Weird Medicine: The Podcast - 429 - Supplements, Exercise, & the Scientific Method

Episode Date: November 4, 2020

Dr Steve and Ralph Sutton from SDR and Good Sugar discuss exercise, diet, supplements, meditation and the related science or lack thereof. The marketing of "Adult Gummies" is again a topic of scorn and slight regard. Check Out: stuff.doctorsteve.com (for all your online shopping needs!) noom.doctorsteve.com (lose weight, gain you-know-what) Get Every Podcast on a Thumb Drive (all this can be yours!) hellofresh.com/weird90 (fantastic meals, cooked at home!) feals.com/fluid (premium CBD, delivered to your door!) wine.drsteve.com (get the best deal on wine…delivered to your home!) hellofresh.com/weird80 (America's #1 meal kit!) tripp.com (go to another world and relax in 360 degree VR!) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

If you just read the bio for Dr. Steve, host of weird medicine on Sirius XM103, and made popular by two really comedy shows, Opie and Anthony and Ron and Fez, you would have thought that this guy was a bit of, you know, a clown. Number one thing, don't take advice from some asshole on the radio. Your show was better when he had medical questions. Hey! I've got diphtheria crushing my esophagus. I've got Tobolov. I'm stripping from my nose.

I've got the leprosy. of the heartbells, exacerbating my incredible woes. I want to take my brain out and blast it with the wave, an ultrasonic, ecographic, and a pulsating shave. I want a magic pill. All my ailments, the health equivalent of Citizen Kane. And if I don't get it now in the tablet, I think I'm doomed, then I'll have to go insane.

I want a requiem for my disease. So I'm paging Dr. Steve. It's weird medicine, the first and still only uncensored medical show in the history of broadcast radio, know a podcast. I'm Dr. Steve, and this is a show for people who would never listen to a medical show on the radio or on the internet. If you've got a question, you're embarrassed to take to your regular

medical provider, if you can't find an answer in it yet. Oh, boy. Anywhere else, give us a call at 347-7666-4323. That's 347 Poohead. Visit our website at Dr. Steve.com for podcast, medical news, and stuff you can buy. And follow us on Twitter at Weirond. medicine. Most importantly, we are not your medical providers. Take everything you hear with

a grain of salt. Don't act on anything you hear on this show without talking to over with your doctor, nurse, practitioner, physician, physician assistant, practical nurse, pharmacist, chiropractor, acupuncturist, yoga master, physical therapist, clinical laboratory scientist, registered dietician or comedy podcast host. Who could I possibly mean? But before we get to that, don't forget stuff.com, that's stuff.com. St-U-F-F-F-D-R-S-EVE.com for all your online shopping needs. You can just go there and click straight through to Amazon, or you can scroll down and look at all the different products

that we've discussed on this show. Also, try out naked wines. You can get there at wine-w-I-N-E dot-D-R-Steve.com. If you need some earbuds, tweakeda-O-D-com, offer code fluid for 33% off the best earbuds for the price and the best customer service anywhere. And if you want to lose weight with me, try out Noem, N-O-O-M dot Dr. Steve.com. That's Noom.doctrsteve.com.

It's a psychology program, not a diet, and I've attained my ideal body weight, and love every minute of it. Noom.com. All right. My guest today is the delightful Ralph Sutton. We've had him on before. he gave away a cruise on this show and then the guy he gave it to just said, go F yourselves, I'm not going

and then he gave the, you know, he just bailed. So anyway, Ralph, thanks for being back on the show. No worries. You know what's funny? I did radio for a long time and we would give away things often, you know, tickets to shows, cruise, whatever it was. I would ask them a thousand questions off the air because so often people just want to hear their name or get on the air and have zero.

Zero desire to actually go. And because of doing that, my list at concerts would have like an 85% return rate where the average radio show would have like a 10%. Oh, I learned something. If you give somebody something for free, they don't give a shit about it. It doesn't matter if it is a cruise. I, you know, I'd do comedy promotion down here. And we had Bobby Kelly and we had a sold-out thing, but I had a block of seats. All these friends of mine wanted free tickets, right?

So I said, sure, and I reserved them all the seat, and not one of them showed up. Yeah, if it tells you anything, Steve, is people are terrible. Yeah, they are. They're horrible. They suck. And I learned my lesson, if you want a free ticket, come see me at the show, and maybe I'll give you one. Yeah. It's so ridiculous.

Oh, I was so pissed. It was right in the middle. I mean, the best seats are just empty. And so, you know, I moved some people around. So Bobby just wouldn't think I was a slump and couldn't sell tickets, you know. Anyway. Well, listen. So you're best known, well, I don't know if this is true, if you're best known, but for the SDR podcast that you do with Big J.

