The Liz Moody Podcast - The Ways We're Being Manipulated Online + How To Tell What's True In The Wellness World & Beyond

Episode Date: October 14, 2024

Today I’m delving into the pervasive issue of misinformation online, exploring the challenges of discerning truth amidst digital noise. We’re discussing the role of algorithms in amplifying inflam...matory content on social media and media platforms, driven by engagement metrics. We’re also going to learn some incredibly important tools for media literacy, like the SIFT method by Mike Caulfield for quickly validating online information. As a longtime journalist and content creator, I’m giving insights into the impact of personalized social feeds, biases in search engines, and the need for skepticism and diverse sources in evaluating online content. This episode offers practical techniques to identify credible sources (including how to quickly read an article in a scientific journal) and encourages listeners to engage with community perspectives to counteract digital polarization. 00:00 Introduction 00:13 The Problem of Online Misinformation 01:47 The Role of Social Media Algorithms 02:22 The Impact of Inflammatory Content 05:53 The Psychology Behind Viral Content 07:11 Media Sites and Political Content 07:59 The Importance of Balanced Takes 08:56 Capitalism and Content Creation 10:58 The For You Page and Personalized Feeds 14:38 The SIFT Method for Fact-Checking 24:14 Rapid Fire Tips for Evaluating Information 26:09 Conclusion Ready to uplevel every part of your life? Order Liz’s new book 100 Ways to Change Your Life: The Science of Leveling Up Health, Happiness, Relationships & Success now!  To join The Liz Moody Podcast Club Facebook group, go to www.facebook.com/groups/thelizmoodypodcast. Connect with Liz on Instagram @lizmoody, or subscribe to her newsletter by visiting www.lizmoody.com. If you like this episode, check out Ask The Doctor: Stress Edition—Exactly How to Identify and Eliminate Stress In Your Life with Dr. Samantha Boardman. This episode is sponsored by: Seed: go to seed.com/lizmoody and use code LIZMOODY for 25% off your first month. Shopify: sign up for a one-dollar-per-month trial period at shopify.com/lizm. Manukora: head to manukora.com/lizmoody to get $25 off your Starter Kit. The Liz Moody Podcast cover art by Zack. The Liz Moody Podcast music by Alex Ruimy. Formerly the Healthier Together Podcast.  This podcast and website represents the opinions of Liz Moody and her guests to the show. The content here should not be taken as medical advice. The content here is for information purposes only, and because each person is so unique, please consult your healthcare professional for any medical questions. The Liz Moody Podcast Episode 273. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Starting point is 00:00:00 Hello, friends, and welcome to the Liz Moody podcast, where every week we're sharing real science, real stories, and realistic tools that actually level up every part of your life. I am your host, Liz Moody, and I am a best-selling author and longtime journalist. Today, we are going to be getting into a problem plaguing wellness and the world at large, how to tell what is true and what is not online. We live in a world where quite literally anyone can upload any video or write something and post it, and it's incredibly hard to validate whether the information in that content is reliable or not. Across the internet and other media sources, there are different forces at play,
Starting point is 00:00:39 trying to manipulate our understanding of the truth for votes to make money to get clicks and views. And then on top of all of that, there's AI-generated images and videos which have gotten frighteningly realistic and make the truth even harder to find. In this episode, I'm going to share some really simple techniques that anyone can use to quickly validate information that you come across on the internet. I've worked in just about every aspect of media over the last 20 years, from traditional print and online media to running a newsroom at a startup to writing books published by major publishers, which go through a very intense vetting and fact-checking process.
