Hater Season: Victoria Song & Alex Cranz

Better Offline’s “Hater Season” - an ongoing roundtable with tech’s greatest haters - continues as Ed talks with Victoria Song of The Verge about “wellness products,” bullshit workout metrics and black market peptides. Please support me by subscribing to my premium newsletter - here’s $10 off your first year of annual https://edzitronswheresyouredatghostio.outpost.pub/public/promo-subscription/84rt762qen Alex Cranz: https://bsky.app/profile/cranz.bsky.social Victoria Song: https://bsky.app/profile/vicmsong.bsky.social https://www.theverge.com/authors/victoria-song YOU CAN NOW BUY BETTER OFFLINE MERCH! Go to https://cottonbureau.com/people/better-offline and use code FREE99 for free shipping on orders of $99 or more. --- LINKS: https://www.tinyurl.com/betterofflinelinks Newsletter: https://www.wheresyoured.at/ Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/BetterOffline/ Discord: chat.wheresyoured.at https://discord.com/invite/QUUQUP9szv Ed's Socials: https://twitter.com/edzitron https://www.instagram.com/edzitron https://bsky.app/profile/edzitron.com https://www.threads.net/@edzitron Email Me: [email protected] mailto:[email protected] See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:04Speaker 01

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• 0:34Speaker 02

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• 1:05Speaker 04

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• 1:36Ed Zitron?

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• 4:26Speaker 04

  A full 60 miles per hour, zero to 60 into snake oil. What if we didn't do that? What if we didn't do that? What if we, what if we didn't do that? What if, what if we didn't take advantage of the fact that our healthcare system is shit? And people have a lot of health anxiety. And when they go to doctors, they don't feel listened to. That, you know, we could actually get proper medical care in this country and not rely on big tech. Who wants to monetize you and your ailments with the guise of being an alternative to actual doctors with medical training?

• 5:03Speaker 02

  Is it, is it that they, they want to just use us all as like little parts in their expense reports? Let me take that back. Is it because they just want to make money off of us?

• 5:13Ed Zitron?

  Yeah.

• 5:13Speaker 02

  Or is it because they can't read science literature and they don't know what they're selling?

• 5:19Ed Zitron?

  Why not both?

• 5:20Speaker 04

  It's all of it. It's just all of it, all of it all at once. There's just like so many examples of it happening and it feels like it's ramping up to the point where I feel insane. So like when, when I was on your show at CES, I was talking about gray market peptides and how people are injecting themselves with unapproved retotru tide, which is a not yet approved drug. But they're buying it off or they're buying what they say is retotru tide off of Tik Tok and all of these gray market sellers. And I'm just like, I'm like fairly certain that what you're getting is not actually retotru tide. Based on like, I don't know how drug production works because I've talked to pharmacists and, you know, interviewed people.

• 6:03Ed Zitron?

  Also, generally it feels like random people on Tik Tok are not usually like able to access things of this nature. Like just like a random, random person walking around.

• 6:17Speaker 04

  Just generally speaking, if.

• 6:21Speaker 04

  You know, nurse practitioners are real. Registered nurses are, you know, there's all these different types of nurse categories and some of them are legitimate and have a lot of, um, you know, they're able to prescribe medicines. They're able to talk you through those things. And some of them are like little Sally Jo Johnson from someplace who just put a lot of letters after her name and is actually like a wellness guru, but she's saying like, based on the science and the research. And I can tell she has not done the science and the research because when she is reconstituting a peptide, uh, she has not disinfected her hands while she rolls the stuff on her very dirty kitchen counter, which are videos that I've seen, videos I've seen.

• 7:02Ed Zitron?

  Yeah. Well, I mean, like

• 7:04Speaker 02

  I was gonna say, I'm upset that you're talking about my primary care physician that way. Like, she worked really, really hard to give me all sorts of things that I know are real and not saltwater and I inject them into my body. I look and feel great. I haven't been insured since, you know, a Democrat was in power. I mean, what's, what's the problem here?

• 7:27Speaker 04

  I mean, there's a lot of problems here, uh, not least the grifters. Like there are real people online who are medical professionals, nurses, doctors, um, pharmacists who are giving decent medical information. I only know which one's decent though, because I do this for a living. I think if you're the average person, you can see a lot of stuff together and some of it is true and it's put next to stuff that is not true. And so by then it looks a lot smarter. Like I just did, um, I'm trying out this thing in my newsletter optimizer that I'm like cool. It's not called this, but I think of them as wellness marketing report cards. And I just did AG1, uh, which you've heard on every podcast ad known to man.

• 8:09Ed Zitron?

  I don't know. I don't know what it is.

• 8:11Speaker 04

  I was like, it's better off gone.

• 8:12Speaker 02

  Brought to you.

• 8:14Speaker 04

  You've never heard of Athletic Greens? It's AG1, it's a greens powder.

• 8:19Ed Zitron?

  Oh, yeah.

• 8:20Speaker 04

  It's like a green powder.

• 8:21Ed Zitron?

  Is that bollocks?

• 8:22Speaker 04

  Yes, basically. Would you like your PP to be expensive? Because that's what it is. A supplement made from like a proprietary blend of ground up vegetables and some buzzwords like adaptogens and all that.

• 8:37Ed Zitron?

  And that doesn't, does it not even give you the nutritional benefits of vegetables?

• 8:41Speaker 04

  I mean, I mean, the fiber content is like two grams of fiber for a serving, which is not that much fiber. Honestly, if you eat a salad, you'd get more fiber from that. But you know, like, I'm not saying that if you want to drink your daily greens because it's going to get you in the habit and the mindset of doing something healthier for yourself later on in the day, there's no harm with that. But if you go to their research page and their marketing site, they're going to say the next generation of AG1 is clinically backed. What does that mean? Clinically backed does not mean what you think it means.

• 9:14Ed Zitron?

  It's

• 9:15Speaker 04

  Not for a supplement. Do you know what a supplement is? Not regulated by the FD fucking A. It's not regulated.

• 9:22Ed Zitron?

  Well, first of all, would Hugh Jackman lie to me? Because

• 9:26Speaker 04

  Yes, Hugh Jackman fucking lied to you because he's tap dancing on the AG1 fucking things. He's saying superfood. Do you know what superfood is? It's a marketing label. It's not a scientific term. It's a marketing label. All it means is a nutrient. It's a nutrient dense food. That's all that that means. It's a marketing label.

• 9:47Ed Zitron?

  But it's

• 9:47Speaker 04

  It's for our health.

• 9:49Ed Zitron?

  No, but this is the thing. It's like, so number one doctor recommended brand means nothing, I'm guessing?

• 9:55Speaker 04

  Which doctors?

• 9:57Ed Zitron?

  Well, don't worry. Victoria's, so

• 9:59Speaker 04

  Doctor Huberman? Doctor Huberman is not, don't trust Doctor Huberman. You know, I had a, I had a

• 10:04Ed Zitron?

  That is actually the guy on there.

• 10:06Speaker 04

  No, I had a doctor who said, hey, have you listened to the Huberman podcast? And guess what I did? I fired them as in I found a new doctor. I didn't say you're fired, but I was like, I can't trust you if you believe that man who just basically also partners with AG1 to make AGZ, which is like a sleep thing. And it's just, okay, look, okay. So I went through, I went through their clinical studies, their quote unquote clinical studies.

• 10:31Ed Zitron?

  What did you see?

• 10:32Speaker 04

  Here's the thing. Here's the thing. When you have a drug or a medical treatment, it goes through clinical trials to make sure it's efficacious and safe and to find out what the efficacious dose is. This is a supplement. It is not regulated. This is not required. So they're just doing voluntary clinical studies to show marketing because it's like, hey, guess what? We saw an improvement in the gut microbiome and all this other shit, which is like, again, your, your gut is your second brain. Your gut and your brain talk to each other. It can affect your condition and your mood if you don't have the proper amount of gut bacteria in there. We have research saying this, okay?

