Inside the Wellness Boom: Separating Scams From Science

On the heels of the weekend premiere of her new CNN series, “Kara Swisher Wants To Live Forever,” Kara brings together a panel of experts to talk more about longevity, anti-aging, and the money that’s pouring into the wellness industry. Katie Couric is a journalist. She’s also been a longtime advocate for early cancer screenings since her first husband died of colon cancer and she was diagnosed with breast cancer. Amy Larocca is an award-winning journalist and author of the book, “How To Be Well: Navigating Our Self-Care Epidemic, One Dubious Cure At A Time.” And Kara’s brother, Dr. Jeffrey Swisher, is chairman of the Department of Anesthesiology at California Pacific Medical Center in San Francisco. He recently caught a so-called “widowmaker” heart attack before it happened, and his wife has also been diagnosed with stage 3 colon cancer. Kara, Katie, Amy and Jeff talk about the explosion of health misinformation online and why people have become so skeptical of medical experts. They also talk about the promising health care science on the horizon and the real secrets to living a long, happy life. Questions? Comments? Email us at [email protected] or find us on YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, Threads, and Bluesky @onwithkaraswisher. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  What about my fish oil?

• 0:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, your fish oil is good. Yeah, except you get fish breath with fish oil.

• 0:06Speaker 00

  You burp a lot.

• 0:08Speaker 01

  You do.

• 0:20Kara Swisher?

  Hi, everyone. From New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network, this is On with Kara Swisher, and I'm Kara Swisher. As you might know, my new CNN series debuted this past weekend. It's called Kara Swisher Wants to Live Forever. It's a big look at longevity, anti-aging, and the huge industries popping up around all these topics. I wanted to cut through all the scams and hype and talk about the real science around how to live longer, healthier lives. I do not want to live forever, by the way. Longevity is also the subject of today's show, and I've got three experts with me to talk about it. Katie Couric is a journalist. She's also been a longtime advocate for people to get cancer screenings after her first husband died of colon cancer, and she was diagnosed with breast cancer.

• 1:01Kara Swisher?

  Amy LaRocca is an award-winning journalist and author of the book How to Be Well: Navigating Our Self-Care Epidemic One Dubious Cure at a Time. She is in the series. And so is my brother, Dr. Jeffrey Swisher. He's the chairman of the Department of Anesthesiology at the California Pacific Medical Center in San Francisco. And he recently caught, before it happened, the possibility of a so-called widowmaker heart attack. His wife has also been diagnosed with stage three colon cancer and is actually doing really well. It's a really interesting time to talk to these people, because all of them have dealt with health in a very different way. Katie, obviously, was groundbreaking in bringing really good information to people about colon cancer in a time where people didn't know about it.

• 1:45Kara Swisher?

  And what Katie did was saved a lot of people's lives by being a great reporter with facts and science on her side. Amy just blows up in this series, as you'll see, talking about how wellness went from a thing to make you feel better to a luxury item and how dangerous that could be. And of course, Jeff is my brother, and he's really smart about these issues. And I will tell you, he's the first person that told me that Elizabeth Holmes was full of shit when she was peddling that blood machine that never really worked. All right, let's get into my conversation with Katie, Amy, and Jeff. Stick around.

• 2:26Kara Swisher?

  Support for this show comes from The Guardian and their new show, Stateside, where journalists Kai Wright and Carter Sherman use the entire independent reporting resources of The Guardian to slow down the news and wrestle with the questions we all have about what is actually happening in the world. Join Kai and Carter three times a week as they utilize all the reporting resources The Guardian has across news, international coverage, climate, culture, wellness, and more. And The Guardian's not owned by a billionaire, they fearlessly report the facts without interference. Go to theguardian.com/stateside to learn more. And listen wherever you get your podcasts or watch on YouTube. That's theguardian.com/stateside.

• 3:10Kara Swisher?

  Support for this show comes from Odoo. Running a business shouldn't feel like surviving a software group project. One app for accounting, another for inventory, another for sales, and somehow, none of them ever talk to each other. That's where Odoo comes in. An all-in-one business management software that brings every part of your business together. From sales and accounting to inventory and marketing, all in one powerful platform. No messy integrations, no bouncing between tabs, and best of all, no spreadsheets. Stop managing software and start managing your business with one unified system. Try it today for free at Odoo.com/kara. That's O-D-O-O dot com slash Kara.

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• 4:39Kara Swisher?

  Katie, Amy, and Jeffrey, thank you for coming on, on. I appreciate it.

• 4:44Speaker 04

  Thanks for having us.

• 4:45Speaker 01

  Glad to be here, Kara.

• 4:46Speaker 00

  Thank you. Good to be here, Kara. And this is gonna be fun.

• 4:49Kara Swisher?

  All right, I'm excited to get the three of you together in conversation because I find that sometimes these kind of unexpected groupings of people lead to some of the most interesting conversations. And each of you, in your own way, have talked and reported on and discussed, and Jeff practices, healthcare. And so, let's take a minute and each of you explain your personal and professional connections to health, science, and wellness. Let's start with Katie, then Amy, then Jeff.

• 5:11Speaker 00

  Okay, well, I think many people remember, my husband Jay was diagnosed with stage four colon cancer in 1997 and died nine months later. He was just 42 years old when he passed away, and our daughters were six and two. It was really my first experience losing someone close to me, and my first experience with cancer in a real way. And so, I think because of my position at the time, I was co-anchor of the Today Show, I used that as an opportunity to educate the public about colorectal cancer, which is now the number one cancer killer of people under the age of 50. And we can talk in

• 5:56Speaker 00

  a little bit, Kara, about early onset cancers, which are on the rise. But subsequently, I lost my sister Emily to pancreatic cancer just a couple of years later, when she was 54, and a rising star in the Democratic Party in Virginia. Anyway, as a result of those two losses, I became a fierce advocate for colon cancer screening and cancer research in general. I am one of the co-founders of Stand Up to Cancer, and really advocating for early detection screening and more research dollars committed to finding better treatments. And one day, hopefully, a cure has really been my most important life's work.

• 6:38Kara Swisher?

  Yeah, and you have also been doing that. You did a colonoscopy on camera. You also were diagnosed with breast cancer and talked about it a lot, which raised the The profile in many ways.

• 6:48Speaker 00

  I I hope, you know, one of the things that I've been able to accomplish is to de-stigmatize these diseases, you know, I think even though Ronald Reagan had polyps and I guess, did he have early stage colon cancer? I can't remember. There's still this shame and discomfort about talking about that part of our bodies. And like every part of our body, as Amy will tell you, we have to keep that healthy. And I later was diagnosed with early stage breast cancer just a few years ago. And so I use that as an opportunity to educate women about dense breasts and the fact that mammograms alone can't necessarily detect breast cancer, especially

• 7:32Speaker 00

  in the 42% of women over the age of 40 who have dense breasts. So I've really tried to use my personal experiences, Cara, dealing with these various forms of cancer to first educate myself and then share what I've learned with the public at large. And it's been really gratifying work for me.

• 7:52Kara Swisher?

  Yeah, it was very groundbreaking when you did that colonoscopy. I think shocking to people, too, and in a good way.

• 7:57Speaker 00

  I told them I draw the line at a pap smear.

• 8:00Kara Swisher?

  Okay, well, today you do. All right, Amy?

