From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or learn the stuff they don't want you to know.
A production of iHeart Radio. Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt our Powell. Noel is on adventures and will be returning shortly.
They call me Ben. We're joined as always with our super producer Paul the eclipse decand most importantly, you are here. That makes this the stuff they don't want you to know. Matt. Funny story back when our office was at Pont City Market, I was at the little bodega downstairs and I was buying a Coca Cola Classic and the cashier at the place, really cool guy named Dylan. He said, you know, man, at some point in your life, your health will become
the most important part of your existence. It's really only a matter of when it becomes the most important part.
Ah. But the most important question for that story is was it a plastic bottle or a glass bottle?
Everybody check out our episode of microplastics, also the one where we ruin the concept of recycling.
But it's also one of those. Is the superior product I would argue, well, I guess it's changed now a little bit.
The glass bottle though, Yeah, the big one though, right right here we go, that's our big salad argument. Yeah, I mean, but this sounds like a lot to drop on someone when they're buying Minnesota. But in full context, you know where we usually make friends with folks wherever we go. So Dylan and I knew each other pretty well by that point, and he had he had a really solid perspective. You know, we know that small lifestyle changes can lead to huge results over time. Fewer sugary drinks,
for example, or just taking a daily walk. At the heart of every single piece of advice from a medical professional, from a weight loss expert, from a dietitian, nutritionist, what have you. At the heart of it, the advice is always going to be to create a calorie deficit, to use more energy than one consumes, and so exercise, diet, these can all play a role in helping you be
a more healthy person. And not for nothing have these all become multi billion dollar industries in Matt Not to put us both on the spot, but I think we've both been exploring just small changes that can help you feel healthier and indeed become healthier.
Oh yeah, for sure. Cutting out most well, I would say ninety five percent of sugared drinks changed my life, and regular exercise changed my life. And it is what you're pointing out here is super important for this episode. Anytime I've ever gone to a doctor, a physician that I trusted and went in, let's say I had to temporarily get prescribed some kind of medicine. At the end of that conversation. When I'm being prescribed medicine, it's that
statement you just said. Also, diet an exercise, you know, just like watch what you eat, try and me healthy about it, and get regular exercise. But yes, also take this medicine from this giant pharmaceutical company because it might help you, but you know, you can make yourself healthy as well.
Also, yeah, I love it because you know, shout out to the medical professionals in the crowd that diet and exercise sort of that coda that Morris, that speaking point. They say it every time because it is so often ignored. There is not a silver bullet, magic pill that replaces calorie deficit.
Uh yeah, yeah, calorie deficit massive, massive, But also you know, nutrient rich food, which is not the easiest thing to get. It's not the easiest way. Putting that into your lifestyle is not easy. I'm terrible at it. I'm so bad. Give me a ham sandwich and some some freaking jalapeno chips. Let's go. That's my lunch. All good, almost no nutrients in there.
Well, you get your daily dosa, ham.
And mayo, probably because that's the way I roll, unfortunately, and probably hot sauce. But it's like, it is not the easiest thing to do, especially with the way economies are set up right now, with the way that's food access, right It's just it all factors into today's subject.
And today's subject is not just the reality of exercise, diet, mortality, and health. Specifically, we're looking at another multi billion dollar industry at work in the US and indeed around the globe, an entire cavalcade of companies, corporations, and at times conspiracies built to convince you that a magic pill exists, or a magic powder exists. It can cure almost anything that ails you. That's right, folks, We said we were coming for them, and this is the supplement episode. We were
talking a little bit off air. This is probably going to be a series, depending on how you find it. Fellow conspiracy realist, just a quick note swapping before we started rolling, we were link ah so much here, but here are the facts, Matt. Yeah, supple supplement. What's a supplement?
Uh, supplement? Well, though, it's usually a pill or a powder or a liquid or something that you take on a regular basis, usually daily, not always, but usually daily that supplements literally, the meaning of that word gives you a little extra of some vitamin or mineral or other nutrient that you need, according to the manufacturers of this thing, and potentially even a doctor or just someone on the internet that said, hey, you got to take way more zinc pal oh.
Step you know, Brian.
Yeah, but it's literally meant to supplement the food that you are already eating.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And of course we are not medical professionals, Paul, Matt and myself have never pretended otherwise, which honestly puts us a step ahead as some of the folks out there. But we know these things that you're describing, Matt, are inarguably true. All human beings require a constant pattern of ingestion of minerals, vitamins, proteins, amino acid, different sorts of bacterial material, bacterial material thing, let's keep it, yeah, drop
the beat anyway. There are no exceptions to this. The body can encounter these substances in any number of ways, sunlight or like you said, the food you eat, the beverages you consume. Shout out dead pres Let your food be your medicine. And there's not a way to I mean, people have tried to make a one size fits all list of nutritional guidelines, but that is somewhat of a fool's errand because human bodies differ so widely, you know,
medical conditions, genetic legacies, physical activity. There isn't a panacea. There is not a thing you can just to be very clear, there is not a thing you can take that can cure everything, because if there was, we would all be taking it right now.
Oh yeah. What we have our generalized ranges basically of like a percentage or number of you know, parts per million or billion that are in your blood or something like that. When you're thinking about minerals or certain vitamins. If you've ever gotten blood work done or gone in
for a physical, you've probably seen this. If you've taken a look at the actual documentation you receive where you know, if you're if the amount of magnesium in your blood is in this pretty huge range, you're probably good, it says, I mean, but again it you might need more because of a specific thing going on in your body, right, or you might need way less because you've you've macro doosed, or you know, maximum you've maxed out your whatever vitamin D.
