1366: Gut Health | Skeptical Sunday

1366: Gut Health | Skeptical Sunday

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Jordan Harbinger: [00:00:00] Welcome to Skeptical Sunday. I'm your host, Jordan Harbinger. Today I'm here with Skeptical Sunday co-host, writer, and researcher Jessica Wynn. On The Jordan Harbinger Show, we decode the stories, secrets, and skills of the world's most fascinating people and turn their wisdom into practical advice that you can use to impact your own life and those around you.

Our mission is to help you become a better informed, more critical thinker. During the week, we have long form conversations with a variety of amazing folks, from spies to CEOs, athletes, authors, thinkers, and performers. On Sundays, though, we do Skeptical Sunday. A rotating guest co-host and I break down a topic you may have never thought about and debunk common misconceptions about that topic, such as why tipping makes no sense, banned foods, internet porn, targeted ads on the internet, diet supplements, Reiki healing, ear candling, and more.

And if you're new to the show, or, by the way, you know what was funny? The, one of the most controversial episodes of this show we've ever done was ear candling. The amount of people who swear that it works even though it, like, absolutely doesn't, [00:01:00] and that it's from, like, an ancient Native American blah, blah.

They're like, "I'm 1/16 Cherokee and my great-grandmother used to do this." And I'm just thinking, "Okay, but it's still fake." I've actually lost listeners because of ear candling. But you can do pretty much anything else and people are like, "Oh, okay, interesting." Ear candling apparently was the one sacred cow we just could not touch.

I thought that was kind of fascinating. If you're new to the show or you want to tell your friends about the show, I suggest our episode starter packs. These are collections of some of our favorite episodes on persuasion, negotiation, psychology, disinformation, junk science, crime and cults, and more that'll help new listeners get a taste of everything we do here on the show.

Just visit jordanharbinger.com/start or search for us in your Spotify app to get started. Today we're talking about guts. Make sure you're ready to stomach it. Some say it's our second brain, which is concerning because I don't know, my gut, yikes, not always the best decision maker. It's steered me wrong many times, mostly to buffets and gas station sushi here and there.

Some say this second brain controls our [00:02:00] mood, cravings, anxiety, possibly much of our destiny, which is a lot of pressure to put on something that also processes tacos. Fair warning: we're going to talk about worms, parasites, leaky gut, yuck. So maybe finish eating first. Make sure your gut is full by the time you listen to this episode, or don't eat at all, because honestly, this episode, that could curb your appetite.

So is it possible to clean up your gut? Is gut health legitimate science or extremely well-marketed wellness con? Joining me to digest all of this info is writer and researcher Jessica Wynn. All right, what's going on here? Are we making decisions or are our guts ruining our lives?

Jessica Wynn: Well, it would be nice to have simple biological explanations, but our lives are complicated. But the gut-brain connection, it is real.

It's fascinating, legitimate science. What your gut does is remarkable. But your gut's not your life coach, and it's not running your life.

Jordan Harbinger: Okay, but how did it turn into an entire section in Whole Foods? I walk in there last week or [00:03:00] whatever, I found an entire aisle labeled gut health. Probiotics, prebiotics, postbiotics, literally don't even know the difference.

It sounds like what happens after you take the other biotics. I don't know. There was a kombucha that was, I'm not even kidding, $62- Oh my God ... and was like, oh, you're going to, I don't know, become happier and reach enlightenment if you drink this. I, that's just crazy to me.

Jessica Wynn: Yeah. That's insane. $62 for kombucha?

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. Look, it was probably blessed by monks or something. I don't know. But when did the gut become the answer to everything? Because that aisle, that didn't exist, I want to say, 10 years ago.

Jessica Wynn: For sure. About 15 years ago, technology changed everything. So we'd known that bacteria lived in the gut for over a century.

The problem was that most of them wouldn't grow in a lab. You can't just scoop some bacteria out, put it in a Petri dish, and see what's there. So for decades we were basically guessing. Then advances in DNA sequencing got cheap and let researchers [00:04:00] identify microbes by reading their genetic material directly.

So it was like almost overnight we went from seeing maybe 10 to 20% of gut bacteria to identifying thousands of species.

Jordan Harbinger: So science opens a window into this hidden world, and immediately someone's like, "Yeah, great. How do we monetize it?" So that's why it's exploding on the shelves.

Jessica Wynn: That's pretty much what happened, yeah.

The wellness industry took this research and turned it into a massive business of supplements, cleanses, and gut health products. The scientific research was legitimate and exciting, but very quickly gut health became the explanation for everything from depression to acne. And the industry saw dollar signs.

Globally, the gut health market is now worth tens of billions of dollars.

Jordan Harbinger: Wow, tens of billions of dollars worth of products to help your poop.

Jessica Wynn: More or less, yeah. And the marketing is like, balance your microbiome, support your second brain, [00:05:00] heal your gut, heal your life. And there's a kernel of truth because your gut bacteria do matter, but the wellness industry claims go way beyond the evidence.

Jordan Harbinger: Because saying, "Hey, your digestion is probably fine," that doesn't sell. But your gut is broken and only this $79 bottle of capsules can fix it, that sells.

Jessica Wynn: Yeah. And take depression. So it's true that people with depression often have different gut bacteria than people without depression who's not depressed?

I don't know, but-

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. Currently, I'm not. That's all I

Jessica Wynn: can say It's like right now I'm not ... cur-

Jordan Harbinger: right in this moment

Jessica Wynn: Same. This is my safe place. But that's real published research that there is a difference in the gut bacteria, but that's where people get ahead of the evidence. So we know they're connected.

We don't know which one is driving the bus though. So does the bacteria cause the depression or does the depression change the bacteria, or is it something else like stress, [00:06:00] diet, poverty, something like that affecting both?

Jordan Harbinger: Correlation is not causation. We learn that in school, yet everybody on social media forgets immediately.

Jessica Wynn: But the truth doesn't move product. So like you said, you can't say this probiotic is correlated with mood in ways we don't fully understand on a label. It won't sell.

Jordan Harbinger: I also noticed this whole gut health aesthetic seems very targeted. Instagram ads, influencers, pastel powders, most of it is geared towards women.

Why?

Jessica Wynn: There's two main reasons. So one, IBS and other functional bowel disorders affect women about twice as often as men. And two, women's health, including digestive complaints, has historically been dismissed by the medical establishment. You know, "It's stress, it's anxiety," is what women are told. So the wellness industry steps in and says, "Your doctor won't listen.

We will."

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. That's actually quite predatory. They're [00:07:00] exploiting real symptoms and real medical dismissal to sell products, and the symptoms are so specific. It's always like, "Are you bloated? Are you anxious, tired, can't lose weight, brain fog?" Which that's every human... One of those at least is every human who's ever lived.

Jessica Wynn: Exactly. And they exploit normalcy and sell normal human variation as pathology. So sometimes you're bloated because you ate a lot. Sometimes you're tired because you didn't sleep well. But marketing reframes that as a broken gut that requires fixing, you know, with these really expensive products.

Jordan Harbinger: Okay, before we get too cynical, there is real science here though, right?

This is not just totally made up.

Jessica Wynn: Oh, absolutely. The gut-brain connection is one of the most exciting areas in medicine right now. What's frustrating is that real science is getting buried under a mountain of hype and oversimplification.

Jordan Harbinger: So let's hear the real science. What do we actually know so far?

Jessica Wynn: All right.

So your [00:08:00] gut, which is your digestive tract that goes from your esophagus to your rectum, is lined with something called the enteric nervous system, or the ENS. So the ENS contains roughly 500 million neurons. That's more than in the entire spinal cord. That's hundreds of millions of neurons embedded in your gut.

Jordan Harbinger: More neurons than my spinal cord? That is a massive amount of neurons. Wow. Wasn't expecting that.

Jessica Wynn: Yeah. It's a crazy complex network. So it controls digestion, so moving food, releasing enzymes, regulating blood flow, absorbing all the nutrients. It can do all of that independently of your brain.

Jordan Harbinger: So my gut can act on its own without my brain's permission.

Just digestion is being outsourced.

Jessica Wynn: Yeah pretty much. Your gut has its own reflexes, its own sensory system, its own decision-making processes for digestion. So we think this evolved because digestion [00:09:00] is so complex it couldn't rely on constant back and forth messages with the brain, so it needed to operate locally.

Jordan Harbinger: Okay, but do these two brains talk to each other or what?

Jessica Wynn: Yeah, they do, through the vagus nerve, which is the massive nerve that runs from your brain stem down through your chest and into your abdomen. And one of the things scientists discovered when they started mapping those signals is that roughly 80 to 90% of them travel from the gut to the brain, not the other way around.

Jordan Harbinger: So it sounds like my gut is actually in charge.

Jessica Wynn: Well, your gut's very chatty at least, you know? I mean, it's constantly updating your brain about what's happening down there, how full you are, the chemical composition of what you've eaten, whether there's inflammation or anything's off. All of that information is flowing up to your brain.

That's why stress upsets your stomach. That's why anxiety makes you [00:10:00] nauseous. It's this constant two-way conversation.

Jordan Harbinger: So the gut-brain axis is real. That's pretty cool.

Jessica Wynn: Yeah, completely real. Yeah.

Jordan Harbinger: Okay, so now what about the bacteria that live in the gut?