Yeah, for sure. And, but now you're doing this health-related podcast called Good Sugar. What the, what the hell happened to you? Well, you know what's funny? So I would start by saying, if you're only identified or you only relate to yourself through one channel, you're probably a boring individual. You should be identified in multiple layers of who you are as a person, right? Okay. Although I do feel not, not shitting on comics, but most comics are comics. And that's it, right? Yeah. I'm not a comic. You know, I, um, well, I'm boring. I'm just known for one thing. So,

so I mean, even though you should have other interests, you have other things that fascinate you, you know, I think it's important. So years ago, here in New York City, I helped not launch, but build this company called Juice Press, which they have like 80 locations in New York and all over the country. A friend of mine started the company. And I worked with them from three. locations to about 35 locations. Vegan, raw, organic juice and food company. But I left when SDR started to get bigger. And then about a year

and a half ago, he sold the company and he wanted to get into podcasting, but he didn't want to do it alone. And his thought was to, like, continue with a new brand but doing it about health and wellness. The owner has been vegan forever, super healthy yoga guy. We're the same, but he looks 10 years younger,

you know, that kind of guy. and I was doing it with him in the initial idea was him trying to make me healthier and better and that's where it started the original idea which is still kind of that idea was him showing me things like yoga and and meditation and show me various gurus or things like that and then I would crap on them because I'm very logical of course I do research and show oh this doesn't work or that works and that doesn't and we originally called it the Sherpa and the schmuck was the idea, right?

Sure. It's great. Unless you're over 35 and Jewish, you don't know what that means, right? So, we gave up on that and switched to the name of his new venture, which is good sugar, and the idea behind good sugar is that not all things that you think are bad for you are and not all things that you think are good for you are. Right. That's because there is good sugars, fruit sugars,

like coconut sugar or fruit, you know, any kind of fruit sugars can be good for you in small doses, not necessarily bad for you. But people associate sugar as, oh, that's just awful. Yeah. You know? So that is the concept behind the show, looking at varied health and wellness practices, supplements, ideas, and then trying to find out how good or bad they actually are for you. Well, you're actually doing a health-related podcast, whereas, you know, I'm still reeling from taking a, you know, soaking a tampon and vodka and having a woman in.

certain it in her vagina, and then we would do breathalize his honor to see if you could get drunk that way. So, I mean, you're actually helping people. I don't know what I'm doing, but. Did that work? I imagine it does work. No, it does not. No, if you think about it, the vagina, what's one thing it's not designed to do is absorb things. Because, you know, when you insert, you know, people forget that these things were designed for a specific purpose, which was to procreate.

We hardly use them for those things. But so, but the purpose of it was to take, to take semen and make sure it doesn't get absorbed and hold it in there until the, you know, an egg could be fertilized. So, yeah, it absolutely does not work. The colon. What about the back door? The back door. Yes. Now, the back door, the colon is designed to reclaim water.

That's really all the large bowel does. And it does a few other things. but, you know, it's a repository. It keeps stool away from the rest of the body, that kind of stuff. But its real function is to reclaim water. And it will reclaim water and alcohol just as efficiently. And that's why people who give themselves champagne enema sometimes die because they can't control it. It's like taking an edible.

You know, I'm sure you don't know anything about taking edibles. But when you take an edible, you really, unless you know the milligram amount that's it. You can't control it. Right. And then you don't get, you don't get the effect. And then you take another one and then it's like, holy shit. So I wouldn't know. I just, you know, I, I know this from a scientific perspective. But the same thing happens when you do champagne enemas is all of a sudden you just can't control the intake anymore. And people can have alcohol poisoning or they can, you know, become unconscious and then drown in their own juices and stuff. Because the absorption rate of the alcohol through the anus is a higher absorption rate,

because if you drink a full bottle of champagne, you're not going to die. That's right. But you get more of the alcohol if it's coming up your butt. Well, you're getting it faster, and again, you can't control the intake. When you drink, you know, you're not just chugging a whole bottle of champagne either. you're sipping it or you're drinking it. Even if you drink it fast, you're not getting it all at once. And you can control if you start getting a little bit too wasted, you kind of back off.

But once it's in your colon, it's going to be absorbed unless you, you know, evacuate it through the regular anal, you know, route. So anyways, yeah, we don't recommend those. How many people are doing champagne enumas that you need to put out that warning? Well, I'll tell you, I was a medical examiner when I lived in Vermont for the state of Vermont, and I didn't see any there. But we got a journal called the name National Association of Medical Examiners, and every month there would be three or four cases of people dying from putting alcohol up there into their colones and then dying from it. Wow, that's crazy. So just drink it. We don't have to come up with these novel things.

You know, don't shove it in your vagina. That doesn't work. Don't shove it up your ass because that could do harm. Don't put, I've seen frat guys doing it under their eyelids. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Don't do that. Just drink it. You know, funny.

So on the SDR show, once a year, because I've actually never done any drugs, right? Yeah. But once a year, once a year on the show, I have tried a drug for the first time ever. Okay. and I've done, you know, edibles and Molly. Molly ended up being crystal meth by accident. Oh, my goodness. Unintentionally.

Mushrooms and cocaine. But we had joked at one point about the term is called boofing when you put cocaine up your butt. But I imagine now what you're telling me, we were going to, Jay and I, because I just thought it was funny, we were going to be in a loving embrace and boof each other with cocaine. But now glad we didn't do that because that means I would assume that the absorption rate is much higher through the butt. Yeah. If you did a, you know, a moderate amount for scientific purposes, you could probably get away with it. But it wasn't boofing?

Wasn't that what Kavanaugh said that he did? Anything going up your butt is the term is boofing. Yeah, I think he said that it was vomiting or something, but that's interesting. Well, I think, you know, I've heard that term also. Yeah, of course. But, yeah, I'm sure it's, you know, I'm not going to be held by a scientific standard here. With regard to yoga, I'm convinced that yoga was invented 4,000. years ago by some Indian dude with back pain. People make fun of it until they try it. And I've

gotten, you know, the first time I did it, it's like, oh, you just move your body around in all these positions. And after an hour, I was so, I was sweating. My heart was racing. I was out of breath. I mean, it's incredible how doing those poses can actually give you a real workout. And then the reward is that big relax at the end. And I had my one out-of-body experience in my life doing yoga to Steve Ross on the TV. So, I mean, that just shows how powerful it can be even when it's somebody just doing it on television. For a brief second, I thought you were going to say your one out-of-body experience was the time you did boof cocaine. No, it's literally doing yoga with Steve Ross.

