It's a bit of a hit-job on Dr Huberman, and the final sentence is probably too harsh, comparing Huberman's support of supplementation to Andrew Wakefield and the Autism-Vaccine lie.
However, I am surprised by the state of the supplements market, and that there is no way to reliably know what you are taking.
Athletic Greens doesn't even try to suggest what amounts of different vitamins you get in a serving, apparently they just say it is a "proprietary blend".
There is a "Know Drugs" platform for tracking safety of recreational drugs, I believe another platform exists, I'm not sure about the space as I'm not a user.
I'm surprised a similar platform doesn't exist for supplements. How difficult is it to test for the amounts of vitamins and minerals in a supplement, say if you had access to a university laboratory?
I’ve listened to Huberman for a few dozen hours and think he has useful info. But his supplement talk triggered my spidey sense, especially with his sponsors. I remember he was talking about how ashwaganda (or something like that) wasn’t good to take long term because of cortisol suppression and then added that the amount found in athletic greens is ok as it’s not high enough. I thought that was an odd comment and then later in the episode heard an add for athletic greens.
I think he means well, but I don’t think I can trust his advice because of all his supplement advertisers.
I had a loved one with a rare condition and would talk with their doctor about lots of different things to try as I was desperate, the doctor said something that sticks with me “look, these aren’t harmful unless you consider the cost of spending hundreds or thousands per month for supplements harmful.”
Athletic greens is $100/month/person. It’s not bad for you, but that’s a lot of money. Couple it with fancy fish oil, lots of resvetrol, NAD, and all the other stuff and you’re looking at a high bill. Huberman isn’t a doctor, but it’s expensive to experiment with all the stuff he talks about.
All that being said, he’s still in my podcast feed and I listen to an episode every once in a while. So I think he had good info, but just requires lots of confirmation and research.
I think it’s tough for podcasters in this space to make money because naturally supplement people want to advertise. And the targeted ads for Huberman listeners are super frequent and full of all sorts of bio hacks.
I honestly think your last two paragraphs nail it. From my experience he's quite clear about the marginal benefits from supplementation, and as long as he doesn't cross that line I'm perfectly happy to have him serving as a sort of one man literature review.
I also get the impression that his audience is a fairly affluent one, so I don't even have an issue with the price level of the supplements he's advertising. So far they seem legitimate (again, even if they're wildly expensive for any associated benefits) so as long as they don't cross into snake oil territory, I see zero issue with any of it.
The website https://www.consumerlab.com/ might be close to what you're looking for, though it does require a subscription. I started researching things there after learning that many powdered protein supplements contained high levels of heavy metals.
Thanks for this - you inspired me to finally get a library card!
Unfortunately I can’t find anything on ConsumerLab about my go-to unflavored whey protein powder (Natural Factors). I guess no news is better than bad news.
They do independent testing for supplements and provide rankings based on detected ingredient, heavy metals and adulterants per serving (I linked protein but they also test other types of supplements). My only complaint is that their database is limited so you may not find the brand you are looking for.
> Athletic Greens doesn't even try to suggest what amounts of different vitamins you get in a serving, apparently they just say it is a "proprietary blend".
I've never used athletic greens but I've heard of them from podcast ads.
Thanks for pointing that out. I had seen a review on Youtube and the reviewer was saying AG didn't list the amounts, perhaps it was an older review, or he was full of it.
I didn't look deeper myself.
Not generally in casual conversation, and certainly not in a medicine-adjacent/overlapping subject matter where it creates substantial confusion as to a person's authoritative clinical capacities.
This is an ongoing game played by "doctors" of chiropractic misleading the American public to perceive them as equivalent to M.D. Doctors. It's a cheap way to gain clout, but an M.D. is a professional doctorate, a PhD is not, the distinction matters here.
Beware of non-M.D.'s insisting on a Dr. prefix, or folks citing these people as such especially when it serves to bolster their medicine/health/nutrition claims. It at least suggests a desperation for authority.
Huberman's at best prefixed as Professor here IMO. Even that's being generous since he's an associate professor according to his wikipedia page.
The gotcha / sneering style harms something I otherwise agree with.
For example, Ashwagandha is something I've been putting into daal curry for years; it has been a part of Indian cuisine forever. Not that you'd know by the style it is conveyed in; there must be a word for this style of dishonesty, where you purposely hide context to inflate the danger.
It's a shame because most supplements are clearly not necessary.