There we should get into that, we think we will. There are a couple of these vitamins and supplements that I know I've taken in the past where I've just taken a lot because I was super low, but I didn't know you can. You can't overdose in the same way you can on you know, an narcotic, but you can definitely get way too much of certain substances in your body that are recommended, like in a multivitamin.
Or something, and then they may have bad effects. You have deletarious consequences. Yeah. And then also you could have lifestyle changes that require a whole different sort of ingestion or nutrition fingerprint, Like if you are carrying a child, then the whole game changes. It's a different playground. There's someone else inside you, for a minute, and you know what they got different. They got a list of other stuff they want. Yeah, they need folic acid stat and
they need all of it. Yeah, reduce a lot of the other stuff come on too. Yes, it's to us stuff right, And that's why this may be a series.
As human medical technology progressed in step with a better understanding of biology, various taggheads throughout the history of civilization figured out that a lot of people have an ongoing lack of certain substances, and sometimes this is regionally dependent, like if you live in a part of the world where you don't get the same access to sunlight, you might have to get one of those nifty little lamps.
And what they found is that some of this stuff can be fixed pretty easily, like if you have an iron deficiency, the steps you need to take to make up for that deficiency or address it are fairly elementary. But you might have some other problems. Like if you are listening tonight and you practice a vegan diet, you already know what we're going to say as a former vegan folks. Vitamin B twelve. Are you even reading about this? Bet? I think we talked about it.
Yeah, yeah, I have some vegan and or plant based humans in my life, and that vitamin B twelve is important. There's also there are a lot of things actually that you need to supplement or probably should supplement if you're fully plant based, right. I don't know, it's creepy because if you lead that lifestyle, which is you know, popular for a reason for you know, ethical reasons for all.
There's so many reasons to lead that lifestyle, it is creepy to think that it may not give you everything you need, so you do have to supplement quite a bit.
Yeah, for a time. I mean it becomes pretty controversial, right, it verges upon the philosophical issues. Yeah, for a time, you know, people were practicing veganism would take vitamin B twelve supplements and not know that they were derived from animal products, which is also very unethical on the part of the people selling that stuff.
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, there's ethics. I would say, this whole industry is with some strange ethical stuff. Yeah, when it comes to things we said right at the top, like people who are selling magic pills, right, which isn't the case all the time. Very frequently that is not the case in companies like massive billion dollar companies that are selling supplements. But it's really crazy common in some of the more offshoot like startups. Then you know, get out
there like oh wait, what does elderberry do? Holy mackerel?
Wow? Yeah, your old you're old. Your old high school friend now is in an MLM and they have a miracle berry that will totally fix your chakras. Oh you know what I mean, Like it'll also make you taller, you'll poop blue at school. Whatever, we're making it up.
See I'm over here talking smack about about Elderberry's, but I've got a supplement that my son and I both take every morning when he with me, Hey, let's do let's just do the elderberries. It's like all right, yeah, this is okay.
So what we're saying here is that the concept of dietary supplements, it is so broad, right, it's such a it's such an umbrella term. It encompasses so many possible things. The only real difference, at least the way Uncle Sam reckons it, as we'll see, is the difference between something that naturally occurs in the food supply versus a drug.
So like your daily dose of elderberry is all well and good, the FDA looks at that as something entirely distinct from say, your daily dose of Riddlin or adderall or zoloft or what are these other bottles here? But you know, it's kind of like it's kind of like saying saying dietary supplement to me is like saying chair. We all get what a chair is, but not all chairs are the same.
Oh there are some weird chairs, dude, things that shouldn't even really be a chair, but you could sit on it.
You could get you know what I mean, if you have enough confidence there what is not a chair, but like a throne for example, that's a chair.
The electric chair is a chair. One is for kings and one is for people being murdered. You'd probably prefer one to the other, but they're both chairs, and so it is. I would argue with dietary supplements.
Yeah, which just goes back to kind of the I guess the way we kind of define it at the top, right, any supplemental vitamin or mineral that comes in either a pill, a powder, or a liquid that is not a part of the food you ingest when you're you know, partaking in a meal or a snack or a whatever, however it is you get food into your face.
Yes, into your food FaceTime. I mean yeah, this is also an ancient technique, right. If you go back to some of the earliest proven human civilizations, you'll see they have these exhaustive list of herbs for very specific things.
And if you go to you know, ancient cultures like in East Asia, right East and Central Asia, you'll see there's this huge, very very dense history of herbal medicine and it goes back We're talking thousands of years at this point, and some of that traditional medicine really does have efficacy. There's sand to it. It helps people other things like ingesting mercury.
Yeah, look, nobody's going to bat a thousand, okay, least for longer than a couple of games. So mercury was a bit of a miss. But I love this idea because nothing, in my opinion, at least this is my opinion,
nothing beats experience, nothing beats wisdom. So like been through it before, isms, I think are actually are there important here because if you've been testing out all the herbs that are around you, Let's say a culture that's in South America and they're aware of all the things, right, all the things that grow, and they've been testing them
out for hundreds, if not thousands of years. You kind of figure out, Okay, well, most of the time, this actually works pretty well when somebody's got a stomach ache. Most of the time, when someone's in a lot of pain, this plant actually pretty great. Just you know, don't take too much of it, or don't combine it with this other plant, because we've seen see what happens there.
