I'm TT and I'm Zakiah, and this is Dope Labs. Welcome to Dope Labs, a weekly podcast that mixes hardcore science with pop culture and a healthy dose of friendship. Girl, let me tell you about this Apple Watch and how it saved my life. Okay, I didn't have a fall or anything, but I got a high heart rate notification when I was dating this man.
He was stressing me out, and for the Apple Watch to say to me, Hey, you have an elevated heart rate even though you're not moving around, it was like, Wow, you in danger, I said, this man trying to kill me? An Apple Watch knows? Okay, where your fitness devices save yourself?
Good God, But that just makes me think of about all of this wearable tech that a lot of us are wearing and the notifications that we get. So I think that that is a great topic for us to talk about today. Let's jump into the recitation.
Well, I already told my story, but what do you want to know? What else do you want to know?
I think it's good to start from the beginning, like who started all of this and what made it boom the way that it has. It feels like everyone has some type of device on their body.
Yes, And when did it become cool? Because I remember when people are like, can't believe you're dressed up and got on an Apple Watch. It you got on a wiz Kid watch or whatever.
You know. They still saying that. They're like, oh, leave that Apple Watch at home when you're going to someplace fancy. I'm like, well, how am I supposed to get these steps at this work dinner?
Huh mm? And along with steps, there's also like heart rate information, breathing. Some of this wearable technology is letting you tell if your stress level is high. I want to know how useful all that information is when it comes to like healthcare and your PCP or a primary care physician looking at it and saying, hey, here's what you gotta do next.
Right, And the engineer and me like, I want to know how this stuff works because sometimes I look down in my Apple Watch and I see that green light glowing and I'm like, okay, what are you doing? So I want to know how all this stuff works like inside of these devices.
Yes, And the consumer in me, okay, the gadget.
Girl and me knows my friend loves a gadget.
I do Apple watch or ring. I remember the fit bit yep, I remember whoop? But like, what are the other ones out there? What's new, what's coming? And what do I need to buy next? And what's capturing which data points? Because that really, I feel like, determines what you should have right.
And my friend she also loves a lot of data on herself. She wants everybody to send their numbers in. But I feel like there might be a little bit too much information, you know, And so I want to know. Is there a such thing as too much data? Is it overwhelming us? It's overwhelming me?
Not me, I'm throwing in Google sheets, let's look at it. But for the people that are collecting their data like me, is somebody else collecting it? Is somebody else possibly selling it?
Oh?
That's scary mm hmm. I want to know because we saw what happened with twenty three and me companies up for sale along with your data.
Oh my gosh.
Yeah, I think that's a great start of questions.
Absolutely, let's jump into the dissection.
Our guest expert today is Christopher Memes. He writes about technology for The Wall Street Journal, and he's the author of Arriving Today.
Christopher We are so excited to have you back on the show. Me az Akiya are people who wear wearable technology?
You see?
She has her ring on where did wearable technology begin? How did we get here? Who started this? And was there an inflex point when it started to become popular.
I think it all came from our phones in the first place, right, Like we take it for granted that there are these sensors in our phones. My favorite way to describe it is we all remember the first time we picked up an iPhone and or a iPad and you know, you do this and you turn it ninety degrees and it was like magic because you're like, oh, now the YouTube video or whatever is full screen.
Yeah.
So that little attitude sensor in there that was key to enabling these fitness devices because it, I mean, that's kind of a miracle technology itself. It's a literal form of nanotechnology. So the real precedent of that technology is this thing that was the size of the basketball which flew on the first missions to the Moon, and it was attitude sensor so that they could orient the spacecraft as it was coming down to land. And you know,
it was a very early computer. It was built by IBM, and that has been so miniaturized now that it is the size of a poppy seed on one microchip inside your phone, and so then of course it's easy to put it into like a fitbit or an Apple Watch, and it's super accurate. You know. That's why your watch can identify different exercises that you're doing without even telling it.
That's crazy.
An attitude censor. The key needs one of those, and not just for orientation.
Well, I think when they came out with the Apple Watch, there was a lot of skepticism. Everybody was like, you know, the iPhone is enormous. You're never going to build a business that's on the same scale, So why are you even trying? And then I think maybe five years into sales of the Apple Watch, somebody did a calculation and they were like, you know, if you broke this business out on its own, it would be a fortune one
hundred company by itself by revenue. But Apple's so big that it's like to them, it's like a rounding error because it's five to ten percent of their iPhone revenue. I mean, Cook famously is extremely focused on health. He has said in interviews, I think better health is going to be Apple's greatest contribution to humanity, like that he wants that to be his legacy.