I've lived in India almost all my life and I've never heard of Ashwagandha being part of any of the traditional culinary systems of India. Cooking with Ashwagandha seems to be a recent Internet trend exclusively. Traditionally, as Ayurvedic medicine, it would either be swallowed in powder form with milk or ghee, or brewed as a tea/kadha. I've grown up eating dal everyday, and we really don't put any Ashwagandha in it.
My response to this is rather neutral. As a long-time follower of Huberman, I can attest that he consistently delivers valuable information. Each episode is akin to a college-level biology lecture.
When you closely listen to his advice (and I'm paraphrasing), he suggests first getting your life in order (focusing on proper light exposure, sleep, exercise, and diet), followed by seeking behavioral modifications, and only then considering supplementation or pharmaceuticals.
The critique regarding his sponsors is legitimate. However, one should consider that producing this content is not free for Huberman, as he spends at least ten hours a week of his own time working on it, and it's reasonable for him to want to monetize his efforts.
That being said, I did try AG1 based on his recommendation (he claims to have used it daily since 2012). My significant other and I tested it for a month (costing over $160) and experienced no noticeable improvements. It's worth noting that I already take Spirulina and other supplements, so my experience may be an outlier, but neither of us felt any tangible benefits.
This article feels a bit harsh. I recently started listening to him and my main complaint about him is that he can be boring. 4 hours about breathing and the correct way to breathe and I didn't feel like I understood what to take away from it at the end. I would need to go back and listen again and take detailed notes.
The thing he lacks is the ability to summarize.
I think he himself is a person who takes a lot of supplements and is looking for an edge in whatever way it comes. Maybe breathing a special way or ice showers or whatever. All that stuff feels like way past the basics that most listeners need to learn about. The best stuff I learned from him was basics, like alcohol is never good for you. And it's bad in low amounts in lots of subtle ways. That message will improve lives.
I hope he doesn't hit the doctor Oz spiral but it doesn't seem like he has so far.
Breathwork is something that you should experience yourself to know what's in it for you. Notes won't help. Practice for 3-6 months, then listen to the podcast again. Then, you can relate Huberman's words with your own experience, and not be bored at all.
This episode, # 86, changed my life. I’ve not had a single drink of alcohol since i listened to it in august 2022. I don’t expect I will again. SCARED STRAIGHT.
> thing he lacks is the ability to summarize
Yes! I have a love/hate relationship with him because of this. Many of his episodes could be half the length, so i just do not listen to him very often.
The alcohol episode is an exception and if a friend hadn’t recommended it, I would have missed it.
Yep. I rarely make it all the way through one of his 2+ hour podcasts. Sometimes you can find YouTube channels that pull out the most important parts of his longform podcasts into something that's maybe 10 or 15 minutes.
I agree with your points. I feel like Huberman just goes on and on and on in excruciating details about various ultra-complicated processes in the human body, but there is little in the way of a useful summary or take-away. At the end, I don't know should I do with all this information, even if I was able to remember it. Maybe he just likes to hear himself talk.
Any time a podcast is sponsored by "athletic greens" it makes me chuckle, because the product seems like 99.9% marketing in such an obvious way. The name alone is ridiculous. Very much like "Alpha Brain" being hawked relentlessly by Joe Rogan.
I just started listening to the cannabis episode and he spent several minutes discussing the various ways that nicotine (yes, nicotine) can be consumed. Why does an adult audience need a primer on how nicotine enters the body? And why spend several minutes on it? Is he talking to aliens who don’t know about the second-most consumed addictive substance on earth (his statistic)?
It’s excruciatingly boring, but I keep hoping he’ll talk about the risks of cannabis on the brain and body. Maybe that comes in hour three after he’s told me the various ways humans consume water?
It took me a while to reach this conclusion, but I ended up unsubscribing from his podcast. It's just relentless biochemical babble with hardly any benefit to me. He even had an episode on sleep with his favorite "sleep supplement stack" and I tried that out and it doesn't do much for me. So maybe it's all just snake oil.
Discussing these topics for hours and hours is the primary draw of this type of info-tainment. The basics of healthy living and even 80-90% optimal diet/exercise could be summarized in a 1-hour podcast. The average Huberman listener would likely benefit more from improving sleep, exercise, diet, and other basics (which he does cover, but it only goes so far) than spending 4 hours learning about the latest round of supplements and associated research.
But summaries don't get people excited, nor do they prime people to feel the placebo amplification effect (or just raw placebo effect) of the latest supplement they just spent 4 hours hearing about.
"Try taking ____ supplement. It has shown to improve ____ in mice." is boring and doesn't inspire a lot of confidence.