Jessica Wynn: So in addition to this massive nervous system, your gut is home to trillions of microorganisms, mostly bacteria, but also fungi, viruses, other single-celled organisms, and they all ferment fiber, they produce these short-chain fatty acids, make vitamins, and they help train your immune system, so you absolutely need them.

Jordan Harbinger: So I'm, we're outnumbered by our gut bacteria inside our own body.

Jessica Wynn: Yeah, but not the way people used to claim. So for years you'd hear that we're 10 times more bacteria than human, but that number was way overblown. The newer estimate is closer to one, maybe about 1.3 bacterial cells for every human cell.

So yes, [00:11:00] technically you are slightly more bacteria than human by cell count.

Jordan Harbinger: That is a little disturbing that I'm just a convenient host organism essentially. That's kind of gross.

Jessica Wynn: I know. It's kind of amazing though. You know, it's an ecosystem, and those microbes communicate chemically with your enteric nervous system, which then talks to your brain.

So in a way, your gut bacteria can influence your brain.

Jordan Harbinger: And this is where people go, "Cool, my bacteria are controlling my life, and this explains my Diet Coke addiction."

Jessica Wynn: And that's where we need to slow down. So influence is not control. Your brain integrates thousands of inputs like hunger, memory, culture, stress, sleep, budget, and yes, gut signals.

But you're not being puppeteered by your gut or anything.

Jordan Harbinger: But can my gut think if it's a brain?

Jessica Wynn: No.

Jordan Harbinger: But it's a brain.

Jessica Wynn: It's called a second brain because of the number of neurons-

Jordan Harbinger: Okay ...

Jessica Wynn: and because it [00:12:00] uses the similar neurotransmitters as your actual brain, but it doesn't think. It doesn't reason. It can't compose poetry or solve equations or even decide what you should have for dinner.

Jordan Harbinger: It is musical, though, huh? But no, right, so what can it do? What can it actually do?

Jessica Wynn: Sample your tummy.

Jordan Harbinger: That's right.

Jessica Wynn: It manages digestion, so it has these complex, sophisticated reflexes, but not thoughts. There's no consciousness. Even the scientist who coined the term second brain, his name was Michael Gershon, was very clear.

The ENS doesn't help with the great thought processes like religion, philosophy, or art. That's left to the brain in the head.

Jordan Harbinger: So it's not solving the Arab-Israeli conflict anytime soon. Fine.

Jessica Wynn: Don't go with your gut on that.

Jordan Harbinger: No, I'm f- Look, I'm fine with it. I don't need my colon weighing in on my life choices.

Jessica Wynn: Yeah, yeah, you're complicated enough.

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah, okay, but let me push back on something. You said people with depression have [00:13:00] different gut bacteria. How would depression cause changes in gut bacteria?

Jessica Wynn: There's lots of possibilities. So lifestyle can certainly play a role. Someone who's depressed may eat differently, sleep differently, move less, socialize less, or experience more chronic stress, and all of that can affect the microbiome. But depression also involves biological changes throughout your entire body, like your immunity, hormones, and inflammation, and that also can affect the gut directly.

So when we see different gut bacteria in depressed people, we can't assume the bacteria caused the depression. Bacteria may be part of the story, they may be responding to it, or both. The bacteria could be a culprit, a symptom, a little of each. We just don't know exactly yet.

Jordan Harbinger: So the honest answer is that we found a relationship, but we haven't untangled it, and that's a lot less exciting than scientists discover [00:14:00] sadness bacteria.

Jessica Wynn: Yeah. It's much less exciting, but the wheels of science can move slow, right? So it's much more accurate, though. Sometimes we just have to sit with not knowing, at least yet.

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. Okay, so hold on. If we're still figuring all that out, why are probiotics everywhere? Yogurt commercials, supplements in drinks, every one of them seems to imply they know exactly what's happening in my gut.

So are they legit? Does that stuff even do anything?

Jessica Wynn: Specific strains can help specific conditions, but everyone's microbiome is unique. It's like a fingerprint, and everyone's gut has about at least 1,000 different species of bacteria. So the idea that one probiotic supplement with maybe five or 10 strains of bacteria is going to, quote-unquote, "fix your gut," that just doesn't make sense.

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. It seems like tossing a handful of tourists into Manhattan and hoping they change the culture of the city.

Jessica Wynn: Yeah. Right, right. I mean, they might stay, they [00:15:00] might die off, they might not make any difference at all.

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah, the tourists, right. Probiotics are useless or is that an overstatement?

Jessica Wynn: No, they're not useless.

Some strains like Lactobacillus or Bifidobacterium can help reduce IBS symptoms in some people. There's also evidence that certain probiotics can reduce antibiotic-associated diarrhea. That's why some doctors recommend them during or after a course of antibiotics.

Jordan Harbinger: Yes. Whenever I take antibiotics, I buy one of those refrigerated nuclear level probiotics from the pharmacy, and I swear I feel better because it's like you have the gut stuff from the antibiotics, and I just...

It's not like right when I take one it works, but basically one day later I'm all good. But that could also just be my body recovering naturally. I really don't know.

Jessica Wynn: It could help speed it up. I mean, that's the tricky part. Some evidence suggests certain probiotics can do that. They can reduce antibiotic-associated side effects.

But that's a much [00:16:00] narrower claim than probiotics are good for everyone all the time. They're not this miracle cure the marketing suggests.

Jordan Harbinger: So they're not the miracle cure the marketing suggests. Okay. It's like supplements, which as we know, are not exactly tightly regulated.

Jessica Wynn: Not at all. Several studies have found that many contain dead bacteria.

Some don't match the label, and even if they are legit, there's just no guarantee they survive your specific digestive system or have the ability to colonize your gut.

Jordan Harbinger: That's what I wondered. I was like, can't you digest pretty much anything in your... You have acid in there, it just kills everything. Why was this little- It's a

Jessica Wynn: gamble.

Jordan Harbinger: So you basically might be paying for a capsule of dead microbes or soon to be dead microbes.

Jessica Wynn: Yeah, potentially.

Jordan Harbinger: What about yogurt? That feels less scammy somehow because it's just food and it's not- Right ... $72.

Jessica Wynn: Fermented foods like yogurt, kimchi... Oh, just this morning I read that There's [00:17:00] new studies coming out showing that eating kimchi, microplastics will latch onto it and pass it.

No way. So it's actually... Yeah, like, they think kimchi will clean out plastics. Anyway, that was just an offhand, off, a side note I saw this morning. I don't know the facts behind it yet, though.

Jordan Harbinger: Except for there's probably lead in kimchi. Hey- ... pick your poison.

Jessica Wynn: Right. Which would you like?

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah, I'm kidding about that, hopefully.

Jessica Wynn: But yeah, fermented foods like that, sauerkraut, whatever, they're generally a good idea for all kinds of reasons. But they contain live bacteria plus other nutrients, and humans have eaten them for thousands of years. But that's very different from taking high doses of isolated strains in a capsule form.

Jordan Harbinger: I actually eat a lot of yogurt and kimchi. Not together, that would be freaking disgusting. Right, kimchi and yogurt. Kimchi is fermented cabbage for people who don't know, like spicy fermented cabbage and vegetables- It is so good ... that you eat at a Korean restaurant. It is good, especially if you like spicy food.

Yogurt [00:18:00] and kimchi is a hell of a lot cheaper than an $80 bottle of probiotics that might just be dead and/or sawdust from China or something. The amount of kimchi you could get for $80, you could get a metric shit ton, which is- Right ... a very good measurement to use in a Gut Episode- ... for 80 bucks. So the yogurt commercials with the animated bacteria throwing a rave in your intestines, what's going on?

I

Jessica Wynn: mean, they're extremely optimistic about what's actually happening. Yeah.

Jordan Harbinger: Can probiotics be harmful? Because if I'm eating live bacteria, I don't know, it sounds like that could also hurt you.

Jessica Wynn: Yeah. People assume that natural means safe. It doesn't. For most healthy people, probiotics, they're probably fine.

But probiotics can cause serious infections if you're immunocompromised, if you have HIV, in some cancer patients, or people on immunosuppressant drugs. There are documented cases of all of that.

Jordan Harbinger: So bacteria can cause bacterial [00:19:00] infections? Okay. That's, yeah, yeah. Who knew? Correct.

Jessica Wynn: Yeah.

Jordan Harbinger: So we've come full circle.

Jessica Wynn: Also, high doses of probiotics can cause issues like D-lactic acidosis, which is too much lactic acid leading to brain fog and confusion. And for people with SIBO, which is small intestinal bacterial overgrowth, you're adding bacteria to a system that already has too many.

Jordan Harbinger: Ah, okay. So probiotics are not universally good.

They're not like, I guess, vitam- well, you could probably take too much vitamins too, but they're not vitamins.

Jessica Wynn: They're not vitamins. They're live organisms, and that's a totally different category.

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Jordan Harbinger: Don't forget about our newsletter, Wee Bit Wiser. It is a two-minute read, highly practical, something you can apply right away. Jordanharbinger.com/news is where you can find it. Now, back to Skeptical Sunday. If somebody changes their diet or takes probiotics, how fast does anything happen?

Jessica Wynn: We honestly don't know. Some studies show microbiome changes happen within days to weeks, but many revert back immediately once you stop. So we don't know what's permanent, what's temporary, or even who responds.

