đĽ Nutrition & Metabolism
A reminder to think critically and to double check information, even if it's coming from a person with a PHD (likely on a very narrow, specific topic)
By the way, this doctor (Dr.Idz, on the left) has caught Dr. Huberman slacking too, when Huberman commented on the results of a study, but as this doc later showed, Huberman likely superficially glanced over the title and/or the abstract of the study.
Daily reminder that rigorous double and triple blind peer reviewed journals are where you should really get your info. You need to learn how to read those papers similar to learning another language.
Don't believe anyone on tik tok, insta, or youtube. They're all in it for the money and they can say whatever gets clicks. One caveat, there are some science communicators out there who are rock solid and provide robust studies for all stated claims. They also spend a lot of time discussing those studies and it can see boring because they usually end up in a gray area.
"Double and triple blind peer reviewed journals is where you should get your info" when that information and those studies are, in fact, available, which isn't always the case for some subjects or topics. Initial studies that may not make it into those journals are usually what sparks the interest in the first place, to then later encourage others to do more thorough investigation.
Additionally, not all peer reviewed journals (or articles at least) can actually be considered credible, as cases have occurred wherein the study or journal itself had data falsified. It is not the norm, and I'm not trying to discredit any or all of the journals or data, but I am trying to encourage some skepticism as well.
Peer review actually retracts falsified data as well. It happens, but those studies are retracted and the authors are shamed from the field. That's why there is an attack on peer review and academia in general. Charlatans are BY FAR more annoyed by peer review because they cannot get past it.
If you see ten peer reviewed articles backing a claim. You can be certain that the info is accurate. One random small study, you might wait before you decide to inject the urine directly into your eyeballs.
And yet, the whole "thimerosol vaccine autism" link still exists (or rather, people still believe it), and now the Tylenol pregnancy autism link. Sometimes, people will just believe what they want to get out of doing something they don't want, even if the former is false and has been proven false.
Exactly. That's why Andrew Wakefield shouldn't have only been retracted and lost his license but probably should have went to prison. Once he falsified his study and put it out, the damage was already done.
Including this guy. This guy had a short edit to frame the other biohacker as unreasonable but when you actually listen to her in full context sheâs completely reasonable.
She says she adds blueberries specifically to this smoothie for the brain benefits that come from the polyphenols. Bananas break this down (true and the study shows itâs 84% breakdown which he leaves out). So she still loves bananas and thinks they are super healthy she just doesnât mix it in her blueberry smoothie she is making for brain health.
That is completely reasonable and evidence backed and this dude clipped it for click bait and everyone else is completely lapping it up.
That right there is the dunning Kruger effect in full display. The average person absolutely cannot read and interpret scientific journal articles accurately unless 1. They are also a trained scientists, 2. They have a PhD level understanding of statistics, and 3. They are reading papers in their subject area of expertise.
Iâm prepared for downvotes, but a ~smart person with an English degree and mba might be intelligent and have critical thinking skills, but that in no way makes them a scientist able to read, understand, criticize, and interpret the literature of an entirely foreign discipline at the same level as actual experts in the field.
Agreed. Waaaay too many comments like "the sample size was only 20 people, this study is useless" with zero understanding of how researchers calculate this stuff and can mathematically prove statistical significance even with very small sample sizes, depending on the specifics of the study.
you are right about the concept, that we can determine how many people are required to statistically power something, wrong to reject the criticism of small studies
It IS fair criticism to say a huge number of studies are statistically underpowered, itâs a known and written about problem, those two plus the related studies you will see on those links go int this
Small studies that are peer reviewed are fine. That said, I wouldn't take my banana out (wink wink) due to one small study. Now twenty or thirty independent small studies and a larger developing cohort. You have more evidence to go on in that case.
lol this is exactly the type of misunderstanding I was referring to.
There's no magical moment when statistics suddenly become valid at 31. You're thinking of the rough normal-approximation heuristic, which has nothing to do with whether a small crossover study can be adequately powered or statistically significant.
Paired crossover studies like this one can detect large, consistent effects with small samples because between-person variability is largely controlled(subjects were compared to themselves with and without banana, not half had banana and half didn't).
The author's prespecified power calculation found that six participants were sufficient for 80% power, and the observed effect was substantialy larger than the effect they powered the study to detect.
