- This video is brought to you by Petal.
(upbeat music)
What up guys, Greg here.
By now, we've all seen the array of strange things men
are told to do to enhance our bodies.
Eat more meat, do nootropics,
bio hack by injecting plasma into your ...
Absolutely not, and if you've ended up
on a certain side of YouTube,
you might've seen things like this.
- Did you know that the average adult
has five to 20 pounds of toxic poop in their body?
- Or this. - [Speaker] A group of rats
actually outperformed the control group
on many different biomarkers
and these biomarkers included preventing
age-related ball shrinkage,
significantly increased ball size
when compared to the control group.
- And this isn't some cottage industry.
Wellness, but for dudes, has become
an increasingly large segment
of the multi-trillion dollar wellness market.
But what exactly are they trying to get us to buy?
And since when did an industry dominated
by the Gwyneth Paltrows and Kardashians of the world
suddenly become obsessed with your pectoral definition?
- And we're going to freaking goop it up in here.
- [Greg] Whether it's about toxic poop
or increasing your genital size,
these days the wellness industry has a whole host
of supplements and diet plans to revolutionize our lives
and make us better men.
And the figureheads of this movement are people
like MMA enthusiast-turned-podcasters.
- What's your morning routine like?
Or do you have a morning routine that you like
or do you just kind of--
- Fasted cardio is what I like to do, or fasted yoga.
- [Greg] Or Superbowl winners like Tom Brady.
- When you're pushing the limits to get better,
a lot of the times, the limits push back.
- His wellness brand, TB12, sells everything
from powdered Gatorade to fancy jump ropes.
Often their sales pitches hinge on the idea
of overcoming physical adversities
like injury or poor health.
On top of the lack of FDA approval
for most of these products,
some of them are just plain weird.
Sure, they might not be selling jade eggs
to put inside yourself,
but some of the supplements and schemes pushed
by the male wellness industry, just goop, but for men?
Let's find out in this Wisecrack edition on male wellness,
what went wrong?
And before we get into it,
I want to give a special thanks
to this video's sponsor, Petal.
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Now back to the show.
So what is the male wellness industry actually selling?
For the most part, the idea of peak fitness.
Tom Brady's TD12 brand sells dietary supplements
so that average non-Super Bowl-winning men
can finally have muscle durability,
but this fitness isn't always about muscularity.
Supplements have also been said
to improve your immune system and reduce inflammation,
which is supposedly a big deal.
- What was interesting was the pains.
Back pain, knee pain.
- [Interviewer] What is that? - It's inflammation.
- On top of this, we can get a whole host
of chemicals called nootropics specifically designed
to help our brains function with hypermasculine names
like Alpha Brain.
(growls)
But the wellness industry doesn't just seek
to profit off the idea of being better.
It also seeks to fix problems
which men could find embarrassing,
like erectile dysfunction, anxiety or hair loss.
Hey, I did this on purpose.
They'll tell you that hormonal imbalances
are the reason for your failing sex life,
then show you how to solve it by buying a $100 blend
of basic supplements.
The industry can fluctuate between trying
to sell you beta blockers,
which are genuinely used to treat anxiety,
and trying to convince you to let people inject platelets,
i.e. the component of your blood that helps with clotting,
into your penis to help with sexual performance
and treat erectile dysfunction
with limited science to back it up.
We hear success stories from people
who use the carnivore diet to lose weight
and improve their mental health,
or who went viral for injecting stem cells
into their dicks or invented a coffee
that helps your brain work real good and stuff.
And we think there's something goopy
about the method of bro-pseudo science
and the self-empowering ideology they use to sell it to us.
But how do they get millions of men to buy in on this stuff?
And why did I spend the summer of 2019 drinking
a pea-based protein powder that tastes like vintage chalk?