Starting point is 00:01:15 And for the last five years, I've been a full-time content creator, both on social media, where I've gotten insider access to contacts at TikTok and meta and with my podcast, where I've gotten to interview, vet, and fact-check best in field experts. This episode is going to be an amalgamation of my own experiences and what the world's leading experts in media literacy recommend. I want to talk about some of the problems that are leading to the proliferation of misinformation first, because there's some really interesting stuff going on that I think a lot of people aren't aware of. Let's start with how social media algorithms work. The more engagement that a post has, whether that be watchtime, shares, comments, or likes, the more that post is then pushed out by these. algorithms to other people and the more similar content is pushed to you. On the surface,
Starting point is 00:02:04 this makes sense. The people developing the apps want to suss out which content is interesting and to whom. So if people are showing that they are interested by engaging with a piece of content, then the algorithm is like, oh, other people, especially other people like you, will also likely engage and thus stay on our app longer. But it leads to a huge problem that I have had a front RoCseat to as an online content creator, which is that the most engaging content is the most inflammatory content. Posts go viral because they spark an argument in the comments or because people disagree enough to leave a comment in the first place. My most viral post recently is a clip from the Vivian two episode of the podcast. I made Vivian tackle all of your trickiest financial
Starting point is 00:02:46 issues. And in the clip, she says that she doesn't believe couples should split rent 50-50 if they are not making the same amount of money, that the amount that the amount that each person pay should be based on how much they earn. The clip immediately struck a nerve with people because it's different from a lot of the traditional advice on that subject. But the reason, the reason that it went super viral, it has, I think, almost 5 million views now is because it made people angry. Men, particularly, the vast majority of comments on that post, particularly once it reached people outside of the people actually following my account, are from men who are really really angry about the idea of a woman taking advantage of them. This is despite the fact, by the way,
Starting point is 00:03:32 that both Vivian and myself, the only two women in the video, out-earn our partners, and despite the fact that gender is never actually mentioned in the video. But those men being angry enough to comment is what told the algorithm that people were engaged with the post, which means that the algorithm pushed out to more people, especially people that the algorithm would group similarly. Essentially, men likely to be angered by this type of content. The incentivization of inflammatory content via engagement is even happening at the comment level. If you leave a comment with like a heart emoji or one that says, oh my gosh, so interesting, nobody is going to engage with it.
Starting point is 00:04:15 But if you leave a comment that is funny, which often comes from being disparaging or an argument about why the video is in fact wrong, you're far more likely to have your comment liked or commented on, which will make your comment show up higher for other people. So this is pinging our brain's reward systems. It's making us want to leave those inflammatory comments. And also, it is making those comments show up first when people open the comments on a post so that anyone scrolling thinks that an inflammatory reaction is the expected reaction, which incites more people to get angry and leave more comments and so on. This whole system is so important to be aware of for two reasons. One, it means that a lot of what is showing up in your social media feeds
Starting point is 00:05:01 is there because it was inflammatory enough to antagonize a lot of people, which signaled interest to the algorithm, which made it push it out enough to land on your feed. So simply by scrolling, you are often seeing this really highly charged content. And two, it really incentivizes creators to put out inflammatory content. People are really quickly building accounts with millions of followers by maximizing the algorithmic preference for inflammatory content, and it is happening from all angles. In the wellness world, particularly, I see people sharing incredibly fear-mongering and often deeply inaccurate content on one side, and because that is inflammatory, it goes viral, and all of the sudden, it feels impossible to eat healthy. Truly, if everything on the internet
Starting point is 00:05:47 were true, there would literally be nothing left to eat that would not be hurting you in some way. Psychologically, people love content that goes against common accepted knowledge because it makes them feel like they're in the know. They're privy to information no one else is sharing with us. And they can then share that secret insider knowledge with their friends and their family and they can say, I told you, it's killing you. And they can feel like the hero, like they're really helping them. But on the other side, there's a different kind of inflammatory content that I don't think we
Starting point is 00:06:18 talk about enough, which are these takedown videos that people do where they put a video, behind them up on a green screen and they share all of the reasons why that video is wrong and why anything that we want to put in our bodies is perfectly fine. Our human psychology loves getting to see someone proved wrong. It makes this type of video where you have another reel, you have another TikTok behind you and you refute everything in that video so, so popular. And then on top of that, we love to have confirmation that we can consume all of the foods that we most crave, which we crave largely because they were engineered by scientists to be hyper-crapeable. This is also a form of insider info, albeit on the other side. We can send that post to our friends
Starting point is 00:07:02 and our family and we can say, I told you, it's fine, you were freaking out about nothing, boosting shares, and amplifying the content to new audiences. A similar version of this is also happening with media sites. I worked in media. I am well aware of how much of our job success was dependent on the amount of clicks and views that our articles got, so we were very incentivized to create titles and pieces that evoked intense emotions, of which fear is a very low-hanging fruit. This is because media sites in the U.S. are dependent on ad revenue, which is dependent on clicks and views. You can see how this would play out in political content, too.