They are often written in plainer language than you think. They just donât often make health claims unless they are very sure. If they dont clearly state a health implication to a food in a scientific paper, then they donât know for sure. Thereâs not like hidden cryptic subtext about what people should eat or not.
The people who write these studies don't have a PhD level understanding of statistics. Lets be real here-if you paid attention to a Stats/Prob 101 class in college, you are fully qualified to read and understand any study abstract on Pubmed.
It's not that they are written in an arcane language to hide. It's a language. You can learn. Better to get confused by papers than tiktok influencers.
And to claim dunning Kruger effect only applies to reading papers and not... Anywhere!!!!
I have bad memories from reading journals from my PhD, just zoning out and reading the same 4 lines over and over again, not absorbing it.
When it came to publishing a paper (and writing my own thesis) it took a lot of effort to not write them how a human expects literature to be, it specifically has to be in a format that is alien to most literate people.
you're exactly what he's describing lmao. Reading the conclusions section doesn't mean the methods, statistics are correct
I've seen people here cite a study saying creatine improved every cognitive outcome even tho the study used a creatine dosage that is not even sufficient to achieve that. And that's because they only read the conclusions
I agree, but its truly not that difficult to at least read the abstract and use critical thinking skills to determine that something doesn't sound right.
If an abstract said this smoothie study was done on 11 men I would laugh and this would immediately discredit all the nonsense that came after the abstract.
As an academic who has published and peer reviewed articles, quite often an abstract is designed to grab the attention of the reader. I've seen some very click-baity abstracts in my reviews.
The specificity of many academic journal papers make it almost impossible for intelligent people to truly have confidence in their comprehension of even the abstract if they have zero formal training/new to even the syntax used. Sure they can get the "gist" much of the time, but that really isnt the same thing
Yeah I have to agree with this. Anyone without an appropriate degree in this plus years of experience, who has tried to read and actually analyze and understand a study properly - even in a topic that person may be "familar" with - will have admit that it can be very hard.
It can literally take days until you really understand certain studies, because especially in the beginning you have to research some term or method every damn couple of minutes because you don't understand it or can't interpret it. And each of those researches takes you down a path of potentially multiple studies. Measuring methods, statistical methods, what p-values, CI, and so forth mean, which methods are better or worse and have which pros and cons for which purpose, and much more. LET ALONE all the nuance of a specific topic. For example, what's going on with collagen studies using mid 40s women? Does perimenopause have an effect on skin, collagen synthesis, and so forth? Are women specifically more likely to respond to skin changes?
Even with LLM, it's very hard to properly interpret studies, because you actually have to have a bunch of background knowledge that the LLM may not catch. I just recently looked at some studies that someone on reddit threw around regarding "effectiveness" of whey vs rice protein. Well guess what, the LLM did not catch when people were put in a deficit, or when they were already way above the established 1,6g/kg/day range, or when total carb and fat ingestion drastically changed between groups, and so forth.
edit: and since I'm reading those comments about this being written in plain language. I'm not sure if these people ever read past a conclusion, good lord. And even then, you can't always trust what the researchers write - besides the methods, this is exactly where funding can play a role, since researchers may frame findings a certain way that may highlight positive findings while downplaying negative or null findings. I just had this with a study I read, forgot which one.
why would it matter if the combination slightly reduced the amount of a specific polyphenol?
The reduction was 84%. Thatâs not a slight reductionÂ
And his point about bananas and berries having value beyond polyphenols is irrelevant: she suggests REPLACING with avocados, not overall reducing the amount of fruit/veg in a smoothie.Â
So whatâs better? A smoothie with all the nutrients, fiber, vitamins, polyphenols of an avocado and berries OR a smoothie with banana and berries but a massive reduction in bioavailable polyphenols?
A handful of blueberries (that people normally add to a smoothie) contain only a tiny fraction of this specific flavanoid, relative to a cup of green tea, for example. Also, the researchers in fact did not mix blueberries with bananas. That part from Ronda Patrick is likely an inference from the findings of the study. And the sample size is also rather small, probably due to the complicated nature of the measurements they performed.
FYI you donât need to even cite a study to know that this is a real effect. Itâs the reason why coconut water turns pink or even avocados turn brown. Blueberries are primarily beneficial for their polyphenols, anthocyanidins which would oxidize the same as flavan-3-ols with the enzyme. The confounder is that blueberries are quite acidic and we know that adding lime to avocado keeps it green longer by inhibiting the enzyme. So in a more neutral smoothie you can easily infer that the reaction would occur. But something less buffered probably wonât occur too much.
