliable way to diagnose or guide treatment for insomnia. But they'll charge you and give you results for them. The heart health panel includes a value for inflammation called a CRP, which yes, there have been some studies that indicate that in people who are maybe at risk for cardiovascular disease in the future have had elevated CRP's, but what we found is that broadly applying that test to everybody, just testing everybody's CRP

and saying like, okay, you're going to have heart attack, doesn't work. So if you get this value elevated, it could mean anything or nothing. And the only way you're going to know then is to go to a doctor and say, I don't know what this means. And you know better off than you were before. $50 is poor or however much. Exactly. I don't think any of these tests are $50 honey.

Oh God, I should have asked how much that one was. There's a there's an a variant reserve test, which means it's for people who are having difficulty getting pregnant. There was some evidence that perhaps we could check a certain hormone level on day three of your cycle. And if it was elevated a certain way, then it means you don't have a lot of eggs left, basically. So your avarion reserve, how much eggs you have left,

is low. Now, again, this has not been standardized. It is not recommended as a screening test. If you read medical professionals, people who do this for a living say you shouldn't just use this test. If you're having a complete fertility workup, your doctor might do this as part of it. But this could lead somebody to the false belief that they cannot become pregnant Based on if they believe this result right and don't talk to a doctor about it and the test is not should not be used that way They do a lot of tests like I said like thyroid test vitamin B

vitamin D they do cholesterol testing these are I mean these are real tests right like people need these tests, and so there's a chance that you're ordering something that maybe a doctor would have ordered for you anyway. But what are you gonna do with the results? Nothing. Ask you, probably, or ask you. But what if you're not married to a doctor? Or then I don't know. I can't help you. You gotta go to some, you can't, I mean,

you, how are you gonna treat these things? Even if you find something like they do, they do home sexually transmitted infection testing. They do home cervical HPV swabs, meaning if you are someone with a cervix, they send you a swab where you can get samples of cells from your own cervix and send it off to see if there's a human papillomavirus HPV there,

which can certain strains can convert into cervical cancers and cause other problems. But again, we don't recommend doing that right now because we still need to do pap smears, because just finding that virus or not finding that virus does not replace a pap smear at this point or not there. Or I guess you could jack and they don't register anything and then you think, oh, everything's fine.

And so you don't get your pastures, right? Exactly. There are so many problems with these tests. And then with the things that they're applying broadly like a cortisol level and just trying to do random cortisol screening in everybody to diagnose them with, I mean, a cortisol level is in the sleep test, the stress test, the fatigue test, the metabolism test, the heart health test, the men's health test. It's just a cortisol level. And again, you got to be really careful when you order those.

I, as a physician, have ordered them and explained exactly when to do them and tried to get this testing wrong and are testing right and still gotten a result that I've realized like, you know what, actually because of this and this factor, this test is not going to help me right now, I'm going to have to go on to a different test, something that will be more exact because this result could be flawed. And I have done that with all the knowledge. Right. So how's somebody going to do it at home? Right. So there's huge problems with these tests. There that particularly struck me is that they will check your breast milk for DHA,

which has been associated with like good healthy brain development and stuff in babies. But there is no evidence that we should be testing breast milk for it or that we should be doing anything whether or not you find it there. So you can see the result of this pretty easily. Somebody sends us in their breast milk, they test it for DHA, they say, well, you don't have enough of it. And they stop breastfeeding. And they stop breastfeeding because they feel like they're depriving their child, even

though they were enjoying and doing well. And everybody was happy with the breastfeeding relationships. So that on a very personal level, I felt like screw you over that. But there's a lot of problems with just doing labs at home Without anybody with medical knowledge involved Do you think there's something What about as like a I mean is there any value like even as like a? I'm worried about this. I should do something. I mean, because