Starting point is 00:07:38 The most fringe ideas on both sides are the ones inciting people to share and to leave comments, and so are often the ones that content creators and traditional media cover, because they depend on those things to keep their business afloat. And you know what doesn't incite people to share or to leave an incensed comment or to even click or view a piece in the first place? A nuanced, balanced take. A take that says there's a lot wrong with our system and there's value in trusting experts in science. A take that says eating some processed food isn't going to kill you, but the data around the rise of diabetes and pre-diabetes is alarming, that there's a ton of research that shows the health benefits of whole
Starting point is 00:08:20 foods. And we have a huge problem with the accessibility and affordability of those foods in this country. That there's a lot that many of us have in common in terms of what we want for this country to feel safe to have opportunities. And by the way, I want to take a second to clarify this because I find it incredibly frustrating. The health crises that are going on in this country aren't because anyone has an insidious plot to kill people. This is something that I see a lot on the conspiracy theory side, this idea that our government is out to intentionally harm us in some way. No, we just live in a capitalist system. If you want to come back to the reason why mostly anything is happening, it's typically because people are trying to make more money. The social media sites with the algorithms
Starting point is 00:09:08 pushing out inflammatory content aren't trying to divide us because they want to stoke a civil war. No, it's because this is the content that engages us, and the longer we're engaged, the more money they make. The election cycle in this country involves billions of dollars. And a Supreme Court case called Citizens United, which was ruled in 2010, made it so that corporations spending money on political campaigns is considered free speech. This overturned decades of campaign finance law, and it created this world where lobbyists can spend millions of dollars influencing politicians on behalf of their corporations. which politicians almost universally need to take because they are constantly on a campaign cycle and dollars spent on advertising directly results in winning campaigns. Or it's simply ineptitude, lack of progress, or failing infrastructure.
Starting point is 00:09:59 I heard a podcast recently where someone was saying that the government is putting hormones in the water to feminize us as a population. So let's explore that. Yes, there are higher levels of hormones in our municipal water systems because hormones from birth control, cosmetic ingredients, and industrial runoff end up in our water supply. The amounts of these hormones have gone up at a rate that wastewater treatment tools are not able to keep up with in a cost-effective manner. It's just not a problem that our water systems were designed to deal with. It is not a conspiracy theory. It is not insidious. But it's a real problem that needs to be addressed
Starting point is 00:10:38 and by pushing it to this extreme place by saying the government is trying to feminize us, it can actually make it harder to get people to recognize that this type of toxicity is a real problem, which makes a real solution less likely to happen. Sorry, I get very worked up about that because it frustrates me so much. Okay, the last social media thing that I want to address is that it is called a for you page for a reason. Our feeds are showing us this highly personalized feed of course. content, and that is usually content that's eliciting a strong reaction in you. It is what's making
Starting point is 00:11:13 you stop and watch, comment or share, and often that strong reaction is based in outrage or fear. And it's the self-reinforcing cycle, and it's honestly terrifying because it creates this false individual reality that we end up living in. For instance, I am scared of flying, so you can bet that I will watch every single plane crash or emergency video that comes across my feed. So my algorithm is like, ooh, this content keeps her engaged on our app. So it feeds me more. I just got one this morning about turbulence injuring a bunch of people on a flight, and it terrified me. So I get this curated feed that gives me a false sense that these airline incidents are happening far more frequently than they actually are. I have checked the actual statistics on this because I was so
Starting point is 00:12:03 scared, and I had to, if I ever wanted to fly again. So my feed has completely skewed my sense of objective reality. I've had a ton of friends run into this when they get pregnant. They engage with a few posts about scary outcomes for pregnancy because how can you not when you see that information come across your feed? And then their feed starts to be filled with them. And then they have this sense that these wildly rare events aren't rare at all and they're terrified. sheerly by scrolling on social media, we are actually becoming less informed about the state of reality because we are getting served this wildly skewed content. A really, really good action step, and we're going to get into a ton more action steps