And he's sort of a modern yoga guy. He does traditional yoga poses, but he plays, you know, rhythm and blues type music and stuff. He's got a good sense of humor. I had just done it. I was on a reality show years ago, and they made me do it on the show. And I was going once in a while to yoga, but I find, well, the yoga is a little too, like, the gongs and the alms, and that doesn't sit with me.

I went to try a class in my neighborhood not that long ago. And as soon as we sit down, she hits a gong, like a dish gong. And the whole thing goes, oh, and I just got up and left. No, thank you. I'm like, this is not for me. I got to go. You might like Steve Ross then. You can check him out on YouTube.

I think that's where he used to be on the oxygen network. And but then the last time I saw some of his stuff was on YouTube. But, yeah, he doesn't do any of that BS. And the thing about yoga, is, so you'll see some people that, you know, they love the fact that they can take their knee and put it up next to their ear, right? And their toe is pointing up at the ceiling. If you just attempt it, you get the same, maybe even more benefit out of it than those people do. So you get the same thing, even if you can't attain those poses, just trying to attain them. Well, I tell you that

I've been trying, as, you know, one of the reasons why I'm on here today is that, you know, I right at uh when covid hit i gained a lot of weight in the beginning like the first two months i think like everybody yeah just started eating like an animal and then we started really looking into on good sugar what i could do to start getting control of what was going on and both you know i think especially jews like myself and middle eastern which i'm also we associate food and and feelings very much so not like i don't think the scandinavian culture does that as much or other cultures but for sure my culture you know something good happens let's go eat something bad happens let's go eat you know so that's what i was doing i gained a bunch of weight and then i started looking

into what i can do to start finding myself again or getting better in a good place and a was stretching but not yoga i just do some stretching and running those are the two things i started doing okay and both of them i found do help i am more reluctant to the stretching for some reason and probably because it just hurts more. I don't know. Like, I don't know why. But the running, which is crazy to show how your body adapts. It amazes me when you hear those stories all the time about the body adapts.

So when I started running, I used this app. It's a free app called C25K. Sure. I did that. Yep. I did that. And it starts with a one minute run that I could not do. Like I was exhausted.

If I remember part of it was just walking in the beginning. It's walking running. walking running interval. So it starts with a five-minute walk, then a one-minute run, one-minute walk, you know, whatever. And you slowly build up over time till last Saturday, I ran 12 miles. I ran two hours and 20 minutes straight. And what a difference a few months makes. Like, I think it's six months that I went from I can't run a minute to I just ran two hours and 20 minutes. Yeah, that's awesome. That's incredible. And yeah, it is all about adaptation. because if you started and just tried to run two hours and 20 minutes,

you would kill it. You would die or you would wish that you were dead. And all your muscles would be torn up and stuff. Now, I did couch to 5K, and then I'm just, I'm a lot older than you are. And my body wasn't ready for it. And I did not stretch before I ran. I said stretching is for P words. And so I ran and I tore my gastronemius muscle, which is the big muscle.

in your calf. So let me ask you about that really quickly. I have read very different results on, not results, but you know, like papers and docs and stuff on stretching before you run. Yeah. The most, what seems to be pervasive that I've read is you should definitely warm up before you run. Right. But I do like a 10-minute walk. I don't stretch at all. When I come home, I do this thing called compression boots. Yep. And I put my legs in those for about 45 minutes. I don't stretch. I stretch afterwards, like down the road, but I don't stretch it all beforehand. And I've read that sometimes there's been some science that shows stretching beforehand could actually do damage or make you less, more susceptible to injury. I don't know if that's true

or not, but I read a lot about that. Yeah. I think that's still controversial. A lot of the physical therapists, the sports physiologists still recommend stretching, but it certainly in my case would have helped because I was so tight. I could tell that day I was tight when I was running and part of it was my technique too. Right. But also, did you walk before? I walk like 15 minutes beforehand. No, it's, you know, I didn't do anything that it's said to do. So, yeah, I just did the running part and that was the mistake. So, yeah, I think any kind of warm up is probably reasonable and stretching can be a shortcut to get you there. And I'll do some more research on that. I don't know that there's a definitive answer on that. I know some people.

think that there is, but you'll get anytime you get people on both sides of the equation, equally VM, it usually tells me that it didn't make any difference one way or the other, but I'll look, I'll admit that I don't know the definitive answer to that. On Good Sugar,

we had the founders of the company stretched, which is like they do those, whether you go there and they stretch you, you know, that kind of thing? Sure. And that's why I did all this research, and I was like ready for this gotcha moment that I have all this research, that shows that it may not be good for you.

And their response says, well, if you feel good, you should do it. I'm not saying, we're not backing it with science. I'm like, oh, well, there goes my argument out there. I know you're not saying. Yeah, I'm looking at some research right now on PubMed.gov, which, by the way, for all of our listeners, is free. You can get on there and you can look at peer-reviewed literature. And this says, well, let me see. I'll have to look at this.