Four hours of excited discussion about molecules and scientific lingo feels like real science. It's hard to argue with someone so invested in a topic that they spend hours and hours talking about it. This supplement must work and I must use it if I want to get ahead. That's the goal of these long podcasts.
I like Hubermann too but it's not "excited" discussion... it's a pretty long drone about these topics. I too wish his episodes were 33% the length they are.
My main problem with Huberman, and this applies to many in this genre, is that although he is faithfully describing the current research, he doesn't do much to qualify it. What I mean by that is measuring things about people is very very very difficult. Because of this, much of the research published about human subjects is not repeatable. It takes a long time to build evidence in a way that can account for the all confounding non-linear variables involved. He is stating the conclusions of the latest research as if they were proven laws of nature instead of just the research of a potentially flawed study. He's giving far more weight than they are warranted. He might know this intuitively, but the average Joe in his audience does not.
Huberman recently interviewed someone that I consider to be the real deal, Andy Galpin, and it was a very interesting series of 6 episodes. I don't listen to a lot of Huberman, but during these long conversations I've learned about the incredible amount of things he take. Of special note was a "sleep cocktail", a mix of several supplements. Stuff pre and post workout, for this function or this other function, I don't know if it was every cataloged but I wouldn't be surprised if we're talking about ~30 different supplements.
Anyway, Huberman and Galpin were talking, and Huberman super interested in all sorts of things Galpin would recommend, and Galpin then says "My objective is to get you OFF supplements long term, fixing the foundational problems instead of the symptoms" - I found some transcription online here https://podscript.ai/podcasts/huberman-lab-podcast/guest-ser... around the 01:53:06 mark.
I think it's easy to miss in a +3 hour conversation about supplements someone actually saying: Long term you shouldn't need this stuff. So friendly reminder how supplementation is one of last things you should consider when trying to improve performance.
PS: Athletic Greens (which I tried for 3 months) is more like 99 since at least for California you need to add +20 for shipping. Interesting, I decided to try based on this review https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DjJOo78NiFI - and stopped because it didn't do much for me.
Seconded. I've been following Andy Galpin for four years; I can attest that his knowledge is unparalleled. He's one of the worldwide experts in physical science and the coach of many elite athletes: the best definition of an applied scientist. His guest video series with Huberman is amazing. He's taught me so much about the do's, don'ts, and trade-offs in training effectively and staying healthy. His delivery is immaculate and you get away with understanding what's the actual truth (which in a field as full of myths as exercise science is a must). I'm a semi-professional powerlifter and I apply his knowledge every day. If you're not following him, you're missing out.
I'm not taking supplements beyond vitamin D and B12, but what you just quoted could be said on anything really. It's always best long term to fix the problem instead of the symptom, but reality is that it's very hard for many people. Why people taking statins instead of living super healthy life so that their cholesterol levels are normal? Just one example...
Athletic Greens and competitors tend to include a ridiculous “everything and the kitchen sink” cocktail of supplements with dubious sourcing, presumably in hope that one of them has an “energizing” effect on the customer and generates a good review. Which is unfortunate, since there have been times I would have appreciated a cocktail of normal food vegetables in convenient form.
The writer of the article clearly wants to put negative light on Huberman and in general frightens readers away from taking responsibility for their own health. The tone is suggesting not to waste money on vitamins or minerals or supplements, unless proven deficient. You even put yourself in danger if you do so!
That's exactly what we expect from a Big Pharma sponsored university.
Hmm I listened to about 2 dozens of his podcasts and I feel like the author is really putting a lot of focus on something that I didn’t feel was nearly as emphasised as this post makes it seem. The vast majority of info I think is about behavioural things and processes inside of us and I think him relentlessly reminding us to always check with our health care providers first before taking or stopping to take anything is enough of a preface for me to be alright with him talking about supplements. And while I appreciate the callout of him citing low quality data (albeit I haven’t checked myself who is in the wrong here), I would also like to point to the fact that most of the other interventions he talks about do in fact have lots of proven benefits and are widely recognised as such.
Another questions would be the baseline we are comparing him to. I have two friends who have dramatically improved their lives after stumbling upon his podcast and I also took away quite a few practices that had a positive impact on my life.
If that is the mean effect I am ok with embracing a few imperfections in the data he cites or the supplements he recommends since a lot of people start with a baseline of shitty self destructive behaviour consuming all sorts of really damaging stuff.