Starting point is 00:12:42 in this episode, but a really, really good one would be to spend significantly less time getting information on social media. And at the very, very minimum, remind yourself that your algorithm does not represent unbiased reality. And make sure that you're mixing in other news sources, other content sources, and real life interaction. And what a lot of people don't know is this bias, it's happening on Google too and on chat GPT. These algorithms are trained on our prior searches. This is so important to realize. They are not exclusively trying to give you objective truth. They are trying to give you the answer that you want. You can do a test that lets you see Google's
Starting point is 00:13:23 bias super easily yourself. Just Google two sides of an issue. I just did it. I searched processed food bad for you and I got a bunch of links about how processed food is bad for me, how it's raising my inflammation levels and cancer risks because Google wants me to get these search results that I am looking for. And then I searched processed food good for me. And I got served a bunch of articles about how processed food can be part of a healthy diet. This is happening on chat GPT2. You can just ask it. It will explain that it inserts bias based on your questions and responses, even while it tries to stay objective, which honestly, thank you, chat.
Starting point is 00:13:58 I appreciate that from an honesty perspective. I say all of this just to highlight how easy it is to be led astray in the current online world. And again, it is not insidious. Google is just trying to give me the search results that I am asking for. Meta is trying to make money because that is the goal of a for-profit company. Politicians are trying to please their donors so they can keep. their jobs because we've set up a system that makes money a key part of election cycles.
Starting point is 00:14:30 All right, we're going to take a quick break to hear from the amazing sponsors who help keep this podcast free for everyone. I asked recently on Instagram how people found the podcast and a huge, huge majority said that a friend or family member or loved one had shared it with them. Could you do me a quick favor and share this episode or any episode that you love with just one person in your life? It would mean the world to me. If every single one of you did that, we would instantly double the pod listenership overnight, which would allow us to get even better guests and produce even more
Starting point is 00:15:07 amazing content for you. Just send one episode to one person. I massively appreciate it. The mattress that you sleep on is one of the highest exposures that you have. Like if it's off-gassing, you're breathing that in for basically a third of your life and most conventional mattresses are loaded with synthetic foams, flame retardants, microplastics, and more. Plus, if it's not comfy, you're going to be tossing and turning, you're going to be really hot. And sleep is the foundation of health. It is so important. Because of all of this, if I were not going to invest in any other part of my house, no other things in my house, I would invest in my mattress. And in fact, I have four years well before I had much money to spend on any of these things because it is such a big needle mover.
Starting point is 00:15:51 The birch mattress is incredible. It is made with organic cotton, natural latex, and ethically sourced wool. So it has literally no off-gassing. You can not smell anything right when you unbox it. It has no micropastics, no synthetic foams or flame retardants. And the wool makes it so breathable, which if you've listened to this podcast for more than five minutes, you know that I run very, very hot. Like I am a furnace.
Starting point is 00:16:18 Zach has basically accepted that sleepy next to me is like sleeping next to like a little fire. And the birch mattress has been a game changer for that. It's made me sleep so much better. Like I can see my sleep score going up because I'm not hot all night long. It's also hypoallergenic, which is really worth paying attention to if you find yourself waking up stuffy or congested. Dust mites in a conventional mattress can actually impact your breathing and your sleep quality without you even realizing it. And again, we need to be able to breathe to get good sleep and getting good sleep is the foundation of our health. And then comfort-wise, Zach sleeps on his back and then I sleep on my side and my stomach. So we have two completely different sleep styles. And we both
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Starting point is 00:20:07 has all of the wisdom that you would normally have to go to culinary school for. But also, I'm being honest, this is like a use case I don't hear a lot of people talking about. I'll just watch it for entertainment when I want to do something that's far more interesting than scrolling. Christina Aguilera taught me to sing. Shan Boudrum's Art of Mastering Confidence and Sex Appeal class is 10 out of 10. There's menopause classes with leading doctors. There's script writing with Mindy Kaling. Literally, you name it, they're on masterclass and it is such a good way to get off your
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Starting point is 00:22:00 It's shockingly fast to use. Once you get the hang of it, you can fact-check most things in minutes. It's called sift, and that stands for stop, that's S, I investigate the source, F, find better coverage, and T trace claims, quotes, and media. So first, we stop. Before we write an inflammatory comment and feed into that vicious cycle of the algorithm, before we share the content and potentially spread misinformation, as tempting as it is to be the one in the no person, we stop. We pause and then we move on to I, investigate the source.