• 11:14Speaker 04

  And so they're going, well, we got strains of probiotics in, in AG1. Now this is the original formula because their website is very, very trickly, tricksily laid out. And so I go there and I go like, okay, let me look at this peer research. You look at the graphs in this peer research that's linked there. Well, first of all, the sample size is 20, like what 30 people? Negligible.

• 11:39Ed Zitron?

  Ideally, no, but just for the sake of argument, how many people do you generally want in a clinical trial?

• 11:46Speaker 04

  10 per statistically, statistically, you like 105 or so, like 100 people. We sometimes see that in the clinical trial. You want as many people that will be statistically significant for the population that you're studying.

• 11:58Ed Zitron?

  So you need a ton of people, different races.

• 12:00Speaker 04

  30 people is not significant. 30 people is not significant.

• 12:04Speaker 02

  What is the population they're selling to?

• 12:07Speaker 04

  Everyone who might have tummy problems.

• 12:10Speaker 02

  Oh, I was like, if it's like dumb asses who exclusively get their medical advice from commercials on their Instagram and TikTok feeds.

• 12:16Speaker 04

  That's still a higher population than thirty people to be sick.

• 12:22Speaker 02

  So I was hoping it was a small population.

• 12:24Speaker 04

  Losing the ability to speak. I can't say statistically because I'm so mad. Listen, okay?

• 12:30Ed Zitron?

  Why couldn't you say Alex?

• 12:31Speaker 04

  Go through their little, go through their little study. You have to go through the methodology. They're saying double-blind placebo-controlled. Okay, that's great. Gold standard. Sure, whatever. Thirty people. Hmm. Let me look at the graphs. You know what's the graphs of the placebo and the pre and post AG1 use- usage? Statistically, the bars are the same. Is the change in the gut microbiome in the room with us? No, it's not. Nothing. Oh, they pooped a little more. Well, I should hope so if you have fiber in your drink.

• 13:03Ed Zitron?

  Here's the thing. If you want, if you want to like have a better gut, just have some Greek yogurt in the morning. It changed my life.

• 13:09Speaker 04

  Oh, you know what killed me?

• 13:10Speaker 02

  If you want to poop more, just eat grease.

• 13:12Speaker 04

  You want, you want to kill me? The line that said there was like an increase in these two strains of, of probiotics because it's an ingredient in AG1.

• 13:22Ed Zitron?

  Wait, so they increased, they, they measured something that they were adding. Okay.

• 13:29Speaker 04

  Yes. That's like saying we found, we found corn in your poop because you ate corn.

• 13:35Ed Zitron?

  That's so cool. I, that's the thing I get targeted with these like mushroom coffee things or melatonin coffees or sleep coffee, like weird hot chocolate shit on it. There was a period when that was all they targeted me with and it didn't do shit. Like I, I refuse to do it. I'm not paying thirty dollars for like five hot chocolates. Go fuck yourself. It's disgusting.

• 13:58Speaker 02

  Yeah, I I spent $4 on Biotin and it didn't do anything for my nails.

• 14:03Speaker 04

  Okay, so here's here's the thing. Supplements are not regulated. So is the supplement that you're actually getting actually the supplement in an efficacious amount? I don't fucking know. If it's a proprietary blend, like AG1 uses proprietary blend, you don't know how much of each thing is in there. You just don't, you don't. It's, listen, if you're gonna have greens powder because you want to kickstart your day and you want to have like a a healthy habit to start your day with. Go off, queen. I love that for you, but to call it clinically backed.

• 14:47Speaker 04

  I find disingenuous and I see this happening a lot in wellness.

• 14:51Speaker 02

  It's always there. They are the ones that backed the the study, right? Like we we see this a lot with.

• 14:56Speaker 04

  They did pay for the study. They paid for it.

• 14:58Ed Zitron?

  That's also good.

• 14:59Speaker 02

  All the fake meats said, we're gonna be the healthiest. We're gonna be the best. We're gonna be so good for you. And I was like, oh, who did the study? We did. Oh, did did you do any studies that you didn't directly pay for? No.

• 15:11Speaker 04

  I want to be fair. They did publish in peer reviewed journals and nine out of ten times you are going to see people at least partially fund the study because it's very hard, especially in this climate, to get research funding. For a truly independent peer reviewed study, that's third party that has no affiliation with the company and a company at all. That's, you know, it's it's it's good to look at it holistically with making sure they have really good methodology and you know, that their findings make fucking sense in the it it based on their marketing. So like if if they were to be super honest about what they found. It would be like, you're not gonna die from having AG1. And there's a potential that you might see some benefit.

• 15:53Ed Zitron?

  Well, I'm reading here that they.

• 15:55Speaker 04

  What it is.

• 15:56Ed Zitron?

  What is a nutritional gap? Because it claims that there is a nutrient, it helps. They demonstrated a statistically significant and positive impact on closing common nutrient gaps. It's just, this just means you didn't have enough of the nutrient.

• 16:11Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 16:13Speaker 04

  So this is what else pisses me off. So that, that, that marketing site is just like the next gen of AG1 is clinically backed. And then you scroll all the way down to the peer reviewed studies and you're like, oh, look, look at these published peer reviewed studies. That is for the old formula of AG1 and all those statistics that you just saw on that. That's for the new formulation of AG1. Guess how many peer reviewed published studies they have on that? Zero, because they only have abstracts that have been presented and like abstracts, like I'm going through the abstracts and it's just like the sample sizes. I think the largest sample size is like 120 people, but most of them are like 24 people who are healthy.

• 16:52Speaker 02

  So is this kind of like FDA approval grift in wearables?

• 16:57Speaker 04

  Um, okay, first of all, wearables are not FDA approved. They are FDA cleared because we approve drugs and we don't clear.

• 17:03Ed Zitron?

  All right, now Victoria got explained, sorry.

• 17:05Speaker 04

  Uh, cause it's a marketing thing. Basically you're just saying that it's adhered to a certain degree of safety and protocols. So yes, you're going to be HIPAA compliant if you're FDA cleared. Um, you are going to have done some testing to make sure it's safe. And you only require this kind of clearance for class, I believe, class two medical devices or higher, class two means intermediate risk. Um, class three is just like, oh, there's a significant risk in using this. And class one is like a tongue depressor. So you have some class one medical devices that are like the little stick that the doctor sticks in your mouth when you go eh, like that, that's a class one medical device in some cases, and those are just FDA listed. That like class one FDA listed, class two FDA cleared.

• 17:49Speaker 04

  Um, uh, and then you have stuff like drugs, which must be FDA approved. So there, there is like a nuance to those particular meanings, but with wearables, to get the clearance process, it's for stuff like screening, right? So like you get an AKG and it says, we're not diagnosing you with atrial fibrillation, but homeboy, maybe go to a doctor and see if these things make sense. That is a cleared generally, uh, an FDA cleared feature. Um, cause it's a either a class, that's a class two feature, basically is what they're saying. Now, if you don't want to do that because it's a very expensive process, you just go, it's wellness. Well, this isn't regulated because it's for your information only.

• 18:34Speaker 04

  Education is fun. So whoop, a couple of months ago, they had this blood pressure feature that they came out. And the way that this feature looked, it looked like it was telling you your systole and your diastolic and your systolic reading and telling you whether your blood pressure was high, medium, or low. And the FDA was like, haha, no, you did not go through the clearance process for this. You're telling people what their blood pressure is. And whoop was like, haha, no, this is a wellness feature. It's just for your education. This wasn't meant to give you a reading. And the FDA was like, um, it kind of looks like a reading. It kind of looks like you're giving a diagnostic judgment. So that needs to go through the clearance process.

