Detoxing isn’t actually a thing. But it’s become a fixation of the western world. Stemming from the guilty pleasures of overindulgence and under-exercising, a belief has emerged that we must regularly rid our bodies of toxins via detoxifying diets, fasts, technologies, and more. The evidence – or the lack thereof – behind this popular trend will be uncovered.
This episode examines our evolutionary leanings toward finding youth appealing and pop-cultural portrayals of youth, before diving head-on into the strange, fascinating and unregulated world of the anti-aging industry. “A User’s Guide to Cheating Death” is in search of the truth for those who try to defy aging.
Direct-to-Consumer Genetic testing is being use by a growing number of people to make important health and life decisions, despite these tests being largely inaccurate. What are the consequences of using these faulty methods to make “healthy life choices” and is there benefit in any of it?
Weight Loss Tourism is a huge market. Places like Tijuana, and Dubai’s Talise Bay offer the most luxurious spas in the world, that double as weight loss packages, including an on-site team of medical doctors, personal trainers and a wellness chef ready to provide personalized care throughout your stay.
As a society we’ve become obsessed with the concept of organic food and products, chemical free farming, healing foods, and natural remedies. People are distrusting GMOs, pharmaceuticals, and other “non natural” solutions. Organic products fetch a premium price. Families are turning to holistic approaches to medical issues, sometimes with fatal consequences. But what is causing people to distrust modern medicine and approaches to farming? Where does this romantic notion of “natural is better” come from? And most importantly, are these stances scientifically supportable?
From cryotherapy to stem cells that regenerate a human heart, “A User’s Guide to Cheating Death” explores the evidence behind cutting-edge disease-management research, new breakthroughs and untested procedures while meeting the real patients who swear by them, and how the media is exploiting genuine excitement.
Timothy Caulfield explores the cultural shift surrounding how we view sleep in an era that glorifies being busy, meet those changing the narrative, explore the sleep-aid industry to figure out what actually helps, discuss novel therapies for insomnia, and talk about the stark affect that prolonged sleep deprivation on has on our health and longevity.
Timothy delves into the history of vitamins and supplements and meets the thought leaders who are pushing the envelope within the industry, from Silicon Valley start-ups, to MIT’s Aging Center. Can you cheat death by popping a pill?
Relationships and sex are a crucial part of a vital life: people in relationships live longer, sex reduces stress and promotes exercise, and loneliness can have a huge negative impact on health. We’ll also be examining the impact of technology on the eld—dating apps make making connections easier than ever, but the developing realm of AI companionship and burgeoning sex tech industry over the same experience without human interaction—is a synthetic relationship experience as beneficial as the real thing?
Are we too clean? Germ theory and hand washing saved millions of lives, but has the pendulum swung too far in the opposite direction? We talk about everything from regular soap versus anti-bacterial, our microbiome and the role of probiotics, the hygiene hypothesis and the rise of auto-immune diseases, and explore both fecal transplants and helminthic therapy.
Timothy starts with FitBits, and ends with home-implantation, and meeting the scientists, futurists, and aspiring cyborgs in between as we discover how technology is merging with our bodies, and what that could mean for our health.
It used to be that spirituality didn’t have a place in the research laboratories of the world. However, more than ever before, the spheres of spirituality and science are overlapping. We talk to researchers studying pain and acupuncture in the wake of the opiate crisis, the role of meditation in mediating stress-related disease, and explore the ancient roots behind some of today’s modern treatments.
