Health Wanted Show Notes: Wellness in the New Year
We’re kicking off 2025 with a look inside the world of wellness to see what can lighten your spirit, and what simply lightens your wallet.
From the totally normal trends like “dry January” to the more obscure and untested (think grounding sheets and essential oils), to the just plain bad ideas (coffee enemas and “sun gazing”), there was a lot to choose from.
Which is pretty unsurprising when you consider that the “wellness” industry as a whole is a $480 billion industry just in the United States.
Estimates put the global market at around $1.8 trillion.
The Carnivore Diet
The carnivore diet is based on the idea that our ancient ancestors got most, if not all, of their calories from meat. Similar diets are also called the “paleo diet”—as in paleolithic.
In reality, ancient hunter/gatherers had really varied diets and depending where they lived could eat a lot of root plants or honey for calories, which are full of sugars and starches.
Fun fact: Paul Saladino is a “functional” medicine doctor who wrote a book called “The Carnivore Code,” which is all about “unlocking optimal health” by returning to your ancestral diet or just eating meat. He no longer practices the carnivore diet.
He said it tanked his testosterone, messed with his sleep, and caused joint and muscle pain.
You need a varied diet to get the micronutrients essential to your body, and your brain is run on sugars, which you need carbs to make.
Also, please remember that our ancient ancestors died from things like cuts that got infected and cavities. They were not necessarily living the optimal lifestyle.
Celery Juice
Celery juice is fine, but it’s not some magical medicine or detox.
It has a lot of vitamins in it and can help you hydrate if you don’t like drinking plain water.
It is not a detox though, and juice cleanses in general are not a good idea!
Whenever someone tells you something will detox you, ask them what toxins it removes.
If you have a functioning liver and kidney, you are getting detoxed.
Also, eating celery is a better form of fiber than blending it, and most people aren’t getting enough fiber in their diets—so maybe just have some ants on a log.
Coffee Enemas
The claims of benefits for coffee enemas are all over the place. People claim that it is a detox, that it stimulates the liver and gallbladder to purge your system, that it stimulates glutathione production, and that it can detox your large intestine.
It was originally invented in the 1900s as part of a treatment for cancer. There is no evidence that coffee enemas do anything they claim to do.
They are also potentially dangerous, causing burns when people don’t realize how hot the coffee still is, irritation or damage to the colon, and dehydration.
Your body absorbs more caffeine from drinking coffee than from putting it in your bum.
Colostrum
Colostrum is the nutrient-rich liquid that mammals feed their babies before their regular milk comes in after birth.
There are a ton of supplement companies that claim their bovine colostrum (in powder or pill form) can do any number of things like improve gut health, boost the immune system, and even improve hair and skin.
Bovine colostrum (from cows) was shown in one study to reduce diarrhea and vomiting in children compared to those who got placebo.
But it was 160 children in sub-Saharan Africa, where there are a higher proportion of deaths due to diarrheal diseases than somewhere like the U.S.
One study showed that bovine colostrum could increase hair growth, but that was when it was distilled down and injected into mice, which you can’t reasonably claim will have the same effect when humans take it in pill or powder form.
There really isn’t any good evidence that bovine colostrum does anything people are claiming it does.
Drinking Out of Copper Mugs
Copper has great antimicrobial qualities, but our bodies only need trace amounts of copper and we get enough from our diets.
The claimed benefits include improving digestion, boosting immunity, regulating thyroid function, reducing inflammation, and promoting overall well-being due to the antimicrobial properties of copper.
None of this is supported by research.
Copper vessels have the benefit that you don’t ingest microplastics, but there is too much of a good thing and you don’t want to get copper toxicity.
To hit your daily needs you could eat 2 oz of dark chocolate and be good. And to hit the max would be something like 3 ounces of beef liver, because livers are our natural detoxes so they pull excess metal from our blood.
A better scale is 94 cups of tomatoes, or 38 cups of whole wheat pasta.
Green Powders, Supplements, and Multivitamins
Research has shown that taking multivitamins does not actually improve your risk of chronic disease.
Despite this, dietary supplements are a $55 billion industry, $8 billion of which is just for multivitamins.
Multivitamins and other dietary supplements aren’t regulated by the FDA, so there is really no one checking to see if the vitamins actually do the things they claim, that they are produced safely and free of contaminants, or even that they contain the ingredients they claim to.