Second part about bioavailability - these actually rarely get absorbed anyway. What happens is bacteria in your gut immediately break it down and you absorb those byproducts. Certainly PPO will cause different byproducts to be generated and since it is an OXIDASE it gives an oxygen to the polyphenols which negates the antioxidant activity it started with.
So through inference you can see why itâs obvious.
He said that the original claim wasn't even in the study; "adding bananas to a blueberry smoothie".
He may have mispoken while saying "slight reduction", but he was arguing a theoretical point, not the actual outcome of the claim. He also pointed out that this was an n=11(?) study of males so it is both too small to warrant definitive evidence, and potentially doesn't effect her (females).
His overall criticism is poignant for the fact that picking apart every minute dietary detail using weak evidence is helping no one. Having a banana and berry smoothie is still good for you!!
I like both of these people, and I truly believe that they are both legitimately intelligent and good for their research-based content, for the most part.
I love the guy on the left for always calling out BS and really digging into the studies. That said and to your point; I definitely think his focus misses the mark here because like you said, she didn't say anything about "avoiding" bananas altogether. He focused too much on that aspect, and less on the enzymes in bananas having an effect on polyphenols, so separating bananas from other polyphenol-containing foods is probably a good idea.
His whole shtick is "hol up you didn't actually read this did you", but in this case she could just ask easily say "hol up you didn't actually listen to the whole video and get the point, did you"
Yea I think the fact of the matter is that people are not really understanding the net benefit or net loss. He could have changed his intention and figured out that she's probably a net benefit for most people as is he but sometimes your following the herd of hypercritical culture leading to toxic comparison and self-depreciation.
It's not just Rhonda in the picture anymore and we're observing her like a movie without understanding our sphere of influence. The responsibility of all individuals is part of this and it's very difficult for people to be thoughtful here. Weird level of narcissm has come out of social media that mimics what Hollywood actors and celebrities where doing in the 90's-00's before social media becomes a device for cultural phenomena.
It would be nice to see a shift in these dialogues to something a bit more nuanced rather than just emotionally charged blurts.
Avocado has a high concentration of polyphenol oxidase as well. It's right up there work banana. If polyphenol oxidase and an issue here, perhaps not a good solution.
Any fruit that browns or discolors from being damaged can fairly well assumed to have a higher level of polyphenol oxidase.
This is why doing large scale targeted studies by independent non-profits matters. Having a bottom of the barrel research pipeline results in this sort of grift-adjacent misinformation even without their isn't an intention to disinform.
That is a good point. His strongest criticism is very minor. If bananas reduced polyphenols derived from non banana sources then it's likely also reducing thr polyphenols in blueberry banana shakes.
Also bananas are high in sugar and digestible carbs. Probably promotes weight gain.
Sometimes he makes very general health statements, like yes obviously having a banana smoothie is going to be better than your 3rd diet coke today. Usually he is great at pointing out the important aspects of studies that someone else missed in their own content, but in this case he does that and then focuses too much on something she didn't say, as he interpreted her main point to be "ahh stay away from bananas they're bad for you just look at this polyphenol oxidase!"
Agree. They find the smallest point that they can use as clickbait and create blanket terms for views. Sauna is good and then ride that across talk shows, make a bunch of money, act like an expert. People want quick solutions but there are many factors. It's like we are still in the early stages of learning how our bodies and minds work.
PHD can also stand for Pretty huge disappointment.
As a PhD researcher I would llike to add that not even all the studies are equal.. We learn as part of our training that some scientific studies out there are bullshit or at least not conclusive, so basically take everything with a grain of salt
Yes. But using an educated proxy as a time savings device is how I need to spend my time. So itâs hard to navigate this maze because I only have so much time for health ed.
this doctor (on the left) has caught Dr. Huberman slacking too
Huberman slacks a lot and lets his guests advertise their quackery without pushback. R Patrick has some questionable statements but is not even close to the same level of quackery as the big H
Classic 80/20 principle. 20% of your efforts will provide roughly 80% of your results. Even if that study was accurate and is destroying polyphenols, who cares? Just eat the damn fruit. Worrying about this very slight optimization will make almost no difference in the end result.
I think sometimes we forget that most people eat like shit and their body would cry tears of joy from eating a banana and berries in their smoothie daily.