Jordan Harbinger: I see. So the expensive supplement you're taking might not even do anything long term.

Jessica Wynn: It's probably not, which is why you should eat lots of diverse plants and fermented foods and just be skeptical of expensive supplements making big promises like [00:23:00] curing leaky gut or whatever.

Jordan Harbinger: Okay, leaky gut sounds terrifying and gross. It's terrible. My intestines have what? A plumbing failure? Holes in your intestines just sounds horrible.

Jessica Wynn: Ugh, yeah. The medical term is intestinal permeability. And it is real. So the gut barrier can become too permeable, allowing inflammatory molecules into the bloodstream.

So this only happens in specific diseases though, in Crohn's, celiac, and really severe infections. But the wellness industry turned leaky gut into this catch-all explanation for your fatigue, acne, anxiety, brain fog. Basically like what we said, all the symptoms of just being alive.

Jordan Harbinger: And then you're sold a repair kit.

Jessica Wynn: With very little evidence it repairs anything unless you have an actual diagnosed condition that requires medical treatment. So if you have inflammatory bowel disease, you need medical [00:24:00] treatment, not collagen powder.

Jordan Harbinger: So if someone's selling a leaky gut repair kit, just be very skeptical.

Jessica Wynn: Yeah. Especially if they diagnosed your leaky gut based on symptoms like sometimes I'm tired or I get bloated after eating, you know?

Jordan Harbinger: Which describes everybody who's ever eaten. Okay. There's so much social media convincing people that you are full of worms, literally, with videos like, "Check out this tapeworm the size of a garden hose," and it's so vom.

Jessica Wynn: Oh my God, Jordan. Researching this episode has absolutely destroyed my algorithm. Oh man.

It's, it's so gross. So prepare yourself next time you open Instagram.

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. I do not want my algorithm thinking my primary interest is catastrophic intestinal parasites. But, uh, hold on. Tell me, do we all have parasites? I've heard that. Are there worms in me right now, basically?

Jessica Wynn: Probably not. At least not if you're living in the United States or other developed countries.

Intestinal parasitic infections are [00:25:00] actually quite rare in the general population.

Jordan Harbinger: But not zero.

Jessica Wynn: Not zero, but rare. The most common are pinworms, which are mostly in children, or giardia, which you can get from contaminated water if you're camping or traveling. But if you had parasites, you'd very likely have symptoms like severe diarrhea, weight loss, pain- And sometimes visible worms in your stool.

It's not subtle.

Jordan Harbinger: What are these videos all over social media, the ones where someone does a cleanse and then pr- just proudly films the toilet- I know. It's so crazy ... like they've just bested an alien species. There are these long, like, ropey things floating around, and everyone's like, "Oh my God, look at all the parasites."

Jessica Wynn: Yeah. They're actually called mucus casts.

Jordan Harbinger: Oh, do I even want to ask? What is a mucus cast?

Jessica Wynn: So your intestines naturally produce mucus. It's protective. It's normal. It's also gross. But it cleanses, [00:26:00] which are basically harsh laxatives, irritate your gut and increase mucus production. So that mucus gets shaped by the intestines and comes out looking like ropes or worms.

Jordan Harbinger: Okay. So this is less worm removal and more, you know, arts and crafts. Yeah. I mean- Little paper mache. Right. Got

Jessica Wynn: it. Yeah. Yeah, they're not real worms. So rope worms aren't even a real medical entity. They're not a species of parasite. They're mucus, maybe with some un- undigested food or intestinal lining cells mixed in, just shaped into these disturbing-looking formations by the cleanse itself.

Jordan Harbinger: Okay. But skeptics insist mucoid plaque is real. It's where parasites hide, and it stores heavy metals, and Western medicine denies this on purpose. Something, something big pharma.

Jessica Wynn: Yeah. Yeah. R- okay. So mucoid plaque was coined in the 1980s by a naturopath and, like, an alternative medicine [00:27:00] practitioner, not a physician, named Richard Anderson, who was selling cleanses.

Jordan Harbinger: Ah. Well...

Jessica Wynn: So yeah. Mucoid plaque does not appear in any medical textbook. Thousands of colonoscopies are performed every day in which doctors look directly at the intestines. They don't see layers of toxic sludge. Autopsies never show it. There's just no proof.

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. I mean, I've even seen... I looked at the camera on my colonoscopy because I didn't fall asleep right away- Oh

and then I woke up. I think I've told this story 100 times on the show- Yeah. ... so spare everyone. But so the response is what? Only special untrained health influencers on social media- ... can see this, uh, toxic stuff? Isn't

Jessica Wynn: that funny how that works out? The response from the alternative medicine community is usually that doctors don't know what to look for or it's hidden from view.

That is just unfalsifiable. It's circular logic. It's just not how evidence works.

Jordan Harbinger: So what [00:28:00] are people actually seeing come out when they do the cleanses?

Jessica Wynn: The cleanse itself. So most of these products contain ingredients like psyllium husk, of... which is a fiber supplement. Yeah, I take

Jordan Harbinger: that.

Jessica Wynn: Yeah. Or bentonite clay, which is literally the same stuff in cat litter.

And when they mix with water, mucus, and whatever's already in your intestines, they form these long rope-like masses. It all clumps together, and doctors call them casts because they've essentially just taken the shape of the intestine they pass through.

Jordan Harbinger: Okay, so people aren't pulling parasites out of their bodies.

It's they're just putting a bunch of Play-Doh mix into their gut, and then it comes out as Play-Doh, and they're like, "Oh my gosh- Yeah ... look at that. It's a worm."

Jessica Wynn: It's just psychosomatic. They're just pulling the cleanse back out of their bodies. So you're not removing toxins, you're just expelling that product.

Jordan Harbinger: So it's creating the problem and then selling the solution. Pretty good, pretty good business model there.

Jessica Wynn: Yeah. Remarkably effective. It's this [00:29:00] perfect product loop. Cleanse, binder, gut reset, repeat, and each one requires the next.

Jordan Harbinger: What about... And I already know the answer to this, but what about the argument that Western medicine is hiding this all from us?

Jessica Wynn: Well, this is where healthy skepticism turns into conspiracy thinking. And part of the reason it works is because medicine has genuinely failed some people. If you've spent years being dismissed, especially as a woman or a person of color, you're being told your symptoms are just stress, anxiety, or it's all in your head, it's not hard to understand why you'd be skeptical of the medical establishment.

That distrust is real. The problem is that real distrust doesn't automatically make the alternative explanation true.

Jordan Harbinger: So the appeal kind of makes sense, and the wellness industry just steps into the rescue.

Jessica Wynn: Of course, yeah. And they say, "Look, your doctor doesn't believe you, but we do. We take your symptoms [00:30:00] seriously, and we have answers."

And for someone who's been dismissed by multiple doctors or has crummy health insurance, that's incredibly appealing. And the problem is that uncertainty is uncomfortable. So if medicine says, "We don't know," and a wellness influencer says, "I know exactly what's wrong with you," most people prefer certainty, even when that certainty, you know, hasn't been earned.

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. So we're wired to think somebody has to be the hero and somebody has to be the villain. And if medicine failed me, then the wellness guru, he must be the good guy.

Jessica Wynn: Exactly. But reality, it's usually messier than that. Medicine fails people. Doctors can be dismissive. And someone selling cleanses can still be wrong on top of all of that.

Those aren't contradictions.

Jordan Harbinger: We tend to scrutinize big pharma because they rake in so much money. Then we turn around and trust a guy selling a $300 cleanse on

Jessica Wynn: Instagram. Right. Right. But if these cleanses worked, big [00:31:00] pharmaceutical companies would patent the most effective cleanse and be selling them tomorrow making billions.

That's

Jordan Harbinger: a good point.

Jessica Wynn: Yeah. And so there's money on both sides here. The supplement industry is worth billions, too, and a lot of that is from people doing cleanses every month.

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. There's a place near me. I can't remember the name. There- it's a juice place. And you can go in and get a juice, but their big moneymaker is selling a juice cleanse.

And you go in there and you just order the cleanse and I don't know, it's a couple hundred bucks or whatever, and they just give you a case of different juices, and it's all you consume for whatever, however long. Seven days or however long this juice cleanse is, which has got to just be absolutely miserable because you're probably starving the whole time and you're drinking, like, celery juice every three hours.

I don't know.

Jessica Wynn: Yeah. It's just you're torturing yourself.

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. You're torturing yourself. Yeah. You know what? Long time ago, almost 20 years ago, I tried that cleanse where you put... I don't even remember. It's like cayenne [00:32:00] pepper, sea salt, and- Lemon

Jessica Wynn: juice.

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. Lemon juice. Yes. That one. And you drink that.

Here's all the folklore because I don't know the real. Your body apparently thinks that it's blood because of the salt and the whatever. So you immediately have like crazy diarrhea, like for hours. And you drink this every day, no food, and you're washing your gut. And the person who told me to do it, she was like, "Even three weeks in, there was stuff coming out.

Amazing. Unbelievable. That stuff was probably stuck in there for years." And I'm like, "I don't know. Maybe not." But one of my former business partners who was a bio major, he was like, "Hey, Jordan, don't do this." Because I tried it for a day and I was like, "This is terrible." He's like, "Dude, don't do it. It's not good for you."