In fact, one study looked at 57 different sports supplements and found about 40% of them did not contain the ingredients on the label.
The exception is supplements that have an NSF certification. This is a program supplement companies can opt into to pay for a third party that reviews and tests products to make sure that they are being produced safely, without contamination, and that they include the ingredients they claim they do.
Products that earn NSF certification are said to be “NSF certified” or “NSF listed” and display the applicable NSF certification mark to show that they have been tested.
On the topic of ingredients, when it comes to green powders, their formulations are proprietary, meaning they don’t disclose exactly how much of every ingredient is included so that it can’t be copied.
Take for example AG1. They list like over 60 ingredients in one daily scoop.
A lot of the “backed by science” claims they make are based on previous studies other researchers have done on the benefits of the individual ingredients, but because you don’t know how much of the ingredient is in the powder, there’s no way to know if it’s the same amount that the original paper found to be beneficial.
AG1 does have two research studies that use their actual product to measure health benefits, but they are pretty lackluster.
They have an observational study, which means they gave a product that claims to make you feel better to 35 people, and after those people took it for a while they were asked if they felt better, and they said “yes.”
They also report that results from their randomized control clinical trial show that AG1 more than doubles healthy gut bacteria—which is technically true, except the caveat is that it boosted two types of bacteria in the group that got AG1 when you compared that bacteria level at baseline and then after a month of using the product.
The study actually found no differences between the groups that got AG1 and placebo when it came to the diversity of gut bacteria, the impact on bowel movements, biomarkers of metabolism, or any other factors they looked at.
Another issue is with the ingredients themselves. You see a lot of supplement or multivitamin labels that say things like “1000% of your daily recommended vitamin C” or “750% of your daily vitamin B7”.
Vitamin C and a lot of B vitamins are water soluble, which means if you take more than your body needs you just pee out the rest.
Other vitamins like A and D are fat soluble, which means the excess gets stored in your fat and liver and muscles, and if you have too much they can accumulate and cause problems.
So generally, there are only certain people with certain conditions who should be taking vitamin supplements under the guidance of doctors.
Ice Baths and Cold Plunges
Ice baths have some data to support that they reduce inflammation, which makes sense considering you're icing your whole body.
Cold plunges after a workout can also accelerate recovery and reduce muscle soreness.
There’s a small clinical trial happening right now to see if outdoor swimming can help people with depression in addition to the other standard interventions.
Infrared Saunas and Red-Light Masks
There’s evidence that this is not a scam!
As you know, light has wavelengths. The different wavelengths make different colors visible to the human eye, and these wavelengths can penetrate skin at different depths.
For example, infrared (which has wavelengths just below the spectrum of visible light but still above microwaves) can heat the surface of objects.
Whereas saunas heat the air around you, the proper wavelength of near infrared light will penetrate the top layers of skin and get the water in your skin vibrating to create heat without you sitting in a 200 degree room.
The idea with infrared saunas is the same as regular saunas: You heat the body, and it increases heart rate, blood flow, and sweat.
Some research has shown that infrared therapy can help with pain relief and increase blood flow.
Red light doesn’t go as deep as infrared light, but it does appear to stimulate collagen production to improve skin elasticity, reduce wrinkles, and promote healing.
It was first studied by NASA to see if it was potentially useful for wound-healing.
The masks aren’t some miracle item, and you have to use them consistently over time to see results. If you are considering a home mask, the important information I’ve found is that wavelength matters. You need something with a red light wavelength of around 630 nm and an infrared length around 830 nm
If you also use blue light (which doesn’t penetrate as deep but can help with acne by killing certain bacteria) with a wavelength in the 415 nm range.
Also only buy masks that are FDA certified. This means they have been evaluated for safety.
Sun Gazing
Sun gazing is the practice of looking directly at the sun during sunset or sunrise as a part of a meditative practice. It’s a bad idea. Please do not look directly into the sun at any hour of the day.
Even gazing at the sun at off-peak hours like sunrise and sunset is still too much light for your eyeballs and can cause retina damage, cataracts, and cancer from UV rays penetrating your eyes.
If you want to focus on nature during your meditative practice, do some moon gazing instead.