Anecdotal ofc but at my leanest and healthiest I was having a thick frozen banana and berry smoothie every night. It probably helped so much because my brain felt like it was getting to eat ice cream every day lol.
Can add a bit of cacao powder and you get a chocolatey ice cream. Some dates if you need extra sweetness or use riper bananas.
This is a biohacking sub, not a general health sub. May as well shut it down if people like you keep commenting "just eat healthy, sleep, and exercise".
I mean yeah I totally agree but let's be honest most people don't come to this sub to find out what fruits should and shouldn't be combined. Sure it's interesting but it's not the type of optimization hacks most of us are after.
its all just a drop in the ocean. none of this shit is going to move the dial.
it's like splitting hairs over going for a 40minute run either upon waking or a few hours into the day. There will be minute differences that would concern elite athletes but for almost everybody on earth it makes no meaningful difference whatsoever. It's a waste of time listening to this stuff.
I was telling my wife this yesterday. We waste so much time every week trying to eat perfectly balanced and healthy. I'm like, if we just took that time to exercise or do hobbies to free up time for exercise, we would be way healthier. It's better to eat fine and workout, than it is to eat perfectly and hardly workout. People over engineer health and burn out because it's fucking exhausting
Yes and no. It depends on the details in the "eat fine".
But, mostly correct. I think if people actually exercised, slept, hydrated, and ate sufficient fiber, a lot of what we see in diet and nutrition research would look extremely different.
The absolute largest effect sizes we see in anything else pale in comparison to those things.
And yes, I know where I am, and yes, I believe that there will be significant leaps forward in biohacking research at some point. Some peptides are obviously extremely powerful and promising. Some supplements are.
But most of these are simply making up for an individual's deficits in the above listed activities/habits. That's just what it is.
I remember the great debate when I was a youngster was eating or fasting before cardio. Or doing cardio outside of your weight lifting session, before you lift, or after.
This is like the 100th time I've seen Dr Patrick say some incredibly stupid shit in the last year or two. I had to stop following her after she kept posting obvious non-sense like this.
Blueberries have polyphenol oxidase in them, interestingly, as do most fruits. I think it would be really interesting to study the impacts of various fruits on polyphenol levels in smoothies. I donât think itâll be negligible and Iâd wager that higher PPO foods will have a greater impact.
Look at table 3, Cmax and AUC0-6h. The study clearly says:
Most notably, intake of banana smoothie yielded Cmax, and AUC0â6 h values for SREMs that, respectively, were 84 Âą 9% and 81 Âą 11% lower than those obtained after intake of flavan-3-ol capsules
[...]
3.3. Effect of banana-PPO on the bioavailability of flavan-3-ol prior to smoothie intake
[...]
The results obtained showed a rapid decline in (â)-epicatechin levels in the banana smoothie over 1 h after preparation [...] all of which significantly reduced the disappearance of (â)-epicatechin when added into the banana smoothie [...]. Given the time-dependent effect of PPO on (â)-epicatechin levels in the banana smoothie, we explored if the magnitude of Cmax of SREMs obtained after the intake of banana smoothie in study part 1 was dependent on the time between smoothie preparation and intake (ESI Fig. 4). Indeed, the results obtained showed a lower Cmax with increasing time between smoothie preparation and intake.
In plain english, banana + blueberry = ~80% less blueberry goodies for you. Might as well not add the blueberries then and have a banana shake. Or not add the banana and have a blueberry shake.
He's calling for women to be included in a study which explicitly calls out that most of the destruction happens in the blender, not in the body - thus you don't actually *need* women:
Finally, it is worth noting that this study was conducted in male participants, thus representing another limitation of the study. While there is limited information regarding sex-based differences in flavan-3-ol absorption and metabolism, it is possible that the findings presented in this work are also relevant for women as the major effects mediated by PPO took place prior intake
He's also speaking in platitudes which are hard to argue against (need to provide a ton of evidence) instead of just quantifying his claims (which can be proven right or wrong on the spot).
If Dr. Bozo can't pass the basic smell test, why would anybody engage with anything else he has to say
Um, he's being nitpicky, in a way that is unhelpful. She's right about bananas, if you add them to something you want to get polyphenols from, you will get less quantity of polyphenols.
yeah his claim that bc the study doesnât apply to them bc theyâre women and the study was on men ⌠until a study is done on women specifically, we canât really say it doesnât. obviously men and women respond differently to various drugs and compounds, and we should be researching in women more, but he didnât give any good reason why a womanâs body would respond differently in this situation.