By appropriating the exact same strategies
of some very un-broey brands,
companies like goop and the people telling you
to detoxify your colon to expel your toxic dumps
both employ the two main tactics,
pseudoscience and ideology,
specifically the ideology that by doing these things,
we are becoming our better selves.
Some wellness brands,
particularly when they're selling you dietary supplements,
use scientific-sounding language to help lure people
into buying their products.
It can be hard to wade through the jargon,
so let's dive into what's really going on.
Pseudoscience and what we're calling bro-science
is a collection of beliefs or practices mistakenly regarded
as being based on scientific evidence
and it's been going on at least
since the first slick drifter
started selling fake snake oil,
knocking off an actual Chinese remedy
and selling products with unproven effectiveness
is still common within the wellness industry,
especially in places like goop.
The essence of goop science is using a sprinkling
of genuine research and buzzwords combined
with people's personal testimonials to sell us the idea
that buying a particular product
or doing a particular activity
will have definite health benefits for all of us.
Wellness schemes rely on individual experts
or mere handfuls of studies to back up things
like Paltrow injecting a serum made of her own blood
into her face to make her skin healthier.
- And I do like that it's my own material.
It's not a toxin.
- [Greg] Goop does things like promoting the idea
that regular tampons are somehow toxic
and the only way to mitigate the dangerous chemicals
is to buy goop's own organic brand or the idea
that doing yoga in the snow might actually
help you beat cancer.
Now, some of this isn't total nonsense.
Meditation and breathing techniques have long been known
to help with physical and mental illnesses,
but it becomes pseudoscience as the claims
about its effectiveness become more outrageous
and less scientifically proven.
- To influence their inflammation, which is disease,
using three pillars.
Breathing techniques, gradual cold exposure and mindset.
- Just as companies like goop and UMZU
make toxins the bad guy,
DoodleScience makes inflammation the enemy to health
and wellness without any real justification or reasoning.
Toxins and inflammations are after all very scary words
like "knife pillow," which is a pillow
for your knives, obviously, right?
We all know that.
The male wellness industry constantly vilifies inflammation,
whether they're pushing supplements or diets
as if it is not simply a natural immune response.
While some people do struggle with auto immune diseases
and other issues to do with inflammation,
there are surprisingly few studies on the actual benefits
of so-called anti-inflammatory diet.
- Maybe the root for many people who have a lot of causes
of pain and discomfort is just an inflammation-heavy diet.
You get all that (beep) out of your system and your body
doesn't experience inflammation from your food.
- [Greg] Joe Rogan and Jordan Peterson's carnivore diet
has certainly helped them to lose weight,
but there aren't many studies on the benefits
of eating little but grass-fed elk and eggs twice a day.
In fact, the diet can leave you lacking
in important nutrients and vitamins due to the no fruits
and vegetables thing, so doctors recommend
either not doing the diet or taking plenty of supplements
to balance out all that elk and eggs.
On the whole, the carnivore diet is pretty researched
and the idea that it can cure depression
has even less scientific backing.
The combination of anecdotal evidence
and genuinely bad science can make some
of the recommendations made by the likes of Joe Rogan
about as effective as recommending fight milk.
- The first alcoholic dairy-based protein drink
for bodyguards. - By bodyguards.
- As far as anecdotal evidence goes,
podcasters and quarterbacks aren't the only ones
using their personal stories
to promote particular diets or products.
UMZU, the toxic poop supplement company,
was founded by Christopher Walker,
who uses his story of naturally curing his brain tumor
to challenge the modern pharmaceutical industry
by selling supplements which reduce the toxicity
of your poop and allegedly give you bigger testicles.
Wait, why does he want bigger balls?
Is that a thing?
Is that a, is that a good thing?
Sometimes this pseudoscience is actually backed up
by medical professionals,
like the numerous doctors featured in the goop lab,
and it might be backed up with some sort of science.
- These rats have extremely similar reproductive systems
as human men.
- [Greg] But as any decent scientist would tell you,
rats aren't humans and research done on animals
isn't always conclusive.