Starting point is 00:22:36 Who created the content that we're looking at? One of my favorite tips for this is from a book that Mike Caulfield wrote with Sam Weinberg, who is a psychologist and he's a professor emeritus at Stanford. and it's called lateral reading, which means searching for what other sources are saying about the source that you are getting information from. So if you find an article on Google from, let's say, the Daily Mail, you would Google the Daily Mail and Daily Mail trustworthy, and you would see what comes up. And what comes up, as a matter of fact, is a Wikipedia article that says, the Daily Mail has been criticized for its unreliability, its printing of sensationalist and
Starting point is 00:23:13 inaccurate scare stories about science and medical research. and for instances of plagiarism and copyright infringement. In February 2017, the English Wikipedia banned the use of the Daily Mail as a reliable source. You will find an all-sides media bias rating that's quite a bit to the right, which does not mean that it's inherently inaccurate, but it's really helpful information to have as you look at what they are covering and how. Also, by the way, despite most of us being told growing up not to cite our school essays with Wikipedia, it's actually a shockingly good source. It's not perfect, but it doesn't suffer from a lot of the issues that we talked about earlier.
Starting point is 00:23:50 It's free to use and it doesn't rely on any ad revenue, so it doesn't have to be inflammatory for clicks and views. Also, while it is true that anyone can edit Wikipedia pages, that's the entire model of Wikipedia, those edits are then reviewed by thousands of people. So the edits that stick often reflect consensus. And then also Wikipedia locks more controversial pages so that only select editors can work on them. Also, I have a really cool trick for you. There are three vertical dots next to each search result on Google. If you're like me, you likely never noticed them before,
Starting point is 00:24:24 but they are a great resource for lateral reading. Click them on any of your search results, and Google will tell you if your results are personalized to you. Remember, they are still biased, even if they are not personalized because Google is trying to give you what you want based on what you've searched, but this way you know if your previous searches are taken into account. It'll also have a section called About the Source, where it shares a bit of information about what that site is, and then you can click for more and you get a whole list of results about that page. On social media, I investigate a source by Googling a person's name.
Starting point is 00:24:58 What are their credentials? Why are they talking about the subject matter? I give their page a quick skim, and then I also see who they follow and who follows them, which is not foolproof. I certainly follow people that I wouldn't want to be. be associated with simply so I can keep up with what they're saying and be able to respond to it or rebut it. But it can give a really nice general sense. Next, you want to find better coverage, the F and SIFT. I find this in T, which we'll get into in a second, to be the most helpful parts of
Starting point is 00:25:26 using SIFT for social media, but it works for traditional media as well. Basically, if you see an Instagram post that makes a claim or an article that makes a claim, you want to find other reputable sources making the same claim and you can check whether they're reputable by investigating the source are I. This is where scientific consensus comes into play. Science inherently disagrees with itself. It is part of the process and how the field in general moves forward, which I feel like we're not necessarily taught in school, and it's why there's a lot of distrust for the important work that scientists are doing. People will see something disproven later and be like, see, don't trust science when, in fact, that is literally how the system was designed to work. The scientific community is
Starting point is 00:26:07 constantly retesting hypotheses and reevaluating results as new data is identified. But in general, if there is widespread agreement amongst reputable scientists, it's a good indicator that something is tending towards true or our best representation of truth. Even though there are very real conflicts of interest, it becomes increasingly difficult to span an entire community. A corporation will pay for one or more studies, but if those studies confirm information, in 85 other studies from 85 other research institutions, the information gleaned from it is likely pretty true. Around 97% of scientists agree, for instance, that man-made global warming is real, which is likely an indicator that there is some truth there. While scientific consensus