And I was like, "Why?" He goes, "All you're doing is starving your gut bacteria, which you need. And for what? So that you can rinse out your intestines, which no doctor says you need to do, and there's no reason to go and do that. And getting a piece of lettuce unstuck inside your gut, who cares? What's the [00:33:00] point?"

Jessica Wynn: And it's not how digestion works.

Jordan Harbinger: So it's like what's the point of this? Meanwhile, you've got to stay home and be on the toilet for weeks at a time basically. It's just dumb. It doesn't make any sense.

Jessica Wynn: And you probably come out the other side really tired and completely dehydrated,

Jordan Harbinger: right? Yes, and also like are you working out?

Because you're not taking in any protein or anything. So I think people like it because it scratches this weird sort of OCD-ish itch where you're like I've washed the inside of my body, but also you lose 20 pounds because you stopped eating, right? Or 10 pounds or five pounds or whatever.

Jessica Wynn: And then you gain it back so fast.

It's like a garden. Yes. We need some dirt in there. Yeah.

Jordan Harbinger: The cleanse thing is just big money versus big money and we probably need to be skeptical of, of both.

Jessica Wynn: Yeah, I mean both mainstream medicine and alternative medicine are profit-driven. Both make exaggerated claims. The question isn't who's selling it.

It should always be what does the evidence show? So if your doctor [00:34:00] dismisses you, ask questions, get a second opinion. If someone is selling supplements or cleanses, ask for peer-reviewed research.

Jordan Harbinger: And if they say, "Western medicine doesn't study this because they're biased and they're hiding the truth," I have a friend like that.

Jessica Wynn: Oh, me too.

Jordan Harbinger: He's like, "Their COVID vax was for this," and like, "There's- they're hiding cancer cures," and I'm just like, "That doesn't even make sense economically, but okay." Does

Jessica Wynn: he get all his info from Instagram Reels?

Jordan Harbinger: He gets all of his info from a lot of places like that, but also, this is a guy who told me once, "The only credible source of information out there right now is RT," which is Russia Today, which is a Kremlin-sponsored fake news network- Wow

that is global.

Jessica Wynn: What is his life like?

Jordan Harbinger: It's everything is a conspiracy, and I feel- Yeah ... bad for him. Yeah. He sends me studies all the time to read, and I'll, I'll throw them into an AI and be like, "Can you summarize this for me?" And the AI's basically like, "This is a nonsense, widely discredited study that was not allowed to be published in any journal, was published in this seventh-tier journal, and then retracted because all the data was [00:35:00] fake."

And I'm like, "Hey, man."

Jessica Wynn: Yeah. See, they're trying to hide it from you.

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah.

Jessica Wynn: To what end?

Jordan Harbinger: And it's like, okay, how come nobody can replicate this, and all of the methodology is nonsense, and it was made by one guy who cited himself? Yeah. Right. Doesn't make sense. Such

Jessica Wynn: a red flag, yeah. There are independent researchers worldwide, researchers in countries with nationalized healthcare where the pharmaceutical industry has much less influence than here in America.

So if something worked consistently, someone would have published rigorous evidence by now.

Jordan Harbinger: This is the problem with conspiracies. The other side, the conspiracy perpetrators, have to both be flawlessly able to keep a secret among thousands or even millions of people, right? Like the moon landing's fake, so everyone at NASA who was in on this are all in on it.

Jessica Wynn: All nine moon landings. Nine moon landings.

Jordan Harbinger: But they're also so incompetent that you can, I don't know, look at the one widely published photo and find a, [00:36:00] a, a number written on a rock that somehow nobody else noticed, and then it- that proves that it's a prop. You see this all the time. "Oh, the Jews are lizard people," and it's like, okay, but they also have this fatal flaw that's so obvious to even somebody with a second-grade education, that if you just do this, they can't hurt.

It's all dense nonsense like this, and this is the same thing, right? "Oh, they're hiding it." What about all the other places that don't have- Big pharma influencing them. Oh-

Jessica Wynn: They're in on it

Jordan Harbinger: They're in on it and something revenue sharing behind the scenes, something the Illuminati, Epstein files, whatever.

And it's like, okay, but they're also so dumb that you can find the cancer cure on a TikTok video because some dude who's a copy machine repairman found it and leaked it.

Jessica Wynn: He went to repair the copy machine at the Mason Lodge and-

Jordan Harbinger: I've told this story years ago on the show. There's a guy in LA who used to run a, a, basically a cult, like a coaching cult.

His name was Carl, and he would do all these weird coaching exercises, and he had all these celebrities and influencer type people working with [00:37:00] him. And his thing was he was a copy machine repairman, and somebody at the Pentagon needed a copy machine repaired. So they walked him in there, and the document that was stuck in the copy machine was, I might get this wrong, but basically plans for a military base on the moon that already existed, or diagram of a moon base, secret moon base on the dark side of the moon.

And I'm like, "So they just had any random copy machine repair guy with no security clearance come in here, pull out this super-duper ridiculously- ... top-secret document from the Pentagon, look at it for as long as he wanted, and then just be like, 'All right, I'm done here.'"

Jessica Wynn: That somebody was making a copy of.

Jordan Harbinger: Yes, that was just photocopying this document. And he takes a look at it, and they're like, "Yeah, no worries. See you later, Carl." So that was one of his ridiculous claims. So it's like, okay, so they can build a base on the moon and keep it a secret, but then when the copy machine breaks, they just call this yutz and have him fix it and take a look at everything at his leisure.

No.

Jessica Wynn: Yeah, this is a bad Michael Bay movie or [00:38:00] something.

Jordan Harbinger: Really is, yeah. He was a fascinating guy because he was able to manipulate people really well. And I remember my friend had him over to a party, and I met him, and he was really clever the way he manipulated things. So he tried to convince me of something, and I wasn't having it because I'm not a moron.

I shouldn't say that, but, like, I might be a moron. But I will say- ... he tried to convince me of something, and he realized really quickly that I was not a believer in his brand of nonsense or whatever. And one of my friends, she had a harp, like a full-size harp because she was a harpist or a harp player. And I was like, "Can I play this harp or am I going to break it?"

She's like, "No, you can touch it. You couldn't break this thing. Trust me." So I started playing the harp, not well, because I'd never touched one in my life. And Carl's like, "Look at the way his fingers go along the strings." And I was just like, "Okay, you're playing to my ego." And then he was like, "Ladies, whenever anybody is vibrating like this with a beautiful instrument in the universe, you should be as close to them as you can physically."

So he, like, placed all of these really gorgeous women at the party [00:39:00] basically on my lap and next to me and in front of me. And they were like, "Put your hands on his shoulders." And I was like, "This is actually a really clever strategy because you know I'm a single guy. I'm not really picking up what you're putting down, but now you're basically communicating, literally get women to go all over you on command.

You're going to want to hang out with me. You're going to want to cede power to me." And he did that very consciously and very effectively. And I was like, "Oh, this dude runs a real cult. This is a real cult."

Jessica Wynn: Uh, yeah. It probably works on the majority of men.

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. And I will say even though I knew exactly what was going on because that's exactly the kind of social dynamics I was really into at the time, I was fascinated by this.

And I was like, "You're obviously a harmful personality, but man, is it tempting to just be like-" "... you know what? I can lie do- down with dogs and hang out with these fleas for a little bit. I can avoid getting these fleas." Because it was just like, "Whoa, I don't know. I could get used to being a, a middle rung on this cult ladder with all these ladies around all the time."

He really knew what he was doing. But back to gut health. Right. Decades of no [00:40:00] solid evidence, that's kind of evidence in some ways.

Jessica Wynn: Yeah, especially after 40 years or more of these claims. If the mucoid plaque were real, we'd know. And I know that's frustrating for some people, but the answer isn't picking a side and believing everything.

It's demanding better evidence from everyone.

Jordan Harbinger: So we need to fix the system, not run into the arms of somebody selling expensive questionable cleanses. What is in the cleanses again? You mentioned something like kitty litter clay and psyllium husk, which is just fiber, but what else is in there?

Jessica Wynn: Usually it's a mix of laxatives and herbal ingredients marketed as parasite fighters.

So things like black walnut, wormwood, clove oil. They're really common ingredients, and they're plants that have traditionally been used against parasites. And some of them do show anti-parasitic activity in studies. [00:41:00] The problem is that evidence for these cleanses in actual humans is weak. So the- some of the products add diatomaceous earth.

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. I've heard of that. That's some kind of anti-bug powder literally, right?

Jessica Wynn: Yeah. It's usually food grade Diatomaceous earth that's in the cleanses, not the industrial stuff. But it's made from fossilized microscopic algae, and it is commonly used for insect control.

Jordan Harbinger: Be- it's some- it kills bugs or s- it scratches them up somehow.

Jessica Wynn: Yeah, it damages an insect's out- the hard outer coating, and then completely dehydrates them. So the idea in humans is that it will scrape parasites off our gut lining in a similar way. But that's where the theory starts running into problems, because insects are dry. Your intestines are not. [00:42:00] So critics point out that the mechanism that works on bugs would never survive a wet digestive tract.

Jordan Harbinger: Ah, okay. So the wellness pitch is basically, "Hey, it works great on ants. Let's see what happens." Home Depot, at that rate, could have a gut health aisle.

Jessica Wynn: There's a surprising amount of crossover of these ingredients.

