Biomedical Scientist Fact Checks Pseudoscience Slop

[Narrator 1] Connect the body

to the earth's natural electrical field.

Connecting to the earth's electrical fields.

Yeah, that's not a thing.

You can't believe anything-

Yeah. On the internet anymore.

I'm Dr. Andrea Love, biomedical scientist.

Let's fact check some AI slop.

[bright music]

Okay, let's watch this first video.

[screen chiming]

[Narrator 2] The moment the probiotic drink

drops into your stomach,

its smooth liquid spreads gently across the lining.

I have so many questions.

So, your stomach compartment is incredibly acidic.

Most of them are gonna be killed

as soon as they hit the gastric acid,

but I'm not really sure what they're saying

about this probiotic drink coating the stomach.

That's not a thing I've ever heard.

[Narrator 2] Instead of aggressive reaction,

the environment stays stable and controlled.

Yeah, this is all just nonsense.

There's no probiotic

that controls the acidity of the stomach.

[Narrator 2] Some live cultures survive the acid,

remaining active inside the stomach fluid

instead of breaking down instantly.

That's, yes, some can hypothetically,

but there's no quality control over which of them will.

[Narrator 2] The liquid lightly coats the stomach walls,

supporting- I just can't get over

this lightly coating of the stomach wall.

This is just a weird mental image

and not really what's happening in your stomach.

[Narrator 2] The protective lining

and reducing harsh friction during digestion.

Nope. Stomach contractions

stay slow and organized.

I don't know what's happening here.

Probiotics are not exerting an effect

on your stomach at all.

[Narrator 2] The probiotic mixture moves forward smoothly.

I feel like this video

doesn't actually know what probiotics is.

I feel like I'm done with this one. Next.

[screen chiming]

Put raw ginger under your tongue for 10 seconds

and pay attention to what happens next.

This point under your tongue

connects directly to your lymphatic system.

No, no, it doesn't.

When you put things sublingually, which is under the tongue,

the reason you do that is because the skin under your tongue

is very thin and you have a lot of capillaries

very close to the surface so when it dissolves,

it can be easily absorbed into the bloodstream,

but it is not directly connected to the lymphatic system.

In fact, the lymphatic system

is a network of vessels all over your body.

It's definitely not uniquely associated

with under the tongue.

I have questions about when he last washed his hands

and what's happening there, certainly.

In few minutes, your sinuses begin to open.

The pressure behind your eyes starts to release.

You might feel that way

by putting raw ginger under your tongue

because it has a lot of these volatile organic compounds

that can be quite pungent.

My mother did this every single morning.

Mother did it. And she never saw a doctor

for her sinuses in her life.

I've never seen a doctor for my sinuses in my life

and I've never put raw ginger under my tongue.

This sounds like an anecdote being used as evidence,

which is a common tactic

when you're trying to have this emotional relationship

to try to persuade someone

when there isn't actually evidence.

Wonderful AI. All right, next.

[screen chiming]

Place fresh cloves under your tongue for 10 seconds.

Wait, did we just watch this?

This feels very deja vu to me.

Pay attention to what happens afterward.

This point under the tongue

is directly connected to your lymphatic system.

Now, I know that this is AI

'cause they're literally saying the same thing.

Let's see if the compounds present.

The compounds present- The compounds present-

In raw ginger- In raw cloves-

Are absorbed instantly- Are absorbed rapidly-

Into your bloodstream. Into the bloodstream.

Verbatim, this is incredible.

Your sinuses begin to clear. Your sinuses begin to open.

The pressure behind- The pressure behind

your eyes starts to ease. Your eyes starts to release.

Did his mom do the same thing every single day

and never went to see a doctor about her sinuses?

My mother did this- My mother did this-

Every single morning. Every morning.

And she never saw a doctor- She never had to go

to a pharmacy- For her sinuses-

In her entire life. In her life.

Yeah, this. [laughs]

I don't even. I can't.

There are probably some compounds in cloves

that at high concentrations, if you treat some cancer cells

in a Petri dish, you could kill them,

but you can also kill cancer cells

with pure water in a Petri dish.

They'll explode.