Starting point is 00:26:57 is not perfect, it's a really good place to start. And then the T is something that all journalists are taught from the get-go. Trace, claims, quotes, and media, which, just means go back to the original source. If you see an image online, reverse image search it. There are so many images being passed off as current news and you can quickly see that they are from years ago. If someone is quoting someone, go back to wherever the quote was initially said. Look at the context. If someone is making a claim, find the original source for the information the claim is based on. If it's from a study, there are a few quick things that I do to quickly validate how trustworthy that study is, which I will share right now. The first is to check what
Starting point is 00:27:40 journal it's in. There are a few journals that have really rigorous standards, including peer review, which is part of the scientific process at work like we talked about earlier, and they tend to be more trustworthy. Journals like Cell, Nature, The Lancet, BMJ, Science. It'll say the journal that a study was published in at the very top, and then if you don't recognize the journal, you can use the lateral reading method that we talked about earlier, and you can Google it, and you can see what other sources are saying about it. Many reputable journals also ask for any conflict of interest to be submitted, and that will often preclude it from being published at all.
Starting point is 00:28:16 And if it is published, it'll call out the funding source in the study's disclosure, so I always look for that. And as I read the study, I'm kind of trying to suss out where funding likely came from. I also look at the sample size. In general, a larger sample size indicates more reliable. liable results. I'll also go back to the I in sift, investigate the source, i.e. the authors of the study. I'll give their names a quick Google to see if any red flags come up, what research institutions they're affiliated with, and how they're generally thought of in the scientific community. Honestly,
Starting point is 00:28:49 though, even finding out if there is a study at all puts you light years ahead of the pack. There was a recent TikTok that went viral where someone claimed that all of the studies on sleep were done on men. And in fact, and this is a quote, if those studies were done on women, they would have found that the optimal range was nine to ten hours of sleep. This language is suspicious from the get-go. If there weren't studies done on women, how would they know that the optimal range was nine to ten hours? But also, a quick Google shows that there have been plenty of sleep studies done on women. They found that women do need more sleep than men. Most studies estimate between 10 to 20 minutes more, although that will fluctuate from person to person.
Starting point is 00:29:28 and also, among other things, that women are more likely to feel tired than men, which is probably why the TikTok caught on. Because women who were tired saw it and they were like, aha, this is why I am feeling this way. Do we need more studies to get to the bottom of why women are feeling more tired? Yes, 100%. Do we need more studies done on women, period? Oh my God, yes. But spreading claims that are based on literally nothing. I believe this one was traced back to a chiropractor who was giving an interview where he just stated his opinion does not help that very real, very important cause. And it can stress women out even more about reaching sleep goals that are based on literally nothing. This TikTok beget hundreds of other TikToks and Instagram reels making the same claim,
Starting point is 00:30:21 a claim that could have been easily debunked with a quick round of sift. And that was a fairly innocuous claim about sleep. But you can picture how dangerous that exact process would be. Someone makes a false claim. Other people say, oh, that sounds right. And then they share it because it resonates. And all of the sudden it has reached millions of people with more harmful information. I really hope this doesn't feel intimidating or like a ton of work.
Starting point is 00:30:47 This should all be pretty fast. We stop. We see if this is a source that we feel like we can trust. We see if other sources that we can trust are making the same claim. claims, and then we do a quick search to trace any claims back to their origins. If everyone did even one or two of these things when confronted with new information, there would be so much less misinformation flying around the internet. And if you don't want to do these things, that's completely fine.
Starting point is 00:31:13 Just be wary of what you blindly believe. And please, please do not share unvalidated information. Okay, that was a lot. So I'm just going to leave you with a few more super quick tips, a little rapid fire round. And number one, a tricky thing in the health world is that practitioners are seeing results far sooner in their patient pool than large-scale peer-reviewed studies are often able to be done. If I am trying to decide whether to trust those results without the aid of peer-reviewed studies, I do the I in sift.