• 19:17Speaker 04

  And then whoop was like, haha, we disagree. Innovation. Um, yeah. And so then I just read a story on Politico today that Aura, the smart ring maker, is now lobbying in Washington to get a third category of devices, um, like a separate third category of classification called digital health screeners that wouldn't go through the very cumbersome clearance process, but would, uh, be more legit.

• 19:46Speaker 02

  Wellness.

• 19:47Speaker 04

  So, uh, yeah.

• 19:48Speaker 02

  That makes sense, though.

• 19:50Speaker 04

  I don't know that.

• 19:51Speaker 02

  With the Aura ring.

• 19:52Speaker 04

  I don't know that that's going to make things clearer or easier. I don't know.

• 19:56Speaker 02

  You know, I like, I, I, I think, I think for the customer, for the, for the consumer, we need a total radical rethinking of all of this because it's gotten completely, like the plot.

• 20:08Ed Zitron?

  I think that these.

• 20:09Speaker 02

  I think for the companies, making a third device that's like, here are things that can identify, but should never, ever be taken by themselves, should always be used in context with a doctor, like the Aura ring or the whoop band for blood pressure. I'm like, that kind of makes sense.

• 20:24Speaker 04

  It's just the line is already blurry.

• 20:27Speaker 02

  I'm not hating enough.

• 20:28Ed Zitron?

  No, I feel like we're hating.

• 20:30Speaker 04

  Already blurry between wellness, what is a wellness? Like, the blood pressure, uh, not the blood pressure, the blood oxygen reading on your Apple Watch, what is that? Is that FDA cleared? Or is that wellness?

• 20:43Ed Zitron?

  I think that anything that measures your body should have to be far more rigorously checked because I have a different reading on my Oura ring, my Apple watch, my headphones. Everything seems different. If I was relying on this information for anything other than punishing myself, I would be very worried. Like if I was sick in some way.

• 21:03Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah.

• 21:03Ed Zitron?

  Also, Oura, this whole Oura being able to check if I'm sick thing, it has never caught it.

• 21:09Speaker 04

  It has.

• 21:09Speaker 02

  It caught when I was really depressed once.

• 21:12Ed Zitron?

  I'm sorry, I shouldn't laugh at that. What did it say?

• 21:16Speaker 02

  I was hysterical. No, it just, it's, I got a, I got a note and like, I'm, I'm in bed at two o'clock in the afternoon because, you know, depressed, sleeping. And I get a note and it's like, oh, you're having major symptoms. I'm like, yeah, no shit, Sherlock, I haven't gotten out of bed today. Thank you for joining. But like, it just said my temperature.

• 21:33Speaker 04

  It's caught when I was coming down with something once and then it caught when I was incredibly anxious another time. I was just like, oh, you think I'm sick? Well, I'm sick with anxiety.

• 21:44Ed Zitron?

  I'm just alive.

• 21:45Speaker 04

  That was one time. I'm just.

• 21:47Ed Zitron?

  I'm just breathing.

• 21:48Speaker 02

  I, I love it. I loved it when it was like, no, you're deathly sick. And I'm like, no, I'm just depressed. But honestly, thank you. Thank you for seeing depression as an illness, Oura Ring.

• 21:57Speaker 04

  You were just like sick in the brain.

• 21:59Speaker 02

  It wasn't intentional.

• 22:00Speaker 04

  You were sick in the brain.

• 22:01Speaker 02

  Then I got out of bed and that's great. Do that.

• 22:03Ed Zitron?

  Yeah, but that was because it said you needed to stand up.

• 22:06Speaker 02

  Pretty much I got like the text and I was like, ooh, time to get out of bed.

• 22:09Ed Zitron?

  No, every time I see that note being like, you need to stand up, I genuinely want to fuck off. Every time. How dare you? My ass goes where my ass.

• 22:17Speaker 02

  I'd never stand up.

• 22:19Speaker 04

  I'm currently standing up because I've been sitting too long. But again, this is my beat, so yay.

• 22:33Speaker 01

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• 23:01Ed Zitron?

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  Download the Quince app for app-exclusive offers or go to quince.com. Get free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. Now available in Canada and the UK, too. And when Quince asks where you heard about them, let them know it was on Better Offline. It's the best way to support the show.

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  Empower is all about helping you invest well, so you can go out and live a little. And their free Empower Personal Dashboard shows you your full financial life in one place. You'll be able to see your net worth, monitor budgets, analyze your portfolio, set retirement goals, and more. Whether you're saving for something big, want to treat yourself, friends, or family, or meet long-term goals, Empower helps you see where you stand. You've worked hard for your money, and Empower can help you make the most of it. Download the Empower Personal Dashboard or visit empower.com. Not an Empower client paid or sponsored. Hi, it's Kathleen Griffith, co-host of the Unshakeables podcast. Listen in as Ron and Kelly Moore share. Their story.

• 24:42Speaker 03

  I'm Ron Moore.

• 24:43Speaker 06

  And I'm Kelly Moore and starting our own business in our 50s was a little scary but exciting.

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  The biggest advantage was our community. The whole thing about business is relationships.

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  We'll say team a lot, not just our internal team, it's the team of our vendors, the team of our clients.

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• 25:18Speaker 06

  If you work to give, you just see the world differently.

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• 25:25Speaker 06

  To hear more from Ron and Kelly, listen to The Unshakables wherever you get your podcasts.

• 25:36Speaker 02

  Anywho, wellness really fucking pisses me off.

• 25:40Ed Zitron?

  This ChatGPT health thing as well, like I just think that these companies should be in prison, all of them for doing that stuff.

• 25:48Speaker 02

  The AI companies using these things as promises to help you get healthier mentally, physically, and everything in between is such garbage. Because like, let me tell you something. You know what I've been doing for a while now? I've been messing with these AI guys. I love to have a chat with them. I love to be like, hey, this is what's going on in my life. How are we doing? How you feeling?

• 26:09Ed Zitron?

  You're talking to the chat box in this case?

• 26:11Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah. I love always in like the incognito mode so that it only saves a little bit of it. And then every time it like tells me to do something. And when I go back and tell it the next time in chat, it's forgotten and I love it. Highly recommend incognito mode. But it's terrible advice. The advice is consistently terrible. The advice is consistently like, treat yourself better. And it's like, I haven't gotten out of bed in three days. And it's like, you're doing okay. I mean, I have, I've gotten out of bed in three days, doing great. But like, you know, you'd say something, you'd say something really extreme like that of like, clearly you're not doing okay. And it's like, hey, it happens to all of us. You just sit in bed for another week and you're like, Claude, no, Claude, what are we doing? That's bad advice.

• 26:52Ed Zitron?

  So just the kind of shit advice you could get from literally anyone. Oh, I hadn't thought about feeling better when I felt sad. I thought I'd been deliberately feeling sad more because I thought that's what would make me feel better. Thank you, ChatGPT. It's just fucking.

• 27:10Speaker 02

  And then when you ask it, you ask it for, you're, you're like, okay, I want to work on my fitness. V gives much better advice than every single time. Like V, that's what your, your, your optimizer, uh, like fancy line should be. I don't know what those are called.

• 27:26Speaker 04

  Tagline?

• 27:27Speaker 02

  But it needs to just be, yeah, tagline. Your tagline needs to be better advice than Claude or OpenAI.

• 27:33Ed Zitron?

  Well, did you see the chat GPT ad for running? When it was like, no, it was like, here's some running advice. And one of it's like, run with someone else. So you're accountable. Run three times a week. It's like, fucking hell. I'm so glad we are spending $50,000 a GPU on this bullshit.