Jordan Harbinger: That sounds unwise, like aggressively incorrect.

Jessica Wynn: Yeah. I mean, it can cause dehydration, electrolyte imbalance, and actually irritate your gut more, sometimes creating the very symptoms people are trying to fix.

So you irritate your gut, you produce mucus, you expel it, and then interpret that as parasites. So it's this self-fulfilling prophecy.

Jordan Harbinger: The gut health industry found a way to monetize bloating, fatigue, and being alive. Capitalism remains undefeated. Speaking of which, we'll be right back. This episode is also sponsored by Progressive.

You're listening to this podcast, so I know you got a curious mind. Here's a helpful fact you might not know yet. [00:43:00] Drivers who save when switch with Progressive save over $900 on average. They make it super simple. Pop over to progressive.com, answer some questions, and you'll get a quick quote with coverage options tailored to your choices.

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Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and Affiliates. National average 12-month savings of $946 by new customers surveyed who saved with Progressive between June 2024 and May 2025. Potential savings will vary. This episode is also sponsored by FlyKitt. We're tired on a normal day. Add in a 13-hour flight, a 13-hour time change, and two kids who don't care what time zone we're in, and jet lag is not just annoying, it's an emergency.

That's why we're packing FlyKitt. It's a kit plus an app that creates a personalized jet lag schedule for your trip, when to take the supplements, when to wear blue light blockers, when to get light, [00:44:00] when to caffeinate, when to nap, all to give you the best shot at beating jet lag. I was very skeptical, to say the least, when I first heard about this years ago, but after dozens of international trips, I don't travel without it ever.

You enter your travel details, FlyKitt maps out exactly what to do and when. It's based on research with, of course, Navy SEALs, fighter pilots, and athletes, but hey, also with podcasters that are old and get tired when they travel. Anyway, it helps a lot with jet lag and the inflammation that flying can cause.

I've used it on brutal time zone trips, and it works every time. Go to FlyKitt with two Ts .com. Use code Jordan for 15% off, and let me know how it works for you. Come join us on our subreddit, the Jordan Harbinger subreddit. You can interact with show fans. Me and Gabriel are in there. You can talk about the show, get some dank memes, joke around a little bit, get to know other show fans.

It's kind of a fun time in there most of the time anyway. That's the Jordan Harbinger subreddit. Now, back to Skeptical Sunday. So cleanse, damage, panic, buy repair supplements.

Jessica Wynn: Right. That's the model. It's really [00:45:00] effective marketing. You see something alarming in the toilet. You think, "Oh my God, it worked. I did have parasites."

And then you tell everyone you know to do that cleanse.

Jordan Harbinger: Okay, so when should somebody actually worry about parasites?

Jessica Wynn: If you have chronic unexplained GI symptoms. Certain occupational exposures, like if you work with animals or in agriculture, there's a slightly higher risk. But for the average person with access to clean water and normal food, like I said, parasites are just so unlikely.

Jordan Harbinger: And if you think you have parasites?

Jessica Wynn: See a doctor. Stool tests do exist. Treatment exists. It's not mysterious. And if you do have them, there are real anti-parasitic medications that work.

Jordan Harbinger: Okay. So not a $300 cleanse kit from social media, from TikTok.

Jessica Wynn: No, and the same goes for H. pylori, which [00:46:00] is this really hot topic in gut health right now.

Jordan Harbinger: What is H. pylori? Never heard of this.

Jessica Wynn: So H. pylori is a bacteria. It's not a parasite. And about half the world carries it. So most people have no symptoms. It can cause stomach ulcers, but we can test for it and treat it. There is no cleanse required.

Jordan Harbinger: Oh, so real problems have real medical tests and real medical treatments.

Go figure. I

Jessica Wynn: mean, that's exactly right, but that's boring and it doesn't sell cleanses.

Jordan Harbinger: Does this mean the hygiene hypothesis is false? That's another argument I hear people make. We're too clean. We lost all of our good parasites.

Jessica Wynn: Yeah. There's actually some interesting research there. So the hygiene hypothesis suggests that reduced exposure to microbes and parasites in childhood may contribute to allergies and autoimmune diseases.

Farm kids, for example, have lower asthma rates than city kids.

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. That's great news for how I grew up, because we had a [00:47:00] little house up north, like a, a cottage. And my... I went there as a lot as a little kid, and my mom tells this story like, "Oh, you used to play with goose turds, and frogs would but, be running all over you."

Or you'd like... I'd put like a frog in my mouth and be like, "Look, there's a frog in my mouth." Yeah, so I didn't get parasites through that. Holy smokes, I must be immune.

Jessica Wynn: Yeah, we're tougher than we think.

Jordan Harbinger: So everybody go get some parasites.

Jessica Wynn: Don't listen. That is terrible advice actually. But understanding evolutionary biology is not the same as self-infecting.

So the risks of malnutrition, anemia, or organ damage from intentionally consuming bacteria far outweigh any theoretical benefits. So don't make yourself do it, but as a kid, that's normal exposure.

Jordan Harbinger: So no medical tapeworms. Got it. When I was in law school, I remember one of the, my friends, who was a girl, was like, "I'm going to ingest a tapeworm."

We were just kidding, but we were joking, like, "Hey, we should just ingest a tapeworm, then we can eat as much as we want." But bad [00:48:00] idea, for the record.

Jessica Wynn: Yeah. Yeah. Did she do it?

Jordan Harbinger: No, no, no. We were just joking around because we ate too much, because we were all stressed out, and we had the all-you-can-eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner at the school and...

So are there certain foods I should eliminate? I've heard just about everything is bad for my gut health. Gluten, dairy, sugar. Anything that brings you joy, don't eat it.

Jessica Wynn: Right. There are cases where eliminating foods is necessary for health. True food allergies, like peanuts or shellfish, those are real, immediate immune responses, and they can be life-threatening.

So people can go into anaphylaxis.

Jordan Harbinger: Those are clearly real. Right. When you see someone swell up like, what is it, the Nutty Professor, on a flight because of the peanuts a- and they can't breathe, that's scary.

Jessica Wynn: I was just a couple weeks ago sitting with a friend, and he was eating guava, and half-hour later, I was in the emergency room with him.

He had no idea he was allergic. It was really crazy.

Jordan Harbinger: I didn't even know... Well, I guess you could be [00:49:00] allergic to anything. Well, and he didn't know f- clearly.

Jessica Wynn: I don't know. We, like, walked through a farmers market, and it was just this, "Yeah. What? I never eat guava." But so who knew? But yeah. So things like that happen.

And then there's food intolerances. They're not an immune response. That's a digestive issue, like lactose intolerance. That's uncomfortable, but it's not dangerous. And then there's celiac disease, which is an autoimmune reaction to gluten, and about only 1% of the population actually has it, and it requires strict elimination of gluten.

And that one is so overblown. So many people like to say they're gluten-free, but if you really have celiac... I know a guy who's in a band. He's a singer. He has celiac. His band went on And he shared a microphone with the previous singer who had just been drinking beer, and he had a severe reaction just from sharing the microphone.

Jordan Harbinger: Oh.

Jessica Wynn: Like, [00:50:00] that's serious celiac.

Jordan Harbinger: That's like those peanut allergies where they're like, "Don't even open the peanuts on the plane because the smell or whatever." That's insane.

Jessica Wynn: So yeah, so it's only 1% of the population actually has true gluten intolerance. But then there's the murky category of food sensitivities.

They're often self-diagnosed or based on non-validated tests. Sometimes it's just a fad thing to have.

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. Those are the tests where they prick your finger and they test your blood against 200 different foods, right? Uh, eggs and asparagus or whatever, everything.

Jessica Wynn: Yeah. And those food sensitivity tests, they're not scientifically validated.

They test for the common antibody, which is the IgG. And the presence of IgG antibodies to a food, they just show you've eaten it, not what you're sensitive to. So you can have IgG antibodies to foods you eat all the time with no problems.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:51:00] Oh, so people are eliminating food based on bad tests?

Jessica Wynn: Yeah, a lot of times, yes.

Elimination diets, they can be useful, but they're meant to be temporary and systematic. What's happening now is people are cutting out huge categories of food indefinitely, and they're creating deficiencies and anxieties and disordered eating based on internet advice.

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. Th- my buddy had a girlfriend a, a long time ago, and she was like, "I'm celiac."

And so every time we'd go out, she'd be like, "Does this soy sauce have it? We've got to get it without soy sauce." And it's like, "We're at a Thai restaurant. You can't eat any of the sauces? This is going to be a problem." And I remember being like, "You've got to get this under control. Y- you can't live with this mentally ill person who's going to dictate what everybody can eat."

And he's like, "I know. This is one of the last straws. I don't know how much I can deal with this." It turned out that she actually really was, and I felt bad about that because I was like, "Oh, this nonsense. Like, I can't deal with your self-diagnosed TikTok digestive issue right now. Like, I want to live my [00:52:00] life.

I don't want to spend 20 minutes talking to the server. They already hate us." But I felt bad for her and I felt guilty about that because for everyone who is really celiac and can't eat anything and is dealing with real problems, there's 100, "I read a blog on the Bulletproof Diet thing and now I can't eat the following 600 things."

And it's, oh my God, how bulletproof are you when you smell gluten and you inflate and you can't eat for three days? I don't know.

Jessica Wynn: Gets into our heads.