And it seems like doctors are buying into that idea. In your article, you mentioned that some doctors are recommending the Apple Watch to patients to help them manage their health conditions. Could you elaborate, aside from the attitude sensor, like, what are some of the other specific features that make this particularly useful for a medical setting. Yeah.
So, obviously, as America's population ages, we've overcome the big killers of the past. People aren't dying from pneumonia anymore, and so, you know, we age, and obviously heart disease and cancer become the big killers. So you just have tons of especially boomers, now aging into that time of life when they might need intermittent or continuous monitoring of
their heart. And one of the kind of really pivotal innovation for the Apple Watch as a medical device was giving it the ability to do a live essentially EKG.
Yeah.
Right, you can take a recording and if you're having like an abnormal event or your doctor wants to look out for, you know, something's wrong with the rhythm of your heart, you can just record it. On your watch and email it to your doctor. And that's such a breakthrough the fact that you can do that on the cheapest Apple watch, the Apple Watch. See, doctors are basically
prescribing it. They're saying, this happened to my own mother. Actually, the doctor said, just go get one of these watches and then do this monitoring so many times per day and send me the results.
Chris, you and Zakia are ring wearers, and Zee you have the or ring, right yep, and Chris you have the ultra humans. So let's talk about rings. They feel like the next step in the technology. Zeqia is the first person that I know personally, so I could see the ring on their finger and she was explaining to me. She was showing me all this data and I was like, Okay, my Apple watch cannot do that. What do you think sets this new ring technology that people have sets it
apart from the Apple watches and the fitbits. What was the change in the technology that helped the ring, the or ring, or the ultra human ring become what it is today.
Well, I think it's pretty simple actually, So like here's my ring and the sensors are on the bottom and the sensors go on this bottom part of your finger, and you know what do we have right there? Actually I'm not an anonymous, so I don't know. I don't know if it's a vein or an artery. I think it's an artery.
You're right, it's an artery.
And that is a really great place for a sensor, is right on the bottom of your finger where you have an artery, Whereas if you have a smart watch and it's sitting on top of your wrist, this is actually a terrible place for a sensor because this is your veins. There's so much information you can get when you put this light sensor right up against the artery that is close to the skin. So that's really the
key thing. Like I think in theory, the best possible device would be like a choker and it would be like right on your carotid artery right here. I mean, you would get so much data be like, oh, your brain is low on oxygen right now, like you need to stand up or something. It's as simple as that, which is why it blows me away that Apple hasn't tried to make a ring yet. I mean, again, I think the watch is good enough. They're able to gather
a lot of data. But the other thing you can get from putting a sensor right here on your finger is this measure of basically how hard your arteries are, which predicts, you know, heart disease.
Yeah, and it's because what they do is there's.
A measure of like how fast the blood is flowing during a particular period in the cycle of your heart beating, and by measuring the velocity of the blood at that moment, they can get it's a proxy for her, like how hard your arteries are.
So you tell me they're looking at it, say too much cholesterol in there, yeah, or if there's a plaque build up.
But it's really about the elasticity of you or blood vessels, because that is a really big factor in terms of your health. But Tekia, I really want to hear how this ring has changed your life, because I'm like a collector of these stories. It always blows me away. How wearing one of these rings for tt if you want to talk about the watch change your behavior, how did it change your behavior? Because this ring has really changed my behavior.
It has changed her.
The ring has changed me. Okay, this was a gift.
I've only had it for like three months, and I had started working out more and a different kind of working out because TT's husband has been my trainer. Anybody looking to run, Wow, he's your guy.
Okay. I was getting, first of all, a rash from wearing this Apple Watch. Okay, And you need to charge it so often, and so I will put it on the charger. I would leave it off for days. It just wasn't I'm not consistent with my Apple Watch. It dies on my arm. I don't want all of those notifications I'm getting, and I feel like I turned them off, but I'm still getting notifications. The ring I put it on once I got used to it for like two or three days. It's like, set it and forget it.
It's a rotisserie chicken. You know. I put it away. I don't think about it.
And wait a minute, I need to know more about how you just leave the rotissary chicken out.
Oh wait, do you not remember those informations that set it in?