• 8:03Speaker 04

  So my background is as a journalist. I was a fashion journalist for many years at New York Magazine. And I switched over when I started realizing that this thing called wellness was really eclipsing fashion in the zeitgeist. And I kept hearing about it and all the fashion people were talking about it. They were switching over their fashion careers to juicing or cleansing. And I noticed that wellness and our health was kind of occupying the space that luxury handbags used to. And supplements were the new accessories. And

• 8:44Speaker 04

  I became really interested in that. And I originally conceived of the book I wound up writing that came out last year called How to Be Well, as a kind of lighthearted thing. And then halfway through my reporting, COVID happened. And it made me realize this wasn't just a lighthearted thing. The way we treat health in this country is really serious. And treating health like a luxury product is actually quite dangerous. So I ended up spending about five years writing and researching a book all about what I call the wellness epidemic in America, which is both the light stuff about boutique fitness

• 9:25Speaker 04

  classes and colonic's and face creams and supplements, and also the kind of deeper stuff about what happens to a culture that does treat healthcare and market healthcare like a luxury good.

• 9:42Kara Swisher?

  Right. And you also were looking into a lot of false stuff.

• 9:45Speaker 04

  Oh, my God, the false stuff. We better get to that.

• 9:48Kara Swisher?

  We'll get to that. Jeff, you go ahead.

• 9:50Speaker 01

  Well, as you mentioned, I'm a physician. I have been a doctor now for, what, more than 35 years? I'm an anesthesiologist, and so a lot of my practice, more and more because insurance pays for it, is doing anesthesia for colonoscopies and upper endoscopies. So I certainly see tremendous amount of those kind of cases. And I do also, my specialty is liver transplantation and just general surgery as well. So I'm seeing a lot of younger and younger patients with cancer, not just colon cancer, but colon cancer that's metastasized to the liver and to other areas where that is now a problem. Katie, I'm so sorry about your husband.

• 10:35Speaker 00

  Thanks, Jeff.

• 10:36Speaker 01

  It's just tragic. I don't know if you know that Cara and I lost our dad when he was 34 years old. He had a brain aneurysm.

• 10:44Speaker 00

  I remember Cara telling me that, and my goodness, so young.

• 10:49Speaker 01

  It is. It's so, but Cara asked how we got involved in health issues. We're from a health family because we've had other, my aunt was a physician as well. And I personally have had issues with, I have muscular dystrophy as well, and I've been dealing with that since age 40. And very Recently, unfortunately, in the last year, my wife was diagnosed with stage three colon cancer.

• 11:11Speaker 00

  Oh, my gosh, I'm so sorry.

• 11:13Speaker 01

  So, and she's doing, she's doing well, but I mean, certainly, I suppose, over the course of this, we can talk about some of her experiences.

• 11:19Speaker 00

  I would love to hear about them.

• 11:21Speaker 01

  And I recently, in the last couple of weeks, have had a little surprise thing happen to me. I'm 65 years old, you know, Medicare age, thank you. And I recently discovered that I have fairly significant coronary artery disease. And 10 days ago, I had a stent put into my heart.

• 11:37Speaker 00

  Oh, my goodness.

• 11:37Speaker 01

  I know. Wow, God, you look great. Thank you. Yeah, it looks good. So, we can talk about that, too.

• 11:43Speaker 00

  That's so interesting that you just found that out at this point at 65. I'm surprised there weren't any indications previously.

• 11:49Speaker 01

  Well, that's where we can talk about issues about screening, etc. And this is something that I'm sure this conversation, we can discuss about screening and about the values of predictive testing and various things like that.

• 11:59Kara Swisher?

  Yeah, because a lot of his signs weren't showing that at all.

• 12:02Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 12:03Kara Swisher?

  Which was interesting.

• 12:03Speaker 01

  And it's very true with colon cancer. Many people, like my wife, for instance, who had a normal colonoscopy 10 years ago, out of the blue, developed colon cancer just six months before her next colonoscopy.

• 12:15Speaker 00

  But every 10 years, I would say, that's a little long to wait, Jeff.

• 12:20Speaker 01

  Of course it is. Unfortunately, that's what the guidelines are. Anyway, we'll go into that.

• 12:24Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 12:24Kara Swisher?

  So, let's talk about what's happened, because one of the things that's been significant is there's been so much misinformation around what it means to live a healthy life. Because as the explosion of information has happened, the explosion of misinformation has happened really rather significantly. Katie, as a journalist, you see firsthand how people have lost faith with institutions and experts. Now, we have a vaccine skeptic, I would say more than that, running HHS. Unfortunately, getting people accurate information isn't enough. People believe what they want to believe. So, talk about why you think healthcare have been particularly vulnerable to misinformation. Because one of the things you set out to do was give information and do good reporting on the topic.

• 12:59Speaker 00

  It is so upsetting. You know, I read a book a while ago called The Death of Expertise. And I guess it, I don't know really why it's happened, but this idea that experts shouldn't be trusted is so counterintuitive and antithetical to everything.

• 13:17Speaker 00

  I believe, and I mean, I think part of it is what Amy has investigated, which is this plethora of wellness influencers, right, who purport to have a background that would allow them to give medical advice, and they don't know shit from Shinola, basically, while we're on the subject of colonoscopies. And there's just this widespread effort to basically tell people things that have nothing to do with expertise. And I mean, there's a whole psychological thing going on with misinformation. I was talking to David Axelrod earlier today. We're talking as we're going to be doing a panel on truth and facts, and

• 13:59Speaker 00

  Andrew Ross Sorkin was there, too. And we're all saying, some people, they don't, you know how Jack Nicholson said, you can't handle the truth? A lot of people just don't want to know the truth, you know? It's, it's, I think, kind of, knowledge has been so inextricably linked to identity now, or a view of the world, to who you are and what team you're on, that people, it seems to me, don't want to know factual information. And I think they want shortcuts. They don't necessarily want hard truths about what they need to do. I don't know. I'd love to hear what everyone else thinks, and why, why this has

• 14:40Speaker 00

  happened. But plus, you have leaders. You have people in positions of authority, you know, to basically giving factually incorrect medical information. So I can understand why the average person is confused, right?

• 14:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:57Kara Swisher?

  So Jeffrey, why do you think people are more inclined to trust a random person online over a doctor? Was it COVID that was pushing over there? Was it social media?

• 15:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think the combination of social media and COVID. COVID was a watershed moment for this country. And it's the first time we actually had a pandemic while we had social media. And of course, everybody becomes an armchair expert. And, you know, in retrospect, some of the ways that things were rolled out could have been done better. But let's just, you know, listening. Dr. Fauci is a national hero. And the fact that he was vilified by the Trump administration was literally one of the most horrific things that happened during that administration. And I think the combination of everybody's got a platform, everybody has a voice, and not all opinions are valid. You know, like, it's the old adage that, you know, you're welcome to your opinion, but you're not welcome to your own facts.

• 15:46Speaker 01

  Well, people felt like their facts were more valid than than everything else. And so we have this problem now that, you know, doctors aren't trusted, priests aren't trusted, you know, et cetera.

• 15:57Kara Swisher?

  What has the medical profession done that has created that? Is it just that people have new facts that they can use at their disposal? Or is there something that happened?

• 16:06Speaker 04

  Well, I think there's a few things that are super problematic within the medical profession that have happened. One is the increase in sort of for-profit endeavors inside of the medical community. Right? So if you have a doctor who's pushing their own for-profit supplement line, for example, we all know that supplements, they're not great. Right?

• 16:34Kara Swisher?

  No.