• 27:50Speaker 04

  There was a.

• 27:51Speaker 02

  Yeah. It was like, you can just get that by Googling.

• 27:53Speaker 04

  There was a Wall Street Journal article about Runa, which is, they market themselves as an AI powered running app. And they were acquired by Strava last year. If you're on running talk at all, you've probably seen people talk about Runa. It's massively popular. And the Wall Street Journal article was hilarious because it's like, people are getting injured using this. Because they just listen to the AI. And like, I've used Runa and I have a very hard time sticking with that app. Because I find the program way too aggressive. So they came out with like a new mode that's like, hey, we made it less aggressive because a lot of you were getting injured and complaining. And I was like, haha.

• 28:32Speaker 04

  It's almost like to use Runa properly, you also have to know when to ignore it, which is not the point of what they say AI should be. So I also hate AI and fitness.

• 28:45Ed Zitron?

  Well, I mean, yeah, it's also like the thing with fitness is even with a good routine, even with a good, like I have had to, I did the same routine for a year. I've had to pare it back because I kept getting injured because I'm getting older. Like you actually have to be able to like, know when your body feels.

• 29:03Speaker 02

  That's the worst part of it is, is yeah, you like, you want it to be like a trainer and it can talk to you.

• 29:09Ed Zitron?

  Yeah, pretend to be one.

• 29:10Speaker 02

  It can, it can give you that things, but the trainer is gonna go, hey, I noticed you went really hard today and your knee's inflamed. Maybe, maybe take a break for the rest of the week.

• 29:19Speaker 04

  A bad trainer will be like, no pain, no gain. I've had trainers do that to me before.

• 29:23Speaker 02

  But AI is always gonna be a bad trainer.

• 29:26Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 29:26Speaker 02

  Because it's not gonna see it, right?

• 29:28Speaker 04

  It's, I mean, they keep, they keep saying that they're gonna make it better. I've yet to test an AI coach that I feel would give me the advice that I actually need. I have to, I have to sit there with myself and be like, oh, how are we feeling today in our body? Where are we feeling pain? Should I push it? I could push it, but what's my goal? You know, like I'd have this conversation with myself in my head.

• 29:48Speaker 02

  How many of these constantly? AI coaches that you see are like actually programmed from the ground up to help with this? And how many are just large language models with, like the Aura one, right? Where it's just kinda like the large language model with a little bit of fanciness slapped on it. So you're like, oh, I'm not gonna get any.

• 30:08Speaker 04

  Most of them are just kept in obvious book report summaries.

• 30:11Ed Zitron?

  They're just prompts though, because you can't really, for you to do a trainer that was a specialized LLM, you would have to have a shit ton of words. And like a bunch of.

• 30:21Speaker 04

  Oh, they're also fucking chatty too. I'm just like, Jesus Christ, you need to like, give me several less paragraphs about. Like, I don't, I don't need this shit. And then you'll tell them like, please stop being so chatty. Please be more concise. And they're like, oh yeah, okay, got it. Two prompts later, just eight hundred word essay about your fitness.

• 30:39Speaker 02

  They hear you and they wanna gently push back on your plans for your exercising routine.

• 30:44Speaker 04

  I just.

• 30:44Ed Zitron?

  Well, I mean.

• 30:45Speaker 04

  I never get that. We have different AIs, but clearly, but like, it's just.

• 30:50Ed Zitron?

  Well, just.

• 30:50Speaker 02

  Claude's so nice.

• 30:51Ed Zitron?

  Fuck, Lord.

• 30:53Speaker 04

  I refuse to let them be nice to me. I say they are not allowed to be complimentary beyond one percent. I'm only allowed to get one percent of complimenting from these dipshit bots.

• 31:02Speaker 02

  I'm using incognito mode. It remembers nothing.

• 31:06Ed Zitron?

  Right.

• 31:07Speaker 02

  It is incredible. So you can, you, you'll tell it anything. It's gonna forget from the next time. So you never program it. So Claude is always just like, hey, friend, I'm just like that one person who just sort of smiles and nods at you a lot. And like,

• 31:21Speaker 04

  That's not very helpful. I mean, I don't

• 31:24Speaker 02

  For that. It's not very helpful. No. I don't, I don't love it from like, a usefulness standpoint. I love it as like a sociological experiment. Does that make sense?

• 31:33Speaker 04

  Makes more sense.

• 31:34Speaker 02

  I love to play with it and kind of be like, oh, what are you trying here? What are you hoping to accomplish? But nine times out of 10, it does not actually help me. Every time I've had AI help me, try to help me with fitness, try to help me with sleeping better, try to help me with writing. Garbage, garbage.

• 31:50Speaker 04

  Because you're always getting regress to the mean. And when it comes to health, well, then we're gonna go against the wellness versus the, the, the medical thing again, because if they're giving you diagnostic advice, they could be liable for that. So they're only gonna give you the most generic regression to the mean wellness advice that applies to everyone and is common sense. And it's like, well, if it's common sense, well, I didn't fucking need you to tell me it's common sense that I like, that's why a lot of the AI fitness is just regurgitated book reports. It's, it's the AI going like, hey, girl, you ran 3.1 miles today in this time. That's faster than your other time. And yay, that's not what I need from you. Thank you, Pablo. My cat is screaming at me. But, um, yeah.

• 32:34Ed Zitron?

  Yeah, I, I just, I would never tell these things, anything about myself. But I just like, I've naturally, the, my autism screener built into my brain just refuse, it's just like, I cannot trust. I would never tell a website my secrets.

• 32:49Speaker 02

  Oh, I, I get that. I get that. And then sometimes I just do.

• 32:53Ed Zitron?

  No, that's fine.

• 32:54Speaker 02

  I have incognito mode. And I'm like, you know what? Let's hope you never leak the incognito mode stuff. Let's hope you're real.

• 33:01Ed Zitron?

  Yeah, but also you're incognito mode, unless you're just like, I'm Alex Cranz. Let me tell you my life story.

• 33:06Speaker 02

  Every single time I'm like, hi, my name's Alex Cranz.

• 33:07Ed Zitron?

  Hello.

• 33:08Speaker 02

  Here's some things. Look me up real fast. Okay, now let's chat.

• 33:13Speaker 04

  And

• 33:13Ed Zitron?

  Yeah, I I just also with fitness, like fitness has been a big part of my life for the last few years, especially. And it's like, the best advice I've got for is from regular people who have been like, you're going too hard, or just stop hard hurting yourself. That's the biggest thing. Not like I'm self harming, but like, I would push myself too far. It would always be like, my, my wrist hurts. It's like, well, have you tried not fucking boxing, dickhead? And it's like, I don't think chat GPT would say it. Mostly, it's like friends of mine being like, yeah, you need to rest because in my, I don't know, being a little personal here, in my head, I'm like, I should try more, I should lose weight, like I push myself quite hard. A large language model telling me anything about that isn't going to help partly because I'll be like, I'm not a

• 33:55Ed Zitron?

  website does not impress me. Like, I don't trust your judgment. And also, most of the time, the mean advice around lifting is dog shit. I'm so sorry, but the best lifting advice I ever got was lift volume, not heavy. And then people will be like, oh, I like lifting heavy things, putting back down. It's fine, but it's like, does not work for a lot of people I've met.

• 34:15Speaker 04

  Oh, you mean, you're you're not in the in the church of CrossFit progressive overload?

• 34:22Ed Zitron?

  Ah, what is that? Just, what does, I know about CrossFit, but I I saw how they do pull ups, and I just stopped listening to them.

• 34:31Speaker 04

  Okay, like, I'm not gonna shit on CrossFit. They do some, it's very hard.