All right, we're done. Next.

[screen chiming]

[upbeat music]

Yeah, so this is an AI generated video of a tick feeding

and it's got some things right and that's how ticks feed.

It's called a hypostome.

And it's like a little double-sided serrated knife

with a straw in the middle.

And then it uses a cement

to kind of lock itself into your skin.

There are some pathogens that a tick can transmit

when it's feeding on you.

So, I'm guessing that we're referring

to the Lyme disease bacterium,

which is Borrelia burgdorferi.

In the US, it's the black-legged tick

and the western black-legged tick.

Only those two species.

None of the other ones transmit Lyme disease.

And the tick has to be feeding on you

for at least 24 hours to have a chance

to transmit that bacteria into your body.

The lone star tick is particularly aggressive,

which can spread things like Rocky Mountain spotted fever,

and that can also trigger the alpha-gal.

It's an allergy against a particular sugar

that's found in certain red meat products.

And then, the next time you eat meat

that maybe contains this particular sugar

that humans don't have,

your body mounts an allergic response to it.

The best defense against any sort of tick-borne illness

is a good offense,

so that means using effective tick repellents.

And the only two that are effective against ticks

are DEET and Picaridin.

They're both incredibly safe and effective,

and you can use them on children six months and older,

and including during pregnancy.

Don't listen to the people

that are promoting natural tick repellents.

They do not work against ticks.

And you wanna shower promptly and remove any clothing

that may have ticks crawling on them

because it does take them

anywhere from 15 minutes to a couple of hours

before they'll eventually settle down and bite.

All right, next.

The best. All right.

This video has 18 million views.

The best juice to fight cancer is pomegranate juice.

The best mushroom to fight cancer is reishi.

The best seed to fight cancer is flaxseed.

None of these things are fighting cancer.

When you have cancer, seeking unproven alternatives

as opposed to proving cancer interventions

increases your risk of death substantially.

The best herb to fight cancer is turmeric.

The best fruit to fight cancer is soursop.

Soursop has certain alkaloid chemicals

that are potentially incredibly risky.

They have increased risk of neurotoxicity

and causing motor defects, especially in rodent studies.

So much so that Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center

has actually put out a warning about soursop supplements

because they're so prevalent

in the alternative cancer treatment sphere.

The best vegetable to fight cancer is broccoli sprout.

So, if I wanna concede anything to this video

is that if we're talking about broccoli sprouts,

there's a compound in broccoli sprouts

called sulforaphane that in in vitro

and very limited clinical trials

maybe has a potential to eventually become something.

The best tea to fight cancer is matcha green tea.

The best grain to fight cancer is quinoa.

So yeah, none of these things are fighting cancer.

A lot of people believe

that we're hiding natural cures for cancer, right?

But you probably didn't know that many of the chemotherapies

that we have today were actually derived

from natural substances.

For example, paclitaxel, which is used for cancer,

is a derivative of Taxol, which is from the Yew tree.

Next. [screen chiming]

[Narrator 3] If a woman doesn't want

to get cancer before she is 50,

stop these five habits immediately.

Oh, this is gonna be good. Number one,

microwaving food in plastic.

Heat releases toxic chemicals straight into your food.

It's true that certain substances

can be released from plastics.

This is often related to compounds

such as bisphenol A or BPA,

which has gotten a lot of attention.

But the amount of those substances

that may end up in your food are not shown

to have any link to increased cancer risk,

and these substances are rapidly excreted from your body

even if you were to actually ingest or encounter them.

[Narrator 3] Number two, eating charred meat.

Those burnt edges are pure carcinogens.

Charring during grilling does lead to the formation

of certain types of compounds like polycyclic amines.

In a perfect world, you don't wanna eat a ton of those

because yeah, they are a function

of this byproduct of overheating,

but if you're eating something that you've grilled

and it has a little bit of burnt edges,

it's not pure carcinogens.

I don't even know what that means.

[Narrator 3] Number three, aluminum deodorant.

It absorbs through your skin and builds up in breast tissue,

right where tumor-

Aluminum is not in deodorant.