Oh?
And they now, I do believe in food safety. Do not set it and forget it with your rotissory chicken. But wearing the ring, I felt like I didn't have to think about it. It was able to get consistent monitoring, and I wasn't on and off, and it gave me some really good insights around, like my sleep is never it was never right. Okay, it's not she's not sleeping, like I haven't been resting. I've had a lot of day stress. When I realized those things, I'm like, Okay,
what was I doing today. I'm starting to put in tags. Everything's in one place for the or ring every night. I'm putting all that stuff in. I'm looking at the day. It's been easy for me and I don't have to charge it. And even the prompts didn't feel like I don't know if it was the apps I was using. It felt like a little condescending some of those prompts. I didn't like those notifications I was getting.
I know what you mean, yeah, Apple Watch. I just felt like it was shaming me. Is like, how come I stood up in two hours? I'm like, I'm working exactly.
That's the reason why me and my Apple Watch don't get along. Like it's phases. I want all of that health stuff off, Like if you take a ten minute walk, you can don't tell me to get up and take a ten minute walk. I'm barely making it through the day. I don't want to hear that. I just want to know, did I just get an email? Perfect? I can see that a text message. So I'm like the opposite where it's like I don't need all that health data. I just need I want to be more efficient in everything else.
But I know I'm an anomaly.
No, I don't think you are.
I have heard from the people who make these rings that I think like two thirds of their users have a watch and a ring.
The ring is one thing, m hm that it feels like an advance. But you've been also trying out the continuous blade glucose monitors and I've seen those.
Yes, what's the scoop?
So this is wild? Like I was hesitant to try this because it is in your body. It's a tiny, tiny bit. Okay, So there's a very fine little metal lead. This is gonna sound terrible.
It sounds like just like.
Demolition man stuff. There's an applicator and you put it on and you go like and it goes junk and it makes this loud noise and this tiny, tiny little metal wire. It does not penetrate the skin. It goes just below the epidermis. Into I guess, like the interstitial fluid. It's just below your skin and there, I guess glucose is circulating even though it's not penetrating any blood vessels.
And the wild thing about it is the more sophisticated ones have this little like it's almost like when you go to the store and you just pay with touch lists, like with your watch or your phone, and you just tap your phone to the sensor and it goes like beep boop, and then immediately download your glucose data and so you get this continuous monitoring you can check out anytime you want, and the way it gets sold. You know, I'm sure you've seen these ads. There's tons of influencers
on Instagram love this. It is a lot of data and like, I feel like it can be misused, but when I did it, it just was helpful because it kind of helped me realize I need to be taking seriously all of the advice about slow carbs and when do you eat, and because it will show you how you respond to various foods, how you respond to exercise, does your blood sugar change, you know, if you're tired, and it kind of just I mean, these are things that I think we could all probably figure out on
our own if we had a skilled nutritionist kind of in our ear all the time. But it's just like the watch of the ring. It's very convenient, and you know how humans are, We need reinforcement. We have to be told over and over and get day in and day out to like break down our mental barriers to learning these things.
Do you feel like there's a such thing as too much information? Where do you think we should draw the line between beneficial health checking and potential over reliance on technology?
Yeah, I do think there's a such a thing as too much information. I mean, this is why I use a ring and not a watch, because I actually only want to check my sleep in activity maybe a couple times a day, and I don't want anything sending me alerts and reminding me. I'm like, yeah, I know I haven't exercised this morning, Like that's going to happen this afternoon,
Like stop hassling me. The blood Guckost monitor also, I felt like it was valuable, But the more I investigated it, the more I found that a lot of the sort of chatter around it on social is people observing what are normal variations in blood glucose throughout the day, and they were pathologizing them and saying like, oh, you know this just happened. I saw this, so I shouldn't eat
this food ever. And it's like, no, this is your blood sugar does go up and down if it is out of control, and then yes, you need to see a medical doctor. So I think that there is this potential for people to really just over focus on certain measures.
Yeah, I mean, the data is only as good as the people who are reading it, Like, you have to know what the data means. You have to understand those things. So, like you were saying in the beginning, doing this in conjunction with your doctor so that they can explain these things and give you context. I feel like makes the data that much better and over.
A long period of time, Like don't go checking the exhale sheet between your epidermis and drmis every twenty minutes, like it's just going to alarm you, you know.