Starting point is 00:31:44 I investigate the practitioner, their training, and if other practitioners would find them credible. And then I always, always, always ask them to explain the mechanism of action. If they do not know why something works in my body, what's actually going on to achieve the desired effect, that is a huge, huge red flag for me. Number two, I weigh the benefits and risks of different pieces of information. If something has potential to cause harm, like eating a food that's been shown to result in death, or trying a procedure that there's not a lot of safety evidence around, I would need to
Starting point is 00:32:18 be really desperate, really unable to address whatever health concern that I'm trying to address in any other way before I would consider it. If something is low risk, if I'm wondering if it would help my metabolic health to go for a walk after a meal, let's say, I'll treat myself as an end of one and I will test it on my own body. And number three, and this is especially important around politics, please, please, please talk to real people in your community at least as often as you consume content online. The polarizing impact that social media is having on us all is undeniable. It's well documented. and I think that we're only at the beginning of seeing how it's impacting our brains and our relationships and our democracy. Okay, I love you all. I hope this wasn't too much information. I hope you were able to glean some helpful action steps, some insights into what's really going on in all
Starting point is 00:33:11 of these places. I hope it was comforting and I hope it was helpful. That is all for this episode of the Liz Moody podcast. If you are new to the podcast, welcome. I am so glad that you're here. Make sure that you are following the podcast on whatever platform that you like to listen on. I know that 50% of you listening to this episode do not follow the podcast. What is up with that? You're making your life harder by not following. Not only is it the best way to support the podcast, but it also makes sure that episodes show up right in your feed. You don't have to search for them anywhere.
Starting point is 00:33:45 And trust me, you do not want to miss what we have coming up soon. I will be delivering some incredible science, interviews, advice every single Monday and every single Wednesday for you. Okay, I love you and I will see you for the next episode of the Liz Moody podcast. If you loved this episode, then you should definitely listen to the Ask the Doctor episode where I talk with Dr. Samantha Bordman. She is a stress expert. And among many other incredible things, we discuss how to stop doom scrolling and develop a less stressful relationship with the news. I'll link that episode for you in the show notes so you can go and listen next. Oh, just one more thing. It's the legal language. This podcast,
Starting point is 00:34:22 is presented solely for educational and entertainment purposes. It is not intended as a substitute for the advice of a physician, a psychotherapist, or any other qualified professional. One of the reasons that I love taking AG1 is because I feel a boost in energy. It is my mid-afternoon pick me up since I don't drink caffeinated coffee. Age 1 has been posting results online from all of their studies and it was so validating to see how many of the study participants had these same feelings of energy that I've had. 97% of participants in a research study felt more energy after 30 days, and after 60 days, 91% of participants noted they needed less coffee. I drink AG1 because it's backed by multiple research studies.
Starting point is 00:35:07 They are constantly testing their product and recently found that it can double the amount of healthy bacteria in the gut, which is super cool. I personally discovered AG1 after a ton of research because I was looking for one small, simple thing I could incorporate into my day that would support my entire body. Ag1 is a research-backed foundational nutritional supplement delivering 75 vitamins, minerals, whole foods, source superfoods, and adaptogens. So I know that I'm getting what I need for my body. Even if I maybe skimped on vegetables for that day, I didn't eat as well as I would like. It's like an incredibly bioavailable multivitamin. I feel like that's the easiest way to get your head around what it is. It also has
Starting point is 00:35:45 less than one gram of sugar, has no GMOs and no artificial anything. I am such a stickler for research and testing and that is why I trust AG1. It's been third-party tested for safety for years and it's trusted by experts and medical professionals, including a number of the world-class doctors that I have on this podcast. It came up recently in our Secrets to Optimum Health episode in a not-sponsored capacity. I have partnered with AG1 for so long because they make such a high-quality product that I genuinely look forward to using. It's easy and satisfying to start your journey with AG1. Try AG1 and get a free one-year supply of vitamin D3K2 and five free AG1 travel packs with your first purchase at Drinkag1.com slash Liz Moody. That's drinkag1.com slash Liz Moody. Check it out.