I can, I mean, I hear what you're saying completely, but we are also living in a, at least in the here in the States, living in a fundamentally broken system. So like, you could see how something that gives you some illusion of agency or control or whatever would be very appealing to people. I can see how it would be very appealing to people, but I think the problem is who is running this service? Is it someone who is interested in, like, is their primary goal to give you control over your own health care

so that you can be healthier and happier or is their primary goal to make money? And I don't mean that in a malicious way, it's a company, there's a business, it's a business. Their goal is not to make you healthy, their goal is to make money. Are there any of the, are there any tests like this that you would say like, well, yeah,

sure go ahead and get that done, you know, if you're curious. There has been some research on home sexually transmitted infection testing. There have, I read some, when I was reading about all these different studies, I read some studies that indicated that, even though once you get those results,

you still have to, I mean, go get treatment. You still have to access somebody who's gonna be able to prescribe you treatment if you do have a positive result that because there is still so much stigma attached to STI testing itself outside of whether or not you actually get a positive result, that the idea that somebody could do it at home,

there are certain segments of the population that wouldn't get tested who will get tested if they can do it at home. And it might prevent them from spreading it. I mean, if they're acting under the assumption that they have it. Now, this right now, there's nobody who's saying this is preferable. Sure, right. But the idea that there would be a way to employ this, that this could be a good adjunct

to the way we typically check for sexually transmitted infections. I think there's some evidence there. So I think that might be an avenue that in hands I would trust, which I mean, and this applies to medicine broadly. Why do you trust big business to run your healthcare ever? I mean, you know, I mean, whether you're talking about a company that does at-home labs or, you know, an insurance company or a hospital or an HMO or whatever, like, why

do you trust any of them? But I think that there is a, there might be a role for that. And um, they've done, I will say, they do link to a study where they showed that people collecting cervical samples at home were actually pretty decent at getting a good sample of cervical cells, which surprised me because it seems like a tricky thing to do on your own, but actually with some instruction, that is something people could do. Again, I don't think it's a replacement. I don't think that we should advocate everybody collect their own.

I mean, we'd be talking about people essentially trying to do pap smears on themselves at home. I don't think that that's better than sure, but I but is there a role for that in addition? Perhaps perhaps. So I think those are the only two things that I saw anything compelling and it's early Right, and I'm not saying it's a replacement, but I do think there might be a role for that. Can I tell people about my test that I got? Yes, I want to hear all about your test, but first, the billion department. Let's go. The medicines, the medicines that ask you make my car before the mouth. Sydney, I want to tell you about my, my overall results.

Yes, so do you want to tell everybody about the process? Yes, they sent me a card with I think five circles on it. And I had to they had a little poker. Lance it. Thank you. And I lance it. Lancida did my finger similar to like a if you have to test your blood glucose level.

Yes, poke your finger. I poked my finger and I milked the blood out. It was very, it was not pleasant, but I was a very, I think we would going to agree a big boy. You were. You were very tough. Very tough. I gave you a band-aid after.

Very brave. And I milked five drops of blood into this card and I put the card in envelope and I shipped it back to him. It's all, I will say that that end of it. It's all very easy to understand, easy to follow. Everything you need is right there. the alcohol swab the band-aid. They texted me my results. We were actually having a Halloween party when I got my results back. So that was a thrilling thrilling way to spend. As part of the party was learning about my food

sensitivities. Test you for a bunch of different foods I think right? 94? Correct. I think for 96. A lot. I mean around 100. Let's say that. And I had, this is hard for me to admit Cindy, but I had high reactivity to two foods. And what were those?

Okay. I had a 135, which I don't need to tell you as a medical professional is high reactivity to egg whites. So that's a lot. And then I had high reactivity to egg whites and I had high reactivity even higher, 144 and this one really hurts cow's milk. So they tested you for 96 different foods. You got two that you were highly reactive to. Yes.

How many that you were moderately? Moderately reactive to almond, winter squash, which I'm going to miss and yogurt. Our friends in the UK might know it as yogurt. Mm-hmm. So not a problem for you. Not a problem for you. It would be a big bummer for me.

Yeah, not a big yogurt person. And then, you know, just the regular mild reactivity Not a problem for you. It would be a big bummer for me. Not a big yogurt person. And then, you know, just the regular mild reactivity to 29 different foods. And that's of the, there were 96 total. And so Justin is, is what they're telling him is that he is sensitive to these foods. Yes. And then what kind of recommendations do they give you based on those results? So I can decide what's next.

I can temporarily cut the foods I'm reactive from, from my diet, usually for a month. Okay, so I would not eat any of those, I guess. It gives you options. You can either go like full bore and eliminate all mild, moderate, and high sensitivity foods. So for you would be like 34 foods. You can eliminate them all for a month, and then you slowly reintroduce them like one day

at a time and then see if you have reaction to it. And if you don't, you can eat that. And if you do, then you know, you've found the culprit or there might be culprits. So you have to do it with all of them. Or you can do like a phase thing where you only eliminate the high reactivity ones first. Yes. And then see or it has like another option where you just like eliminate one food at a time. Basically, yeah. That is it all as a non science person that all seems wild. I mean, it just seems wild to me.