Right, hyperfixation on getting your data just right seems very excessive because how much will it really extend your life to.
Never mineccounts teaching.
Listen, in the world we live in in I need less minutes, okay, which I.
Feel like, now we have to talk about Brian Johnson.
Let's get to let's get to it. Let's get to it.
Okay, So Brian Johnson he made his money on a company called Braintree, which is a you know, payments platform, so it's like Square or one of these. His net from the sale of that company was probably north of three hundred million, So he's set for life. And then he's like, you know, does the like typical Silicon Valley divorced guy thing, has some drama, and then decides, I'm going to commit myself to not dying. That's his motto,
don't die. And now he is famous for having these special dinners with other celebrities like the Kardashians or whoever, where he's like, here's my extremely strict diet. He doesn't eat after eleven am. I think it's vegan, and he has He spends more than a million dollars a year on tests and this kind of full time longevity doctor who is helping him figure out ways that he sees himself as a pioneer, ways that we can all live longer.
So primarily for him, that's caloric restriction, you know, it's eating and taking all these supplements that he thinks are going to help him into accidents whatever. And avoiding the sun. He's definitely not seen the sun in at least two years. And then his latest thing, I don't know if he saw, is he's getting really into the hyperbaric oxygen chamber. He
said that's the next breakthrough for him. And he has created a movement called Don't Die and it's amazing to me how it has become this big Silicon Valley subculture that has broken out of that and now like they're kind of accolytes everywhere. And he jokes like, yeah, I'm starting a cult, and it's a cult to make you go to bed on time.
I have never heard of Brian Johnson, and so I had to look him up and I found his diet and I've just got to step through some things with all of you. So his daily routine and diet, he has a calorie intake of about two thousand calories a day that is precisely measured, and he eats all his food in the morning, like Chris was saying, and completes
them all before noon. And he usually has three main items for his three main meals, and it's a green or a super veggie meal, a nutty pudding, and the third meal is based on the data that he has evidence bay fired to figure out what he needs for that last meal. And so the core components are one hundred percent vegan, and he's focused on whole foods that have high nutrient density and low glycemic index so to avoid blood sugar spikes, and no processed foods, so no sugar,
no refined grains, and no seed oils. And he takes over one hundred pills a day of vitamins and supplements. And that hyperbaric therapy, Christopher, that you were talking about, that's when you increase the delivery of oxygen to the body by providing pure oxygen in an enclosed space. So he gets into these chambers, it's pumped full of oxygen and it's meant to increase the amount of oxygen into your body.
That's crazy, because my multi items are looking at me like, girl, when are you returning? When will you have another one to.
Blow off the top of my before I screwed the top.
Don't tell my mama. I'm embarrassed a little bit because I know Brian Johnson already across Brian Johnson on Twitter years ago, and I was like, what's this man doing now? The open access officionado in me was like, download his data. Take a look, right, Okay, I was looking, and so I was looking at all the like readouts because he was sharing all this stuff publicly, and he was talking about what type of tests he was doing. I said, hey,
a little weird. This is before I think he was taking his son's blood or whatever was going on there. What Yeah, I know, it sounds crazy, it sounds like a joke, but he was getting these plasma transfusions as part of his whole anti aging thing, and he was replacing his blood with his sons. Now, it didn't really help, and it just proved to be controversial because I was like, now you're taking it too far, okay. But he was like, hey, my nutritionis has worked with me. And at the time
I didn't have a nutritionist. I still don't, okay. Mine is my explore page on Instagram. And so I was like, all right, if the nutritionist is working with him and this is working, let me try some of these things. So Blueprint is Brian Justin's like outfit where he does all this stuff, and so I've made some of those recipes. Now he was saying, just blend it all up, you know, and just eat this, you know, slurry. I don't go that route. I like to chew and so but I've
tried some of the things. Not so bad once you get used to it.
I can't eat that many lentils.
No lentils are good for you. I know they're good for you.
I don't like them.
I feel like what he is doing, though, in some ways, is the future, because we're talking about tracking right now and glucose monitoring being the cutting edge. But this reminds me that this ring that I'm testing ultra human, which is like a more fitness focused version of AURA, Like they are moving into new types of tracking that they want to pair with the insights and the data you
gather from the ring. So like obviously like everybody's doing now, they'll do like cycle and ovulation stuff, but they actually are contracting with like outside labs and they're like, go get your vitamin D tested, yeah, or go get these other common blood markers tested and then we'll integrate that into the app. And so I find it fascinating that like what used to be tests that would be ordered
by doctors. Now we are being encouraged to go get on our own, yeah, to go examine our biomarkers, like we're all Brian Johnson.