I'm not, nothing's popping out that says one way or the other that's very interesting. So, yeah. But anyway, yes, and cool down is very important after you're done working out. So where I live, it's about a half a mile to the water. So that's my walk there and my walk back. And then I run half of where I think I'm going to go and then turn around and run back. So my run ends up where I started and then I just walk home. Great.

So do you do anything post running as far as rescue is? concerned as far as supplements or any of that kind of stuff. Yeah, so I take a bunch of stuff that's one of the reasons why I'm on the phone with you. Okay. Well, one is I do these compression boots. I don't know if that does anything. They say it's great for the lymphatic system. I don't know what that means.

It just feels good, so I do it, right? And these boots, like they look like giant sleeves for your legs, and then it's air compression through your boots, which I don't know if it's good or bad. Who knows? But I do have a bevy of things that I take that I still, I've heard her good for you. I don't know if they are. Sure. I haven't done the research.

We'll start with, which I think I told you second, like, it's called Noon or N-O-O-N or N-U-U-N. And it's a electrolyte supplement. Okay. I keep pre and post the run because one time I, the first time I ran 10 miles, I had a headache for two days. And someone told me that you depleted something in your body you needed to replace the electrolytes. Now I do the noon before and after I run. Yeah, not to be confused with Noom, which is the app for a weight boss. Right, right, right.

M-U-U-A. So a mistake that people will make is, and this has to do with more than just exercise, too, if you have diarrhea, you know, some diarrhea illness, and you're losing a lot of fluid, and then you replace it with plain water. You're losing electrolytes, but you're replacing it with plain water, which what has to be. to happen. The body can't manufacture electrolytes, so naturally the electrolyte levels are going to drop. And when things like magnesium drops, then you'll get muscle cramps and sodium and potassium. If they drop enough, you can have some really serious adverse effects. So I have no problem with electrolyte replacement after working out. Now, salt tablets have been demonstrated to not be a good idea because people don't drink enough water with them. I drink this

I'm going to hold this up to you. I know your listeners can't see, but I'm holding up an eight-glass jug of water that I bring me everywhere I go. I make sure I fill it up in the morning and finish it by five o'clock in the afternoon, but I don't stay up all night peeing. Yeah, very good. And so, yeah, I have no problem with that. I think that and whether noon, what they've got in it is worth how much they're charging you for it for their proprietary blend. That could be argued, but I don't have a problem with it. One of the other post-marathon type things, I don't see my same.

My son was a cross-country runner, and so I did a bit of research on this. And we found that post-marathon rescue with just protein was very effective. And really, you know, he's a kid. Chocolate milk is about as good as anything else. You can buy muscle milk and you can buy all these things. Chocolate milk is a reasonable protein rescue. There is an amino acid called L. Citrolean. I don't know if you're taking that, but that's supposed to increase blood flow.

to the muscles after you work out and enhance healing. So that's one of those things that we can just look at. So I do do a bunch of stuff, right? I do take a weigh protein as my post-fought meal, right? Yeah. But then I put all this weird stuff in. So here's where it's going to get weird, right? First is I do a shot.

And the shot is apple cider vinegar. okay tickle juice which i've heard is good for cramps might be total nonsense right okay then i have two powders that i'd use one is called um uh greens um naked greens naked greens and the other one's called like ultimate live and they both have supposedly tons of one's crazy expensive but it's really you know all dehydrated or or powdered versions of things that are supposed to be great for you, which maybe if I had a phenomenal diet that I ate perfectly, maybe

I wouldn't need these things, but in my head, I don't eat perfectly, so maybe this is a way of sneaking in a better or closer to better diet. I don't know if it's true or not. And then I take a magnesium, which you mentioned before, which makes you think, maybe that's right. Branch chain amino acid,

glycosamine conjointin, God, I take so much crap, it's nuts. And I take probably one or two, I think, I'm forgetting. Those are the main ones. Oh, collagen and turmeric. Yeah, yeah, okay. Do you want me to just kind of go through these?

Kind of go through it. Let me know if I'm wasting money. Okay. If it's doing nonsense. So, yeah, the thing, you know, let me just start at the bottom. So the naked greens powder, you read their website and they say, you know, get a fresh perspective, you know, start naked with your greens. Is this the same place, naked greens? Yeah.

To taste tempting. salads and, you know, crisp lettuce and all this. Maybe this is something different. Wait a minute. I think this is actually a salad. Green superfood powder, naked greens powder. There we go. Okay.

So, yeah, they've got broccoli and alfalfa and stuff like that. So look, there's going to be some minerals. There's going to be some iron in there. I've always been a fan of just eating the stuff rather than, because this is a very American kind of thing. So there was a study that showed that people in Scandinavian countries who ate a lot of fish had fewer heart attacks, right? So what's the American, you know, a solution to that is put a bunch of fish in a vat and render them down to an oil and then just take the oil. And then we find out that that doesn't really work very well. And one of the reasons was is these people were eating fish.

So they were eating a lot of fish. they were eating less of other things that may be causing them problems. Right, right, right, right. And the omega-3s and omega-6s and all the stuff that's in there is probably pretty good for you as well. And they didn't correct for mercury poisoning and those kinds of things. But anyway, so I think eating the fish is better. The thing with the pickle juice, again, is what is pickle juice? It depends.