Aluminum salts are in antiperspirants

and they form a jelly in your sweat glands

when they mix with water to prevent excessive sweating.

Aluminum salts are not absorbed

in high quantities by your body,

and they're definitely not accumulating

in your breast tissue.

Antiperspirants, aluminum-containing salts,

really anything aluminum-related has no relationship

to breast cancer or cancers otherwise.

[Narrator 3] Number four,

sleeping with your phone by your head.

The radiation doesn't stop while you sleep.

Ooh. Okay.

So, cell phones use radiofrequency radiation,

which is a very long wavelength radiation

with very low energy.

In the spectrum of electromagnetic radiation,

visible light is kind of in the center.

And then above that, higher energy,

those that can be ionizing and cause damage

to your tissues and your cells would be things

like ultraviolet, gamma, X-ray and so on.

And then, below visible light,

so that's longer wavelength, lower energy, non-ionizing.

Then you have radiofrequency, your cell phones,

your actual microwave, and so on and so forth.

It does not have the energy to interact with your DNA

and other molecules in your cells

to cause the damage that could lead to cancer.

[Narrator 3] Number five, drinking from plastic bottles

left in a hot car.

Heat activates the toxins.

They leach into your water before you even take a sip.

So, even if some of these substances

did leach from the plastic into the water

and you drank some of it.

One, these are gonna be very small quantities.

And two, your kidneys do a really good job

of filtering and excreting out the things

you don't need in your urine.

Okay, let's go on to the next video.

[screen chiming]

My name is pomegranate.

I protect your arteries by stopping cholesterol

from sticking to the walls.

I really wanna know how pomegranate is doing that.

This is a common theme in wellness where, you know,

they kind of glom onto a singular food

or a singular compound that's found in a food

and they find some mechanistic study,

and they extrapolate it to some health impact.

So, managing cholesterol levels in your body

is very multifactorial and there are certain people

that have baseline high LDL cholesterol,

which is the bad one.

And some of that has nothing to do

with what they ate or their metabolism.

It's simply genetic.

My name is Strawberry.

I reduce bad cholesterol

and increase good cholesterol inside your blood.

This video hints at this theme that is recurrent

in kind of the wellness sphere in that like,

you don't need medical intervention, you just need food

because food is medicine, and therefore you can prevent

or cure all of these ailments with specific foods.

Now, it's really important to understand

that food is nourishment, it's not medicine.

Next. [screen chiming]

[Narrator 4] If a woman has cellulite on her legs

that she has been blaming on genetics,

she has been wrong the entire time.

Oh, well, cellulite is multifactorial

and hate to break it to them,

but genetics are actually a big factor.

[Narrator 4] That cellulite is old fat nodules

trapped beneath the skin, suffocating blood circulation.

Oh no, that's not even remotely what cellulite is.

It's not old fat

and it's definitely not smothering your circulation.

In the structure of your subcutaneous layer

where fat is under the skin,

there are these vertical scaffolds,

and then you have fat tissue that are in between.

So in some people, a lot of which is determined by genetics,

those vertical scaffolds that are tighter,

they kind of pull the skin

while the fat kind of bulges out of the top.

That's what forms the physical appearance of cellulite.

[Narrator 4] Mix leftover ground coffee

with coarse sea salt and extra virgin olive oil.

Rub this black scrub onto the skin in firm circular motions.

That is not a cure for cellulite whatsoever.

So interestingly, this one actually brings in

a little nugget of truth

because there are some really limited studies

that suggest that caffeine,

which is one of the active compounds in coffee,

when applied topically in a skin product,

can reduce the appearance of certain skin blemishes,

including cellulite.

But that medical grade caffeine

that is at a very specific dose is not the same

as used ground coffee from your coffee pot.

[Narrator 4] The sea salt stimulates circulation

and pushes fresh blood flow

back through the suffocated areas.

Yeah, no, that's not a thing either.

The only way to actually fix cellulite

is through a surgical procedure

where they cut some of those vertical scaffolds

to release some of that tension in your skin.

So yeah, we're done with this one.

[screen chiming]

[Narrator 5] Raw milk enters your body.

Watch the journey begin now.

I have so much beef with raw milk.