• 16:35Speaker 04

  They're not going to improve your health.

• 16:36Kara Swisher?

  Very few are great.

• 16:37Speaker 04

  Very few.

• 16:38Kara Swisher?

  Well, that's not true. Some are good. I mean, like, I-

• 16:41Speaker 04

  All right, let her finish, and then I want to hear from you.

• 16:42Kara Swisher?

  Okay, I will.

• 16:43Speaker 04

  If you have a diagnosed deficiency in vitamin D, if you have a diagnosed iron deficiency, you need to supplement. But really, the first line of defense should be a healthy diet. You start with, say, dermatologists. I think what you're seeing is because of the merger of the beauty and the health industries in what you call wellness, you get into a position where you don't know, you're like, am I at the doctor? I'm at a spa. Where am I? What's happening? Like, is this medicine? Is this something else? So the kind of world in which healthcare and spa world are merging creates a kind of for-profit industry in which beauty and medicine-

• 17:33Speaker 04

  Merge.

• 17:34Kara Swisher?

  I mean, Gwyneth Paltrow's Goop was sort of the first avatar.

• 17:37Speaker 04

  Yeah, and so you start getting into a world in which you get the kind of hybrid influencer person. You also get into a world in which a lot of people don't have relationships with their doctors, right? So because of the way the healthcare system is set up, a lot of people go to the emergency room when they're sick. They don't have a GP who they have a relationship with. So if you're feeling sick, you don't call, you don't have your doctor who you're able to reach easily, right? So, I mean, the idea that Dr. Oz is so-called America's doctor is more true than, I mean, you're getting a lot of your

• 18:21Speaker 04

  health information on social media, on television, because you don't have that personal relationship with a doctor who you trust, who's someone you know, you have known for years, who's familiar with your health history.

• 18:36Kara Swisher?

  Right, so you don't have that relationship, so you're having these online, these.

• 18:39Speaker 04

  So you don't have the relationship, so you don't have anyone that you trust, so you're turning to these other sources.

• 18:44Kara Swisher?

  These parasocial relationships.

• 18:46Speaker 04

  That's right.

• 18:46Kara Swisher?

  Katie, what were you gonna add?

• 18:47Speaker 00

  Well, I mean, I don't think you can say all supplements are bad, Amy. I think that, I don't think that's accurate. I think that, yes, food should be the first line of recourse, but there are, I think there are supplements that help. And there was a Cosmo study about multivitamins that showed that it actually had a very positive impact on cognitive decline or slowing cognitive decline. So I was just interviewing somebody about longevity, actually, a couple of days ago, and she mentioned it, and I started taking a multivitamin. And I'm 69 years old, and I thought, it's not gonna hurt me, I'll just pee out what I don't absorb, right? Anyway, so I'm not a big supplement person, but I don't like blanket statements either.

• 19:32Speaker 04

  That's totally fair. I think the supplement market has gone berserk.

• 19:37Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 19:38Speaker 04

  And I think people spend a lot of money. On things without great deliverable outcomes.

• 19:45Kara Swisher?

  So, Dr. Swisher, why don't you jump in here?

• 19:48Speaker 01

  Well, I mean, I, you know, I'll take a middle road. Some supplements have shown some benefit, like creatine has some benefit. Vitamins have some benefit for people who are vitamin deficient. If you have a balanced diet, you're getting mostly more than you need for vitamins and minerals. And as Katie says, you tend to just pee out stuff. Now, the fat soluble vitamins like vitamin D, vitamin E, et cetera, can be problematic if you have an excess. There is something called hypervitaminosis D where that's a problem. It's very rare. I mean, if you want to spend your money on worthless things, go for it. In the manosphere, you know, you just did that really excellent thing with Louis Theroux and about the whole manosphere and the promotion. But the one thing is, when you say doctors, I mean, that's a very tiny percentage of physicians.

• 20:33Speaker 01

  Most of us are literally clinicians. We care about our patients. We want to do the right thing. And

• 20:40Speaker 04

  Oh, absolutely.

• 20:41Speaker 01

  You're talking about social media.

• 20:43Speaker 04

  I'm pro doctor and the

• 20:46Speaker 01

  We're looking at 0.1% of physicians.

• 20:49Speaker 04

  Absolutely. The disbelief of experts I find terrifying. I find the anti-vax movement terrifying. I find the fact that we've gotten ourselves painted in this position where so few Americans have personal relationships with their doctors that they consider Dr. Oz, the doctor they know best, so upsetting. Or Gwyneth Paltrow, they get their medical information from Goop.

• 21:19Kara Swisher?

  We'll be back in a minute.

• 21:29Kara Swisher?

  Support for this show comes from The Guardian. Trying to locate news sources that reliably separate fact from fiction can seem like looking for a needle in a haystack these days. Social media feeds, cable news, and subscription-based news outlets might be able to give you one version of the news, but not in the way that you need. You want news fast, but slow enough to actually absorb the information. Stay tuned with Kai Wright. And Carter Sherman is here to do just that. The podcast tries to slow down the news and wrestle with the questions regarding the world at large at your own pace. Three times a week, hosts Kai Wright and Carter Sherman bring their expertise together to showcase different and engaging perspectives regarding the world today. They will use their collective knowledge to discuss the news, international affairs,

• 22:12Kara Swisher?

  climate, culture, sports, lifestyle, fashion, and wellness. Plus, The Guardian wants to emphasize they're not billionaire owned, meaning they're free to report the whole picture without interference. Go to theguardian.com/stateside to learn more and listen wherever you get your podcasts or watch on YouTube starting May 13.

• 22:32Speaker 05

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• 23:03Kara Swisher?

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• 24:09Kara Swisher?

  So Katie, you know, a lot of this started with television and with Oprah and things like that, and you obviously delivered good information about colon cancer, right? Really, it's solidly reported information. When you watched that develop, what did that seem like when you saw Oprah sort of platforming some people who had questionable situations? How do you look at that?

• 24:30Speaker 00

  Listen, whenever I would impart medical information, I would talk to experts. I would talk to doctors, you know? And of course, everything that I talked about when it came to colorectal cancer was vetted and, you know, was scientifically proven stuff. You know, I didn't watch a lot of Oprah, to be honest with you. What I got upset with is, I think there was a big piece on Dr. Oz and the fact that he was financially benefiting from some of these, and I'm sure Amy, you probably really looked into this in your book, but was financially benefiting from all these different cures and, you know, berries and supplements and pills.

• 25:12Kara Swisher?

  Green tea extract, yeah.

• 25:13Speaker 00

  Yeah, like, and I thought, this is so wrong. And he was such a well-respected, I think he was a cardiac surgeon.

• 25:21Kara Swisher?

  He was a cardiac surgeon.

• 25:23Speaker 01

  Cardiothoracic surgeon.

• 25:24Speaker 00

  And I remember, you know, I know a lot of doctors, I think just because of my cancer advocacy work, and he was so highly thought of.

• 25:31Kara Swisher?

  He's such a complicated figure because he was such a well-respected doctor.

