Listen on: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music | Podcast Index | Overcast | YouTube I enjoy diet sodas. My reasoning is simple: if I’m perfectly happy with the diet version, why spend the calories on the regular one? Save them for something more satisfying—peanut butter, a brownie, something worth it. That logic feels rational. But it also reminds me of my cardiology professor. During […]

Listen on: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music | Podcast Index | Overcast | YouTube I wasn’t actually sick. I invented two symptoms — hand pain and a severe headache — and asked ChatGPT what to do. It was an experiment. I wanted to know what happens when a real person, with what feels like a real problem, turns to AI for help. In both […]

Listen on: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music | Podcast Index | Overcast | YouTube For roughly twenty years, I wasn’t particularly happy. Not depressed in a clinical sense — I had a good life, a career I cared about, people I loved. But there was a persistent low-level flatness that never quite lifted. Dysthymia, it’s called. I tried psychotherapy. I meditated seriously. I read, […]

Listen on: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music | Podcast Index | Overcast | YouTube Massage and acupuncture are two of the most widely used complementary health therapies in the country. According to the 2022 National Health Interview Survey, 11 percent of U.S. adults used massage in the prior year, and 2 percent used acupuncture. At roughly $100 a session each, that is a lot […]

Listen on: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music | Podcast Index | Overcast | YouTube You’ve seen enough misleading headlines to be skeptical, you’ve heard the promises that didn’t pan out, and you’re aware that the wellness industry is very good at selling things that may not work. And yet — you still feel something shift when you pick up a product labeled “all natural.” […]

Listen on: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music | Podcast Index | Overcast | YouTube Nearly half of American adults — 49%, according to a 2023 Gallup poll — report they frequently experience stress. That number has risen 16 percentage points over the past two decades, reaching the highest level Gallup has ever recorded. And the wellness industry is ready for you. There’s a supplement, […]

Listen on: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music | Podcast Index | Overcast | YouTube A few weeks ago, headlines everywhere declared that drinking two or three cups of coffee a day reduces your risk of dementia by 20%. Social media ran with it. Morning lattes were suddenly rebranded as brain medicine. Then, almost as quickly, other voices chimed in to warn that caffeine triggers […]

Listen on: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music | Podcast Index | Overcast | YouTube Your doctor tells you to cut back. Your cardiologist frowns at your French fries. Public health campaigns have spent decades urging Americans to slash their sodium intake. And yet — food with salt just tastes better. So what does the science actually say? Is salt a slow poison, an essential […]

Listen on: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music | Podcast Index | Overcast | YouTube It’s a question worth billions of dollars. Companies want to sell you tests that reveal your “biological age.” Genetic tests promise to predict your dementia risk decades in advance. Your doctor calculates your 10-year probability of a heart attack. A recent Wall Street Journal article explored longevity calculators simply to […]

Listen on: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music | Podcast Index | Overcast | YouTube You’re exhausted. Your lab results come back normal, but you feel anything but. Your doctor shrugs and suggests it’s probably stress. Frustrated and desperate for answers, you find someone different—a practitioner who actually listens, who talks about root causes and balance and healing. For the first time in months, you […]