• 34:36Ed Zitron?

  No, I have numerous friends who've used it. I just

• 34:38Speaker 02

  It's a philosophy of working out that is very different from a lot of other philosophies.

• 34:43Ed Zitron?

  There we go.

• 34:44Speaker 02

  And it's really all about pushing is pushing yourself to your physical limits, which for some people, that can be a really useful thing. If you are over the age of 35, maybe be careful because you're gonna hurt yourself.

• 35:00Speaker 04

  I mean, and it's like

• 35:01Speaker 02

  You're under the age of 35, go do your CrossFit.

• 35:04Speaker 04

  I think CrossFit Has like, it's because it's a franchise and so each CrossFit gym can be very different. I think there's like a million different CrossFits out there and it depends on which CrossFit person you know in your life as to what CrossFit they do. Some of them do the Marjorie Taylor Greene version of CrossFit. Some of them do a much more reasonable version of it.

• 35:25Speaker 02

  I love her little pull up.

• 35:28Speaker 04

  Oh, they're like, they're called tipping pull ups or something.

• 35:31Ed Zitron?

  Yeah, that's what I was saying. Those weird CrossFit, the ones where you're just like, I'm gonna break my fucking neck.

• 35:38Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 35:39Speaker 02

  Oh, my God, the little, that it looks like the way I would try to do a pull up as a child and you'd be told, no.

• 35:45Ed Zitron?

  It looks like not being able to do a pull up.

• 35:48Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's what it looks like.

• 35:49Ed Zitron?

  Cause they're difficult.

• 35:51Speaker 04

  It's an interesting, it's an interesting look. But yeah, no, so it's, it's the, the other thing that I'm gonna, back to the hate. Instead, like less thoughtfulness, more hate. I hate wellness influencers, like not every wellness influencer. There's some that are like not horrible and who actually talk about science and are quite responsible and like thoughtful in their wellness content. They are not the majority. The majority is just like, oh, my God, I drink eighty one every day and I have so much energy now. Or they'll be like, oh, my God, come with what I eat in a day and it's just disordered eating. Or, you know, they'll protein, protein, protein, protein max. And it's like, well, protein is nice, but you do need to eat your other macros.

• 36:35Speaker 04

  And or, you know, it's just these little nuggets of science or nutritional, um, like best practices that get buried with disordered eating habits, that get buried with pseudoscience that are just like, not that helpful for people to know, but it sounds real. And then, you know, because they are your parasocial friend, a lot of people start to trust them. And then they start doing stupid things in their life. And these, these are all people who are just generally by and large miss or underserved by the healthcare system. They don't want to go to a doctor who's gonna dismiss their pain

• 37:15Speaker 04

  for the bazillionth time, because that's the only thing that's affordable in their insurance network. But I just really hate. That one influencers, whether they mean to or not, I'm sure some of them are well meaning, whatever, they are profiting off of your discomfort and your search for something that's more affordable. I hate that because a lot of them don't take the time to do their due diligence. And so they're taking sponsored money from these powders that you don't need objectively, but saying, oh my God, this is how I cured everything holistically because I have to eat clean. What is eating clean?

• 37:47Ed Zitron?

  What does that?

• 37:48Speaker 04

  Wash your fucking vegetable.

• 37:49Ed Zitron?

  What does eating clean mean?

• 37:51Speaker 04

  It's like just eating healthy, but they're like, I'm, I eat clean. I don't eat processed foods. I don't eat sugar. I don't eat this. And you know, a little bit of moderation is fine.

• 38:00Ed Zitron?

  You 100%.

• 38:01Speaker 04

  Everyone eats sugar.

• 38:02Ed Zitron?

  Yeah, there's no.

• 38:03Speaker 04

  Everyone eats sugar. Or it's people who say like, oh my God, fruit has a high glycemic index. So it's bad for you. It's a fucking fruit. Like it's fine.

• 38:12Speaker 02

  I once had a doctor, um, I was with a diabetic patient who's a friend, a family member. And I was once with them and the doctor was like, they could never eat a banana. And I was like, what if their blood sugar is low?

• 38:23Ed Zitron?

  Not with that attitude.

• 38:24Speaker 02

  They can't eat a banana. And I'm like, okay, so they just die? Like they could eat a, they could eat a banana. They just shouldn't eat it if their blood sugar is high or they're not, you know, thinking about it. Um, but who is this culpable? Is it these fitness influencers? Or is it the entire industry, including the Googles and the Youtubes?

• 38:42Speaker 04

  It's the entire industry.

• 38:44Ed Zitron?

  I actually think it's one abstraction higher, which ties into AI as well, which is

• 38:49Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 38:49Ed Zitron?

  everyone wants a simple solution. They, they, they, they want to work out a way to lose weight that is not working out consistently and eating less calories. Though I realize it's not even as flat as that because everyone's body is kind of different. They, they want something that will give them a quick answer without them learning anything. They want the fitness plan that will tell them something they don't already know.

• 39:12Speaker 04

  That we, it's called GLP-1.

• 39:15Ed Zitron?

  I can also just.

• 39:16Speaker 04

  And for some people it works.

• 39:18Ed Zitron?

  No, GLP.

• 39:18Speaker 04

  I mean.

• 39:19Ed Zitron?

  I think GLP-1 fucking rocks. I think.

• 39:22Speaker 04

  I think when it's used right and when it's used healthily.

• 39:25Ed Zitron?

  Right, like, yeah. You know what? If it's someone for weight loss and they're using it with the instruction of a doctor, things great. Like it's just as long as, as long as you're not just like. I don't know, getting it illegally off of TikTok and illegally is probably not the term.

• 39:40Speaker 02

  Well, that's GLP three.

• 39:42Speaker 04

  Well, now you can also go get compounded versions of GLP one, which are in a dubious state at this point in time because it used to be okay to compound it. And then when there was a shortage, the FDA allowed that. And then once the shortage ended, they were like, no, no, no. So then these compounding pharmacies started like altering the formula a little bit, adding a little bit of vitamin B12 or just different components in it so that they weren't like carbon copies of what the pharmaceutical companies were like, hey, hey, hey, this is copyrighted, fuck off. But you know, like, that's also in of itself a problem because a lot of why are people going to these compounding pharmacies for their GLP ones? It's because insurance companies make you fit a very narrow criteria, even though it could potentially help you with a number

• 40:27Speaker 04

  of different things. Like, we have to understand that GLP ones are very recent for non diabetic use. Like, there's not a whole lot of data out there, right? For not, not, not a year, but it's like in the span of medication, not that long. Like, you know, scientists study these things for a very long time. And I think we're about at what a decade, 15 years on GLPs, less for the, for the, um, the monjaros and all that stuff. But it's like, you know, we don't, the, the vast majority of the clinical studies that have been done on these medications have been on obese or diabetic populations. We don't know what a bodybuilder who is just taking this to like, optimize themselves. We don't know what the impact on their, their bodies will be.

• 41:12Speaker 04

  We, we, we find some promising research with people with PCOS and fatty liver disease, which I have both of those, which is why my doctor is also like, you know, GLP makes sense for you and the metabolic dysfunction that you have. So it's not that doctors aren't using these in the arsenals to treat people who fit certain criteria, but there are people who could help, who could benefit from it, who don't fit these arbitrary insurance criteria. And so we have created this market, this alternative market for them to go to that can be fine in some spaces. If you do your research and you do your vetting and you find a legitimate compound pharmacy that follows the rules.