• 25:36Speaker 00

  And then he became just such a sellout. And I just think it was irresponsible, obviously, in cases when he was giving junk science to have Oprah platform somebody like that. At the same time, I think it's really interesting because I think it does speak to what you were asking earlier of Jeff and Amy, like, what has the medical community done wrong? Why has there been this vacuum? And I think a lot of it is because not only do people not know their doctors, doctors, as Jeff can tell you, have very little time for their patients, you know? They have, what, 15 minutes to meet with them? And I think- The other problem that I've always noticed is people in the medical profession are notoriously

• 26:20Speaker 00

  bad at explaining stuff in an accessible, understandable way. You know, I know Alan Alda had this whole organization, I think he still does, where he works with scientists, helping them explain things in simple terms so people can understand. I had to learn how cancer and cancer therapies work because I was so desperate to find something for my husband. So I had to know, like, oh, anti-angiogenesis, that's like when you cut off a tumor's blood supply. So imagine a grape and the vine being cut and the grape shriveling up and dying. That's apoptosis. That's what happens to a tumor in cancer. But they're so bad at kind of helping people visualize stuff. I think it's created a lot of confusion.

• 27:05Speaker 04

  And I think I would say less, I mean, I would say rather than the medical profession, I would say like the problem of how little time doctors have with their patients has to do with the insurance companies, threats of law, like I would just, the whole way the healthcare industry is set up, as Jeff said, like, you know, my experience with doctors, my experience with nurses, it's like, these are people who have chosen a profession of caring and they're then sort of hamstrung, right? Like,

• 27:42Speaker 00

  Totally.

• 27:42Speaker 04

  They have no time. It's like,

• 27:45Kara Swisher?

  Let me, let me interject. Into the void comes all this very hand-wavy stuff. So, you know, and there's also hospital consolidation, a shortage of doctors. Let me just say, McKinsey estimates that the wellness industry, which is constrained, not the way someone like Jeff is, is estimated as worth about $2 trillion globally, and it's only growing.

• 28:03Speaker 04

  Oh, every time I do an interview, I have to check beforehand because it's bigger.

• 28:06Kara Swisher?

  So Jeff, when you think about this, like, is it the lack of ability to explain these people? Is it into the, you know, you must look at Instagram and lose your mind when you see some of this stuff. And I was on Google and I looked, these two young women who are huge, and I looked through all their claims and they, all of them were wrong, like, very wrong. Kind of stuff. And I called them and I said, you know, where did you find this out? I didn't even say you're very wrong. And they were like, oh, we Googled it. And I'm like, oh, my God, you're very wrong. Like, it was really, they were non-constrained, I would say, because they're not clinicians. And then you have AI, which is giving advice, non-constrained in the same way you are. Talk a little bit about that.

• 28:44Speaker 01

  All right. So in the area where I know, obviously, a lot about is anesthesiology. And I'll give you two areas in anesthesia where there is so much misinformation. And one of those is epidural anesthesia for labor. The amount of nonsense that is on the Internet about epidurals and horrible things. I actually wrote a Substack piece called You May Get Groceries in my Substack, about my personal experience as an anesthesiologist when my wife went into labor. And it was a hilarious situation where, you know, a doula went up and put up these crazy things about these horrible, you know, dying of narcotic overdose when the child is 22, things like that. And so I went up to the board and I wrote, you know, trip to the grocery store.

• 29:27Speaker 01

  And I wrote, you know, attacked by aliens, anally probed, blah, blah, blah. And I wrote down the corner, you might get groceries. I mean, because the reality is, it's nonsense what most of people are posting. The other is spinal anesthesia, for instance. Nonsense. There's so much nonsense about this kind of anesthesia in general. So my area, I can see how easily it is to have misconstrued information on the Internet. I can't even imagine how complex somebody like an oncologist, when they're trying to write super complex stuff, how much nonsense there is about. And again, everybody has an opinion, not based on anything but opinion, with no expertise whatsoever. It gets very difficult to explain very complex things. And medicine has gotten very complex.

• 30:11Speaker 01

  I mean, when we look at drugs like Repatha, which is a, you know, a PCKS9 inhibitor, you know, what does that even mean, right? When you're throwing all these names around, and we do that. We tend to use complex language to describe very complex things. And it's very difficult to make it simple.

• 30:28Kara Swisher?

  Yeah.

• 30:28Speaker 01

  And I think that's where we could benefit from trying to do that.

• 30:31Kara Swisher?

  Yeah, my husband and I had this, like,

• 30:34Speaker 04

  That we play called, I don't know, but if I had to guess, which is like, we're intelligent people and you take like a tiny shred of information and then you're sort of spin out a narrative thread. And I feel like that is kind of what wellness, social media does, right? And I think of it like collagen is my favorite example. Like you will never find anything that tells you collagen products work. Like you can drink it, you can slather it.

• 31:04Kara Swisher?

  You will not find it.

• 31:06Speaker 04

  You will not find a single thing that tells you, you're going to get that collagen to grow again in your face. Like unless you find a time machine, like that's just it. It's not happening. But you can just picture like all these rooms where people are like collagen. Okay. So it's the thing that makes your skin young again. So maybe if you push it like this, or like, you know, you can find the demos with like these people being like, the method is you make it warm and then you smoosh it or you drink it and then you gargle it or whatever it is. Like you just make up the stories.

• 31:42Speaker 01

  Look at this Artemis thing. I mean, right now, look at all the nonsense that's on about flat earth and about, you know, Apollo hoax. I mean, what, seriously, how is this even possible that these things are being propagated on the internet, you know?

• 31:56Speaker 04

  Yeah. So Katie, I want to ask you a question about getting to the real stuff and people getting good information. Now, you're a huge advocate for early cancer screenings because of your first husband. Talk about where we are now in this environment. If you were doing that today, how would you get people better information? Because you can imagine how then everyone was like, oh, and listen to you, right? Because besides getting the colonoscopy on screen, they believed you, right? Or they felt like you did your work. So, and especially because of the increase in cancer rates in people under 50.

• 32:27Speaker 00

  I think they thought I was responsible, right? You know?

• 32:30Speaker 04

  Yeah. Yeah. So what would you do today?

• 32:32Speaker 00

  Hmm. Today? Uh, well, I think good old fashioned media literacy is really important. I mean, I know some people don't care about it. I can only operate from like the reality I know, because I don't understand Jeff, Amy and Cara, how people can. Perpetrate all this crazy shit out there. I mean, I just, it leaves me scratching my head. But I think that I would continue doing what I always do. And that is talking about people with deep, deep experience in a certain area. And also, whenever I follow someone, you know, I follow a woman named Jessica Nurek, who really disputes a lot of the Maha claims. They believe in evidence-based medicine.

• 33:16Speaker 00

  And so, I really do trust when they refute something that's being put out there in the ether. And I look at their credentials. I read their reports. I see what they're talking about. And I make a decision. I can trust this person. But I'm somebody who has a basic background in science and medicine. I mean, very basic. Obviously, I'm not a doctor, but I've learned a lot. So, how do you get the average person not to fall for these scams? And I think one thing you hit on, Cara, is this parasocial relationship. And Amy, you did an interview for our newsletter with Sarah Levine, our editor. And you talked about, you know, I think people, there's so much magical thinking. People want answers.

• 34:01Speaker 00

  And honestly, they often don't like the answers that they get. You know, they want to believe.

• 34:07Speaker 04

  Absolutely.

• 34:08Speaker 00

  You know, my joints hurt. I want to believe that collagen is going to make me less achy when I get up in the morning. I want to believe that I'm going to be more flexible with collagen, you know? And so, I think that people, you know, are grasping for ways to feel better. And I think there is a lot of suffering out there, you know?