Which is crazy because Americans are great at moderation. Well.
Yeah, but on the other hand, if you if you say, well that doesn't matter, that's not science, science or whatever however you want to you know, poo poo that idea. You then have to go to, okay, well, what are the clinical trials that look at the substance that's inside that plant, and how does that affect people versus a placebo effect?
And who funds the trials?
That's it, man, And is there is there is there money to be gained at some point in the chain there?
Right? I love that you're pointing this out. Yeah. As of twenty twenty two, the Council for Responsible Nutrition, which is a lobbying trade group for the dietary supplement industry. They found that something north of seventy three to seventy five percent of Americans use some kind of dietary supplement. Again, it's such a broad term. It might be your flintstone vitamin. It might be your gummy, you know what I mean. It might be your magnesium, your niacin, et cetera.
Well, it might be the garlic you use in a specific diet from a specific region. It could be part of a Mediterranean diet, which is you know, it's very strange how that how it works out, because you can find other places that say about third of Americans use a supplement, but they're defining it as a specific pill or something like.
That, and the stereotypes aren't true. By the way, a lot of us do love garlic anyhow So every year in the US alone, people spend about thirty five billion dollars a little bit more actually on supplements. And I love that you're pointing out the importance of definition there, right, because is it a lifestyle choice to say you're gonna eat more carrots or you're gonna eat more you know, like a potassium rich food like bananas, versus taking a pill, Right,
it gets complicated. I mean, back in twenty sixteen, estimates said the global supplement market will reach two hundred and seventy eight point ZHO two billion dollars in the year twenty twenty four, and surprisingly enough those numbers seem to be on track. That was a pretty good prediction.
Well z that like globally globally yes, yeaheskay, yeah, yeah, I could see that, because supplements are not just a US thing, man, It's a big deal everywhere you go. Some people even go to different countries to buy their supplements in bulk and then smuggle them back over to another country. Usually it's fine because again we'll talk about it, but the FDA sky like, yeah, do what you want with you, do what you want with your vitamin A man.
Shout out create them anyway. Yeah, we might say, We might say, surely there are laws governing this stuff. You can't sell people false hope, let alone poison and then get away with it. The answer is, folks, yeah, there are laws, but those laws, it seems, are outnumbered by far. They are outnumbered by the conspiracies. Afoot. I suggest we take a pause for a word from our sponsor. Find some magic pill to align our chakras and segus. Here's where it gets crazy, Matt. I love that you point
this out right from the jump. Yes, some things called supplements actually do work. They can help you address problems with your.
Health, depending on what you take them with, how you take them, and what else you're eating. Yes, one hundred percent. But there are other supplements to say wild stuff about how they're going to fix your body in weird ways or man using the phrase like preventing cancers or some types of cancers, that is like one of the worst things because we talked about on the show a lot giving people false hope, right and accepting their money. That is just it's just it's dirty.
It's so terrible too. Man like quote unquote preventing cancer. It's got of like pursuit of happiness, you know what I mean. There's a lot of cya that those folks are saying.
And the mess you'll see is if you look at a clinical study, is potentially reduces the occurrence of cancer, and then it's by like a really low almost statistical lean no you know, doesn't matter number.
And cancer is another umbrella term. So things that may prevent one cancer may may do bubcus for a different type of cancer or.
As is warned by people all over the place like Good God, Harvard Health Publishing, and pen Medicine, they talk about some supplements can actually feed certain types of cancer, so it in all of them will will get even deeper into later, but all of them say talk with your doctor about specific supplements, especially if you've been diagnosed with cancer, if you're like pretty extreme risk of cancer
from your family or something. Yeah. Uh, Because some supplements are just like, hey, oh oh hi cancer, here's some fuel.
M hm, exactly, yeah, summer gas on the fire. Here's a quick and dirty spoiler for differentiating between the actual helpful supplements and the stuff that is just meant to part you from your money. The actual helpful stuff does not make outrageous claims. The things that are just like this pill will give you x amount of your daily recommended vitamin C intake or whatever. That's not an unreasonable claim.
The stuff that is like, have you ever wished you had a tail or could fly or turn invisible in the moonlight. That's not real, man.
I wish you well, though, that'd be great.
Yeah, it was a it was a it was a short Initiative bi Centrum. Yeah.
Well, I guess one of the biggest things here in one of the reasons for this, this concept of knowing what's in a substance and knowing that that thing actually works. You're matching up so much different sets of research and then also trusting that whatever is in that bottle is
actually what it says it is on that bottle. And I don't want to jump too far ahead here, but FDA regulations with Food and Drug Administration's regulations with these products, they're not the same as if you go to the store and you buy a product, like a food product that is that has been approved by one of them, or even a drug that has been approved by them.
It's it's not the same. But there are little icons, I guess, logos you can find on certain supplements that will let you know that a third party has said, yes, this is in fact vitamin C.
Yeah, and that's very very important because, believe it or not, we always joke about how the US government has a certain allowable amount of rat poop in cereal. We joke about that because it is very true, and that is actually better legislation than the stuff that applies to these supplements by and large, you know, and we're being very careful to say, of course, not all of them are a grift, and some of them indeed are improving quality
of life for people. There was this great there was this great Washington Post article from a while back where in the journalist Tomorrow Hospital speaks with a bunch of people because Tomorrow has a question that's bothering him. It's like, hey, if people are spending billions of dollars in the US alone every year on so supplements, why does it seem
like most of them don't really do anything? And so he speaks with folks like Carol Haggins and Craig hop who are medical professionals working in the organizations that monitor this stuff. They're not FDA, but he speaks with Craig Hop and Craig is the at the time, the deputy director of the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health in CCIH. And Nikki there we go, Oh, Nikki, here's so fine. So he says he's talking to his journalist and he goes, yeah, there is stuff that works in
the land of herbal medicine. He says, it's a pretty short list. You got ginger for nausea, you got an upset stomach, takes some peppermint. You want to disrupt difficult sleep, then take melatonin. And he says also fish oil might help with cardio vas Skiller disease. But we still don't know the full story, because that's how scientists explore the world.