It's, I mean, here's the thing. If you were truly having a problem with the food, eliminating it from your diet would make you feel better. So the concept of an elimination diet is recommended at times, I mean, by dietitians and medical professionals. The idea though that this testing is a reliable basis for doing it is fundamentally flawed.

I mean, folks, if I wanted to remove my, if I wanted to get the mild reactivity foods in addition to the, the, the, the hot, the meat, the, the other ones are already wild because I've had, I mean, if I could just say, um, I when I do this slow carb thing, sometimes, which is a lot of eggs, eggs every single one. Yes, you eat a lot of eggs. And if I'm not on the slow carb, I am having cereal every single evening. So I am always eating one of these every single day of my entire life. Has this been my problem?

My entire life is my reaction to egg whites and cow's milk. I eat a lot of both of those. Well, the problem is that the symptoms can be vague enough that most of us would endorse them at some time or another. So like what they would tell you is, do you ever feel tired? Yes, that I do. I have two children. Do you ever feel gassy or bloated? Yes, I eat it as always. Do you ever feel gassy or bloated? Yes, I eat a fizzolise. Do you ever have diarrhea? Again, fizzolise.

Maybe it's the food. Maybe it's fizzolise. Do you have trouble with your weight? Because they'll say that. They'll say, do you have trouble gaining or losing weight? It could be food. Here's the thing. If I wanted to reduce my mild reactivity foods, I'm only going to do this once, but here's

what I would need to cut to just check this out. Okay. For a month, I'm going to not only have I cut out, I've already cut out my beloved yogurt and winter squash and almond and cow's milk and that egg whites. So I'm also going to cut out for my mild reactivity. Barley grain beef blueberry brand cashew nut cottage cheese, mozzarella chicken cinnamon, eggplant egg yolk, garlic ginger, kale, lamb, iceberg lettuce, white mushroom, mustard seed, oats, green pea, bell pepper, rice, soybean, sunflower seed, tuna, black walnut, wheat, and brewers yeast. What am I eating? Like, it's wild. Summer squash. Summer squash apparently.

That's what I'm eating. And it's like, so I'm gonna do that for a month, and then I'm gonna reintroduce these foods, but like, what, I mean, it's so fraught with like, obvious, just like, logically, I could have a bad, like, I could be sick, the day that I reintroduced him, I could not have gotten enough sleep, enough water, I could be depressed,

because I have depression, you know, I could be anxious, because I have anxiety, know, I could be anxious because I have anxiety. Like, I mean, anything can mess up these up. Not to mention the fact that like, so I'm gonna reintroduce like black walnut. Oh, okay, I guess for the first time in my life, while this see if black walnut was the problem, I'll reintroduce that so I can keep track of it.

So the, let me get to the real, the part of the problem with this, because what you're thinking is like, well, whether or not it's hard to do, if these results were valid, it would be worth it. If you were truly having serious problems with one of these foods, it would be worth all the hassle of this diet. The problem is the test itself. So just because they find, you know, a lab test says you're sensitive to something,

the lab has to, the test has to be looking for the right thing. What these tests are looking for is an antibody called IgG. There is an IgG for each of those 96 foods they test for. Your egg white IgG was high is what they found. That's how they told you that you were sensitive to it. What they're saying is that you are generating these antibodies to egg whites and they're an indicator that your body has a problem with egg whites. Now, the problem is that these, that sounds sort of right, but these are not, they're different Igs. IGGs just mean you've had egg whites before.

That's all it really means. There has never been any tests that shows a correlation between having a food sensitivity or intolerance or certainly allergy and your level of IGGs to the food. So the test is flawed and built on evidence that just doesn't exist. IgGs are not a reliable way of telling you how you would react to a food good, bad, or indifferent. IgEs, which are a different kind of antibody, are generated when you have an allergy to a food.

So, there are real tests that allergists and doctors and dieticians and people can do to tell you if you are allergic to a food. And it looks for an IgE. So you're saying that if I was lactose intolerant, is that an allergy? That's an allergy. No, it's an intolerance. Okay, let's say I was allergic to...

