Revenge of the endocrine disruptors
+ Andrew Huberman's blue light blockers
A common trope wellness influences often employ: we live in a toxic environment, swimming in a stew of microplastics, 5G, and endocrine-disrupting chemicals. A sales pitch for EMF-blocking underwear or, of course, supplements is never far behind.
Notice how actual problems mingle with non-problems, or phenomena that probably aren’t problems—I’ll return to that distinction shortly.
Microplastics are a real problem.
5G is not, though researchers of that review rightfully point out that “future epidemiological studies should continue to monitor long-term health effects in the population related to wireless telecommunications.” We should regularly be testing and monitoring how we affect our environment, and ourselves. And we should also be honest with their assessments once rendered.
Endocrine disruptors currently constitute a lot of fear-mongering in wellness spaces, though as cosmetic scientist Jen Novakovich points out, cosmetic chemicals are generally not something to worry about in terms of endocrine disruption.
A few sample slides; I recommend the entire post.
By definition: Endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDCs) are natural or human-made chemicals that may mimic, block, or interfere with the body’s hormones, which are part of the endocrine system. These chemicals are associated with a wide array of health issues.
For a deeper dive, check out Jen’s podcast, “Endocrine disruption in beauty?” She’s joined by Dr Lyle D Burgoon, a computational toxicologist, biostatistician, bioethicist, and risk assessor. Burgoon led toxicological and risk assessments of environmental chemicals, including work on hydraulic fracturing, ambient air pollutants, hazardous air pollutants, PCBs, and metals for the EPA.
Burgoon confirms Jen’s assessment: regulations in the cosmetics industry require safety testing. The so-called offenders are probably not disrupting hormones.
About “probably not”
A huge wellness red flag: influencers employing definitives. They claim our environment is toxic without providing data. This or that ingredient is damaging health, sans evidence. The hubris is part of the marketing.
By contrast, scientists and researchers are careful with language. They recognize some level of risk exists, and that science evolves with further testing. Importantly, that doesn’t mean no testing has been done. And the results are not mysterious; they’re able to clearly explain them.
Certainty is an indication that skepticism is warranted.
Qualifying language with “to the best of our knowledge,” “this is what we know right now,” and “probably not” implies the speaker is being honest with the current evidence.
Rotten nutrition
Social media is not a reliable source of nutrition information, yet it proliferates there.
This is especially challenging in countries like America, which has exceptionally lax rules on self-credentialing. A registered dietitian has to be trained; a “nutritionist” can be, well, basically anyone.
That creates a lot of confusion, especially when someone is sharing propaganda for a specific diet or trying to sell their products or services.
This round-up covers top complaints regarding online (mis)information by nutritional experts.
The tl;dr, though I advise reading the expert replies:
Misinformation about processed foods and restrictive eating
The villainization of bloating and whole grains
The overuse of terms like ‘toxic’ and ‘inflammatory’
Wildly unsupported claims
The internet’s obsession with protein
Rewiring Huberman
Earlier this week, neuroscientist and podcast host Andrew Huberman posted the following.
Sound advice, though rich given his post from a day earlier.
As I’ve pointed out before, Huberman’s “science” often aligns with products he’s partnered with. This contradicts his call above to avoid promoting causes.
Back to the glasses: science-based or marketing hype?
The following two articles lean heavily in the latter direction.
Epidemiologist Gideon Meyerowitz-Katz breaks down the efficacy of blue light glasses.
Most of the headlines I’ve seen about blue light glasses are wrong, because they are far too definitive about this very uncertain finding. What we can say from this review is that these glasses are unlikely to help with eye strain when working using a screen. That does have some implications for their ability to help with eye strain generally, but it’s not definitive for other outcomes. As for sleep and health more broadly, the research is insufficient to draw any firm conclusions.
Meanwhile, neuroscientist Anne-Sophie Fluri looks deeper into the “screen time negatively impacs sleep” claim, which is part of Huberman’s pitch.
Although bright screens consistently suppress melatonin, their effect on sleep latency remains small, sometimes even shorter than in the dim or printed book conditions. This consistency across various studies (including in teens, athletes, insomniacs, and everyday sleepers) suggests that we may continue to see similar results moving forward.
Update: the author of that study replied to Fluri about her post here.
Clarifying vaccine safety
Peter Marks, director of the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, was interviewed by STAT about growing vaccine hesitancy in America.
Marks believes transparency is the key to winning back public trust. It’s a start, but given the sheer amount of misinformation in online spaces, anything coming from a government agency or medical organization is often treated as suspect.
Still, the point remains: clarity and transparency in science communications is important.
A point of note: Anti-vaxxers like to claim that vaccines aren’t properly studied or tested. Marks puts these claims to rest.
Vaccines are among the most well-monitored products. By definition, we cannot approve a vaccine unless the benefits greatly outweigh any risk…
There is no skimping on safety in the vaccine world. We have very little risk tolerance when we give medicines or vaccines to healthy people. By definition, where we set the bar for vaccines is different from where we set them for other medical products because most people don’t want something bad to happen with them after they go get the flu vaccine. So we have to set the bar very high.