First of all, I just love how the milk

is just spilling outside of all of the person's organs

and just flooding the peritoneal cavity.

Just let's appreciate that.

If that happened, you would die from sepsis.

[Narrator 5] Raw milk faces powerful acid forces.

Tiny intestinal villi absorb raw milk nutrients instantly.

Just to be clear,

pasteurized milk also has the same nutrients.

The perk of pasteurized milk, which has been heated

to 165 degrees Fahrenheit for 15 seconds,

is that it doesn't contain microorganisms

that come from cow feces,

'cause think about where the udders hang out on a cow.

Those microorganisms

that can cause serious foodborne infections.

[Narrator 5] Your bloodstream

becomes a highway for milk nutrients.

Calcium from raw milk powers your beating heart.

A lot of people are really fixated on raw milk

because there's this kind of homestead lifestyle

that has resurged where people wanna go back

to ancestral living.

The reality is that before we started pasteurizing raw milk

over a hundred years ago in the US,

foodborne illnesses due to unpasteurized dairy products,

particularly in milk,

were a leading cause of illness among people.

And after pasteurized milk ordinances

went into effect, those plummeted.

We're actually seeing an increase in milk-borne illnesses

because people are now going back

to drinking unpasteurized dairy products.

All right, next. [screen chiming]

Oh my God, this one has 37.4 million views?

[teeth laughing]

Generally speaking, there is no singular food

that is a superfood for your teeth

or any other part of your body.

Dental health is related to a lot of different things,

including genetics and how much enamel you have,

which is related to the mineralization

of the hard outer layer of your teeth.

And there are some ways to improve the strength of that,

such as using fluoride in your toothpaste

or drinking fluoridated water,

but your tooth enamel becomes eroded

when the bacteria that are normally living in your mouth,

they like to metabolize sugars.

And when they metabolize sugars,

they produce acid as a byproduct,

and that acid can, again, eat away at that mineral layer

and eventually erode your teeth.

It all comes down to general oral health.

If you wanna eat these foods,

none of them are inherently unhealthy

or bad for your teeth, so go for it.

But yeah, they're not superfoods.

All right, next. [screen chiming]

Are you ready for your 32nd booster shot?

[Patient] It's gonna keep me from getting sick, right?

Nobody's getting 32 boosters.

This is wildly hyperbolic,

and obviously playing right into the anti-vaccine trope.

How are you feeling?

Caught COVID three times, had to be hospitalized,

and I'm pretty sure my body has its own IP address now.

The data actually show that people

that stayed up to date on their COVID vaccines

had lower risk of infection itself, symptomatic illness,

severe illness requiring hospitalization, and death.

And if you look at the population of people

that died from COVID after the vaccines

were rolled out and deployed globally,

the majority of those people were unvaccinated.

What does it mean when the left side

of your body goes numb and your heart starts racing?

You know, here he's mentioning

some of these adverse side effects, right?

He's referring to like myocarditis and pericarditis,

which was a very rare adverse effect

that was found to be slightly higher prevalence

among certain young adult males.

But that particular adverse effect was still incredibly rare

and much less rare than the myocarditis

that would actually occur after COVID itself,

and it was temporary and resolved with rest.

Next.

[screen chiming]

Just one little jab for measles.

Please stop doing this.

Because of RFK Jr. and the MAHA movement,

we've had our first deaths due to measles in over a decade

because people are not getting vaccinated.

As the head of HHS,

he's supposed to be standing up for science,

but he's really just using that platform

to promote his unscientific and often conspiratorial beliefs

while undermining measles vaccines and MMR vaccines

that have been used for decades

and actually eliminated measles in the US over 25 years ago.

All right, I'm done with him. Next.

[screen chiming]

[Narrator 6] What if the water you're drinking every day

is slowly poisoning you?

Fluoride added to your supply for healthy teeth.

But is it a deadly scam?

No, it is not a deadly scam.

Fluoride has been added to municipal water

for over 75 years at a very low level,

but it improves the strength of your dental enamel

and it reduces the development of dental caries,

also known as cavities,

by up to 50% compared to municipalities

that don't have fluoridated water.