• 34:28Speaker 04

  There's so much. And I think that's one of the things. I've followed this very, with, with a lot of great interest. I'm 50 years old, so fill into that what you will. Where it comes to menopause. So. The case of menopause fascinates me because you have a situation where there was some bad information out there, right? Which was that hormone replacement therapy was very dangerous, don't do it, right? So you have a number of years where women are just like, nope, not doing it.

• 34:59Kara Swisher?

  I don't want to get breast cancer.

• 35:01Speaker 04

  I don't want to get cancer, right? I don't want blood clots, I don't want cancer. They swear it off. Then you have this kind of perfect storm of a number of factors happening, which is that that information is revisited. Actually, it's very safe for a great number of women, under a great number of circumstances, that collides with the acceleration of women's willingness to be treated online, which was accelerated greatly during COVID, when telemedicine. And also with the accessibility of drugs online, all of those things that became very available. I'd say COVID probably accelerated that by, I think, estimates around 10 to 15 years. We're way ahead of where anyone expected we would be, people's willingness to be treated

• 35:45Speaker 04

  by a doctor or nurse online. And tons of EC capital just gets dumped into this idea of treating women with menopause online. Now, it was suddenly like, we went from HRT will give you cancer, to HRT is going to do your dishes, wash your car, pay your taxes, throw away...

• 36:05Kara Swisher?

  It won't pay your taxes, but go ahead.

• 36:07Speaker 04

  But it was like, you know, like, throw down your crutches, HRT is here. And what I realized in reporting on these new menopause treatments is like, there's this great news, which is that we're treating menopause more seriously, there's drug therapies that can benefit a great number of people with a great number of symptoms, but it is not a cure-all, it is not a miracle, it is not going to fix everything. And in so much of the marketing of these new menopause treatment brands...

• 36:44Speaker 04

  What you were seeing was basically the erasure of menopause. What you weren't being told was, you will still go through menopause. You will still age. You might still have some difficulties.

• 36:56Kara Swisher?

  Right.

• 36:56Speaker 04

  What you were being told was, menopause, done. Fixed.

• 37:00Kara Swisher?

  Yeah.

• 37:00Speaker 04

  Over.

• 37:01Kara Swisher?

  Right, right.

• 37:03Speaker 04

  And that's what I was interested in. And what came out of that for me is what you were saying, Katie, is that like, nobody wants to suffer. And there is so much suffering out there. Menopause is difficult, even with HRT. It might still be difficult. You might get some relief. You might get relief from this symptom and not that. It might work for some period of time and then stop.

• 37:24Kara Swisher?

  So it's this idea that we can have this certainty. Jeff, as a doctor, how do you work with patients to acknowledge it? Avoid an uncertainty because like Katie and Amy said, patients want.

• 37:32Speaker 04

  Life is complicated.

• 37:34Kara Swisher?

  Yeah, but they don't want to hear that. Both of them said that. And I think it's true. One of the things you used to complain a lot was Dr. Google, besides TV medical shows, which you'd call and yell at me about as if I wrote them.

• 37:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 37:44Kara Swisher?

  But.

• 37:44Speaker 01

  Well, the pit's actually getting it pretty right, except for. I love the pit.

• 37:48Speaker 04

  The pit.

• 37:49Speaker 01

  So.

• 37:50Kara Swisher?

  So how do you, when you deal with the patients who are in a different state of mind, who are like addled on the internet, they think everything, like certain things, like, I don't know, whatever it happens to be that I encountered in the series I did. It was like, one thing sort of helped something, but now it's sold as helping everything.

• 38:05Speaker 01

  So listen, from my perspective as an anesthesiologist, I am very fortunate that I am in a medical profession in which what I do is pretty definitive. I mean, you know, there's not really an illusion of cure in anesthesiology. I mean, I kept people through very dangerous circumstances and operations and things that are, you know, routine things as well. But one of the things that an anesthesiologist has to be very good at is the broad range of medicine. So I do talk to patients in their preoperative evaluations about their conditions, et cetera, et cetera. And so I have the ability to discuss, you know, health issues with them. And it all goes down to the basics though, Cara. I mean, the most important things about health are things that we all know already. You know, basically diet, exercise, nutrition, don't smoke, don't overdrink, et cetera, et cetera. That's the fundamentals of, you know, good health.

• 38:50Speaker 01

  Everything else is very bespoke. I mean, everybody comes with. Individual drug issues, are they on? What is the side effects? You know, should I change this? Should I change that? Again, it is complex. There is no simple solution to most medical problems. But the fundamentals of health, it is fairly straightforward. And we've talked about that for your show.

• 39:12Kara Swisher?

  Yeah, absolutely. So when each of you think about this longevity industry. Now, I spent a year talking to various people about it. Katie, why don't you start? When you think about what it is to you and what it's become, how do you look at it? Because it really is quite a trend. The money is like pouring into it from tech moguls, a lot of them who don't want to die or want to look better. And they don't. They don't, sorry. It's a lot of money to spend to look like that.

• 39:38Speaker 00

  I mean, listen, I'm interested in it. I'm 69. In January, I'm going to be fucking 70 years old, you guys.

• 39:46Speaker 01

  You look great.

• 39:47Speaker 00

  Thank you.

• 39:48Kara Swisher?

  You look great. Must be the collagen.

• 39:52Kara Swisher?

  And the HRT.

• 39:53Speaker 00

  You know, and so I'm interested. But I also, I think because I'm a journalist, Kara, I'm skeptical and I'm reasonable. So I look at things and I think, well, this might be able to help me. And, you know, like lately, I've been thinking, and Amy, you can tell me whether this is a waste of money. Kara, you too. Should I buy a red light mat? You know, are red light mats helpful to? Because honestly, I'm achy. I'm achy, you know? My joints are achy.

• 40:24Kara Swisher?

  Take a hot bath. You probably have a tub. Take a hot bath.

• 40:27Speaker 00

  I take Epsom salt baths, but I keep, and the magnesium, I guess, is good. But I keep reading about this red light therapy. You know, somebody gave me one of those masks that makes you look like Hannibal Lecter, and they're so scary. And I was actually thinking, I saw on Instagram, some lady who said, this is my single life. And I watched the whole damn thing. She came home, she wiped her, what do you call those red?

• 40:52Kara Swisher?

  Oh, my God.

• 40:52Speaker 00

  What are those shoes? She cooked herself like scallops in her air fryer.

• 40:56Kara Swisher?

  I love that you're believing randos on IG.

• 40:59Speaker 00

  But she looked like she had a great time. And then she stretched on this red light mat. And I was like, damn. Should I stretch on that red mat?

• 41:06Kara Swisher?

  No.

• 41:07Speaker 00

  No?

• 41:07Speaker 04

  I mean, no. If you want to, I feel like, you know, a big part of my book is like, no shame. Look, like, Katie, we're not gonna judge you. You want your mat, get your mat.

• 41:16Speaker 00

  But I don't wanna waste money if it's gonna do nothing.

• 41:19Speaker 04

  Take a bath. I mean, look, like, whatever gets you through the night, you know? But like, is it going to change anything?

• 41:27Kara Swisher?

  Jeff is not over here.

• 41:29Speaker 00

  So I guess the answer to your question, Cara, is, I'm interested. I try to be an educated consumer. But I too, because I wanna feel good and I wanna age well.

• 41:42Speaker 04

  We all get sucked in.

• 41:44Speaker 00

  I'm vulnerable and susceptible to scams.

• 41:46Speaker 04

  We're all vulnerable.