• 41:55Speaker 04

  Or you could get it from some gray market guy named Bobbo Timby and I don't know what you're putting in your body. So like we're creating these things because we have made things so restrictive, so bad. And then we are monetizing the alternative solution, which is, you know, ultimately giving a lot of health anxiety to people because why should they have to track their pee to know their hydration? Just look at the color of your pee. I don't know. Like, you know, instead of putting the systemic things in place that could help people with their health and marketing these as tools. It's like all of a sudden, oh, you can get your blood test because maybe you live in a rural area and you don't have time to go to the doctor. So we'll, Aura will get your blood test for you and now you can

• 42:40Speaker 04

  track your metabolites in your blood in the Aura app.

• 42:44Speaker 02

  With no doctor's advice?

• 42:46Speaker 04

  With no doctor's advice? Well, you could ask maybe the, the AI in the app or whatnot. And it's not just Aura. There's a lot of companies that are kind of pursuing this line. And it comes from a place of like, yes, there is a gap in the healthcare system. Traditionally, we're trying to fill that gap. And there are some people who that will help. I'm not going to lie and say that there's no people that that could benefit. But at the same time, the vast majority of healthy people don't need that. They don't need that health anxiety in their life, but we're just putting it on them because it's like, well, if you don't, you're going to die. And so it's just like, I, I, I would love for there to be more common sense in wellness. I would love us to have responsible conversations about whether or not you need to track XY 70 biomarkers. You don't need to track 70 fucking biomarkers.

• 43:31Speaker 04

  You really don't.

• 43:32Ed Zitron?

  That data will not help you.

• 43:34Speaker 04

  It won't. It won't.

• 43:36Ed Zitron?

  I have.

• 43:37Speaker 04

  Is it kind of like, have you guys done it? Like, because I'm just curious, is it like when you go and you would pay to give someone all of your genetic materials so they could test it to find out?

• 43:48Speaker 02

  Whether or not like who your family was, right?

• 43:51Ed Zitron?

  Like your family makeup?

• 43:53Speaker 04

  We call it longevity tech, which is just another word for fucking bullshit. Uh, sorry, uh, wellness.

• 43:58Ed Zitron?

  Oh, yeah.

• 44:00Speaker 04

  But like it's, it's this weird, you know, who is the bloody baroness? Who's bathing in the blood of virgins to appear younger and live longer? It's the same kind of fear from Silicon Valley where they're like, we are deathly afraid of death. So longevity tech and you can optimize your life and you can study all these metrics about yourself. And then you'll be able to live a better, healthier life without having to go to the doctor as often. And it's just like, there's a lot of problems with this narrative. And, um, you have Maha co, co adopting it in some ways. I've, I've seen health tech become weirdly right wing, um, over the last couple of weeks and months. Where I'm just like, I don't know how I feel about this. I don't know how I feel about RSK junior going like every American wear wearable.

• 44:45Speaker 04

  I'm just like, um,

• 44:47Ed Zitron?

  It's supposed to be my own bullshit. We can't know everything. There is a world of mystery. And also even knowing all of this stuff doesn't do anything. I've said this before on the podcast, I have four years of sleep data, if not more. And I cannot tell you anything other than generally I sleep about seven and a half hours.

• 45:08Ed Zitron?

  No, I'm, I'm, that's my actual secret to all of it. It's the only reason I can put out 10,000 words a week is I sleep seven and a half to eight hours a night without fail. I prioritize sleep and it's funny because it's like of all the fitness things, sleep supplement thing. Sorry, different supplements I've tried, weird tricks, sleep. I don't even mean it in like a facetious way. I just mean like, yeah, this, it's the one thing I can be like, yeah, when I do that, I feel better. When I don't sleep, I feel way worse.

• 45:35Speaker 04

  Yeah. I mean, that, that's why they say sleep, diet and exercise. It just always boils down to like those three things. And yes, there are conditions that kind of make it difficult for certain people over others. If you have metabolic dysfunction, yeah, well, the diet part is going to be a little harder for you. And there are treatments for that, that makes sense, but it fundamentally will always boil down to sleep, diet and exercise.

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• 46:42Ed Zitron?

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• 48:14Speaker 02

  Hi, it's Kathleen Griffith, co-host of the Unshakeables podcast. Listen in as Ron and Kelly Moore share their story.

• 48:23Speaker 06

  I'm Ron Moore. And I'm Kelly Moore. And starting our own business in our 50s was a little scary, but exciting. The biggest advantage...

• 48:34Speaker 03

  Was our community. The whole thing about business is relationships.

• 48:37Speaker 06

  We'll say team a lot, not just our internal team. It's the team of our vendors, the team of our clients.

• 48:45Speaker 03

  We help the Veterans Resource Center and we give scholarships. I'm doing this for my heart, for my children, for you, for your children's family. I don't want anything back. And I tell a lot of people, don't give back to me, pay it forward.

• 48:59Speaker 06

  If you work to give, you just see the world differently.

• 49:02Speaker 03

  I'm gonna help as many people as we can. I can't take it with me.

• 49:06Speaker 06

  To hear more from Ron and Kelly, listen to The Unshakeables wherever you get your podcasts.

• 49:17Ed Zitron?

  I also want to be clear about something though, because it was lost earlier and we've had emails about it. I think it's fun. There were some people I've got emails from, I forget when it was brought up in the past. Where it's like, oh, the judgment of people who use GLP to lose weight. I think it's fucking, I've had weight issues my whole life. I think however people want to lose weight, as long as it's done in a safe manner, as long as it's done.

• 49:38Speaker 02

  I'm on one. I was like, I'm on one.

• 49:41Ed Zitron?

  It's fucking sick.

• 49:42Speaker 02

  It's absolute magic.

• 49:43Ed Zitron?

  It's fucking cool.

• 49:45Speaker 02

  I, I love it. It makes sense for me. I know people.

• 49:46Ed Zitron?

  As long as it's not depriving diabetics of getting the things they need though, that's the one thing.

• 49:51Speaker 02

  Right. Like as, as long as the diabetics and people with metabolic issues who need it to survive are having it and, and we don't have a shortage. It's really great. For me, it's like, oh. I, I talk about it. I call it the wing index. We've had to hear about this before. There's something called the wing index.

• 50:06Speaker 06

  We've talked about, yeah.

• 50:08Ed Zitron?

  The wing index.

• 50:09Speaker 06

  How many, how many?

• 50:10Speaker 02

  How many wings do you eat before you were on a GLP-1 versus how many do you eat after? Because some of us like, V and I were talking, I was like a 15 wing girly.

• 50:22Ed Zitron?

  Hell yeah.

• 50:22Speaker 02

  And now I'm a six. And I look at that and I'm like, that's sad. But then I'm like, was 15 good? No, it was delicious. It was.

• 50:30Ed Zitron?

  Yeah, I was gonna, I was gonna say.

• 50:32Speaker 02

  It was the best thing in the world. Do I miss it?

• 50:34Speaker 06

  My wing decks.

• 50:35Speaker 02

  No.

• 50:36Speaker 04

  My wing index was four and now it's half of one. That's not great. I'm having a different, I'm having a different experience with GLPs and Cranz's.

• 50:47Speaker 02

  Different.

• 50:49Speaker 04

  And also, I didn't want to be on one. I was told to be on one because of metabolic dysfunction was causing weight gain. And so I needed the extra help to kind of fix the metabolic dysfunction and reverse some negative trends in my liver. So that was like a very lengthy conversation I had with my doctor over three, four months. So, you know, it was a informed decision to go on it. And then as soon as I went on it, I started having clown nightmares and that was not fun.

• 51:21Speaker 02

  And I did not realize that's why I had nightmares. But yeah, GLP-1 can create really vivid nightmares early on. I thought I was just having a moment and V told me and I was like, oh.

• 51:32Ed Zitron?

  I thought it was clown specific.