[Narrator 6] Fluoride isn't just for toothpaste.

It's a neurotoxin.

Fluoride is not a neurotoxin

at the levels that you would realistically be exposed to.

In fact, even if you overdosed on water,

it still wouldn't be a neurotoxin at that level.

The amount that they put into water

is 0.7 parts per million.

A very tiny quantity.

[Narrator 6] Studies show high levels in water-

Yeah. Linked to lower IQ in kids.

So, this study was wildly misinterpreted.

So, there was an observational study

that looked at areas in the world

that had significantly higher natural levels

of fluoride in the water,

and they found an observation,

a correlation in certain communities

where there were lower IQ levels

and they attributed it to the fluoride in the water,

but there were also confounding variables like those areas

also had higher levels of environmental arsenic

and other things that could confound the data

and potentially actually cause lower IQ.

Those conclusions have never been substantiated

with actual causal data.

[Narrator 6] It builds up in bones

causing skeletal fluorosis.

So, in order to cause skeletal fluorosis,

which is when fluoride does kind of grab onto skeletal bones

as opposed to your teeth where it enhances mineralization,

you would have to be consuming the order of,

if you were a small child,

you would have to be drinking 57 liters of water a day

over the course of months

to have any sort of skeletal impacts of fluoride.

[Narrator 6] Pain, fractures, crippling joints.

All right. [exhales sharply]

I'm just gonna take a sip of water.

Sorry, it's the voice. It's so deep and just menacing.

[Narrator 6] Kids get dental fluorosis.

Ugly stained teeth that last forever.

All right, this is a little bit of an exaggeration.

The reason that we discovered that fluoride

improved dental health started back in the early 1900s

when there was a dentist who was like,

Hey, these people in this town

have these slightly brownish teeth,

but they have no cavities.

And he went on this 50-year-long epidemiological quest

to learn that the place where those people lived

had higher levels of naturally occurring fluoride

in the water, and as a result, they had really strong teeth.

Extremely high levels of fluoride

can cause some mild discoloration in teeth,

certainly looking nothing like that,

but it's generally not super obvious,

and it comes with really strong teeth at the same time.

[Narrator 6] Get this. It messes with your thyroid.

Yeah, it absolutely doesn't mess with your thyroid.

There's no evidence that it interacts with,

that it accumulates, that it binds to,

that it interferes with function of your thyroid.

[Narrator 6] Boosts ADHD risk and could even

spark cancer. Nope.

All right. Yep, we're done.

Fluoride in water at 0.7 parts per million

has been demonstrated to improve dental health,

and it is one of the top 10

greatest public health achievements in the last century.

So, next. [screen chiming]

[Narrator 7] Dove contains high levels of sulfates,

synthetic fragrances, and cheap preservatives

that have raised-

The sulfates used in shampoos

are not related to cancer at all.

And if we're talking about cheap preservatives,

perhaps we're talking about parabens,

which are incredibly safe, are incredibly cost-effective.

They're safer than other preservatives,

and they prevent microbial contamination

in skincare products,

and they're not remotely associated with cancer.

[Narrator 7] Poland Spring

has faced concerns over microplastics,

potential PFAS traces, and plastic-

The alarmist language around microplastics

is very overblown, and it's in part because the studies

trying to measure microplastics are using the wrong methods.

So essentially, when you're trying to detect microplastics,

you are looking for these polymers

that are chains of hydrogen and carbon.

But guess what else are chains of hydrogen and carbon?

Fatty acid tails.

So, the tails of all the fats that are in your body.

So, you saw all these studies coming out

saying that they were finding

microplastics accumulating in the brain.

Well, the brain has a lot of fat in it,

and so using these chemistry methods,

people started to spread rumors

that microplastics are accumulating in all of your tissues.

But it's actually because the method

that they're using to measure or detect them

is also detecting fats

that you would expect to see in your body.

So generally speaking,

there hasn't been any real data to suggest,

one, that microplastics are leaching out

of plastic materials and accumulating in your body,

and second, more importantly,

that they're related to any sort of health issue.

The real story is definitely more nuanced

and definitely less scary than they're making it out to be.