• 41:47Speaker 00

  And to stuff that doesn't work, it doesn't do anything, right? I don't know.

• 41:51Speaker 04

  I literally wrote the book. I actually wrote the book. And then I will buy dumb shit all the time.

• 41:57Kara Swisher?

  Yeah, that's, exactly. So one of the things with red lights, no, the science is very thin. And if you're a plant in space, you'll do great. If you're, yes, the science is very skinny on it. And if you have some, it may have some inflammatory help. It may have some comfort.

• 42:16Speaker 00

  Isn't being anti-inflammatory, wouldn't that be helpful to me, Dr. Swisher?

• 42:20Kara Swisher?

  Yes, but you could do it in a lot of different ways that don't cost $3,000.

• 42:25Speaker 01

  That would be a very minimal way of being an anti-inflammatory. There's probably, you know, I mean, unfortunately, inflammation's a very, again, a very complex science, and there's no simple solutions to, you know, anti-inflammatory stuff.

• 42:37Speaker 00

  And don't you think, you guys, that so many people, like, they don't wanna exercise for 30 minutes, three times a week? So they're like, tell me something else I can do. Give me a pill I can take. Give me a cream I can use. Because honestly, I'm just lazy. And by the way, I'm speaking for myself, too. I'm lazy. And sometimes I'm like, wow, if I didn't have to do that, I don't want, I really don't wanna do that. What else can I do? Show me.

• 43:03Kara Swisher?

  Fair, but, nothing, nothing, actually.

• 43:06Speaker 04

  I went to a place, it was, it's since closed, but where they would wrap you up like in a burrito wrapper, and then make you so hot that your heart went like you were on the treadmill. But you were just watching Netflix in your burrito wrapper. And they were like, but we've got your heart at like the same rate that it would be on the treadmill. Oh, no.

• 43:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, but you're not increasing your cellular oxygenation, so.

• 43:27Speaker 04

  But I thought I was gonna die. I thought I was gonna... I was hitting the like help button. I was like, ah!

• 43:32Kara Swisher?

  Yes. No, not good, not good. A lot of people, it's fine. If you extras... Anyway, get it if you want to. It makes you feel better, just like a lot of things.

• 43:40Speaker 00

  No, I'm not going to now. You kinda yucked my yam, those kids.

• 43:45Kara Swisher?

  It's sorry, I'm sorry.

• 43:46Speaker 01

  These red light people are gonna be after you now, Kara.

• 43:48Kara Swisher?

  I know, they are. Wait till the peptides people come for me. Oh, God. The best thing, if I had to take away two things from this series I did, is don't be poor and have a lot of friends, and GLP-1s and AI detection is really interesting, as so is CRISPR. Like, wow, the scientific stuff is really fascinating.

• 44:10Kara Swisher?

  We'll be back in a minute.

• 44:19Kara Swisher?

  Support for this show comes from Indeed. When the pressure's on and you need to hire the right person for the job, Indeed Sponsored Jobs has got your back. Instead of forcing you to spend tons of time searching, Indeed Sponsored Jobs matches you with quality candidates, fast. According to their data, sponsored jobs posted directly on Indeed are 95% more likely to report a hire than non-sponsored jobs. Join the 3.3 million employers worldwide that use Indeed to connect with quality talent that fits their needs. Spend less time searching and more time actually interviewing candidates who check all your boxes. Less stress, less time, more results. When you need the right person to cut through the chaos, this is the job for Indeed Sponsored Jobs.

• 45:01Kara Swisher?

  And listeners to this show will get a $75 sponsored job credit to help get your job the premium status it deserves at indeed.com/podcast. Just go to indeed.com/podcast right now and support our show by saying you heard about Indeed on this podcast. That's indeed.com/podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Need the right hire fast? Then this is the job for Indeed Sponsored Jobs.

• 45:30Kara Swisher?

  I'm Kara Swisher, and I like people who say the quiet part out loud. In fact, I love it. That's Tiger Sisters, a new podcast that recently joined the Vox Media Podcast Network. Cherie Brooke Lu and Jean Lu are real sisters who built their careers at LinkedIn and Goldman Sachs. On their weekly podcast, they're giving the next generation practical tips on how to get ahead, how to write emails people actually answer, how to make your LinkedIn profile stand out, and how to keep learning as an adult. It's straight talk about money, career, and relationships every Monday. Follow Tiger Sisters wherever you get your podcasts.

• 46:06Kara Swisher?

  So I want to finish up talking about two more things is prevention broadly. One of the things I think I really do say in this series is GLP-1s are really interesting, and so is this AI cancer detection, and not just cancer detection, drug discovery and things like that. And of course, the AI people oversell it, as always, that it's going to solve every problem. Jeff, first you, and then Katie, and then Amy, talk about what you're seeing that you think is really promising in whatever area you're in.

• 46:34Speaker 01

  Well, okay, so let me just very briefly. GLP-1s and GIP medicines are very promising. And I think that we're going to find more and more indications for them aside from diabetes management, weight loss, et cetera, anti-inflammatory effects of these drugs, cardiac beneficial effects, especially now they're going to transition to more oral forms of it that'll allow more people to kind of overcome that resistance to injecting themselves. As far as AI medications go, I had the pleasure this past weekend of being at a party with Mark Tessier Levine, who was the president of Stanford for many years, and

• 47:08Speaker 00

  Until Peter Baker's son got him fired, but go ahead.

• 47:12Speaker 01

  I know, I know. Yeah, I know. That was such a, that was really sad. He's a charming, charming man. And anyway, his company is looking at what he calls the high-hanging fruit of the AI drug market. There's a lot of low-hanging fruit associated with AI drug discovery, but there is a lot of other medications which will be very specific towards cancer therapies, monoclonal antibodies, et cetera. I mean, look at colon cancer. Recently, there was a large study, I think it's called the CAS study, that just finished in January, that benefited my wife because the standard chemotherapy protocol, which was called Fallfox, oxaliplatin, lorazepam, 5FU.

• 47:53Speaker 00

  That's what my husband had.

• 47:55Speaker 01

  Right, and that's what my wife had too. But the five-year mortality of just that is still pretty high in stage three and stage four. But now, the addition of an antibody called etezolizumab has radically changed that. And this is due to these drug companies, which are now using novel drugs to develop monoclonal antibodies. And it's changing everything. It's changing malignant melanoma, it's changing colon cancer, it potentially will change pancreatic cancer. The third area, Cara, and you've mentioned it before, is the use of mRNA vaccines and the ability to potentially develop vaccines against cancer. There's very promising things with a very fatal cancer called glioblastoma, which is brain cancer.

• 48:38Speaker 01

  And some of these potential vaccines may actually cure this once completely fatal, you know, almost completely fatal type of cancer. So those are the three areas I'm really interested in.

• 48:51Kara Swisher?

  Katie, what are you, when you're looking into this stuff right now?

• 48:54Speaker 00

  Well, I'm excited. I think you're right, it's probably been overhyped, but there's so much to be frightened about when it comes to artificial intelligence. I think people are like, "Ah, but look what it will do for healthcare." And obviously, for my area of interest, early detection, AI is going to be a game changer. Because I think what it can do is, and Jeff, you can help me explain this, but you know, the large data sets that they can compare scans to are going to be really helpful to recognize very, very early stage, for example, breast cancer. And there's a woman who I read about, I want to interview her, Cara, you should talk to her.