What kind of pickles? Is it dill pickles? This is the company that makes specifically, like, drinkable. pickle juice is supposed to be good for you. So are they making pickles and then draining it off? Okay, so are they cucumber pickles or is it pickled herring? You know what I mean? It matters.

I imagine it's cucumber pickles. You imagine it is. So we would want to know that because cucumbers have some things that are good for you, vitamin K and some other things like that in them. Why not just eat the effing pickles, though, you know? Now, right after you work out, probably the last thing you want is to eat. a damn pickle. So, but, so that matters because I've pickled, you know, I went through a phase, particularly

when I lived in Vermont where I was preserving everything. And, you know, pickles have salt and they may have aluminum, like certain salts of aluminum, which you may or may not want to ingest, and vinegar. And so are you really getting, is it just the juice or is it? the leaching out of the nutrients from the cucumbers, which they're under high heat, right, when you make pickles. So you're destroying some stuff. Some stuff will survive.

So throw out the pickle juice. I get it. I'm just, yeah, I'm just, I don't know about that one. Now, look, how do we know things? The way we know things is by studying them properly. And just because I say, this doesn't make sense to me. It doesn't mean it doesn't help. The way that we would find out is you take 100 people.

and you run them, and another 100 people and run them. This group, you give them pickle juice, this group you give them some placebo. And if you don't tell them it's a pickle juice trial and you don't let them talk, it could be just water, you know, because they wouldn't know. And then you have to have an end point. So what's our end point? Is it less muscle pain, increased endurance? I mean, you've got to pick something to measure. And then if you measure that, if there's a statistically significant difference between the pickle juice and the placebo, then you can make a claim about it.

As long as I was imagined, your two study groups are reasonably the same makeup of person or else it's meaningless. I'm going to give you one of these. Give yourself a bill. That's exactly right. You have to match your controls with your cohort because, yeah, if you've just got 100 fat people, in the placebo group than it's and yeah just like I remember when I walked that documentary um we had him on good sugar the guy that wrote that documentary about a eating vegan and the athletes that eat vegan I can't think of the name of the movie right now but they said that in meat trials

when they say meat's bad for you a McDonald's hamburger is in the same category as uh you know elk that's been far you know right and then the one you don't factor in the person that's eating a McDonald's burger on a regular basis, probably is not making other great dietary choice. That's right. That's right. So that's really hard to control for in some of these studies as well. Right.

You know. But what about the apple cider vinegar? Because I've read a ton of stuff. Okay. Well. Okay. So apple cider vinegar, again, is made from apple juice that's allowed to ferment to the point that the fermentation is halted just before it gets to ethanol.

or it's fermented to ethanol and then allowed to oxidize to vinegar. And that's so it's acetic acid instead of, instead of ethyl alcohol. And so it's very acidic. The one nice thing about acidic fluids when you take them in, your body is very closely going to control your pH, you know, your acid-based balance. If I test yours, it's going to be 7.4. Any healthy person will, you take 100 people, they'll all be about 7.4. Now, if they're hyperventilating, it'll be a little higher. If they've got emphysema, it might be a little lower, but 100 normal, healthy people will all be 7.4, so it's very closely controlled.

So if you take a bunch of acid in, your body's got to deal with it, and it's just going to piss it back out, right? And so you'll excrete acidic urine. And that's good to prevent struvite stones. Struvite stones are ammonium-magnosium. phosphate stones, and it'll also prevent the formation of calcium phosphate stones, which why I tell everybody that's got kidney stones, make sure you get them analyzed, because if they're uric acid stones, you can alkalize your urine. If they're, you know, these other two stones, I just mentioned struvite or calcium phosphate

stones, you can acidify your urine and stop making those. So there's no question that drinking an acidic fluid like apple cider could be helpful. The science is really spotty. Anybody that makes a claim that says that this has been definitively demonstrated that it does this, this, or this, the, you know, I will argue with them that they really can't make that claim. But it isn't going to hurt anything unless you've got ulcers, right? Right. Well, good then. Then I'm sticking, tossing out the pickle juice, keeping the apple cider vinegar.

It may help obesity. And you know what? I will look also at pickle juice and see if there are any dust. double-blank placebo-controlled trials. But if there aren't, why don't we do one? But I'm telling you, Ralph, picking that endpoint is important. Right. When they studied sildenophil, which is the active ingredient in Viagra, they chose an endpoint

of high blood pressure, you know, of reducing blood pressure. And it kind of failed with that. But then all these guys were reporting in the secondary sort of adverse effects or secondary effects. I wouldn't call it an adverse effect at all, that they were getting these meaty erections. And so that's when they had to do another study. They couldn't submit that study to the FDA. It wasn't an intended study. That wasn't the intended endpoint. That's right. So then they had to do another set of studies with erectile function as being the endpoint. And then they could file for FDA approval and actually say that it did something. You know, so what, you know,

It's like, people ask me, well, was vitamin D any good? And it's like, well, what are you trying to accomplish? If you don't want to get rickets, it's great. If you want to prevent cancer, the data isn't that good for that, you know? Right. But now, you did say magnesium is something to take. It's not really bad for you. No, it's not bad.