Next. [screen chiming]

[Narrator 8] Five signs that you might have

a dangerous parasite infection.

First sign, unexplained stomach pain that comes and goes.

This could be Anisakis larvae from raw fish

burrowing into your gut wall.

Unexplained stomach pain

could be caused by dozens of different things.

Anisakis, which is a type of tapeworm,

is found in certain types of fish species.

It could be stress, it could be acid reflux.

A myriad of other conditions

that can cause this stomach pain

before it would be parasites.

[Narrator 8] 78% of raw seafood samples

contained these invisible invaders.

There's a lot of parasites out there in the world,

and it's why we don't eat raw fish unless it's sushi grade

and has been flash frozen to kill them.

[Narrator 8] Parasites steal nutrients from your food

before your body can absorb them.

Yes, parasite.

Certain parasites do contribute to malabsorption.

Meaning they take nutrients from you

before you're able to utilize them.

[Narrator 8] Tapeworms from undercooked meat

can grow up to 20 feet inside you,

consuming everything you eat.

If you're cooking your meat,

then generally you're gonna kill any tapeworm larvae

that may get into your body.

[Narrator 8] Even tap water

can contain microscopic parasites resistant to chlorine.

So generally speaking, chlorination of water

is an important water safety measure

that does render nearly all parasites inactive.

All right, let's move on.

Next. [screen chiming]

Never buy an apple without checking the sticker first.

Five digits starting with eight

means that apple is genetically modified, so put it back.

That's poison, folks.

So, this five-digit code starting with eight,

this is an old internet myth that says

that these are denoting GMOs or genetically modified foods,

and that's just not true.

Decades ago that this was intended

to denote GM fruits and vegetables,

but that never became actual practice.

But on top of that, he says that GMOs are poison,

just put it back.

Well, that's blatantly false.

Genetic modification or genetically modified crops,

that simply relates to a breeding technique.

And in fact, GE crops of which there are

only 14 approved in the US are incredibly well tested

for safety and nutrition.

Five digits starting with nine

means that apple is organic.

No chemicals. This here is the one you want.

So, the 5-digit starting with nine

does in fact mean that the apple is organically grown,

but he is absolutely wrong that that means no chemicals.

Organic farming is not pesticide-free.

Organic is a certification

that permits the use of certain types of pesticides.

They happen to be naturally derived pesticides.

But naturally derived pesticides aren't inherently safer.

And in fact, many pesticides approved for use

in organic farming have higher toxicity at lower doses.

Okay, I'm done with this.

Next. [screen chiming]

[Narrator 9] Forget the sci-fi hype.

Here's the real science inside today's med bed systems

that's already improving thousands of lives.

It starts where healing starts, in sleep.

So, I'll concede one thing to this video

is that when you're sleeping, it is when your immune system

is doing your wound healing and repair processes,

which is why every single credible scientist

and health professional talk

about how good quality sleep is important.

Pretty sure that the med bed is not doing anything

specifically unique when it comes to sleep

that regular good sleep wouldn't do.

[Narrator 9] First breakthrough was conductive fabrics

that connect the body

to the earth's natural electrical field.

Connecting to the earth's electrical fields.

Yeah, that's not a thing.

That's a thing that wellness influencers promote

so they can sell you these little electrostatic mats

that you're supposed to lay on or stand on

or apparently have fabrics made out of.

There's nothing to it.

[Narrator 9] Independent studies on earthing

link this to steadier circadian rhythms,

up to 39% better sleep quality and lower stress markers.

I would love to see this study that they're citing,

and I'm gonna guess that it was also AI created.

Kind of like the ones RFK Jr. was citing

when he was trying to talk about vaccines

and he just made up studies that didn't actually exist.

[Narrator 9] The patents describe this as a gentler,

steadier electric environment for nightly cellular repair.

Oh, so that is a hallmark of pseudoscience.

If you throw in like a sciencey jargon sounding thing,

cellular repair.

So, like you don't have to be in this little bed pod thing

that probably costs $20,000

to have nightly cellular repair, right?

When you go to sleep, your immune system

is literally doing cellular repair.