I took my dog to the vet this morning for a thing, and I have previously given her fish oil my dog penny for her coat, and it was prescribed to her by a veterinary doctor to give like it's to help the to put more oils basically on her skin because she was having dry skin, and it completely works for that with a dog. I've been you know, the omega fatty acids and all that stuff. These things are really hot and things when I say hot, as in like people are excited about them, and they have
been for decades now. I still don't take fish oil or whatever, but that's there is a hole in my knowledge here where a doctor has prescribed fish oil for my dog and I willingly give it to her because a doctor told me to, and I perceive a change. But I also have looked it up online and found conflicting things about it, which just goes to show like and again I'm looking up stuff about fisi oil in humans,
this doctor is provided prescribing it for a dog. There's a vast difference between those two systems and how they you know, take nutrients in and function. But I think the overall thing it does is confuse US supplements in general. Just in the end, after all the research that I've done for this episode, that I know you've done for this episode, we're sitting here, we're talking about it. Overall, I just feel freaking confused, dude.
Yeah, and that is to the benefit of the conspirators who are doing this. So there's also you know, we mentioned the idea like if we go to the vitamin side of this versus the irbal side, right, we look into the idea of helping people with what are called nutrient gaps. You need the magnesium, you need the vitamin a, et cetera. Then you're gonna talk with folks like Carol Haggins's scientific and health communications consultant with the Office of
Dietary Supplements. First off, Also, there are so many there's so many US departments and offices that I think most of us never contemplate but she points out some of the same stuff we were saying earlier. Fullic acid. Yes, it is a great help to folks when they are carrying a child. Vitamin B twelve is great, not just for vegans who do need access to B twelve, but also for people over fifty. It just it helps.
This has two hundred and fifty percent of my daily vitamin B twelve. That's a drake I've got in my hand right here. That seems like too much.
And speaking of yeah, glasshouse stuff, I am drinking some kind of alkaline water. Oh, it has ionized hydration and it has electrolytes added for taste.
As long as it doesn't have free radicals, because then you need antioxidants.
The name of it is free radical water, Free radical water. Yeah, you're right, though, like it's true, we also have to to your point about things being complicated. We have to note that supplements, typically in developed countries, they're not necessarily life savers. Then get you up to normal. They can help your quality of life, and indeed have some preventative aspects for problems down the road, but they're not gonna
cure you of prostate cancer or something. There is not a pill that people can take that will make them able to see if they are blind. And it's extremely unclean that that different corporations or flim flam artists would try to pretend otherwise. But I was interested to learn, man, And you know this, folks. In developing countries where a lot of vitamin deficiencies can be much more common, supplements can be a real game changer. Like survival food or
functional food as they call it. What's that really weird?
One?
Plumping nut? Which have you heard of? Plumping nut?
What the heck is that?
It's like if peanut butter was cocaine. But I'm going somewhere with this. Plumping nut is crack or it's like if if peanut butter was water. Plumping nut is like gatorade.
What it says, ready to use therapeutic food.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It can address a lot of a lot of nutrition deficits in you know, UH is suffering from food insecurity. But it's still a private company and they make a lot of money selling plumpy Also the name is kind of dumb.
Yeah. For for the treatment of severe acute malnutrition mmm, where it provides treatment at home.
Mm hmm.
Yeah, whoa this is it's crazy that it's a thing. It is chok full of vitamins, minerals, lipids and nutrients. Good golly, it's even got nyasin.
Oh finally, yes, it's got all the stuff. It also has a weird apostrophe, which I should stop harping on. It's like plumpy apostrophe nut maybe it's maybe it's cooler in French. But it's manufactured by a place called nutri Set. Anyway, Yeah, these these things happen. We have to point out. This is an excellent example of how different requirements may be one part of the world versus is another part of
the globe. Again, there's not really a silver bullet. And you know a lot of us in the audience today might have our own favorite supplements. You might be taking some fish oil or some I don't know, some multi vitamins B three complex. Is B three complex a thing? I just make that up.
I don't know B three, I know D three and D two.
Okay, well let's say those instead. And you know, if the list of those provably helpful substances is so short, then why are there so many things out there in the marketplace where there's shelves and shelves and shelves of all these powders, pills and drinks. I mean it's like that.
What's that?
Was it? Jefferson airplane? One pay makes you a big r, one pay makes you small.
One pill grows your hair long, and another prevents it from growing at all.
And one with tacio dong. Yeah, the idea that you could make body parts larger, right, or yeah, address hair, mail pattern, baldness or whatever. This is where one would imagine the FDA would come into play. And technically is the law stuff right, This is where it gets juicy. Technically, the FDA says a statement from a supplement needs to have substantiation and to be truthful on paper.
That's awesome. That sounds great, sounds great to me. How do you how do you prove it? I guess with clinical trials?