No, magnesium is good for the heart, and it's probably good for leg cramps, too. If you take magnesium and you still have leg cramps at night, quinine is something that you can take I was doing that for a while because I read that which is again I read a lot of not since I started a good sugar I read a lot of things and I read at one point people were thinking quinine might help prevent

COVID but that's right they were getting it confused with some other with some other things but most likely hydroxychloroquine but because it's a quinine was the original anti-malarial right and hydroxyxyxychloric

hydroxychloroquine also was used as an anti-malarial. And so therefore, why, it makes sense that quinine might work. So you're right, I like to drink gin and tonics, and I couldn't buy any tonic water anywhere because people figured out that that's the only place you can get quinine anymore because you can't get the pills anymore. But drinking a quarter of a cup or a half a cup of quinine water before you go to bed, if you're prone to having muscle cramps actually helps. You know, the data's decent on it.

And my anecdotal evidence in my population over 35 years of doing medical practice has been astounding. That's good because I know that after the super long runs, which I do a 5K, a 10K, and then go for distance every week. I run every Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday. And after that long run, which is usually 10 to 12 miles, I don't sleep at night because my legs hurt so much. Oh, is that right? Yeah. Yeah, it's good to know that I'll try that. I'll try that.

Yeah. Yeah, give it a try and see. But it really, I'm talking about Charlie horses, you know. Yeah, okay. And then now, what about the glycosamine conjointin? Okay. It's also supposed to be for pain. That's for, yeah, and it's really for joint pain.

Glucosamine has been shown in a couple of studies to be. as effective as ibuprofen for joint pain. Condroitin has not, and you'll notice, if you go to wherever you're buying your supplements, if they have glucosamine by itself, and then they have glucosamine plus chondroitin, the glucosamine plus chondroitin is almost four times more, but the chondroitin really doesn't do anything. So I would just buy pure glucosamine sulfate. Oh, good to know then. All right.

That's done. I'm learning a lot here, sir. That'll save you some money. And then, so we knocked out the, what about the live ultimate powder? That one is filled. Yeah, what's that got in it? Huh? What's that got in it?

Do you know? I'm going to, for you, hold on a second. Okay, well, that's okay. This is very informal show, so I'm looking it up at the same time. It's on my Amazon, they just ordered it again, because it's crazy expensive. I'll tell you that. Wow, it certainly is okay. Superfood nutrition.

Highest quality, pure, sustainable, superfood ingredients. that always makes me a little bit suspicious. Okay, oh, alkalize, detoxify, and nourish. Now, anytime somebody says that they're getting rid of toxins, I start getting suspicious. Fair enough. Well, what toxins are we talking about? Now, are you talking about lactic acid? I mean, that is kind of a toxin that your muscles will produce and it causes muscle pain and stuff.

If that's what you're talking about, say that. But then show me that before and after there's some effect on your life. lactic acid metabolism, you know, you've got to be able to show it. And when I see, and I'm just getting off on one of my pet peeves, when I see, oh, you know, this is going to get rid of toxins in your liver. Okay, what toxins? What are they? You're saying it, so they should be measurable.

So name them. And then let's do a study that shows that we, that after I take whatever it is that you're giving me, that I've got less of that in my body. You know, you know, it's funny. I would be honest with you on this one. My brother recommended it, right? And he goes, he felt, he felt amazing after taking it, and I've not felt anything. And I'm

reading some of the things that wrote, and it says on its end, and it makes me cringe. The line of, uh, balance and restore your body for peak performance and enlightened health is enough for me to know I probably shouldn't take it. Yeah, and I don't know. Look, they may be wonderful and uh, and I'm not

dumping on them. I'm talking about in general when I see those things. Now, this may be the greatest thing. And listen, If it makes you feel better and it's not doing any harm, I have no problem with it. It does a little harm to my wallet, though. It's $100 for that stupid thing. For how long is that last? Well, I'm still on the first one.

You're only just, you know, one of the servings at times. Probably like 50 servings are in there, 100 servings, I'm guessing. Okay. Now, all the people in that photograph in the upper left-hand corner are all quite attractive. So if it has some, you know, I might be more into this. I thought it was going to make me good looking, Doctor. I know. I can't find anything about the ingredient, so I'm just gestalting it.

So if you want to send me... Those silly trigger marketing words for health that make me cringe. Right. And that may be all it is. Again, this stuff may be very good for you, but I am not a fan of the marketing. It's just like my other pet peeve is marketing adult gummies to... I mean, gummies to adults because they taste good. I love my vitamin.

It's a delicious gummy. It's like, shut, I am not seven. There are reasons why you might want to take your medicine in gummy form. Melatonin's a good example of that because when it's in the pills, it sometimes binds to the clay matrix and then you don't absorb it all. But in a gummy, of course, it just dissolves and all that, it increases the bioavailability of some stuff. So say that, but don't tell me how delicious it is. I'm not taking vitamins because they taste good, you know. That's how you fool your kid to take them.

You put it in a pill, you put it in some peanut butter for your dog. That's right. And did I have anything else on my list? I forget now, so. You certainly did. You had turmeric or turmeric or turmeric. It's pronounced lots of different ways. It's pretty cool stuff.

It's anti-inflammatory. So it's going to have some of the same effects as, say, an ibuprofen or anaperson, presumably with fewer adverse effects. And it may be anti-cancer, but most anti-inflammatory things are. There are certain cancers that are certainly triggered by inflammation, and colon cancer seems to be one of them. So people are legitimately studying turmeric as a risk factor mitigator for some people that are at high risk for cancer.

That term is it, I'm going to screw up the pronunciation, but anti-androgenic? Is that the right word? Well, I'm not aware that it's anti-androgenic, so androgens are, you know, are male hormones like testosterone and stuff. So I'm not aware of that. Again, I'm not a nutrition. I'm, you know, I'm a physician scientist, and so I, you know, I'm interested in the science behind these things. But that's new to me. I'll have to take a look at that.