It's doing that no matter where you're sleeping.

[Narrator 9] A scanner maps subtle bioelectrical patterns.

All right. We've officially entered sci-fi territory.

So, this video lied to me. I feel misled.

[Narrator 9] More than 25,000 users report improvements

in sleep, pain, anxiety, and overall vitality.

Peer-reviewed grounding studies

and case data back those effects.

So, this is definitely an AI-generated graphic.

These aren't even full letters.

I'm gonna bet that the company

that is selling these med beds

just made up all these papers.

But it does look very convincing when they put up a graphic

of what looks to be a scientific study on a video,

doesn't it? No miracle promises.

Just documented wellness gains.

Oh, yeah. They're selling a product, of course.

All right, next.

[screen chiming]

Those tiny little nerds you're eating?

Yeah, those aren't candy. They're dyed sugar rocks.

Isn't candy dyed sugar rocks?

Candy is sugar and has coloring, right?

Every nerd starts as a tiny sugar nugget,

then factories coat it with syrup

and blast it with artificial color.

You don't care though, right?

No, you shouldn't care because artificial colorings

just mean that they've been synthesized in a lab

as opposed to extracted through a chemical process

from some source in nature, like a plant or an insect.

Red 40, Yellow 5, Blue 1.

You think that's good for you?

Yeah, those are all colorings that are approved

in the US for use as food colorants.

There's a common misconception that these colorings

are banned in Europe and they're not.

They use a different naming system because they operate

under the European Food Safety Authority.

Canada also uses these colorings in their food.

These things have a chemical in them

linked to autism spectrum disorder.

What's up with that?

I think that they're referring to the Red 40 there,

but that was an observational study.

So, an observational study means that people

are making a passive observation about a group of people

without any control of the cause and effect.

It's not controlled, it's just merely,

Oh, we looked at 100 people

and they all report eating something that had Red 40 in it,

and of those people, 20 of them also reported

having autism spectrum disorder.

And therefore, they're trying

to link a correlation to a cause.

So, that's why we often say

correlation isn't causation.

All right, next. [screen chiming]

[Narrator 9] Every time you swallow an antibiotic,

a silent war begins inside your gut and nobody warns you

about the destruction that follows.

Can't wait for what's gonna happen.

[Narrator 9] Your gut holds trillions of bacteria

built over your entire lifetime.

So, this in fact is true.

There's an estimated 40 trillion bacteria

and the stomach is a very acidic compartment

and there really isn't a lot of stuff living in there.

[Narrator 9] The moment antibiotics flood in,

they can't tell good from bad,

and the massacre begins immediately.

That's a little bit of an exaggeration.

There are different classes of antibiotics

and they target different species or groups of bacteria.

So some are considered broad spectrum,

meaning they have very broad effects.

We try to limit the use of those because yeah,

they can also kill some of the good bacteria

that you want to have in your body.

But then we also have more narrow spectrum antibiotics

or specific antibiotics that are targeting

the particular bacteria that you're sick with.

Antibiotics are a bit of a double-edged sword.

We don't wanna wipe out the good bacteria

that live in and on our body, but we also don't wanna let

dangerous infections run rampant either.

[Narrator 9] In just days,

up to 90% of your microbiome diversity is gone.

That poor intestine, it's so desolate.

That's not exactly what happens.

Your bacteria in your intestines are pretty robust.

It's not gonna be left barren

like this graphic is suggesting.

[Narrator 9] Entire bacterial species

that took years to establish are wiped out completely,

leaving your gut dark, silent, and exposed.

Again, this is very, very hyperbolic,

but it does speak to a theme in that there is an issue

with overuse of antibiotics.

We don't wanna use antibiotics when they're not needed,

but sometimes they are needed.

I feel like we're just gonna get

into more alarmist content.

So, I think the TLDR here is antibiotics

have very useful medical indications when needed.

Bacteria regenerate pretty quickly.

And of course, having a healthy diet,

high in fiber and lean proteins,

that is one of the ways that you can continue to support

all of the bacteria that are in your gut.

All right, that's enough slop for today.

Thanks for watching.

[gentle techno music]