Yeah, that would be the idea, right, I mean, but it's weird because there are a lot of clinical trials, and time and time again, journalists try to find independent scientists, people without industry ties, to confirm whether or not a given claim is meaningful, and to date, every time you try to find an independent scientist arguing this, you're going to run into a brick wall like our palette. The Washington Post and many other journalists tried to figure out
what was going on. And Tomorrow Hospital again said the dietary supplements industry, and he spoke with trade groups multiple ones. He said they could not point me to a single independent scientist who agrees with industry supported studies. So yeah, I don't know, it's cricker.
Supplements in this whole industry entered a really strange phase. Well, I mean they've there been in a few but around twenty twelve, so when the Mayan calendar decided, you know, everything's going to end, supplements were having a real boom time. And there were there were several there were several several things that a group of Johns Hopkins researchers and other very important smart people came through and tried to tried
to get a grasp on the supplement industry. And in twenty thirteen, twenty fourteen, my goodness, there are some studies that came out and you'll find papers in the NIH the National Institutes of Health and there in their published documents that are basically filed under Office of Dietary Supplements and other places like that, where they come through and they said, at least these Johns Hopkins Fellows. In twenty thirteen, they came through and said, hey, everybody, stop taking supplements.
None of it makes sense, none of it does anything for you. Stop taking mineral and vitamin supplements. The title is literally quote enough is enough, Stop waste money on vitamin and mineral supplements. It was published on December seventeenth, twenty thirteen, and they just said, no, don't do it anymore, and here's our you know, here's our research to back it up after looking at all of the studies that
have come before us. And then almost immediately after that, there's a whole other camp of scientists that also have PhDs that say, hey, guys, no, you're wrong, You're absolutely wrong. The one that was published February thirteenth, twenty fourteen, by Thomas Guliams. Guliams it looks like Williams, but with a
GUI PhD. This was in Integer Med. It's almost like an opinion piece, but it's also backed up by research, and it is the exact opposite that just says, you guys are wrong, you guys are completely wrong to research and this whole thing from twenty thirteen is picking up so much steam. You guys are completely distorting the way America and the rest of the world is viewing supplements.
Take more.
Well. But yeah, but again you wonder why we all feel so confused. It's because if you've got doctors on either side yelling at each other basically, which is what I just described, how are we supposed to know? How am I supposed to know? With a bachelors from Georgia state? Well, if you know, taking vitamins are going to help me.
Right, especially when one would hope that these these founts of authority are unified. Right, If the facts are the facts, then people should agree. And that simply seems to not be the case. I mean even you know, at this point, I think we have to get to one of the weird aspects of this in the US, in particular, what do you think should we pause for a word from our sponsors?
All right, well, then let's us take an outbreak. We'll be right back.
And we have returned. Shout out to everybody who gets their oil straight from the fish. That's what I do. I just got some I got an aquarium. Oh I'm not even killing the fish man, I just pick them up, and I like, yeah, just juice them out a little bit and put them back in catch a release.
Yeah, but that is how you should get fish oil. If you need fish oil, you consume it.
Yeah, yes, that part's true, folks. You can't ring fish out like a wet towel. Don't do that. It's not cool for the fish.
You just take them olive oil, Like take them out of the water, but take them alive oil. Let them swim in there.
For a second, just for it, just like a second.
Just lick it off. You're good.
Yeah, nothing weird. We are joking, folks. Please don't try that. But there is something that's not a joke, and it's ridiculous and danger, which is this. And a lot of people don't know this when they walk through their health store or their grocery store. If you are a company in the United States and you are marketing some kind of dietary supplement, you do not have to establish that it is safe. You are only required to tell the government when something goes wrong.
Yeah. It's an alarm system, right, as a way to put it. It's not a preventative measure. It's an alarm system.
It's a reactive measure, so you could you could come out by the way with like you know, Paul, Matt and Ben's fancy, how you do on pills? And it turns out that they it turns out that they have a dangerous health effect, And then the FDA will come back later after enough people have died and say, hey, guys, how you doing. Pills are bad? And we'll be like, what that's crazy, but they're so fancy, but they're so how are you doing? But this idea, right, the legislation
lagging behind is a common problem. And I know we're both looking into the very sexily named Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act of nineteen ninety four or the DASHA, And this is still controversial because it says that the FD eight does not have the authority to approve these supplements as long as they qualify as something that was
already in the natural food sources of the country. So like, if you are selling vitamin C and vitamin C is already in a bunch of citrus products, then go with god, right, because that's not a drug. Now, that's just something people can eat and ingest.
In other ways, that's just orange juice. Bruh, orange juice. Why are you being fancy? But man, why don't you put some calcium in that too? Mm hmmm hmm.
Yeah. Hey wait uh, this question has nothing to do with uh, with our mission tonight, Matt. But uh, do you have a strong stance on pulp in juice?
Yeah? If if I'm going to make a juice, then I'm cool with pulp in it. If I'm going to order a juice, keep that pulp out of my drink. We go.
I like pulpit a juice because it makes it feel more like juice to me. Yeah, real chewy, you know, Yeah, yeah, yeah, I like to chew my beverages. So the that that's a slight discoursion, but we do have serious questions here, like why does a firm, if if a company is required to have substantive, truthful claims about whatever dietary supplement they are selling the and why do they not have to substantiate this safety of that product before they roll it out onto shelves.
That's a great question, you know.