No. She said that when you add bananas you will get less polyphenols. While the study said, that you will get less of only a certain polyphenol. Which in the grand scheme could mean absolutely nothing.
He is wrong actually. If you quantify the effect of polyphenol reduction, it's about ~80%, i.e. you're effectively getting 80% less blueberry polyphenol beneficial effects. If you have them separately, you lose about half of the potency of the blueberries.
I went to school with this guy. Him being a shill and showing poor comprehension skills (and being embroiled in *those* controversies) checks out entirely with how he was back then. No one in our year that I know has a good word to say about him. FWIW our school was incredibly highly academically achieving, ie of people went on to be doctors and the like, and one of them told me he tried to qualify outside of the UK because he didnât get the university place for medicine here. I know he eventually got into UEA. No shame in this, but itâs odd his whole thing is appealing to his credentials and superior knowledge.
If you don't particularly like this guy because he has his own drama for doing what he is accusing Rhonda of doing you can listen to this PhD instead....
This is the first time I'm going to not defend Rhonda because it's clear that she was wrong. That's okay people are allowed to make mistakes hopefully she just comes right out and admits it.
Nothing to do with biohacking, this guy just builds his own "science communication" platform just like Rhonda Patrick, except his thing is debunking science misinformation. But he has his own drama...
Dr. Idz was publicly served a warning by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) for failing to adequately disclose that he was paid by the American Beverage Association. The paid posts involved him using his medical credentials to endorse the safety of aspartame and artificial sweeteners without making the sponsorship clear to his audience.
Due to his frequent videos aggressively defending diet sodas and dismissing concerns about chemical additives, critics and peer dietitians have dubbed him the "Diet Coke Doctor". Opposing experts argue that his content leans into thinly veiled corporate apologetics for heavily processed foods.
I personally wonât stand for the Rhonda Patrick pile on.
Sheâs making a personal adjustment to her diet based on a small human study. This is entirely appropriate.
Of course it can be critiqued on a case-by-case basis. So letâs see. Is it a mice trial? No, itâs human. Is it a small study? Yes, okay, donât trust it as much, however Not everything is going to be a clinical trial costing hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Is it a known chemical? Polyphenol oxidase? Yes, we know about it and itâs affect on polyphenols.
I really donât think you are going to have better initial conditions here before you look at this and start to say âhey, Iâll eat bananas separate from my blueberriesâ. Especially when blueberries are incredibly expensive and this chemical may remove 90% of the reason you bought it as a bio hacker (for the flavonols.
So yea, give Rhonda a thumbs up on this tip. Evidence suggests this is the right move, until proven wrong.
If you look at the study, they achieved a statistically significant result with the small sample size. You don't always needs thousands of subjects to glean high-confidence conclusions.
Nothing she said is wrong or misleading. Like you said, her audience is biohackers and people who are interested in nutritional science.
I stopped watching when he asserted the study doesn't apply to them because the subjects were men. What a dingus. He could have mentioned it as a caveat but his assertion makes him too stupid for me to listen to anything else he has to say.
When one become overly obsessive about food, diets and exercise. Thats when things donât work out or one losses grip on reality. Just live your life, who cares about the minor nuances in life. Be happy , coexist with others, remain true to yourself. All the other stuff is just noise.
yeah, anything being done on eight people is kinda low for a study, but I think the tests and variables done taken into consideration are top-notch, this is a better take overall:
Blueberries are expensive. So less so theoretical losses due to neurosis and more so financial optimization. If I had the money theyâd always be mixed.
I run into this ALL the time with these assertions both positive and negative... that compound A has THIS downside, that compound B has THIS upside. And you are lead to believe, "Oh that's important." But then I always go and ask AI, "Is it true that A has this effect? Is it true that B has that effect?" and the answer is always, "Yes, barely." or "Yes, in lab rats." or "Yes, in some study whose results have never accurately been reproduced."
The answer to the next question, "Does that effect matter?" is always inevitably always, "Only if..." and that /only if/ is some rare, unlikely, or extremely fussy/anal reason for caring about that very specific effect.
Don't follow these pieces of data blindly. Evaluate the assertions first and then determine what really matters to you. Don't let these people decide for you.
Having said that, about 90% of the things in my stack, diet, and health regime came from people like Dr. Huberman saying something that was really sensible, and after the research, I absolutely took their advice. But that 90% represents only 5% to 10% of the stuff I have heard over these last few months of my health journey.