Okay, fair enough. Fair enough. Yep. And then Marine collagen. Motion detected at the front door. Yeah. That's my ring video doorbell, sorry. Marine collagen.

Collagen is basically digested, but it's absorbed as this sort of peptide called hydroxyproline. And then there's pro-lil hydroxyproline and then hydroxyprolyl glycine. And both of these, or all three of these, concentrate and damaged tissues. and the hypothesis is that they promote repair. I have no problem with taking collagen. It's not going to do you any harm. It might do some good. Again, with a lot of this stuff,

doing the double-blind placebo-controlled studies are expensive, and so if people feel like they're getting some benefit from it, I'm okay with it as long as it's not doing any harm. It's like vitamin D supplementation. All of these things that are taking out of the last one I want to get to is the branch chain amino acid as well. but I don't feel different taking any of it. Nothing have I ever done like, wow, do I feel great today?

It doesn't. I've also because I think, you know, I am six, six. I'm a big guy. So maybe I'm not taking enough or, you know, the recommended dose doesn't really apply to a monster like myself. So I don't know. But I've never taken anything where I'm like, ooh, I feel energized today. Well, you know, there can be cumulative effects of exercise as well

that you wouldn't know that you were preventing. You couldn't go back and say, well, Let me not take this for 10 years and see if my knees go bad. Right, right, right, right. So it's one of those where you're just hoping, and what you really just want to do is not break the bank, you know, don't take so much stuff that you can't afford, and then try not to take anything that's going to harm you. And so far, you're so far so good on all of these things. And then lastly is one that my trainer recommended, which is the branch chain amino acids. Yeah, I'm in favor of it.

that branch chain amino acids all that means that they're just regular amino acids it's lucine isolucine and another one called valine and the branch chain just means you know it refers to its chemical structure and there are studies that suggest that branch chain amino acids may prevent muscle breakdown during exercise so i have they're not going to hurt you and i have no problem with somebody so i'm going to get rid of the i'm getting rid of the powders i'm getting rid of the pickle juice, and then I'm keeping everything else. I think that's reasonable. And I don't even have a problem with the powders. I just, you know, I'm not a fan of the way that they're marketing them.

Well, just because also when it comes to the powders, because I've had a doctor tell me that's also on good sugar, that if you're eating a great diet, like you don't need to take that. But the reality of most people is we are not eating a great diet. So if this interests me closer to that, even incrementation. Mentally, maybe it's not so bad. Yeah. I don't have a huge problem with it. Like I said, it's just a marketing to me.

It just turns me off. That's all it is. And if they've got science, let's see it. I looked at their website just briefly, didn't see. You know, some of those sites will have a link that says, oh, you know, check out our peer-reviewed articles. And sometimes, and then you'll, let me give everybody a tip on that. When you are at a site and they give you articles like that, very much. it by going to PubMed and seeing if there aren't a hundred other articles that are, you know, saying just the opposite or if those things are really there, because I've done that before, could never find those articles anywhere.

And let me just talk to you just for a second about selection bias when it comes to testimonials. So let's say there's a 5% placebo effect for some whatever, some supplement. And let's say, we'll call it, we'll say it rhymes with naked fleens, I don't know. And, no, I'm just, and, yeah, but a 5% placebo effect. And you send out a thousand of these things to people. And, of course, because it's 5%, 50 of them will get some positive effect from it, right? Right. And you sent out, hey, send us your things, you get 950 saying, you guys are stupid.

This doesn't do anything. but then you get 50 saying, wow, it really helped me do this. It helped me run longer. I felt better. And then you just publish those on your website. Now, you've got 50 testimonies. There's a page after page after page of testimonials saying that this stuff works. And that's all it is.

So 50 anecdotal reports are still anecdotal evidence. So just be careful of that. Right, of course. Especially if they're the ones, like on Amazon, when you read reviews, while they may be anecdotal, If enough people are writing reviews arbitrarily, you could kind of get an idea what it's for. Yeah. But if the company itself is the one selecting the reviews to put on the site, how could you trust it? Right.

And I have some concerns about some of the Amazon things, too, because some of the – I've been on some products that were made in, say, another country where the – it had, you know, hundreds of reviews, but they all seemed eerily similar. And I wondered if they didn't have – if you can't pay for, you know, somebody. to, you know, increase the number of stars by doing fake reviews. I don't know, but I suspect that on certain things that I've seen on Amazon. It's also why I never understood why on a resume people would ask for referrals. You're not going to give a psychopath referral. You know, it makes no sense. It always was totally useful.

But I guess the argument is if you don't even have two or three people that could say nice things about you, then you probably shouldn't be hired. You know what I mean? I don't know. I guess. I guess. because do I ever say anything bad about somebody on a if I don't like them I want to get rid of them so I'm going to give them a good review

and then I don't want them coming back and showing up at my house with a shotgun saying hey you know I went up for this job and I didn't get it because of your crappy review so you're always going to give a good review I don't I don't think any of that stuff works I agree I could not agree more so okay so good yeah I think you're in good shape I'm really I don't feel so bad now

I thought you were going to shit on my stuff a lot more No I'm very impressed with what you've done Matter of fact you've inspired me I need to do some of that myself I'm I am Like I said a lot older than you And I'm my body is starting to To turn against me And I've got

stenosis in other words Narrowing of one of the canals Through which the major nerve that goes down into my leg goes through And so, you know, if you take a needle-nose plier and you compress a nerve in the back that goes to the leg, you're going to hurt in the leg. And so I've got horrific pain in my leg. And I've been doing physical therapy and inversion therapy and stuff like that. And so I'm trying to find a way that I can get healthy without running because I can barely walk in a while. What about a bike?