And again like we're not we're not read onto the emails from the FDA. We're not around in the congressional brainstorming sessions. We know that no matter how slick the packaging is, how many like warm colors and cool cartoons and plant leaves and whatever, all of that stuff doesn't matter. And the buzzwords often don't matter either. They're like sound
and fury. They're signifying nothing. We talked about it a while back, you know how tricky different marketing buzzwords can be, how they look like actual descriptions of fact, Like all natural doesn't mean anything whatsoever.
Completely not natural. Vitamin D.
I would like that, Yeah, vitamin C for cyborg.
This is yeah, man, this is synthetic magnesium. It's real hot, right now, get some while it's still around. It's actually an FT, but it is true because we treat these things. We take these things like drugs, as we're talking about in the beginning, Right, it's a pill something you have to take as though you would riddle in, or something that you were prescribed maybe as a kid. Right, But it is. But they're not that at all. But they
are things that are generally found in foods. But it is not a food because you're not eating it.
Right.
It is a weird little gray area that the FDA just says, my not my purview, pal well, I got enough to deal with.
Over here, right, call us back when hundreds of people die. Yeah, that's set the alarm off, right, the call us when the alarm goes off. I mean this is another thing too. The US is in a somewhat distinct situation because the healthcare and dietary regulation of this country is wackadoo. But if you die in the US, We've said it before, if you die in the United States in recent history, the primary cause of that mortality is poverty. You can trace it back to a thousand different ways, but it's
kind of an all roads lead to rome situation. I mean, you know, private industries are making millions, billions of dollars selling hope to the hopeless, and this poison masquerades is medicine. I mean yeah, we can look back on, you know, like Chinese emperors ingesting mercury. We can say that's chump move stuff. But that is a comforting blindness. The grifters
are real, they are here, they're actively operating. There are tons of substances soul as supplements that can do actual harm to people, and one of the most infamous recent cases that we're both reading about is a fedra Remember e fed Remember how E fedro was everywhere for a while.
I know, a fedrin. Yeah, I always think about Echinasia. That was the thing that I remembered. It was like around forever and everybody needed to take it. And then for a while, oh wait, no, you don't need to take it. It doesn't do anything. And then oh no, it does stuff again. But I don't know the fed Tell me about that one.
E fedra was. It's a substance that occurs naturally in some plants, and for a while it was marketed as an appetite suppressant, an energy booster, and people were taking it willy nilly until about one hundred and fifty five folks died as a result of ingesting it.
Whoa, So it was like it was a weight loss pill or something like that.
Yeah, yeah, like an upper weight loss thing, kind of like that jacked up lemonade that was a pin I got in trouble for.
Hey, yeah, well that's just loads of caffeine in a you know, dump it into your dump it into your giant cup that we provided you with, and then, oh, by the way, free refills.
So E fedra can cause a quickened heartbeat, it can cause elevated blood pressure, people can vomit, they can have heart palpitations. It's also difficult really to control the dose in some ways. And as a result, there was this study from the Annals of Internal Medicine that said products made with e Fedra were only one percent of herbal supplement sales in the United States in like the early two thousands, but they were responsible for sixty two percent
of herb related reports to poison control. So people, yeah, people were accis. And these aren't folks, you know, trying to get high or something. They're they're taking what they feel is a helpful dietary supplement. In two thousand and three, the FDA reacted and removed some eheda products from the US market, and to this day, it is the only dietary supplement to get an outright ban in the entire history of dietary supplements. And again, it's not a it's like,
is it a food, is it a drug? It occurs in plants, et cetera, et cetera. Yeah, according to.
I think it's Harvard that you linked to here, Ben's they're saying that it was in a specific herb that's used in Chinese medicine Mong mahuang yeah hu a n g. So it's like a naturally occurring thing. But then I guess if you try and you know, break it down into a more concentrated form, right, it was having all kinds of bad effects. I've never I've never, don't. I don't know how I missed this, ben, But I missed this.
Well, you know a lot of people miss it because they're having a tough time buying more of it.
Oh no, I don't mean miss it. I missed as I don't. I didn't know with you.
Yeah, I mean, look, it does. It does have proven efficacy for things like weight loss. But to your earlier point, with that can come unintended side effects and consequences. That's the reason why drugs that may be prescribed by a doctor sometimes come with a secondary prescription to combat the side effects of the first drug. And you get caught in a feedback loop, you know what I mean. That's a maybe that's a story for another evening.
I mean, you know, tell me about this next thing you found, man, because this this genuinely freaks me out as a person who takes a multi vitamin that I guess I trust and you know, take vitamin D and a couple other supplements to my diet. This freaks me out.
Yeah. In twenty eight there was a study published in the medical journal JAMA, and this study looked at looked at about a decade of data with the FDA, and they found that between two thousand and seven and twenty sixteen, the FDA identified no less than seven hundred and forty six dietary supplements that were adulterated. It weighs the consumer
probably didn't clock. Like imagine you get a natural herbal supplement and later you learn it has not just food components to it, but it has drugs in there as well. We're talking steroids, erectile dysfunction stuff. And they only recalled less They recalled less than half of the messed up things they found.
Wow. I remember some friends early on in college who would buy pills from a local gas station that had crazy names. I think the ones I remember were yellow Jackets.
Oh yeah, yeah, Yellow Jackets, White Crosses, Trucker Speed.
Yeah. And it was essentially this like a supplement pill that you just go up and you buy like it's a vitamin, but it totally acted like speed for people. They would stay up all night studying and be jittery, and I'd what, just go on, do you guys have a lot of caffeine or something like? No, man, it's yellow jackets. Okay, well I hope everything else is okay. Good luck on the.