• 51:35Speaker 04

  Oh, no. I, I had a dream that my spouse's ex was chasing me on a cruise ship with a knife. And I was like, this bitch is crazy. And then she turned into Pennywise, the clown from it. And I was like, oh no, she really crazy. And then I woke up almost screaming. And apparently it's because like, a small percentage of people who take GLP-1s have crazy dreams on them. And like, I was on the intro dose when I was getting these side effects. And my doctor was like, you know, most people don't get side effects on the intro dose. You are special, girl. And I was like, oh, cool. Great. So you're telling me that food aversion is not normal on the intro dose?

• 52:16Speaker 04

  Because I can't look at food sometimes. And it's, it's a very, it's a very troubling.

• 52:22Ed Zitron?

  This is why I like the doctor I've had for the last few years in Vegas, because I don't get any of this normal people. I don't, I don't hear about the mean or the media. And I just did, he doesn't try and pretend that I'm like, similar to other people, because I am not. Like, and most of the time, it's just me being like, is this bad? And he's like, no. It's I feel like the entire problem of everything we're talking about in these conversations is this trying to push everybody towards the mean, trying to make everyone like everyone else in a way that's literally not like not like I feel like the mean is also a terrible way to do health in general, just the amount of food you need.

• 53:05Speaker 02

  It should be personalized, right? Like, we're all different. Everybody's got different things. Some people got heart issues. Some people got fatty livers. Some people got the diabetes. Um, sorry, I'm of an age that I will always think of him every single time.

• 53:23Ed Zitron?

  Mr. Brimley.

• 53:24Speaker 02

  Yeah, Mr. Brimley. And, you know, everybody is a little different. And when we don't allow for that, when we when these fitness influencers and these these companies push things and say, this is going to fix you, that's it's a it's a flat out lie, because they don't know and they can't promise that. And they shouldn't. And like, I know we we were kind of going all through it. I still get really upset with the companies like Google who are profiting enormously off of this stuff. They have no issue just raking in billions in cash from advertisers and from these influencers and from viewpoints, just to make a buck. They're just like, yeah, this is just an industry. It's not our fault.

• 54:05Speaker 04

  I hate that. I hate that you are the product now. Your attention is a product. Your body is a product. Everything about you is being monetized to be a product. And it's like, ah, you don't do the buying anymore. You are the data. Like, smart glasses, why do they want to put cameras on these smart glasses so that they can get data from the camera? Why do they want to put?

• 54:24Speaker 02

  Everybody always view wants to like, record their first person point of view, of course. That's what the commercials said.

• 54:32Ed Zitron?

  It looks like boiled ass. Every here's a hater moment. I think the the video from those things looks weird. I think it looks strange. I don't like it. I feel like I'm sitting on top of somebody's head.

• 54:46Speaker 04

  I mean, because you are.

• 54:47Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 54:47Ed Zitron?

  Yeah, I mean, I know, I know that's why, like, it's, but that's not a pleasant feeling. I don't want to be Ratatouille.

• 54:55Speaker 02

  Just like the vertical video wasn't attractive, right? Like, well, now we're all used to vertical video.

• 55:00Ed Zitron?

  No, I like, I like my 169 situation, 1610.

• 55:04Speaker 02

  Yeah. Yeah, I want to see everything around you.

• 55:07Ed Zitron?

  I want a classic wide frame. Yeah, it's just, I'm, I am really, I do think we're going to, like, I know one, no one fucking believes me, but I do think a lot of this stuff is going to go away the moment they realize how actually expensive it is to run this shit. And on top of the fact that just, no one's really making any money out of this AI health stuff because where's the product? It's like, yeah, I ask them.

• 55:33Speaker 02

  You're the product.

• 55:34Ed Zitron?

  Yeah, but like, you're getting on, but they don't know how to productize it from there. They don't know how to, like, make a ton of money from that. Evidence being that nobody has made a ton of money from that. Even Claude Code, the supposedly most important thing ever, that isn't, only about a hundred million dollars a month in revenue. Andrew Huberman probably makes that from various snake oils he boils in his, his garage.

• 55:58Speaker 04

  The thing about health, the thing about health, though, it is the most valuable thing you have. You will, I think Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said something about, along these lines several years ago, and it's stuck in my brain, where it's just like, you will, most people, unless, you know, most people, right, will basically do anything to live a little bit longer. That's rich people, that's poor people, nobody wants to die. I mean, like, there's a few select, there's a select few who court death for whatever reason. But most people don't want to die, they want just a little bit more time. And so, health is your most valuable possession that you have. It's priceless because as soon as your health goes, your quality of life goes.

• 56:40Speaker 04

  Um, and I think companies know this and they know if they can scare you, if they can fear monger you into saying, we have a solution so that you will live longer. People will pay out the nose for that. And they're just waiting to, to get that thing that will be like, oh, you will do this. Like smartwatches, when it was just counting your, your steps, didn't fucking matter. They were having a hard time getting people to buy those things. The fashion, Apple Watch Edition. Yeah, that didn't work either. But as soon as the Apple Watch was like, we'll save your life if you have a cardiac event. Yeah, people started buying them. It started becoming a thing.

• 57:13Ed Zitron?

  Yeah, that was kind of cool though. Like it could do the EKG thing and, but I'm sure that there's something there.

• 57:19Speaker 02

  I would argue Apple is a big reason why we have this. I mean, obviously there's like the Alex Jones and the Joe Rogans of the world and everything like that. And, and the whole like influencer economy and, and love to push through your protein powders. But a big part of this was Apple back. This is my hater section. A big part of this was Apple. When Apple came out, they launched that watch. It did fuck all. Nobody knew what to use it for. I had one. I called it my great regret, capital letters every single time, even when I said it out loud. And that was because it was useless. And they, they were, it was, they were desperate to find a use for it. They found a use with the EKG stuff and it was a genuinely useful thing. People started buying it for that reason. Right? I cannot tell you how many people I know who bought a watch for

• 58:01Speaker 02

  an elderly parent so that they could have that, that extra safety net. And now they're like, okay, well, we still have to make money off of this, but we already did that and we have to grow. And, and when we, we have to keep growing. If we don't grow, if we don't grow, we die. And so what do they do? They push further into wellness in places where Apple and a lot of these companies have zero business being and they're doing it exclusively because they're like, we need new markets to sell our products at. That's it.

• 58:28Speaker 04

  I will say, Apple is much more responsible in the wellness space than other. They do a lot in clinical research. They are very clear about what their products do and don't do. I do not hate Apple as much in this space as other

• 58:43Speaker 02

  No, that's

• 58:43Speaker 04

  kind of more snake oily, um, uh, whatchamacallit. But they They did kick it off. They kicked off the advanced health features, but like, that's the, again, here's the difference. Here's the distinction. Health features versus wellness features, they're different. They're different. There's a different grade.

• 59:00Speaker 02

  Isn't Apple one of the ones who did push wellness because some of their features couldn't, weren't immediately approved, weren't being like, yeah, they just weren't approved. And so they were like, oh, this is a wellness feature initially.

• 59:13Speaker 04

  Well, it was more like, they were, they, I wouldn't say it was them that were the first ones because EKG, I think was the first time we saw like a big difference.

• 59:22Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 59:22Speaker 04

  In terms of like the alerts, anything that is diagnostic, they very much go through the, it's not diagnostic, but anything that's diagnostic adjacent, they will go through the clearance process for. But again, to answer the question I asked you guys earlier, blood oxygen, that's a wellness feature because there's nothing that you do with that information. It's just a spot check. It's not telling you that you have sleep apnea. It's not telling you that you have anything. It is for your fun that you get to see that what your blood oxygen is. And so that is a wellness feature. And okay.

• 59:51Speaker 02

  That Apple risks a lot of time and effort and lawsuits to put into their watches and are now, aren't they still embroiled in a lawsuit about it?