• 49:36Speaker 00

  She is both a scientist and a breast cancer patient. And she worked on AI early detection. And It will not only be able to detect early, but it's going to be predictive. It's going to be able to say you are at high risk for getting breast cancer in the next five years, and then you can monitor it accordingly.

• 49:59Kara Swisher?

  It's called organ clocks. I just interviewed Eric Topol. He's like, that's the real move.

• 50:03Speaker 00

  Oh, I love him.

• 50:04Kara Swisher?

  Yeah, like detection of individual organs. And that's, to me, was his most.

• 50:08Speaker 00

  Yeah, so I'm super excited about that. The other thing I am really excited about, but I think they're not ready for prime time, and I get very distraught when I see them advertised on these various cable news networks, are so-called liquid biopsies, being able to determine if there is early-stage cancer or cells kind of floating around your bloodstream that can kind of indicate early on, oh, this is a problem. We talked a little bit about colon cancer, and the screening protocol is now starting at age 45. Only one in five people between the ages of 45 and 50 get screened, so we've got to get the word out about that. But you know, when Jay got diagnosed, you guys, I was like, oh, are people under 45,

• 50:53Speaker 00

  or in this case, it was 50 back in 1998, are these just expendable individuals? Because there was no screening for them. And I'm hearing more and more about people in their early 40s, 30s, even 20s, being diagnosed with this disease at an advanced stage, often metastatic colorectal cancer. It is so upsetting to me. So I'm hoping that there can be some test that's less invasive and more accessible, not as expensive, not as disruptive for your, you know, daily activities like a colonoscopy might be, and that these blood tests can be used, you know, to everyone who's going to get a physical. I don't know, I can't even tell you guys how crushing it is.

• 51:37Speaker 00

  I had coffee with an oncology fellow about two months ago, and she said, I had a very rough day. I just had to tell a 21-year-old college student with no family history, not Lynch syndrome, no familial polyposis, no kind of high risk, that he had stage IV colorectal cancer. And it just crushes me. And I hear these stories, I'm interviewing a 31-year-old, I think, next week, who is dealing with it. And, of course, I'm excited about...

• 52:14Speaker 00

  Trying to figure out why this is happening. You know, epidemiological studies are so hard to conduct, but there is something going on in our environment. It's not just obesity or sedentary lifestyle. You know, it's a confluence of things that include ultra-processed food, maybe microplastic, forever chemicals, over-prescription of antibiotics. I don't know what is happening, but something is going on. And there are 17 cancers, 17 cancers are increasing among people under 50. So what the fuck is going on?

• 52:49Kara Swisher?

  Yeah, it would be great to have a government who studies these things. Amy, what about you?

• 52:52Speaker 04

  Well, I was excited to hear you both talk about some of the AI things because, again, you know, I'm typically around writers and, you know, it's like AI is the devil. And then I was at the Aspen Conference last summer, I was speaking at the Aspen Conference, and I sat next to this woman who was talking about digital twinning.

• 53:09Speaker 00

  What is digital twinning?

• 53:11Speaker 04

  Well, Katie, it's when you can replicate your biological self through AI and then you can kind of run the tests.

• 53:23Kara Swisher?

  They test, I have an interview with Reid Jobs talking about this, who's the son of Steve Jobs.

• 53:28Speaker 04

  Beautiful. So it's basically like you can test, there's all these very specific cures for very specific cancers, but to test them is so expensive and so time-consuming. So you might have lung cancer, but you might have this 1% of lung cancer that they know how to treat, but to know if you have it is so complicated to know. Anyway, Jeff, you made a sigh there.

• 53:51Speaker 01

  Well, I think it

• 53:52Speaker 04

  It's very simplistic. I am not a physician.

• 53:54Speaker 01

  No, the degrees, unfortunately, it is a very interesting concept. I mean, especially, it's more interesting from a morphologic standpoint than an actual physiologic biochemical standpoint, because the degrees of freedom involved in the human body, it's enormous. You're talking 10 to the trillions, you know, kind of complexity. And so some of these things are in their nascent area and they are exciting. And I think Reid Jobs is a perfect example of somebody who really will be the future of what Medicine, it could be, but just keep in mind, it's we're very, very

• 54:28Speaker 04

  Very early.

• 54:29Speaker 01

  In the blastocyst stage, if you know developmental biology.

• 54:33Speaker 00

  Well, that idea is so exciting because I used to feel like when it came to cancer therapeutics, and I don't know, Jeff, if you feel like this, and I'm sure going through what you're going through with your wife. But, you know, they would just kind of throw it against the wall and see what sticks. And I remember there was one doctor when Jay was sick, who could take a tissue sample and put it in a Petri dish and then, you know, see how it interacted with various therapies. And, you know, when he was sick, it was 5FU and Lucoverone, that was it. And that had been around since the 50s. So they hadn't even added the oxaliplatin yet, you know, when Jay was sick. But this idea that, you know, cancer is like a million different diseases and a million different biologies.

• 55:15Speaker 00

  How it interacts with your body, it just varies from patient to patient. But the idea, I think, is so exciting that instead of using people as human guinea pigs and just trying these therapies and then testing their, you know, checking their CEA levels.

• 55:32Speaker 04

  That you could run all these possibilities.

• 55:35Speaker 00

  Yeah, that to me is thrilling if it could happen.

• 55:38Kara Swisher?

  It is actually, it is. The problem is when they overpromise. Like Jeff was the first person who told me Elizabeth Holmes was full of shit, just so you know.

• 55:46Speaker 01

  Oh, my God.

• 55:47Kara Swisher?

  Like, I wasn't going to cover her anyway, but she was around the tech sector quite a bit. She tried to look like Steve.

• 55:52Speaker 04

  And you just said, no.

• 55:53Kara Swisher?

  No, no, Jeff was like, you can't do that with a blood sample. You can't. Physics.

• 55:58Speaker 01

  It's just math.

• 55:59Speaker 00

  With a vial that you'd find in a dollhouse. I went to see her when I dropped my daughter off at Stanford. And I was, I called her and I was like, can I just come and say hi? And this was when she was such the it girl, you know, on the cover of every magazine. And it was, it was fascinating, but she seemed so sincere.

• 56:18Speaker 01

  Of course she was.

• 56:19Speaker 04

  Did you smell her at? Did you think?

• 56:20Speaker 01

  Oh, 100%.

• 56:22Speaker 00

  Well, Jeff did. I, I'm like so trusting and think the best of people. And I was like, wow, this is so exciting.

• 56:30Kara Swisher?

  No, he definitely was like, you can't do that.

• 56:32Speaker 00

  When she wouldn't do an interview. And I remember she did an interview at Vanity Fair. I don't know, Kara, if you were there at one of these summits.

• 56:40Kara Swisher?

  Yes, I was there.

• 56:41Speaker 00

  And, and do you remember Maria Shriver interviewed her? And I raised my hand and I said, can you explain how you can take a miniscule, a tiny drop of blood and determine so many different diseases from such a small sample of blood? I just don't understand it.

• 57:00Speaker 01

  Well, she, you know, she said, there, a chemistry happens was her direct quote. Yes, a chemistry does in fact happen.

• 57:06Speaker 00

  A chemistry happens.

• 57:07Speaker 01

  The math is not mathing.

• 57:08Kara Swisher?

  Yeah, Jeff kept yelling math at me.

• 57:10Speaker 01

  Not mathing. And I'm like, you know what? And this is where statistics and knowledge of basic science is a fundamental thing in looking at all of these things.

• 57:18Kara Swisher?