But also what I've seen lately that was taking it too far is Brian Johnson having all those folks that work with him sign of NDA's. Did you see that? I did see that.
You sent me the link, so I read it because I didn't know who he was. I was like my first introduction into him, and I was like, this seems incorrect. You put an NDA's in place and trying to live longer to harass folks. Sounds like you should be not living so long. Oh that sounds hard. If it ain't right, it ain't right, though, it ain't right.
Like so I'm up to minds when it comes to that because I live in Atlanta where people are on a lot of things that should be done by doctors. Okay, and you can get a V twelve shop with your lashes, Okay, you can get both of those done at the same time. But I feel like that's really interesting, Like I would be interested in my vitamin D levels and all of those things. But when we share all of this stuff, it's different when I share it with my doctor versus
sharing it with the app. So for me, I'm like,
what about data privacy? So we had a Dope Labs listener reach out months ago, Hey Vio, and she said she was using the iOS health app, a mindfulness app, a sleep tracker, and a cycle tracker like you mentioned, and she said she started getting like she noticed that she was getting targeted ads and emails and socials and even women's health and it was stuff that she wasn't thinking about it first, but she felt like the ads correlated with what some of the apps were eventually telling
her or calculating. And so I don't know how much of this is the strides in effect, like once you look at a thing, you start to recognize it more and more you bring more attention to it. But she said she didn't feel safe for secure, so she stopped using them. And you know, TT and I were talking about data breaches we saw with twenty three and meter
and that's your genetic information YEA United Healthcare. Yeah, so when we think about this, what is the potential When we start thinking about I mean, I don't know what anybody would do with my vitamin D levels, but with all of this information. Do you know anything about what companies are saying they're going to do to protect our data once they have it.
I don't, but I have covered data privacy for a long time, and I do know based on my previous reporting, that the default here is companies will gather and share data if it is profitable until they are prevented from
doing so. That's just the bottom line. I mean, we went through this with location data, Like it's easy to forget that not that long ago, advertisers could know everywhere you'd been almost and target things based on your location until Apple shut that down with a whole whole change to their policies, and that made Mark Zuckerberg super mad. He's still mad about it, talks about it all the time. And health data, it's probably like the next frontier. I mean,
you're right. What's really scary for me is like the cycle tracking stuff. We've actually done some reporting on that. This is a very real scenario. That's gonna sound like dystopian, but this is real. When companies gather this data, if they're not encrypting it, let's say law enforcement can go subpoena that data. So a lot of times the way
they solve crimes. Nowadays is our phones are tracking us all the time, and even if Apple is preventing Facebook from getting that data, every one of our cell phone providers has that data at and T Verizon, and when they get a subpoena from local law enforcement or the FBI or whoever, they turn that data over. And most people don't object to that because it's generally it happens with a warrant and it's like somebody had to be
involved in a serious crime. But we now live in a time where a serious crime might be, you know, missing a cycle, and then the Age of Louisiana thinks that you've broken state law and, according to their law, committed murders, so they're going to go subpoena that data. That's very frightening to me.
No states currently have laws that say that they could use your phone data to track you and figure out if you've obtained an abortion, but there have been instances
where law enforcement agencies have used data in investigation. So in Idaho, law enforcement used cell phone data to charge a mother and son with kidnapping for aiding an abortion seeker who traveled across state lines to receive care and So in response to these concerns, there have been a bunch of states that have enacted laws to protect reproductive health data from being exploited.
I like it, and I like the geo fencing around healthcare facilities.
Apple tries really hard to make sure that that data they either don't ever get it or it's encrypted in a way that nobody else can get it. Like, they're quite good at that, to the point that law enforcement gets real mad at them. That's why, Like, if you ever want to have a conversation that law enforcement can access, use imassage.
Okay, yeah, for real, all of my criminal activity is about to start. My Villain Richard story starts today.
You and your Apple Watch.
So I saw a stat that said that in twenty twenty three, fifty percent of adults between thirty five and forty four reported that they own a wearable fitness or wellness device. And then we also saw that the higher your education level I'm in, the higher your income, the
more likely you are to use these devices. In your opinion, how can wearable technology be made more accessible, especially when we're thinking about how this could help improve your health outcomes when you become more aware of what's going on.