I mean, unless we're talking about Charlie.
- Cheese, huh?
(rat squeaking) All right.
(zapping) Ow, (beep).
- Other times, it's even backed up by people pretending
to be medical professionals.
Tom Brady's TB12 business partner,
Alex Guerrero, faked being a doctor
and claimed his snake oil-like supplements
could cure cancer.
Brady also famously uses ambiguous science-y words
with no direct medical meaning like "muscle pliability"
to sell his exercise plans and supplements.
Some of the science behind these supplements
come from genuine research or information
on traditional medicine.
Herbs like ashwagandha are used in supplements by both goop
and Info Wars and have been sold to help
with things like stress, or as the alpha bros
at Info Wars described it, "general weakness,"
and there are some actual studies into it being effective
for stress reduction.
Where goop sells, "Why am I so effing tired?",
a variety of vitamins, including the herb bacopa,
Info Wars sold the exact same herb in the form
of a capsule named Rain Forest.
And again, some studies have shown benefits,
but at the same time,
both companies sold other products like colloidal silver,
a scientifically unresearched liquid containing silver
that the FDA has sued companies for making false claims
about regarding its efficacy and safety.
A lot of supplements from nootropics or Alzheimer's cures
are sold before they've been proven to work
or been safety checked,
all in the name of dudes once and for all
becoming their true warrior selves.
And this is where ideology comes in.
Because pseudoscience aside,
products sold by wellness companies
are about more than just approval from sketchy doctors.
They hinge on the idea
that without a $60 tub of ashwagandha,
we're wasting our lives as sad, sad versions of ourselves.
And this ideology
of self-improvement isn't just used by goop.
- To me, it's all like laddering up to one thing,
which is optimization of self.
- [Greg] It's also used in the male wellness sphere
by companies like Alpha Brain pedaling on it,
who capitalize on the idea that without nootropics
to enhance your brain, you can't properly do anything.
- I really felt like I didn't want
to do anything without it.
Like I felt like if I was going to do stand up,
if I was going to do the UFC, I wanted to be fully charged.
- [Greg] Though research is still emerging
about things like Alpha Brain
with studies showing varied effectiveness,
it is undoubtedly an element of the wellness industry,
which profits from its high profile endorsements
and "This will make you smarter
"and better" marketing strategy.
TB12 even applied this strategy to their immunity plan,
with the first step being have a positive mindset.
- At TB12, we pulled together a list
of what we feel are 12 very important things
that you can do on a daily basis
to help support a healthy immune system.
Number one would be to keep a positive TB12 mindset.
Expect the best and don't fear the worst.
- And this comes right back to the idea
of the anecdotal evidence.
These people found success through supplements and dieting.
So why can't you?
This is where the diet industry
and wellness industry overlap.
They both make you feel bad about yourself
so that you'll buy (beep),
but with male wellness, the dieting element has a twist.
Not only are we encouraged to lose weight,
but we're also encouraged to replace it
with muscle through intense exercise,
and of course, nutritional supplements.
- They'd be like, "Whoa,
"look at that monster coming towards us,
"barreling towards us."
- Mack, you're not that guy anymore.
- Don't you think I know that?
And I'm starting to think
that I'll never become that monster again.
- But where did this concept of muscular masculinity
as a form of self-improvement come from?
Early pioneers of dieting restricted themselves
to mere ounces of food in the hopes
it would help them live longer or look thinner.
At the turn of the 20th century,
bad diets like Fletcherism,
the technique of chewing your food until it
becomes completely liquified in order to lose weight,
were picked up by figures like Franz Kafka.
In the States, it wasn't until the 1930s
that the idea of becoming muscular
was popularized by Charles Atlas,
who went from a self-described scrawny weakling
to a so-called world's most perfectly developed man.
And naturally, thanks to our friend capitalism,
he began to make money selling his bodybuilding secrets
to a company which still exists today.