  Yes, I was sitting at a table of all people with Bob Iger and he goes, huh, you're always looking for women interview, you should interview her. I said, I think she's a liar. And he, he goes, why? And I said, she lied about a couple of small things, like her, who she was dating, where she was living, because I knew where she lived, you know what I mean? And she told all these lies and stories. And I said, then there's too much press. And then my brother says, there's no math to it. And so I think she's a liar. And he said, you think everyone's a liar? And I go, I think you're not a liar. And it was like, and it was, it was, it was a really interesting moment. Then a week later, it all got out and he goes, how did you know? And I said, I, I didn't, she just lied about her home. Like, it sounds dumb.

• 57:55Speaker 00

  We're good yin and yang, Kara. I believe everyone and you believe no one.

• 57:59Kara Swisher?

  I don't.

• 58:00Speaker 00

  But you asked the killer question. You didn't believe her.

• 58:02Kara Swisher?

  So let me finish up. After all we've discussed, what's the number one thing each of you would tell people about prioritizing about your health? And what's your secret to a longer life? Katie, then Amy, then Jeffrey, who I hope lives the longest of all, because he's my beloved brother.

• 58:21Speaker 00

  Oh, well, I hope we all live a long time.

• 58:23Kara Swisher?

  All right, Katie?

• 58:24Speaker 00

  I guess for me, um, I mean, I think it's just like the boring stuff, Cara. It's like eating well and moving your body, getting plenty of sleep. And I also really believe in the power of community. You know, I interviewed Vivek Murthy a lot when he was Surgeon General about the loneliness epidemic and how isolation and loneliness can be so detrimental to your health. So, and laugh. I try to enjoy my life and be positive. I mean, it's sort of boring and obvious, but that's, that's what I do.

• 59:01Speaker 04

  And by the way, there's more science to community, much more by far than there is red light. But go ahead, Amy. It's true. Um, I agree with everything Katie said. It is the basics. Uh, everyone is like, oh, come on. You did all this research, like, come on, you could tell me. And I'm like, God, I wish I'd be doing it. Uh, but it's the really boring stuff. It's getting enough sleep. It's drinking enough water. It's not eating junk food. It's being with your people. It's loving freely and all of those things. And as you said, it's also not being poor because the things that we're calling basics right now are really not available to a lot of people in this country.

• 59:42Speaker 00

  That's so true.

• 59:43Speaker 04

  And I think it's really important to acknowledge that. And I think when I said I had a really important moment when I was researching this book, when COVID happened, look who got sick and who died in America. It was not subtle. It was like a flashing neon sign. When you look at who got sick and who died in America of COVID.

• 1:00:07Speaker 00

  You're 100% right.

• 1:00:08Speaker 04

  It should have been the wake up call about how our healthcare is handled in this country. The racial and the socioeconomic divide was stark as could be. So the things we're calling basics are not basic for a lot of people.

• 1:00:26Speaker 00

  That is so important. I'm so glad you both called that out.

• 1:00:29Speaker 04

  So when people say to me like yoga or Pilates, I'm like, look, if you're talking yoga versus Pilates, like, you're fine.

• 1:00:38Speaker 00

  You know, I think about this all the time. I helped a friend of mine's dad who has a rare cancer.

• 1:00:46Speaker 00

  Get into a well-known institution and talk to a really experienced, smart doctor, where I think his clinician had no expertise in his specific kind of cancer. And I was like, this just sucks. You know, like, if you're not educated and informed about a certain situation, or you don't have contacts or connections, even if you aren't necessarily poor, you're kind of screwed. And I wish we could fix the whole healthcare system. And, you know, it shouldn't rely on your zip code, whether you can not only eat healthy, but whether you live or die.

• 1:01:27Speaker 00

  And the social determinants of health, if you want to get really depressed about healthcare in America, just look at, you know, who lives and who dies with certain diseases.

• 1:01:37Speaker 04

  Asthma, diabetes.

• 1:01:39Speaker 00

  It's terrible.

• 1:01:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly right. Zip code makes a huge difference.

• 1:01:45Kara Swisher?

  All right, Jeff, finish this up.

• 1:01:46Speaker 01

  So, I mean, quality over quantity. I mean, I'm a very strong believer that life without quality, you don't need to have quantity, it's just not worth it. So, I mean, the basics, floss your teeth, you know, hydrate, eat good food, and most importantly, as Cara is going to point out in her series, have connections, have social connections with your friends and family, be present and help others. And I think when you help others, you form a network that expands like ripples in a pond, and that's where we can do the most good for everybody and, you know, for ourselves. And that's how we live long and healthy and happy lives.

• 1:02:24Speaker 00

  What about my fish oil?

• 1:02:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, your fish oil's good. Yeah, except you get fish breath with fish oil.

• 1:02:30Speaker 00

  You burp a lot.

• 1:02:31Kara Swisher?

  Put that down and go cook yourself a piece of salmon.

• 1:02:35Speaker 00

  I'm having salmon. My husband's making me salmon right now.

• 1:02:39Kara Swisher?

  Well, then, put the fish oil down.

• 1:02:41Speaker 04

  You need the fish oil. It's too much.

• 1:02:43Speaker 01

  No, it's fine, it's fine. Fish oil's not going to hurt you, just don't take the whole bottle, but...

• 1:02:48Speaker 00

  Thank you, Jeff.

• 1:02:49Speaker 01

  You know. And I read your colonic chapter in your book, Amy, holy moly, how did you agree to do that?

• 1:02:58Speaker 04

  You know, I was like, I'm never gonna do it again. It was horrible. Oh, my God, that subway ride home to Brooklyn.

• 1:03:05Kara Swisher?

  All right, we'll end on that. And then we can see what it, you can see what happens to me when I take ketamine in the first episode of the show. Anyway, oh, never again.

• 1:03:16Speaker 01

  Hey, it's a great drug. I use it on people every single day. It's a fantastic medication.

• 1:03:20Kara Swisher?

  Yeah, it's a medication that shouldn't be taken by Elon Musk, who's then running our country.

• 1:03:25Speaker 01

  But I'll tell you.

• 1:03:26Kara Swisher?

  Anyway, thank you all so much. I really appreciate it. We could talk for a long time and maybe I'll have you back to talk more. I wish you all a long and happy life. I really do. And a health span and not just a lifespan, which is the way you say it these days. Anyway, thank you so much, Katie, Amy, and Jeffrey.

• 1:03:43Speaker 00

  Thanks, Kara.

• 1:03:44Speaker 01

  Thank you. Thank you.

• 1:03:49Kara Swisher?

  One small thing before we go. Want career advice from Kara Swisher? Now's your chance. Send a video to [email protected] and you might be featured. I can't wait to see what you've got. Ask any question, I'll try to answer it. Today's show was produced by Christian Castro-Rosell, Michelle Aloy, Catherine Millsap, Megan Burney, and Kalen Lynch. Nishat Kurwa is Vox Media's executive producer of podcasts. Special thanks to Bradley Sylvester. Our engineers are Fernando Aruda and Rick Kwan, and our theme music is by Trackademics. If you're already following the show, you're living a long and happy life. If not, put the red light mask down. Go wherever you listen to podcasts, search for On with Kara Swisher, and hit follow.

• 1:04:31Kara Swisher?

  Thanks for listening to On with Kara Swisher from Podium Media, New York Magazine, the Vox Media Podcast Network, and us. We'll be back on Thursday with more.