I've liked Huberman's podcasts, I think that sometimes he has some really useful info... but I'm getting increasingly concerned about all of the products he's hawking for sponsors. Most are dietary supplements. Athletic Greens is one product he's been advertising for a while - I saw a review of AG on a YouTube channel (they didn't mention Huberman) and their conclusion was that at best it was way over priced and probably will have no effect other than placebo.
(Disclaimer: I have no idea what the author's political views are, so my comment is not about the author & his article specifically but rather about a general phenomenon I have come across various times.)
> Even though his podcast is firmly rooted in the masculine space of “body optimization”
While there's no doubt that self-optimization topics seem to attract more men than women, why is it that people who are into gender, equality and "toxic masculinity" topics – and, for the sake of this argument, let's assume the author is one of them – always have to put a label on everything, such as "This is male, this is female." They seem to be falling into exactly the trap they are criticizing.
The author goes on to say:
> Huberman is a lot less “bro-ey” than his fellow influencers. There’s a real gentleness and care to his delivery. The packaging is less aggressive, but the content does not stray far from Silicon Valley’s love affair with the tweaking of healthy human biology.
Ah, so gentleness is not associated with masculinity, but aggressiveness is, got it. Ergo, women must be gentle but not aggressive. Oh and "body optimization" is clearly not for females.
Why are they reinforcing the same stereotypes[0] they are fighting? Why can't we simply say
> While body optimization influencers often come across as aggressive and demonstrate little care for their delivery, Huberman's podcast…
? There, gender stereotypes and labels avoided.
[0]: I am aware that studies indicate that there is some truth to this specific stereotype in that – on average – men are more non-agreeable, women a bit less so (i.e. more agreeable). But this is a statistical average – an individual's personality traits can be far away from the average, and so I think stereotypes like "X is clearly male, and Y is clearly female" are doing us a disservice. Can't we all just be individuals?
Huberman is slightly more right wing which is more masculine. I could be wrong. I can’t name any of his views off the top of my head but he is considered one of the new gatekeepers of the intellectual dark web alongside contemporaries like Lex Fridman.
Women are normally considered more egalitarian. I believe there’s studies on this. I run an online coworking community and keeping people who present as men is harder than people presenting as women. It’s been an issue with people noticing and commenting on the patterns of the community wrt genders. I try not to care about gender personally.
> always have to put a label on everything
> Ergo, women must be gentle but not aggressive.
> “X is clearly male”
This isn’t what people like the author who complain about “bro-ey” are normally trying to say. I don’t think they meant any extreme stuff like the above. I agree their tone could be better.
I could. He’s a proponent of capitalism as a working class person with various liberal views. These views overlap with a certain perspective of the world.
I’m speaking of what right wing means to the world, not just America (I’m American).
Liberalism in and of itself does not mean "right wing" to the world. As you would have it, the only thing disqualifying one from being a conservative is being a commie or anarchist.
I didn’t say conservative. I said or meant, [leans] right wing. I wouldn’t call Huberman conservative. Would you?
What do you call the Liberal Party of Australia? They aren’t left leaning at all.
I’d be eager to get an answer to this because I keep getting called elitist and I don’t get it. I thought Americans like myself aren’t supposed to think the world revolves around America.
You don't even understand the terms you're flinging around. Ring-wing explicitly, unambiguously, means Conservative.
> What do you call the Liberal Party of Australia? They aren’t left leaning at all.
And the Liberal party of Canada is.
All of the Western world is Liberal. It can either be left-leaning or right-leaning.
It does not make a lick of sense to suggest that the only thing that anywhere near leans left is Socialism (this is the only possible conclusion that can be inferred from your rhetoric), while you lump everything else that functionally uses Capitalism as "the right". This is not the colloquial understanding.
My question I’m wondering for you. Who are capitalists and anti-capitalists? And can capitalists be left-wing in your view of the world’s overton window? Do you consider the Global North not right wing?
The modern overton window is moving to the right as I’m sure you’re aware and you’re trying to say it has moved enough that being capitalist now means left wing. What year do you think this change finally happened? It wasn’t this way during the 50s. The Overton window was much more to the left back then.
Free market economies are a right wing ideal, no? Like China isn’t a free market economy.
Did you know liberal doesn’t mean left-wing? I was remarking on him from a global perspective. As an American I’m aware that I don’t speak for 7.5B+ other nationalities.
I didn’t know Huberman was white by the way. I don’t use the internet with JS or images on sometimes. I may have skimmed the article too much.
Do you mean how I manage being on the spectrum and having ADHD? Sometimes I don’t use JS or images. That’s 20% of the time.