Test, exactly exactly. Now you have to start asking yourself, well, if we know all of this is true, and we do the public does know this, then why do people keep buying stuff? The short answer is this, just like snake oil from ages past, a lot of these substances, they're not gonna help you, but they're not gonna harm you. Yeah, they're just blue guy pills. They're placebos by another name.
Well, and they're expensive. They're not gonna hurt you, but dang they're expensive.
They are going to hurt your wallet.
Yeah. Often it's a one time per what maybe once or twice a year purchase. If you get a giant pill of some supplement that you're taking, right, but still in the end, you could save that money and, at the recommendation of many a PhD that we read for this episode, take that money and instead buy what they refer to as nutrient rich foods. Right, Yeah, like save that money and instead of going cheap on dinner, actually go out and you know, get some fruits and vegetables
that you end up putting together for a meal. And I think in the end it, weirdly enough, that's the thing that resonates most with me, this idea of overspending on something that is probably not going to fully help me, when I could be spending money on something that is almost definitely going to help me, because your body processes food so much easier than it does, you know, super condensed pill or a powdered form of whatever mineral you're trying to put in your body, if it's naturally occurring
in that spinach, it's probably going to do your body a lot better. Yeah.
Yeah, So what we could say is there is unfortunate truth to these conspiracies in that not all by any means, but many, many unethical purveyors of dietary supplements they're trying to cure you of not a medical condition, but what they see as a financial condition. You have too much money and they want some of it. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know, man, it's so gross.
But it's also a matter of belief. It's a matter of face in some ways because it does go back to older practices, right, It goes back to my family swears by this thing that we all take on a daily, weekly, whatever basis. Around this time of year, we eat this specific food or and we supplement it with this and
you know it if you believe it. As we've talked about before on this show, the placebo effect could work in your favor if you've got something like that that's deeply ingrained in your belief system, or maybe you're a group or families or tribes belief system.
Yeah, I really appreciate that point because yet the short answer to why people keep buying this stuff is because it's not harming them. But the deeper and more philosophical answer here is that the human mind is kind of a drug all its own. It's a drug that does itself. That's the best way to think of human consciousness. And these supplements of people turn to. They're seen as distinct from the pharmaceutical industry, often with good reason, because the
pharmaceutical industry is its own bag at Badgers. And like you said, Matt, the placebo effect is real to a certain degree. Your body will do better if your mind believes it is doing something to improve the mind and the body. It doesn't, obviously, right, good vibes are not going to restore your sight, you know, nor regrow limbs, or erase cancer, or solve very real problems like dementia.
But the problem is even with that, the problem is that it is much more difficult to fact check things now and much more easy to purport to be an authority. Back in the days, you know, the medicine and shows, we could have just pitched in for a covered wagon and we could have sold some bs, and then we would have blown down before we got caught, right, and then later maybe we could print out some broadsheets, we'd
get a radio. But now anybody can make a website and anybody can kind of say whatever they want.
Oh yeah, that's one of the huge problems with researching this episode. Even if you type the correct search terms, specifically for me at least in my findings, into Google, you are going to get so many more at the very top of that search websites that are wellness health oriented that are often tied to a product or a you know, a private group that stands to make money off of making you believe about a specific supplement or a very generalized concept of supplements working in your favor.
It's one or the other, can be both sometimes, but one thing that you can do. I guess let's point this out.
Ben.
This was written in a WebMD article that was kind of a generalized thing about how how should I think
about supplements and what should I do? They're saying, when you start your research, because there is such a muddying of the waters that exists on the internet right now, literally, and this kind of stinks, y'all, Oh boy, look for those NIH PubMed database articles that have been peer reviewed that have information about a specific type of supplement, not the one, not some specific brand name, but this, you know,
whatever that substance is. Look for those trials, look for the research that's the stuff that's not fun to read, but at least see if there's a general positive outlook on that substance before you go down a road. And they also say definitely talk to a doctor or you know, a dietitian that's accredited in some way. Just talk to somebody before you start taking a supplement, especially if you've got other health issues going on already.
Right yeah, especially if you have clear and present health issues. Ed, we will do something. I don't want to say it's sith Lord's stuff, Matt, but just fair is fair, balance and moderation all things. If you are an unethical evil entity and you're wondering, hey, how can I get it on ripping off people, Well there's a second step you can take that'll be more successful and indeed kind of safer for everybody involved. Don't pretend to treat a real problem.
Invent a fake problem and then say you're treating that. You know what I mean? Like halatosis?
Oh dude, do the old fin lip? I got that? Man? I wonder they got something for that.
I've just oh, I'm saying with great affection, I've just imagining some fake doctor who is like, well, uh, mister Frederick, good news, bad news? Okay, which do went first?
Oh? I guess the bad news.
Well, I'm gonna give it to you straight. You've got a got something we call uh TLS in lip syndrome.
Oh gosh, you know, I had I felt like I feel like maybe I did, but I wasn't sure what. What's the good news?
Oh? Uh, The good news is that the good news is that this visit is non refundable and you have paid in advance. Oh, it's it's good news for me. It's good news for me. It's good news for me as a doctor. I also have uh several pills that could help address TLS. But you know, let's get past all this, all this mumbo jumbo about uh about uh big pharma. You know, mister Frederick, you strike me as more of a grounded person, right, you're you're you're more into natural medicine, correct.
Yeah, I like you know, micro nutrients. I'm down with you know, phido chemicals. Do you have any of those?
Yeah? Would you say you are pro biotic?