Well, that's, yeah, they've got a reclining stair-stepper, and that doesn't hurt. when I do that and anything because it's stenosis anytime I can bend my back you know it hurts less so yeah I'm having to do a recovery bicycle it made me think of one last thing that I know

I didn't tell you in advance you may not know off top of your habit I'm curious if you have any thoughts about it because I do love this one regardless of what you say I'm going to do it anyway okay fair enough but I'd say like once every two weeks I go do cryotherapy and I feel

I feel high afterwards. Legitimately feel like I'm on drugs from three minutes in this chamber that is negative 250 degrees. Yeah. It's crazy. But I don't know. I know that for years you see sports figures in every movie you've ever watched emerging themselves in ice bath. This to me is like a rapid fire version of that. I don't know if it does anything.

Sure does. But boy, do I get good afterwards. Yeah. As long as they do it properly and you don't get frostbite in any. you know, parts that you wouldn't want to drop off. Cold is a direct anti-inflammatory. And that's why, you know, if you spray in your ankle, you want to get a cold compress on it. You don't want to put ice directly on it, but a cold compress will help and decrease the inflammation, decrease the swelling, the whole thing.

And the physical therapists have, like that compression sleeve that you were talking about. They have cold ones, and they get them out of the freezer, and they wrap them on either about an inch, maybe an inch and a half thick with big, heavy Velcro straps on there, and they will compress the crap out of your leg with this cold, and it feels so freaking good. Yeah, particularly if you have an injury. So, yeah, I have no problem. The place they go to, they do, it's a three-minute freezing cold, and then you sit on a heated lounge chair for 20 minutes with these compression boots, and then when I walk out, I swear, I remember saying to the girl I was, any of the time, do you feel like it's a really beautiful green day right now? Like, I feel like a thing that I would never say. And I just, it's like, I felt, I definitely felt high.

Yeah. No, that's awesome. Yeah. And it probably releases endorphins, which are natural painkillers in your body. And they're related to opioids. You know, they hit the same receptors. And it's probably dropping your blood pressure a little bit once you stop. Because when you first start, you know, you're going to compress all those blood vessels.

and they'll constrict in the cold, and then when you come back to a normal temperature again, they'll relax, and it drops your blood pressure a little bit, and you might feel a little bit lightheaded, which can be pleasant if it's not too extreme. So, yeah, all those things. It all makes sense.

All right, good. I feel better about myself, sir? Yeah, no, that's fantastic, man. We've got, looks like, about a minute before we start hearing the music, so why don't you plug whatever's going on with you? Follow me everywhere at I am Ralph Sutton. me personally my show the SDR show at the SDR show everywhere we did a great episode recently with

Rob Halford we did one with Neil deGrasse Tyson we had Ray Romano on we get great guests on that show and then Good Sugar which you should come on good sugar I would love you to come on and I guess we could discuss things with my friend with Juice Press and that is good sugar dot life thank you so much for having me on the show man always a pleasure no thank thanks for being here and tell Big Jay he still owes me 400 bucks I'm you know I'm making it public big Jay owes me 400 bucks. Oh, I'm going to see. I'm in a couple hours. I will tell them.

Okay. And, oh, one thing I want you to check out, do you have virtual reality helmet? I do. I use it all the time. Okay, check out the Trip app, T-R-I-P-P. I use it. Oh, she's a little... Well, I had the creator of the trip app on my show, and she is awesome, and I'm hoping to do some work

with them going in the future, so we'll see. I am a huge believer in that. One of the things I started doing also was that once a week, I do meditation. And I found that it's easier to do it with that app because I feel like it's a mixture of a game and doing some wellness. But it's the greatest meditation in the world. Anybody that has never tried virtual reality, try that.

It's only on the Oculus Quest and the Oculus Rift and the Go, I believe. Appreciate Ralph being here today. And we can't forget Rob Sprantz, Bob Kelly, Greg, Hughes, Anthony Coomia, Jim Norton, Travis Teff, Lewis Johnson, Paul Offcharski, Eric Nagel, Roland Campos, Sam Roberts. Keith Kramer, the great guitarist, extraordinary, Pat Duffy, Dennis Falcone, Matt Kleinschmidt, Holly Gould, Dale Dutley, the great Rob Bartlett, Chowdy from South Florida, Bernie and Sid, Ron Bennington, and Fez Watley, whose support of this show has never gone unappreciated. Listen to our Sirius XM show on the Faction Talk channel, SiriusXM Channel 103, Saturdays at 8 p.m. Eastern, Sunday at 5 p.m. Eastern on demand. and other times at Jim McClure's pleasure.

Many thanks to our listeners whose voicemail and topic ideas make this job very easy and go to our website at Dr. Steve.com for schedules and podcasts and other crap. Until next time, check your stupid nuts for lumps. Quit smoking, get off your asses, wash your hands, wear your face mask, and get some exercise.

We'll see you in one week for the next edition of Weird Medicine. Thank you.