• 1:00:00Speaker 04

  They're still embroiled in a lawsuit about it, but they're no longer banned from importing it. So, you know, you can still have those features on, on the thing, but you know, blood oxygen, I don't think is that useful of a, a, a metric. If you're, if you need it, just get a pulse oximeter. I don't think a smartwatch is, you know, I've had some readers tell me that they find it useful for their, uh, parents with respiratory issues, but I just think you should have a pulse oximeter because, uh, this is going to be a gruesome story, but when my mom was dying, like actually the day she died, um, it was because she was having respiratory failure from, uh, ALS. Her lungs were paralyzed, basically, and she couldn't breathe and get enough oxygen into them. So her blood oxygen was dropping rapidly. And, you know, I had the pulse oximeter and she was getting to a point where her blood

• 1:00:45Speaker 04

  saturation levels were like, In the high 40s to low 60s, which is death time, because anything under 90, you're supposed to go to a hospital. So you know, that was, my family's full of doctors. So this was supervised, right? Um, my family's full of doctors and they all knew what that meant. And you know, I'm a wearables reporter. The, my, my, my cousin was freaking out. She thought the pulse oximeter couldn't possibly be saying 48 because that meant death. So I was like, well, I got Apple Watch. Let me put this on my dying mother. And, uh, and let me tell you, it couldn't read it. There was no reading. So

• 1:01:22Ed Zitron?

  Fucking hell.

• 1:01:24Speaker 02

  Did it, did it put up an emoji or anything?

• 1:01:27Speaker 04

  No, it just was like, it just said it couldn't get a reading.

• 1:01:30Ed Zitron?

  No, she put it on and it immediately said, you should try standing.

• 1:01:34Speaker 04

  Yeah. And I mean, like this, this is not a story that I frequently tell. Uh, just because it's sad, it's, it's a sad story. And then I'm also just like, I feel guilt because I'm just like, oh, I, I put an Apple Watch on my mom while she was

• 1:01:46Ed Zitron?

  No, no, no, bullshit. You put some, you tried to, you tried to confirm something. You actually tried and you

• 1:01:53Speaker 02

  You were trying to confirm.

• 1:01:54Ed Zitron?

  Also, your mother was dying. You could have done anything in that case. Like, like you reacted more normally than I would if such a thing was happening.

• 1:02:03Speaker 04

  Uh, I had my, don't worry. I reacted not normally later that night.

• 1:02:07Ed Zitron?

  Again, completely forgivable, considering.

• 1:02:10Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:02:10Ed Zitron?

  Be kinder to yourself.

• 1:02:13Speaker 04

  But no, I was just very much like, well, what are, what are the opportunities for a werewolf's tester to be with someone who is very identifiably, identifiable below 90, uh, uh, in terms of a pulse oximeter and to see whether this feature actually works on someone who is so low. And my, my finding was no, this is why you need a pulse oximeter. Because if you are someone who has to worry about that, you shouldn't really rely on a smart watch.

• 1:02:40Ed Zitron?

  Clearly con.

• 1:02:41Speaker 02

  Well, it's the same with like, um, I was going to say the same dark story, similarly dark, but my mom's still alive. But she had, she had a stroke and had to go on a heart monitor. And it's, and she was like, well, why can't I just use my Apple Watch? Cause it's got AFib detection. And they were like, because it's a garbage heart rate monitor. You need one like over your heart. We want to see every beat of that thing. Your wearables aren't going to do that. And so her mind was blown and she hated it. And we ended up using the Apple Watch.

• 1:03:09Speaker 04

  It's only for healthy people with a baseline. Like that's, that's, that's all these wearables are. It's just establishing what your baseline is. And like accuracy is actually not the most important thing for most wearables. It's consistency. So if it's consistently inaccurate by the same amount, you can still use it to judge changes in your baseline. But yeah, obviously I live and breathe this shit. So I get really mad when I see influencers just talking out their fucking ass about clinically backed this. And they're like, it's clinically proven. Nothing's clinically proven. Clinically proven doesn't mean shit. It's a marketing term. Especially, you know, I actually interviewed a doctor and I was just like, what is clinically whatever meant?

• 1:03:52Speaker 04

  And then she was just like, there's a whole wide range of what clinically backed or clinically tested means. It could be in certain cases, depending on how a study is designed, it could be someone just self-reporting their results in a scientific setting and that is technically clinical. So, you know, next time you hear clinically validated, clinically proven and marketing materials, I want you to put your little thinking cap on and go, but is it really? Is it really? What does that mean? Look, what does that mean? What are they actually studying? How are they validating this thing? Like, I just want you to take the extra critical thinking step and just don't go like, wow, science words. Like, that's, that's all I want

• 1:04:37Speaker 04

  for people to, to, next time you see an influencer in a Lululemon set going, oh my God, this greens powder is clinically proven to help your cognition. No.

• 1:04:48Speaker 02

  Well, that, that gets into that whole four humors thing we've been seeing, right? Where everybody's talking about your cortisol and, and all your other different hormones.

• 1:04:57Speaker 04

  And if I, I hear one more time, I need to release.

• 1:04:59Speaker 02

  If I hear one more, someone talking about inflammation. I was like, if it was this easy to release our cortisol, no one would have stress. Like, you know how you get rid of cortisol? Lower your cortisol lovers, levels? Be less stressed and exercise. That's it.

• 1:05:14Ed Zitron?

  That was that I've been getting random itching when I fall asleep and I've read so many things like, yeah, maybe you're stressed. It's like, cool, thank you.

• 1:05:23Speaker 02

  Or maybe you have dry skin, moisturized. Do you moisturize, Ed?

• 1:05:26Ed Zitron?

  Yeah, I do. I do, and it doesn't work. So, I mean, it's probably something fun. And probably someone's gonna email me. If you email me and say it's like a, just a, just wanna be clear, any listeners who email and try and diagnose me, I don't wanna fucking know, and I'm gonna blast you.

• 1:05:43Speaker 02

  Everyone email him and tell him he's amylactin.

• 1:05:46Ed Zitron?

  Any kind of diagnosis, I must be fucking clear. Like, I will, I will light you up like a Christmas tree. And on that note, I think we can call it there, as we've had a wonderful hater session. Victoria Song, of course, from The Verge. Victoria, always a pleasure to have you.

• 1:06:02Speaker 06

  Thank you for having me. I hate everything.

• 1:06:06Ed Zitron?

  And Alex Cranz, love having you too.

• 1:06:09Speaker 02

  Oh, my God, I hated every part of this podcast. So, and, and every part of the world right now. Did I, did I get my hate up?

• 1:06:18Ed Zitron?

  Perfect, that was great. The hateometer I've got going is absolutely losing it.

• 1:06:22Speaker 02

  But this was lovely.

• 1:06:23Ed Zitron?

  Thank you, everyone, for listening. This has been lovely. You'll have Monologue, of course, this week. And yeah, catch you soon.

• 1:06:37Ed Zitron?

  Thank you for listening to Better Offline. The editor and composer of the Better Offline theme song is Matt Osowski. You can check out more of his music and audio projects at mattosowski.com. M A T T O S O W S K I dot com. You can email me at [email protected] or visit betteroffline.com to find more podcast links and, of course, my newsletter. I also really recommend you go to chat dot where's your ed dot at to visit the Discord and go to r slash better offline to check out our Reddit. Thank you so much for listening.

• 1:07:09Speaker 06

  Better Offline is a production of Cool Zone Media. For more from Cool Zone Media, visit our website, coolzonemedia.com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 1:07:42Speaker 06

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• 1:09:01Ed Zitron?

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• 1:09:44Ed Zitron?

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• 1:09:48Speaker 00

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