That's a good question. I think that some of it could be awareness. I often forget that I pretty much have my phone on me all the time anyway. It has a health app on it that is tracking every one of my steps, whether or not I have aware. Every phone is wearable effectively if you are carrying it, and it's quite accurate. Another thing is I think that there's a normal cycle and technology where it starts out as an expensive toy for the rich, and then it
just becomes cheaper and more accessible. I mean, I think the maybe the underlying question is how do we make it not just accessible, but how do we make it useful to people? Because it's telling you, well, you didn't get a lot of activity because you're a long haul truck driver and you're stuck in the cab twelve hours a day. Does that even have any utility?
You know, it's true.
But if you're a member of a population that historically has had less access to healthcare or has had medical mistrusts over years because of you know, actual events, I think something that tells you about heart incidents is important, right if you're able to track or catch those things early. And so I'm like, once we remove that economic layer or the act like just the barrier to entry into
some of these things. How do we say, like, hey, I know you feel like this is tracking, and it might be, but it could also save your life or save you hundreds of dollars or thousands in the long run.
Yeah, I hope that one way that it becomes more accessible is more insurance companies subsidize it. Right now, Medicare advantage plans will pay for an Apple Watch, and why because of exactly what you just said, Like, if they can prevent you having to go to the er, that's going to save them tens of thousands of dollars. Better that you get an early alert through your watch, you go to your doctor, you get the care you need
when you need it. I mean, it could be a win win, and sometimes the driver is economic right with insurance.
I'm curious about what advice you would give to consumers that are looking to integrate these devices into their lives without feeling overwhelmed, you know, and without riding the highs and lows of blood glucose monitoring notifications that shame you for not moving and also like and just not becoming a hypochondriac because all these things happen without your awareness before and just knowing that your body does have some resilience to manage these types of things.
That's a great question, because it's definitely I think, as this conversation is illustrated, it is not one size fits all. Every single one of us has had a different experience, and I feel very privileged that I have been able to try all these different devices, you know, and part of it is my job. I just call people up. I'm like, hey, I want to try your device and
maybe I'll write about it. I would say, just start somewhere a used Apple Watch, see if you want to get into it is a great way to start and not too expensive.
Because you're so immersed in all of this, what future developments are you excited about? Like what do you see coming down the pike that you're like, Okay, this is going to be very very cool.
I think that almost hesitate to say because it sounds so nuts. I think brain monitoring is going to be next. And I don't mean the Elon musk sticking an electrode into your head.
No one should do that.
I just mean, like, you know, the EEG headbands, which now you can use for biofeedback and such. I think that people are going to start playing with those two I don't know, you know, help them. First it'll be to help them meditate, and later it'll be to help them identify, you know, different states of mind. I don't know, I.
Didn't even think about that.
Wow, the future is now.
I think, even when I look at all of this, all our data, feels like we need to get a cybersecurity people on the line because all of our data is up in the air. It feels like up there in the clouds, everybody in the clouds, and everybody's pulling down different things. I'm seeing your favorite rappers getting caught up with screenshots from their text messages, war plans for the United States being shared in a messaging app with reporters in the app, all the credit bureaus sharing everything.
All that stuff is just loose on the Internet. I feel like.
All of it's just loose information high fighting up Internet.
Yes, and so Apple Hell feels like the safest place. Maybe that's where I should store my pens, you know, like, maybe that's where I should put my passwords. You can find Christopher on Instagram and threads at Technically MEMS, and if you want to find him on Blue Sky and all the other budding platforms, go to MEM's dot club, mi MS, dot c l ub.
You can find us on X and Instagram at Dope Labs podcast, tt.
Is on X and Instagram at d R Underscore.
T s h O, and you can find Takiya at z said So.
Dope Labs is a production of Lamanada Media.
Our senior supervising producer is Kristin Lapour and our associate producer is Issara Sives.
Dope Labs is sound design, edited and mixed by James Farber. Lamanada Media's Vice President of Partnerships and Production is Jackie Danziger. Executive producer from iHeart Podcast is Katrina Norvil. Marketing lead is Alison Kanter.
Original music composed and produced by Taka Yasuzawa and Alex sudi Ura, with additional music by Elijah Harvey. Dope Lab is executive produced by us T T show Dia and Zakiya Wattley.