Jordan Harbinger: It does. That's the whole orthorexia spiral, right? Heal your gut turns into be afraid of all kinds of foods.

Jessica Wynn: Exactly. Orthorexia is an obsession with eating clean foods to the point- That it just becomes psychologically and physically harmful.

And a lot of gut health messaging feeds into this idea that the more foods you eliminate, the healthier you are.

Jordan Harbinger: Which ends with somebody eating five different things and then side-eyeing blueberries or whatever. You can't... Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Jessica Wynn: Yeah. It's a fear of food, and people convince [00:53:00] themselves everything is damaging their gut That's not gut health, right?

That's fear, and sometimes it's an eating disorder.

Jordan Harbinger: But it is confusing because some foods do really mess people up.

Jessica Wynn: Of course they do. And this is where nuance matters. So take the low FODMAP diet. FODMAP stands for a lot of difficult-to-pronounce words,

Jordan Harbinger: but Yeah. Fermentable oligosaccharides, disaccharides, monosaccharides, and polyols?

I don't know. I've never heard of any of this.

Jessica Wynn: What Jordan said. Yeah. Yeah.

Jordan Harbinger: Yes. Okay.

Jessica Wynn: But it's a diet that's designed for people with IBS. So certain foods like onions, garlic, beans, wheat, and some fruits, they can be really difficult for people to digest, and they can trigger bloating and pain or other symptoms.

Jordan Harbinger: IBS, I think we defined it earlier, but irritable bowel syndrome. Correct. So it just causes tons of gut inflammation and discomfort. Okay, so you just have to give up a bunch [00:54:00] of foods forever?

Jessica Wynn: That's the confusion. So a low FODMAP diet, it's not supposed to be forever. It's more like an investigation. You temporarily remove certain foods, then systematically add them back into your diet to figure out which ones are actually causing problems for you.

Jordan Harbinger: God, that sounds like such a pain in the ass. Ha.

Jessica Wynn: Nice.

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. Accidental pun.

Jessica Wynn: The reintroduction phase of the diet is really confusing for people, so they just stop eating foods without ever figuring out what the actual trigger is. And that's not the protocol. The goal isn't to eat fewer foods forever. The goal is to identify the foods you personally have trouble with and get as much variety into your diet as possible.

Jordan Harbinger: But every week I read about another food to be terrified of because it's secretly poisoning you. Today they were like, "There's lead in boba pearls for bubble tea." I'm like, "Oh my God."

Jessica Wynn: Great.

Jordan Harbinger: The, [00:55:00] I don't know, lead is in the cassava farm, and then it absorbs. I don't know. I keep reading that lectins are also destroying our guts, that beans are trying to assassinate me.

Jessica Wynn: Right. The lectin thing is big in gut health conversations. So lectins are proteins found in many plants, but especially beans, grains, and legumes. And in very large amounts, raw lectins can be harmful.

Jordan Harbinger: Do people eat very large amounts of raw beans and grains? Because when I was a kid, I used to play with beanbags in the gym class, and sometimes they'd explode, and this rock-hard bean would come out.

Who's eating

Jessica Wynn: that? Yeah, who's sucking on that? I mean, we cook all of that. But- There are ways people are doing it. So I had a friend and she had one of those cool containers on her kitchen that she kept her spaghetti in or whatever, you know, like those glass containers that sit on the counter. And she got into this habit of just taking single pieces of spaghetti and chewing [00:56:00] on it like straw or whatever.

But she was eating them and mindlessly, like as a habit when she was in the kitchen. She ended up developing thrush, which is like a yeast infection in your mouth. She just got addicted to it. She was eating so much raw pasta that in her mouth and throat. It was really gross.

Jordan Harbinger: Gnarly. Yeah. That sounds really gross.

Jessica Wynn: Horribly embarrassing, but they figured it out pretty quick. There was no getting around it. "Are you eating raw grains?"

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. And she's

Jessica Wynn: like, "Yeah. I..." "

Jordan Harbinger: Well, your lips are really chapped even though it's May and you live in LA." "Yeah, I have a yeast infection in my mouth." "What have you been doing?"

Jessica Wynn: People aren't going to believe the spaghetti story.

Jordan Harbinger: Oh, I eat raw spaghetti. Okay.

Jessica Wynn: Something, yeah. But so when we cook beans and grains and things, that denatures the lectins. So cooked beans, lentils, whole grains, they're fine for most people. There's no evidence that lectins in normal cooked foods are causing gut damage.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:57:00] So real thing, but widely overblown.

Jessica Wynn: Again, very rare. But there are books and supplement lines built around avoiding lectins, so the misinformation persists.

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. This is all that Dr. Gundry stuff where he's, right, he's like, "Oh, the, if you eat this, it's really bad for you," and exaggerates everything and then magically sells a cure. Okay, so is there any universal list of foods that everyone should avoid?

Jessica Wynn: No, not universally. Unless you have a diagnosed allergy or medical condition, most people can eat gluten and dairy and lectins and nightshades like tomatoes, potatoes, peppers, whatever, without any issue. The problem is that the wellness industry convinces people that normal whole foods are dangerous, and we need to be cleansing all the time.

Jordan Harbinger: And there are all kinds of microbiome testing kits, everyone's favorite thing, mailing poop to a stranger. Are they [00:58:00] science or e- extremely confident poop fortune-telling? Like fecal astrology.

Jessica Wynn: Fecal astrology. I like it. The sequencing of those tests is real, but the interpretation is the problem. So here's the thing.

We don't actually know what an ideal microbiome looks like because they're all different. Like I said earlier, that would be like saying what an ideal fingerprint looks like. But healthy people vary wildly on diet, geography, genetics, and just lifestyle. So a report that says low bacteroides whatever, all of that sounds clinical, but what it means for you specifically or how to fix it, it usually isn't known.

Jordan Harbinger: So what are they basing their recommendations on? What are you paying for?

Jessica Wynn: For some information, and very generic advice like eat more fiber and vegetables and fermented foods and exercise more.

Jordan Harbinger: Okay, so a $300 reminder to be an adult. [00:59:00] Okay.

Jessica Wynn: Pretty much,

Jordan Harbinger: yeah. Not a total scam, but I don't need to FedEx my feces to know that I should eat my vegetables.

Jessica Wynn: You know deep in your gut that you need to eat more vegetables. I do. But the testing's real. But the actionable value, that's just really limited. It's mostly curiosity. I guess maybe the thrill of mailing shit. I don't know.

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah, shipping your shite is a fun $300 curiosity.

Jessica Wynn: There's an ex-boyfriend's revenge website, and you can ship them various animals' poop.

Jordan Harbinger: Animals. Okay, 'cause because going to say, whose poop are you shipping?

Jessica Wynn: Not human poop. Yeah, like cow poop to somebody.

Jordan Harbinger: Oh my goodness. Okay. Gotcha. So if somebody's trying to sell me a microbiome test, just pass. Huh, another pun.

Jessica Wynn: Hey, yeah, just definitely save your money.

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. And buy vegetables. But why do I keep seeing headlines like scientists discover gut bacteria causes depression, or microbiome linked to autism, and then nothing about it ever again?

Jessica Wynn: Because a lot of [01:00:00] these microbiome findings don't replicate. One study finds an association, the next study doesn't. There's often really small sample sizes and inconsistent methods, and that just makes for different results. So if you test thousands of microbes against dozens of outcomes, by chance alone you'll get significant hits.

Jordan Harbinger: So the science is confused?

Jessica Wynn: I wouldn't say confused, but the science is early, and microbiome research is messy, right? So, and the exciting findings get published. The we couldn't replicate this studies, they don't go viral.

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah, good old publication bias.

Jessica Wynn: Yeah, exactly, which is, as we know, quite common. And then there's the rodent study problem.

Jordan Harbinger: Which is what?

Jessica Wynn: So a lot of microbiome research is done in mice or rats because it's easier to control their environment and manipulate their bacteria. But [01:01:00] mice aren't humans. Findings in rodents are interesting, but they often just don't translate to what's happening inside the human body.

Jordan Harbinger: I see. So we need human studies.

Are those happening?

Jessica Wynn: They are, but human studies are really hard. People eat different things. They live in different environments. They have different genetics, different stress levels. There's just so many variables.

Jordan Harbinger: So we're in the early days of figuring this out.

Jessica Wynn: Very much the early days. And then we have things that are being developed like smart toilets, which are emerging, and they use sensors and AI and cameras to analyze waste for disease markers and then send data to apps for personalized health tracking.

Jordan Harbinger: That is just what everyone wants- ... another device collecting very personal data. My toilet is going to have more information about me than my doctor, because I'm definitely getting that, by the way. Yeah.

Jessica Wynn: That sounds awesome. It sounds so- Yeah. I know. I want it. I want it.

Jordan Harbinger: Wow. So [01:02:00] who's getting that information?

Because every tech company in history has looked at personal data and basically thought immediately, "How can I monetize this?"

Jessica Wynn: Yeah. That's one of the big unanswered questions. The technology itself is interesting, though, and early detection of disease could be incredibly valuable.

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. How are we going to capitalize on this caca?

Jessica Wynn: Right.

Jordan Harbinger: All right. I guess big tech knows we all use our phones on the toilets, but they might want to know what's happening in the toilet. But I don't know if I'm emotionally prepared for a future where my toilet has a terms of service agreement.