Let's say I had celiac, right? And I was allergic to blue. Yes, a true, a true problem with gluten. Yes. That this test would not tell me that. No, they're not looking for the right thing for that. Okay. No, there are tests for celiac, real tests. This is not it. This is a totally different thing. This testing that that they're doing, IGG testing, the American Academy of Allergy, asthma and immunology and the similar bodies in Europe and that they're doing, IgG testing, the American Academy of Allergy, Asma, and Immunology, and the similar bodies in Europe and Canada have all rejected food-specific IgGs as a way

of predicting food intolerances or sensitivities or allergies or anything else. There is no medical organizations have come together and said, do not do these test doctors. They will not give you accurate results. They do not mean anything and you're going to advise your patients to eliminate things that they probably don't need to. It's worth noting the Everly Well ads that were surfaced to me after I bought this on Facebook. It was a like confessional from just some unnamed person talking to the screen said like, you know, the doctor said that I was completely clear

on food allergies. And then every, you know, I learned from my every well test. I'm actually allergic to these things. And now that I've cut them out, I feel so much better. And it's like, well, I mean, okay, but that has no, well, those first of your patients, spokesperson, and you probably, you may not have even actually had this done. But also like, what do you want? I mean, what? Testimonials have been the mainstay for snake oil sales people and fake treatments and diagnostic tests forever because anybody can say anything.

And there's something to be said for a lot of the times if we think we're having problems with food, maybe we're not eating a very healthy diet. We're not getting a wide variety of fruits and vegetables and fibers or enough of any of the things we need. Maybe we're eating too many, I don't know, for me, if I eat a lot of greasy fried food, I don't feel very good. And so I try not to eat a lot of that. But I'm not sensitive to the foods. I just, I should eat better.

I should eat more salads. Right. And when you start doing these elimination diets, a lot of the time they necessitate that you pay a lot more attention to the food you eat, that you cook more, that you, I mean, I think that they do a lot of things that are probably gonna make you feel better

without, without it really being anything to do with the testing. But just to really understand this, it's not, I'm not just pulling this out of, I'm not just saying like, don't trust them because they're trying to make money. This IGG testing does not mean anything. There are doctors out there who order it and they're wrong. I mean, they're wrong too. They're just as wrong as ever Lee well as

If I to make this really clear Let's say let's take a food that I love okay soup. Well, I was gonna use neckos. Okay. I love neckos I eat neckos a lot Neckowafers neck away first if you it's folks It's wild. I love I like these-wafers. No neck-o-wafers. No neck-o-wafers. And if I ate neck-o-wafers for breakfast and then you checked my blood later, you would find a lot of neck-o-specific IgGs in my blood, okay?

Because I ate them. I was exposed to them, so you find them. The same is what I... Like an illness you would be exposed to and then you would find antibodies to it. You would find neck-o-annabodies. There aren't really neck-o-annco antibodies, but you get the idea. This is not a problem that you found them. It doesn't mean anything.

You could say, aha, you ate some necos, and I would say, you saw me. I ordered many bags of them. Anyway. So afraid of the company because they got shut down. You're afraid of shortages, so she stockpiles them or at home. I do. If you found a neco-specific IgE in my blood, that would be very sad for me, because that could mean, it would mean I'm allergic to necos. And when I eat them, I'll get like a rash or an anaphylactic response and stop breathing. But I probably would have known

that already because of the not breathing when I eat the neck goes. So the thing that they're testing for, it seems very similar, but it's not the same, and there is no accredited medical body that says you should use this kind of testing for food sensitivity. So the problem is people get these tests done, they try to follow the results. Most of them tell people that you're either allergic to dairy or gluten. Those are the big results that they usually, or not allergic insensitive, or you're sensitive. They usually try to tell people that.

People go on very restrictive diets, try to eliminate all this stuff. They might feel better, they might not. They get frustrated eventually. They go to doctors and dieticians and they start asking for advice. Then you have someone telling you, actually, that testing meant nothing. You wasted your money and you've been miserable all this time for no reason, like trying to do these diets because they're based on nothing. And nobody wants to believe they've been ripped off.