Yeah?
Okay, great? Great in that case that I get to write you a prescription here for the local spirit Halloween. Try out these try out these wax lips. Uh okay, and see, jeez, this.
Is wonderful because again, it feels like that often and and there's a possibility that you could be treated that way. Probably not right. Generally, if you're going to see a doctor, they're gonna try and hook you up and help you out. But we in another episode, unrelated to all the ones we mentioned so far, we've talked about the lobbying side of the pharmaceutical industry and how it functions in like singular doctor's offices, and how you get drug reps that
show up. 're like, gag, we really need you to push these bills. How you doing. Here's some lunch?
Yeah, perfect, you're right, You're absolutely right. And also in that off the rail scene we were exploring together that guy who is talking to mister Frederick not a doctor. He got his white coat at spirit Halloween.
Oh man, I know it.
Hopefully a doctor would not try to griff someone. But you are right. The pharmaceutical lobbies do you have a far reach? And despite the laws they're meant to protect the patients to some degree, there are a lot of loopholes, right like is it is it a bribe or is it just a gift?
Who knows? It's both? Always maybe, I don't know. We've been we didn't even talk about the old new tropics and.
The we didn't talk about new tropics.
Adaptogens and all the lions main and different mushrooms I'm supposed to take now, including what's the crazy one, uh, the the fungus that eats through ants brains and makes them go to the cordyceps cordyceps. I'm supposed to take courtyceps now according to the Internet. No, thank you Internet.
We also we also, in the spirit of full disclosure, folks, we as I think we've been pretty clear, we also in our personal lives, do take dietary supplements, right, Yeah.
Oh I do. I do. We've been sponsored. Honestly, several times, we've been sponsored by dietary supplement companies that we look into and we feel comfortable with. It's not often that they come our way, right, which is a weird thing.
We have noticed some things, and I think that was the right move.
Yeah, but I mean, listen to other podcasts. There's there are some new tropics going on and podcasts not to name names, won't name names. There's also adaptogens all day long and what they do, and I don't know, that's a whole other episode. Maybe.
Yeah, Part two of Supplements will be new tropics because, as you know, Matt, I take I have experimented widely with new tropics and psychedelics. Oh.
I've tried some stuff too.
Yeah.
I guess what, I don't feel smarter, but maybe that's just me.
I think maybe the fact that we are not feeling smarter means that we are indeed learning something right. Maybe try to keep it positive. Like you know, people in general tend to either really like living or be really terrified of dying. So it shouldn't be a surprise. Right from the days of ancient empires all the way to twenty twenty four, the Eclipse and beyond, there is going to be some group of people trying to leverage that desire, leverage that fear for profit. And yeah, a lot of
this stuff doesn't seem to harm you necessarily. But we also you know what else we didn't talk about, Matt. We didn't talk about multi level marketing for supplements. We didn't talk about all the lawsuits that are coming that have pat what has passed, is passing and has yet to come. I don't know, man, It's like the shadow of patent medicine never really left because the money got too good.
Well, it means we're talking.
We both we both just threw our hands up.
Folks. They tell you billions of dollars and people are still buying. I mean, it's it's capitalism, man.
Okay, I'm putting that on the on the episode list as well. So we got new tropics yeah, capitalism, and.
This is too much to handle on Eclipse day, y'all. It's it. It's eclipse Day. We pushed recording back by thirty minutes so we could finish the eclipse, you know, become lunatics before we got in here. I feel like I'm having It's affecting me. I feel like it.
I love it. Do you think it's the Placebo effect?
I don't know, dude. It's an Operation solar Ward and there we go. I don't know. Somewhere's going on.
What a nice place Bowman. No okay, no, no, no, no, no, like first Open, but Placebo.
Oh, which is getting great reviews.
By the way, Yes, thank you for sending that. Thank you for city that. Do check out. Do check out the first Open, folks. As always, the best part of this show is you. Thank you for tuning in. Matt, Paul Nol and I will be returning, I think, with a couple of extra episodes following through the conspiracy surrounding the supplement industry. In the meantime, we need your help. Tell us what's on your mind, tell us your first hand experience, stuff that works, stuff that doesn't. What other
tangent should we explore. We're all over Instagram, we're all over YouTube, we're all over social media. We also have a phone number and you cad you can call us.
Oh yes, you can call one eight three three std WYTK. That's our number. It's a three minute voicemail system that means you have three minutes say whatever you'd like. Just got to fit in there or else it's going to cut you off. So you know you're going to feel the pressure as it's going on. But it's great. Say whatever you want. Just give yourself a cool nickname and let us know if we can use your name and message on the air. Oh, Ben, we didn't. This is
the little easter egg for anybody that got here. Yeah I didn't mention the US pharmacopeia, which is something oh we talked.
Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's something I'd never heard of before. But this is a nonprofit organization, quote authority that sets standards for all
kinds of supplements. Makes They're the ones that like, does the thing you assume the FDA might do, right, but they're a nonprofit that just exists and does stuff, and they will often if you're looking for supplements, they will often put a little stamp of approval basically on things that they've actually taken a look at, which is a good thing to know if you're out there looking for something to add to your diet.
Yeah, they're also global too, right. They do a lot of work with USAID and so what.
Oh yeah huge, it's just I never heard of that, and it's worth your time to again do some research before you pick anything up from the grocery store or whatever, because it gets complicated.
It gets so complicated.
Tell us about the complications you've run into by either calling us or by sending us a good old fashioned email.
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