Starting point is 00:36:37 When you think about strength and resilience, like your ability to feel energized, to recover well, to stay strong as you get older, what do you think that actually? comes from. Most people say working out or good nutrition and yes, of course that matters. But there is a biological foundation underneath all of that that most people are completely overlooking. I have been diving deep into this lately with the team at timeline and what I've learned has genuinely shifted how I think about my own health. Every single movement that your body makes every step, every workout, every muscle contraction depends on energy produced at the cellular level. And at the center of that is your mitochondria. Here is the thing that nobody tells you, certainly nobody told me, starting around age 30,
Starting point is 00:37:19 our mitochondria naturally become less efficient. More get damaged, more become sluggish, and over time, that impacts your energy, your strength, your recovery, and your resilience. Most of us respond by pushing more. We're like noticing these things and we're adding in more protein. We're trying to fix it with more supplements. We're trying to do harder workouts. And those things do help. But timelines research suggests that we also need to be supporting the cellular machinery underneath. And that is exactly what their supplement, mitochondria, does. It contains urolithin A, which helps your body clear out damage mitochondria and support healthier ones so that your cells can produce energy more efficiently. Because this is happening to your cells, it's going to impact your entire body, your immune system,
Starting point is 00:38:04 your muscles. One study found that taking mitopure increased muscle strength by 12% in four months, with no change in exercise routine, it's going to impact your energy, your sleep, your skin, your cell health impacts all of this, and urolithinea keeps your cells healthy. Timeline has done over 15 years of research and testing on this one product, urolithin A, which, by the way, most of us lack the gut bacteria to synthesize naturally. That's why many of us need to supplement it to get the benefits. This has become a staple supplement for me. It is my top way to support how I want to look and feel as I age.
Starting point is 00:38:39 support yourselves and how you age with mitopier gummies from Timeline. Visit Timeline.com slash Liz and save up to 39% on your mitopure gummies. That is timeline.com slash Liz. I very rarely get genuinely excited about skincare, but this is one of the most innovative products that I have come across in years and I am so obsessed with it. I've been telling all of my friends to get it, so now I need to tell you guys. Here's some science first. Your skin isn't just getting older.
Starting point is 00:39:09 It's being actively broken down by something called senescence. cells. These are cells that have stopped functioning but refused to die. They sit there, releasing inflammatory signals, breaking down your collagen, degrading your skin barrier, and accelerating every visible sign of aging. Scientists call them zombie cells and as they accumulate, they are one of the primary drivers of how old your skin looks and feels. The team at one skin, a group of female longevity researchers and PhDs, spent five years testing over 900 peptides to figure out how to help reduce the accumulation of senescent cells. And they finally landed on it.
Starting point is 00:39:47 OSO1, the first peptide scientifically studied to reduce skin's biological age at the molecular level. OSO1 goes in and it clears out the senescent cells so it helps skin function like healthier, younger looking skin. It is not masking the signs of aging. It's not targeting one thing. It is actually rolling the clock back at a cellular level. I've been using the face moisturizer for almost six months now.
Starting point is 00:40:12 I love it so much. It feels amazing. It goes on really smoothly. It's not tacky at all. And I actually see a difference, which I just feel like is never the case with skincare. You want to always like see a real difference and you're kind of like, do, do I? And this I genuinely do. Because it's clearing the senescent cells, it doesn't just target one thing. So my skin looks firmer. It looks glowier. The texture feels dramatically smoother. And I feel like you can see that too. I also love the body moisturizer. It dries down really quickly, which is always a pet peeve of mine with moisturizers. I hate that, like, sticky feeling when you go to put your clothes on. This does not do that, but it does moisturize really, really well. And then again, I'm reducing my skin's biological age.
Starting point is 00:40:55 I am not making it just look younger. I am making it actually younger. One skin has four peer-reviewed clinical studies in over 10,000 five-star reviews. The data backs everything up for a limited time, get 15% off with code Liz at one skin.co slash Liz. Again, that's 15% off at oneskin.com with code Liz.

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