Jessica Wynn: Oh my God, neither am I. I mean, it's certainly raising some privacy questions, but we're taking early complicated science and turning it into simple, definitive answers.

So technology is advancing faster than our understanding of what to do with all this information, and it's so frustrating to see supplement companies making definitive claims based on preliminary research.

Jordan Harbinger: Okay, so what do we actually know about the gut-brain connection?

Jessica Wynn: The [01:03:00] strongest evidence is the connection between IBS and mental health.

So IBS is what's called a functional gastrointestinal disorder, and people can have symptoms like pain, bloating, diarrhea, or constipation. But when doctors look for structural damage or disease, they often don't find any, and it's surprisingly common. Like, roughly 1 in 10 people have IBS, and about 30 to 40% of people have functional bowel problems at some point.

Jordan Harbinger: Wow. Okay. So if I'm having, I don't know, diarrhea every day, I'm not sure functional is the word that comes to mind- ... but there's got to be people like that.

Jessica Wynn: Yeah, you know. And for decades, a lot of patients were basically told, "You're just anxious," or, "It's all stress." And it was often really dismissive, especially toward women.

Jordan Harbinger: Oh, calm down, Jessica.

Jessica Wynn: Right. Right. Hey, I don't have it, but I mean, the problem is they weren't taking symptoms [01:04:00] seriously. But weirdly, they may have been brushing up against a real connection for the wrong reasons. So because we're learning that the gut and brain are constantly communicating, an irritated gut signals the brain that it doesn't feel good, and that contributes to anxiety, depression, and stress levels.

So the symptoms weren't imaginary, and they weren't just anxiety.

Jordan Harbinger: So it's the stomach aches that make people anxious, not the other way around?

Jessica Wynn: Yeah. In many cases, yes, which is why treating IBS works best when you treat both ends of the axis. So this is a huge shift in understanding. And interestingly, some of the treatments that work best for IBS are psychiatric medications and psychological therapies.

Jordan Harbinger: Wait, so antidepressants are prescribed for IBS? Wow.

Jessica Wynn: Yeah, sometimes, but not because it's all in their head, because antidepressants affect serotonin, and pain signaling [01:05:00] lives in the gut, too. So therapies like CBT and gut-directed hypnotherapy, they can help by changing the gut-brain communication loop.

Jordan Harbinger: I see.

So you're treating your second brain's headache.

Jessica Wynn: Yeah, pretty much. And treatment doesn't make people less anxious necessarily but improves the communication between the gut and the brain. So we're still learning how the gut and brain are so interconnected, but we do know you can't treat one without considering the other.

Jordan Harbinger: Nothing says personalized medicine like mailing your literal poop to a startup and just hoping that it emails you back. More after this.

Thank you so much for listening to and supporting the show. Your support of the advertisers keeps the lights on around here. All of the deals, discount codes, and ways to support the podcast are searchable and clickable on the website at jordanharbinger.com/deals. Please consider supporting those who support the show.

Now for the rest of Skeptical Sunday. [01:06:00] Medicinesedicines are tricky because often they treat things while also messing up your gut. Antibiotics are said to destroy your microbiome, like we said before. So is that true? I

Jessica Wynn: mean, antibiotics do reduce bacterial diversity. That is true. But if you need antibiotics, take them.

They save lives. Your gut will recover. So repeated courses of antibiotics or other health issues, they can have longer-lasting effects. But for most people, the microbiome is remarkably resilient. And take comfort in knowing that every five to seven days, the intestine regenerates its lining, and every three to five days, the surface layer of the stomach and small intestine that face the acid, that's replaced.

So it's not like the entire lining, but deeper glandular cells live up to 54 days. So just know the gut is constantly renewing itself.

Jordan Harbinger: Every three to five [01:07:00] days, that almost seems excessive.

Jessica Wynn: Yeah. Well, the rapid turnover is a defense mechanism. So the stomach produces strong hydrochloric acid and enzymes that break down foods, but that can easily damage tissue.

So constant renewal is necessary to prevent ulcers or even self-digestion.

Jordan Harbinger: Are you saying my stomach can eat me? I

Jessica Wynn: mean, under the wrong circumstances, stomach acid can absolutely damage tissue.

Jordan Harbinger: What about resistance to antibiotics? Should you be worried about that as well? I know that's a different Skeptical Sunday probably.

Jessica Wynn: Yeah. I mean, that's a different issue. It's a serious one, but overuse of antibiotics is contributing to antibiotic-resistant bacteria, which is a public health crisis. But the solution isn't to avoid antibiotics when you need them, but when they're necessary, take the full course as prescribed, or you could give yourself all kinds of avoidable issues.

So you don't want to have to have a fecal [01:08:00] transplant.

Jordan Harbinger: Ugh. Jeez. Yeah. Fecal transplant, come on. Is this the most logical microbiome intervention or the most absurd-sounding one? I don't know. It sounds horrifying.

Jessica Wynn: Yeah. Fecal microbiota transplantation, or FMT, or poop transplants, they're real medicine. It's for a condition called C.

diff, and it's actually incredibly effective.

Jordan Harbinger: What is C. diff? Because it sounds like a SoundCloud rapper. That's what I think when I hear

Jessica Wynn: C. diff C. diff's album just dropped That's right.

Jordan Harbinger: That's right. Yeah.

Jessica Wynn: It's, there's a joke there about dropped, but-

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. Just dropped in your smart toilet

Jessica Wynn: C. diff is unpleasant.

It typically occurs after antibiotic use or abuse But it's a bacterium that causes severe diarrhea, fever, nausea, abdominal pain by inflaming the colon. It's also highly contagious, so look out.

Jordan Harbinger: Eh. Okay, and the [01:09:00] cure is somebody else's bacteria-ridden turds shoved into your turd compartment manually.

Jessica Wynn: Yeah, you're not wrong.

God. But if it's a healthy microbial community, yes, that is pretty much what happens.

Jordan Harbinger: Okay.

Jessica Wynn: They take a stool from a healthy donor. This is serious, Jordan.

Jordan Harbinger: I know- This is

Jessica Wynn: medicine ... but I'm still going to laugh- Science ... because it's ridiculous

Jordan Harbinger: and I'm 12 years old. Okay.

Jessica Wynn: They take a stool from a healthy donor, process it, and transplant it into a patient's colon.

So the goal is to restore a healthy, diverse microbiome, and FMT has about an 80 to 90% cure rate for recurrent C. diff. It's been a game changer for patients who have recurrent infections.

Jordan Harbinger: I'm so curious about the mechanics of this. I've got to look it up because-

Jessica Wynn: Don't look. No, don't Google it.

Jordan Harbinger: Don't look it up?

Okay, yeah, speaking of algorithm going insane. Because I'm like how do they get it in there? Where, how high [01:10:00] up are they placing it? And then is it like, "Hey, try not to poop for three days because it's got to do its thing. Don't let it just come out in an hour"? Are they making you hold it, and then if- Do you

Jessica Wynn: want to know the person whose shit

Jordan Harbinger: you're getting?

Yeah. I don't think I do. I don't know. I don't want any part of this. Hopefully I never need it.

Jessica Wynn: I could never look you in the eye again.

Jordan Harbinger: That's right, yeah. Like, gosh. Does it does it treat any other conditions? Because I'm just dying for an excuse to get this done now. Of course, just for shits and giggles, if you will.

Jessica Wynn: That's where it g- gets into experimental territory. So there's research on FMT for ulcerative colitis and s- there's some promising results there. But it's just being explored for other conditions like IBS, obesity, autism, depression. Yeah, all kinds of things. The results are mixed, but people are doing it anyway.

And I-

Jordan Harbinger: Wait, what do you mean? People are DIY-ing poop transplants? No.

Jessica Wynn: Yeah. Yeah, they are. That is a fact, and it's really dangerous. [01:11:00] So you can buy, I don't recommend this, but I'm just stating a fact, you can buy DIY FMT kits online, and some people are doing this at home with stool from family members or friends.

Jordan Harbinger: Oh my gosh. That just seems like a terrible idea. Imagine that house party, by the way, guy. Like, "Hey, guys, everyone come over on Friday night. I have a great idea. You're going to love it. Remember Tom's Tupperware party? It's kind of like that."

Jessica Wynn: I've never been that close to anybody.

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. Oh, man. You're going to need Tupperware, but it's not quite the same thing.

Oh,

Jessica Wynn: God. Gross. It's just such a terrible idea.

Jordan Harbinger: Ugh.

Jessica Wynn: But FMT, I mean, it obviously could transmit infections. People have actually died from contaminated FMT home kits.

Jordan Harbinger: No. Oh, man, imagine explaining that.

Jessica Wynn: Yeah, that's... Yeah, when you get to the Pearly Gates, not what you want to be known for. But medical [01:12:00] FMT uses screened donors.

Random poop from your cousin- ... at your house party is not screened.

Jordan Harbinger: Poop smoothie in the bum. Do not do that. Oh

Jessica Wynn: my God. Ugh. Poop smoothie. Oh, no. Stop.

Jordan Harbinger: God. But the fact that FMT works for C. Diff shows that the microbiome really does matter.

Jessica Wynn: Oh, a- absolutely. But it also shows that we need rigorous testing before we apply it to every condition.