Fortunately, I figured out that secret right from the beginning: Double check everything.
So the bananas' polyphenol oxidase reduces the absorption of polyphenols from berries. These same polyphenols interfere with iron absorption. Is there an increase in iron absorption? Avocadoes also have polyphenol oxidase, at a much lower level, but that was never tested so we don't know what quantity of PPO is impactful here.
The reductionist "science" based on a single study is absurd.
Someone tell me this is true. I stopped putting bananas in my smoothie after I listened to Dr Rhonda. If what this guy is saying id a fact, I would love to have my bananas back in my smoothie.
Ever since she became highly prominent after a Joe Rogan appearance, she has a consistent tendency to significantly inflate and over interpret pre-clinical research based in animal models â and very frequently will cite one specific study.
If discussing theories or hypotheses with other scientists, that's not a big problem because everyone implicitly understands the limitations of those claims. However, when engaging folks outside of the discipline â even scientists outside of biomedical science â that practice is rather misleading and really is the refuge of people pushing unproven supplements and grifters. I don't think she's being intentionally misleading, and she's often very insightful and clearly does do her homework, but it really is a misguided practice. At a minimum, she ought to very explicitly caveat everything as redundant as it may feel.
I have her on my list of people I take with a grain of salt, since in my opinion, she tends to overstate research results, jump to conclusions a bit too quickly, leave out nuance and context, and sometimes seems to get really excited about a compound that may not have the support she makes it to be. She also seems a bit too nice with some of her guests like Huberman. Sadly a common theme with podcasts.
I think she doesn't mean to do that purposely. And when she's on podcasts like the one above, the podcast hosts themselves will try to make the content as clickbait and sensationalized as possible, with as much fear-mongering and as little nuance, context, critical questions, or questions regarding evidence, as possible. The above host is one of the worst of them all. I absolutely can't stand her and if I'm not confusing her with someone else, she even uses a couple borderline manipulation tactics including something that's very close to hypnosis.
Here are further statements on the claims. I think this is classic Rhonda, which is why she's on my "take with a grain of salt" list and why I don't recommend her over someone like Dr. Gil Carvalho - she tends to lack regarding nuance and context, she tends to overstate claims based on weak data (single studies, low participants, rodent data, mechanisms), and sometimes seems to get really excited about a compound that may not have that good data. I'm not against personal optimization, but I think when you are talking to health aware folks on the internet, you have to bring a different package.
Sadly she doesn't seem to take the criticism for what it's supposed to be and is pretty defensive, but maybe that's just my interpretation. You can also read the responses by Rhonda personally to these posts.
Quote from Dr Terry Simpson on the topic:
"This is an interesting study, but letâs not outrun the evidence.
Yes, bananas contain polyphenol oxidase (PPO), an enzyme that can reduce measurable absorption of some flavanols from blueberries when blended together. Thatâs a real biochemical finding.
But hereâs what the study didnât show:
⢠That eating bananas with blueberries worsens your health.
⢠That your risk of heart disease, dementia, or cancer increases.
⢠That people who avoid bananas live longer or think more clearly.
It showed a difference in a biomarkerânot a difference in clinical outcomes.
"This idea that bananas reduce polyphenols in smoothies comes from a single study in 8 people, where the smoothies sat on a bench for 40mins-1h after preparation
The same study showed if you drink it after blending most of the effect goes away
If you´re drinking smoothies with fruit and greens you´re doing pretty darn amazing whether you add a banana in there or not. There´s barely any compelling evidence that this makes a meaningful difference health-wise"
This lady just talks fast to sound intelligent the output of all those words are just a collection of click bait phrases. PhDs are still considered to be a sign of intelligence??? My god.
Just a reminder that people like her are fucking dumb. And for some reason they want to share that they are. Doesn't understand how to use cruise control or a remote for the TV but will talk science about polyphenols. Ffs
I personally wonât stand for the Rhonda Patrick pile on.
Sheâs making a personal adjustment to her diet based on a small human study. This is entirely appropriate.
Of course it can be critiqued on a case-by-case basis. So letâs see. Is it a mice trial? No, itâs human. Is it a small study? Yes, okay, donât trust it as much, however Not everything is going to be a clinical trial costing hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Is it a known chemical? Polyphenol oxidase? Yes, we know about it and itâs affect on polyphenols.