His website claims he is the ideal male specimen
for 20th century man, but in recent years
the diet industry has been somewhat supplanted
by the wellness industry,
which promotes the same ideas
while promising broader results like improve mental health.
For example, if you eat only red meat,
you'll lose weight and be less depressed.
If you take supplements, you'll stop losing hair
and be less anxious about it.
Companies use language of empowerment to sell products.
For example, "The better version of you
"would take supplements, use face creams
"and take vitamin gummies every day."
The wellness industry commodifies common health problems
faced by vast numbers of men.
It does so by making them believe
that the best way to address these problems
isn't through a medical professional,
but by taking their future into their own hands
and buying a $40 bottle of pills
or a one pound bag of protein powder,
which is a compelling pitch in a country
where access to medical care is less than great.
Holistic language about healing and reducing stress
are common slogans and selling points for supplements
in both the men's and women's wellness industries.
It turns out that no matter the gender,
corporations will always capitalize on your fears
of getting old, being unhealthy
and just not being good enough.
And this doesn't come without consequences.
The combination of ideology and pseudoscience can sometimes
actually be detrimental to your mental and physical health.
Diets recommended within the wellness sphere
can be particularly damaging
and most people recommending these diets
are aware of these issues.
- I took a bunch of different vitamins
and nutrients and supplements on top of this carnivore diet.
- [Greg] But the way they're sold as some kind
of miracle cure based on anecdotal evidence,
fronted by charismatic and fit men like Tom Brady,
can leave people at a danger
of developing eating disorders.
This is a risk with all restrictive
or calorie-controlled diets, but is an overlooked issue,
especially as eating disorders
are already underdiagnosed in men.
Doctors have recognized disorders like orthorexia rising
in recent years, due to the growing obsessions
with clean eating and treating your body right.
Orthorexia happens when these obsessions reach
an unhealthy level, like when someone limits their diet
to only healthy or clean foods.
In serious cases, this limitation can become
so obsessive that the person ties their worth to the idea
of healthiness, leading to malnutrition, weight loss
and mental health issues like depression and anxiety.
We're seeing a similar rise of disorders like protorexia,
an obsession with protein based diets,
often involving supplements and shakes,
and muscle dysmorphia, a type of body dysmorphia related
to the perception that someone's muscles are not big enough.
Obviously working out is great,
but trying to turn yourself into an Atlas-like God
can make it an unhealthy obsession.
- Okay, everybody, are you ready?
(shirt rustling) Bam.
- In fact, a lot of things encouraged
by the wellness industry, eating healthy protein,
exercise, mindfulness, have genuine benefits.
Studies have shown that protein supplementation
and resistance exercise training can enhance changes
in muscle size and strength and things
like Tom Brady's exercise regime
isn't in itself bad for you,
what appears to be pseudoscience can sometimes
be genuinely promising.
While blood platelets might not cure your sad penis,
shockwave therapy might actually
help treat erectile dysfunction,
which sounds straight out of a sci-fi movie,
but if it works, who are we to judge, man?
And there's nothing fundamentally wrong with buying coffee
that you think will enhance your brain
or starting a new skincare regime so you never, ever age,
but it's the culture around the idea of wellness
that does the damage.
The un-FDA approved supplements and the concept
of needing to biohack, supplement and transform yourself
to finally be happy.
At the end of the day, broscientists and big names
in the male wellness industry capitalize
on our fears of getting old, going bald
and disappointing our sexual partners
in the same ways the diet industry has for decades,
but because of the popular figure heads,
anecdotal evidence and carefully selected experts
that market to us, we can be distracted
from the goopiness of it all.
But what do you guys think?
Does the wellness industry actually help men
by giving them expensive ways
to feel better about themselves?
Or is it just a penis-scented candle away
from being goop for dudes?
Let us know what you think in the comments.
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Peace. (upbeat music)