Jordan Harbinger: One thing that's bothering me is if we treat the gut as the answer to mental health, it- doesn't that kind of let society off the hook all over the place? I mean, you got poverty, you got trauma, inequality, addiction issues, all kinds of untreated actual mental health that people would need something a little bit more serious intervention for, and it's kind of like, "Oh, no, it's just your gut biome."

I don't know. It seems like it's too simple of a solution.

Jessica Wynn: I mean, I'm sure it could be misused or whatever, but the fact is the gut-brain connection is [01:13:00] real. But it's not the only connection, right? So mental health, it's not just biology. It's also those things, housing, safety, work, discrimination, community, all of those things.

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah, you can't probiotic your way out of structural inequality- Right ... if that's causing you problems.

Jessica Wynn: And the, the market to fix your gut, fix your brain can be a distraction from fixing conditions making people sick in the first place.

Jordan Harbinger: So the gut health industry is reductionist, and the advice is always the same.

Eat better, sleep, manage stress, all things which are much easier when you have a little bit of money.

Jessica Wynn: Yeah, it's very reductionist. It reduces complex societal problems to a simple biological explanation, your gut bacteria. Then it sells you a simple biological solution, supplements. But life's not that simple, so fresh produce is expensive.

Fermented foods are expensive. Managing stress is hard when you're working multiple jobs. Sleep is [01:14:00] hard in unstable housing. So the wellness industry steps in and says, "Can't afford real change? Take this expensive supplement." That's not health. That's a subscription model.

Jordan Harbinger: And often the people who need help the most can afford it the least, I would imagine.

Jessica Wynn: Yeah, and the real solutions like food access, healthcare, working conditions, affordable housing, all of this, those don't get attention because they're not profitable.

Jordan Harbinger: Right. Okay, so what should you actually do? What can you control?

Jessica Wynn: Keep it boring and evidence-based. Eat lots of real whole foods. Diversity is shown to matter.

It's easier than it sounds. A variety of herbs, spices, different beans, different greens, that all counts. Don't eat the same thing every day, like the same five foods forever. Throw in some fermented foods you like, throw in some fiber, and understand that real whole foods beat expensive supplements.

Jordan Harbinger: And pay attention to how foods [01:15:00] make you feel, I suppose.

I know a lot of people can't do too much fiber, et cetera.

Jessica Wynn: Yeah, right. I mean, there's conditions like SIBO and IBS where fiber can worsen your symptoms, but you're right. Listen to your body. If something consistently makes you feel bad, don't force it. The hardest practice for a healthy gut is stress management.

The gut-brain axis works both ways, and chronic stress affects your gut. So mind-body interventions like meditation, yoga, deep breathing, different kinds of therapy, they can actually help gut symptoms. So the relaxation response has been shown to help IBS symptoms. CBT and hypnotherapy work for some people.

I've just read a study about sticking your tongue out for 40 seconds every morning c- can help with inflammation.

Jordan Harbinger: That was a study? Because that sounds completely fake.

Jessica Wynn: It was a very small study. [01:16:00]

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah.

Jessica Wynn: It like... I just, I was just reading all this stuff l- preparing before we talked, and it was just something that stuck out in my mind.

Like, what if there is something as simple as Sticking your tongue out or is it just sitting and breathing for 40 seconds that's actually helping? But regardless, your mental state affects your gut state too.

Jordan Harbinger: Sure. Okay, so does working out affect my gut? That's the best thing I can do for my mental health.

Jessica Wynn: Oh, big time. Movement and exercise, that's shown to increase microbial diversity. You don't need to be an athlete. Regular walking counts. And understand changes take time. So what works for someone else might not work for you. You can't optimize your way to perfection. So your microbiome, it doesn't need to be fixed.

It's not broken.

Jordan Harbinger: So it's basically eat real food, manage stress, sleep, and move. The least sexiest advice possible.

Jessica Wynn: Right. Which why it doesn't sell [01:17:00] supplements, but it's what the evidence supports. But if you have persistent GI symptoms, we're talking three months or more, especially if they're affecting your quality of life, if you see blood in your stool, if you have unintended weight loss or severe pains, don't just take supplements and hope it goes away.

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah, you go to the urgent care, you guys. No, don't go to TikTok.

Jessica Wynn: So many people are doing that now, though, and anyone selling a cure for leaky gut or parasite cleanses without medical testing Or selling those expensive microbiome testing kits or the supplements claiming to fix your gut-brain axis or telling you to avoid entire food groups without medical diagnosis.

That is all red flags.

Jordan Harbinger: Anyone who diagnosed you via the internet.

Jessica Wynn: Yeah. Correct.

Jordan Harbinger: So where is this field going? What is the future here?

Jessica Wynn: Well, I think the future of medicine will involve much more integration between gastroenterology [01:18:00] and psychiatry. So we're already seeing it. Gastroenterologists prescribing antidepressants, psychiatrists asking about gut symptoms.

The artificial separation between mental health and gut health, that's breaking down, and that's a really good thing.

Jordan Harbinger: Because they're undeniably connected. That's

Jessica Wynn: crazy. Undeniably, yeah. But the, the research is in its infancy, so we have to be patient and look at any new findings critically. I think we'll develop more targeted microbiome-based therapies, not generic probiotics, but specific bacterial strains or bacterial products for specific conditions that have real clinical trial data.

Jordan Harbinger: Ooh, designer bacteria. So forget the Gucci bag. I want that Gucci bacteria spring collection.

Jessica Wynn: Gross. It does worry me, though, saying that treatments won't be affordable. Will they work is the main question, but when they do, who gets access?

Jordan Harbinger: Look [01:19:00] out for gut insurance.

Jessica Wynn: Ugh.

Jordan Harbinger: We'll end up with expensive microbiome-based therapies that most people can't afford, at least at first, while the cheap supplements that don't actually work continue to dominate the market.

Jessica Wynn: Yeah. That's the American healthcare system in a nutshell, unfortunately. But you're an ecosystem. You're not a machine. Your gut microbiome is complex and interconnected. But I swear most of you are probably fine

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. Wow. If you have real genuine gut problems, talk to a real gastroenterologist. If somebody's trying to sell you a cleanse or a supplement or a testing kit, ask them for the peer-reviewed evidence.

Meanwhile, go eat some vegetables and maybe some yogurt, the regular kind, not the $15 probiotic one, unless you happen to prefer that for some reason. Thanks, Jess, for helping us cut through the crap on this about the gut biome, and thanks to you all for listening. Topic suggestions for future episodes of Skeptical Sunday to jordan@jordanharbinger.com.

Advertisers, deals, discounts, and ways to support the show [01:20:00] all at jordanharbinger.com/deals. I'm @jordanharbinger on Twitter and Instagram. You can also hit me on LinkedIn. You can find Jessica on her Substacks, Between the Lines and Where Shadows Linger. We'll link to those in the show notes. Her work is on Instagram @nevermetjessicas, and they want you to send graphic photos of the- Yes

any FMTs, at-home FMTs that you guys do. I

Jessica Wynn: cannot wait for my DMs.

Jordan Harbinger: That's right. Yes. That's right. This show is created in association with PodcastOne. My team is Jen Harbinger, Jase Sanderson, Tadas Sidlauskas, Robert Fogarty, Ian Baird, and Gabriel Mizrahi. Our advice and opinions are our own, and I might be a lawyer, but I'm not your lawyer, and I'm definitely not a doctor.

Also, we of course try to get these as right as we can. Not everything is gospel, even when it's fact-checked. So consult a qualified professional before applying anything you hear on the show, especially if it's about your health and wellbeing. Remember, we rise by lifting others. Share the show with those you love, and if you found the episode useful, please share it with somebody else who could use a good dose of the skepticism and knowledge that we doled [01:21:00] out today.

In the meantime, I hope you apply what you hear on the show so you can live what you learn, and we'll see you next time. Chess isn't just a game. You're about to hear a preview where Danny Rensch shares how building chess.com put him face to face with cheaters, death threats, and a past he had to rewrite to survive.

JHS Trailer: I was born into a cult. As I've talked about it more and more, I've gotten better at just saying that, naming it for what it was. The collective itself was called the Church of Immoral Consciousness. My generation, within a couple of years, was part of the first group of kids that were being born into the collective, which again, at that point, it was full communism.

People's finances were merged. When you came to the collective, you gave up all of your material belongings. You just sort of look at it and go, "This was fucked up. This was not okay. There is no excuse to be made for this." And then Western media was paying attention to chess for the first time, maybe since Bobby Fischer in the '70s.

This movie had come out, and these two kids trapped in a cult were basically under house arrest [01:22:00] and didn't have anything else to do. And anything that Steven Camp was fond of, everybody was into, right? He was literally in charge of every human being in the collective. I went from zero to being one of the top kids in the country.

Within two years, I was already an All-American. I was one of the top-rated players. And I've worked very hard to heal my relationship with my own abusers, not because I'm trying to excuse their behavior, but because I really do believe that forgiveness is not rewriting the past, it's freeing yourself from it.

And so with chess.com, accidental success 15 years later. So we have 25 million games a day, 623 games finishing every second. You can have a different relationship with your experiences if you want to. The obstacle can be the way, and you can overcome hard shit. That was my goal with this.

Jordan Harbinger: To hear the story of how Danny Rensch got on the hit list, check out episode 1289 of The Jordan Harbinger Show.