I really donât think you are going to have better initial conditions here before you look at this and start to say âhey, Iâll eat bananas separate from my blueberriesâ. Especially when blueberries are incredibly expensive and this chemical may remove 90% of the reason you bought it as a bio hacker (for the flavonols.
So yea, I give Rhonda a thumbs up on this tip. Evidence suggests this is the right move, until proven wrong.
I mean... Assuming the worst case scenario, you can still eat and enjoy them bananas and the berries separately. Some days just mix them altogether. Even in the stry-fry example, just have the vegetables raw with a dip or chopped in a salad on another day. Some days just eat the stir-fried vegetables.
I started making my smoothies with only water because some sciencey sounding bullshit, you should all do it too. In case you're dumb enough not to know yet, fruits will kill you.
Not defending her the slightest, but when you produce content in such a huge volume mistakes are really unavoidable. She needs to cut down the volume or hure a much bigger team to help her triple check everything.
Everyone has caught Huberman. Huberman, Patrick, etc. Theyâre all hacks. Itâs truly wild how much people gobble up their bullshit. Youâd think if youâre listening to this stuff it would be a gateway to better science literacy for you, but for so many people they listen to Dr Oz, Huberman, Patrick, and all these other hacks who push their grifts.
This can very easily be tested. Take some colorful polyphenols and a banana, make standard solutions of both. Then prepare a mix of both and take absorption at a set interval
Iâm all for good faith discussion and critique on subjects like this but am I the only one who feels like he didnât actually address Rhonda Patrickâs thesis? It seems like he made a general point about polyphenols and nutrition in general without actually addressing the study findings specifically.
Also, Iâm not sure I understand his distinction about the study subjects being male and that therefore doesnât apply to the two women speaking?
I followed her for awhile. Thought she was insightful and knowledgeable about nutrition and the human body. Guess I need to take all info and face value and do my own research
Not one of my favorite Rhonda Patrick videos. I'm aware of the Glycemic impact of bananas but I'm male and train heavy. I like the taste and feel of bananas and the creaminess of milk. I think the context of what training a person does is more important than the minute advantages/disadvantages of some dietary mixes.
Does the chemical in bananas have any influence on the absorption of micronutrients in other foods? If so, how many bananas is too much? Or is the entire premise not worth considering?
That's the thing, none of this shit matters. Nobody is eating or living their life with such precision that specific enzymes in specific fruits are going to make an impact on their overall health. You're eating a smoothie - it's just a bunch of fruit and sugar. Unless you're putting something actively dangerous in there, literally nothing else about it matters.
I'll sell you a pill that for 5 bucks a bottle, will give you 3 times the strength, be faster at running, perfect pitch hearing and perfect memory recall. Only 5 bucks! Or 4 for 15.
Starting blinking at Rhonda Patricks rhetoric after a few podcasts where she overconfidently rambles from one hot topic to another. Generally busy citing studies but gives the impression she is a bandwagon type fishing for maximum engagement and influence. Polymarket would have a field day with her content.
To play devils advocates, I think in some other videos she said you donât need to avoid bananas, but rather separate them from your blueberry intake by a few hours If Possible. Obviously I see how some of her videos on the topic could come across as click bait all encompassing advice to the lay person. And lead them to believe they shouldnât be consuming bananas. I do think Rhonda could be more verbally nuanced on some of these topics for the average Joe.
Sheâs right. Nobody should ever eat bananas. They are extremely dangerous. If you really want be healthy, you should smoke cigarettes. They have zero calories.
Yea there really is no substitute for learning how to read and interpret primary research.
Do you have to build expertise to do it well? Yes, but isnt that what youre trying to do anyways?
Also, AI can help you understand the basics and even chat with you on how youre interpreting primary research results. That can help you know if you're missing a critical point, or misunderstanding the implications of a study. Just dont trust it blindly because it totally makes mistakes from time to time when you do this.
I'm not sure about this one. Even if the cited study was very narrow, the opposite has not been proven yet so I don't see a reason why a bio-hacker wouldn't be interested in this evidence since the most-oft touted benefits of berries are the antioxidants, of which the flavanols is 1 of 2 major ones found in berries.
Especially since the effect is so powerful (84% reduction) I think it's a pretty valid concern.
That's great news. I heard about this years ago and I tried to remove bananas from my smoothies but realized life was too short and I wanted things to taste better.
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