So now you don't know if you can trust really well, you don't know if you can trust doctors, you don't know who to trust. And you might still feel bad. And you're out. What I think these tests are like $159 or $69. I don't know, they're expensive. And that's the problem is that this is not health care. It is a health business.

And so while it's interesting, if you read into how they do this, there is a doctor who ordered your tests. Oh, yeah. Everly well, has a doctor in each state or maybe multiple. I don't know who are responsible for ordering the tests. And what they say is- There's the other thing that's Virginia, it's Sydney.

Like, no. I don't know who it is. I don't know who it is in our state. It's definitely not me. But like when you request the test, they say that they make the doctor make sure it's appropriate and orders it for you. The results get interpreted through the doctor. And they say that you, you may be able to access the doctor for treatment if it's something like a sexually transmitted infection or like you, they may offer you treatment. I don't know, it's worded in a way that is not. Yeah. There's, there's wiggle

room. But I, and I think that they will call you, like they'll reach out to you directly if they get some sort of what they consider like a critical result in something. I don't know what they would do other than tell you to go to the hospital or the doctor, depending on what the critical result was. There is a doctor somewhere in this process,

but I don't know who it is or what they're doing. I'm sure they're paying very close attention. Right, it's a very weird, it's very weird. And I think Justin, what you said is right. The system in our country is broken. It's broken, I agree. And the idea that you need to take it into your own hands, I can see why people feel that way.

I can see why I would think like forget this, forget the insurance companies, forget the hospitals, forget the doctors, forget the big pharma, forget them all. I'm just going to take it in my own hands. I'm going to get my own lab results. And I'm, I don't, you're still going to have to get a prescription for stuff, but I can see people wanting to do that. But I, that is not the answer. I can see that reaction, but the answer is we have to fix the system. You still need people just like there are a number of things in my life that I am not an expert on and when they go wrong, when they break, when they, when, when something is, you know, I go and seek help

from an expert who's been trained and taught and educated in that area, in that field, and I get them to come help me, because I don't know, and I would never be so bold as to say, well, I can Google it and figure it out on my own. I'm gonna go to an expert. Healthcare should be that same way, but you have to be able to trust the doctor

and trust the system and trust it, and nobody trusts it right now. And that's what we have to fix. This is not the fix. This is just another way to capitalize off of people who are scared and sick. Sid, I'm starting to worry, maybe capitalism isn't the answer. And which is hard for you and me, huge fans

of the system of capitalism. I think at the end of the day, I mean, I read a lot of articles about this comparing it to Theranos, which we did. I have no evidence that, I mean, I think these people are using, they use like 11,000 different labs throughout the country. So they're not using the fake technology that Theranos claimed they were using that really didn't really exist. So they're doing actual labs for the most part as far as I can tell. I mean, it's

so hard to tease this stuff out. But I do think that this idea that this is the answer, I mean, similar to Theranos saying this is the answer to healthcare, this is not the answer to healthcare either. This is going gonna take you down a false path. Folks, thank you so much for listening to our program. We hope you got something out of it and share with a friend. This, as many, if you've ever seen ads for any products like this on Facebook, maybe you should put this on your Facebook or respond to people and say,

hey, check this out. Listen to this. You may want to listen to this before you start spending a lot of money on food, sensitive testing or any at home testing, I guess. No, I would, if you are really concerned, because there are people with food sensitivities and of course food allergies, you should go see, you know, talk to a dietician, talk to a doctor, a primary care doctor, can help you out, can maybe you need an allergist.

There are lots of people who are trained in these areas who can help you, you know, gastroenterologists, who can help you get the testing you need so that you can actually feel better at the end of it and not pay a bunch of money for something that may not help you at all. If you want to, that's a great way to share the show. Put it on Facebook. If you want to rate and review the show on Apple Podcasts, which is what it's called now or anywhere, Podcasts are distributed. That would be great.

We have a book. It's called The Saubon's book. It was written by us and illustrated by Sidney Sister Taylor-Smeral. And you can find it wherever books are sold. I want to say thank you to the taxpayers for these sort of song medicines. This is the intro and outro over a program. And thank you to you for listening. We very much appreciate you.

That is gonna do it for us for this week. So until next time, my name is Justin McRoy. I'm Sydney McRoy. And as always, don't drill a hole in your head. Alright! Maximumfun.org Comedy and Culture Artistone? Audience Supported

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