I was giving a reason for why I didn’t know Huberman’s race to account for possibly why it’s obvious to other people like you. The white thing was brought up by you. Not for you to use my reasoning as some fodder while we are both on a hyper-capitalist VC forum.
Now this discussion isn’t about any of the original comments. Why not discuss things instead of shutting down any convo?
> Ditch the superiority 'i think differently than everyone else' complex.
When could that statement not be used against someone like me defending my position even with ridicule happening? Or not used against your comment?
Edit: your comment is dead now. I didn’t downvote/flag it.
Your questions indicate to me a clear pattern of condescension. I don't see value engaging with straw man arguments and non sequitur rhetorical questions.
You have a comment flagged as dead for presumably being too mean spirited. I go out of my way to edit my comment to let you know I didn’t do that. Yet you still double down on insulting me again (!)…I can’t tell if you’re joking or not.
I don’t think it’s fair to say Huberman is right wing. Can you point to any evidence from things he has said or published that aligns with the right wing? Every time I’ve listened to him it’s been factual/anecdotal talking about the topic at hand which is not political.
I’m saying he as a person leans to the right. That includes if he says things that are status quo and not considered right wing to a minority of the world. For example many Americans believe liberals are leftists and vice versa.
Someone who replied to me pointed to what others have seen. There’s overlap between other right leaning people and Huberman. Their comment is deleted now though.
It was me. I decided to delete because the supplement and conflict of interest discussion derailed into politics, but I basically said I don’t know if _he_ leans, but after watching Huberman, YouTube started recommending me Joe Rogan and Jordan Peterson, with a couple of Ben Shapiro videos in there. At least the YouTube algo thinks there’s an overlap.
Brought it up again because didn’t want to leave you hanging in there, but other than a comment either about YT algo or audience overlap, I didn’t want to make the whole thing too much about USA politics.
That might be just signal boosting, no? I mean all those people are on each others podcasts often and also have a large number of common guests. So yeah - YT thinks they’re all into the same thing but I’ve never heard Huberman get into politics.
Huberman usually does not interact with people who don't at least lean right.
I think I could look around and list 100 people on the left and right. Various small or big time streamer sort of people. The overlap is minimal.
Bill Maher for example appears on leaning right stuff nowadays not left leaning things since politics and socialism have become clearer and more mainstream since Bill Maher was incorrectly seen as a Huberman type character. Some one in the middle. Not leaning right.
Tldr: People who don't believe in the virtues of capitalism are not interacting much with Huberman and vice versa. Same with the leaning right people listed.
And bill Maher interacts with other intellectuals. It doesn’t make things incorrect. I never said Huberman doesn’t usually interact with other researchers. I didn’t say most were right wing. I don’t know most of them.
Also how about any other part of my post? Besides doing what someone else did and bringing up how I’m a bully or conceited while being far more dismissive than myself.
Leaning right is not the same as right wing. Based on the word “lean”. If someone believes in capitalism as a positive concept then they lean right based on the meaning of what right politics are.
That’s confusing. Let me use another word: Huberman and Joe Rogan are liberals. So are a lot of the researchers and other people he brings on. If we agree then we are discussing semantics. Any conceit was a misunderstanding of me using words that you disagree with because of your world perspective vs mine.
That makes sense. Thanks. I thought yours was a valid comment that gave a diff perspective without assuming anything.
I try to see politics from an economic perspective first. That usually isn’t appreciated on HN.
I didn’t realize we are talking US politics. I try to be understanding and talk about things from an international perspective. I see the world unfairly revolves around the US and I’m American myself.
> While there's no doubt that self-optimization topics seem to attract more men than women, why is it that people who are into gender, equality and "toxic masculinity" topics … always have to put a label on everything, such as "This is male, this is female." They seem to be falling into exactly the trap they are criticizing.
I would disagree pretty strongly that men are more into self-optimization than women. Instead, I’d wager men are more into “Self Optimization,” which is more a unique subculture than a goal or activity, and societal ideas of masculinity get a lot of play in that space. I find it pretty understandable that people interested in gender would have something to say about the way gender interacts with that space as well.
Honestly I don’t think that people are always being deeply normative when they talk about these things, they can just see features of the culture around them they find interesting and may dislike, and say so.
For example, for the bro culture comment - I think most people would agree bro culture exists, that it’s male dominated, and that concepts of masculinity have a lot to do with it. I’ve had lots of discussions with people, men and women, who feel excluded by that culture. It feels counterproductive to take “masculinity” and what comes with it off the table for that discussion in the name of the ideal of equality, especially if that discussion might win you some real equality. An example I’ve encountered in real life was my universities chemical engineering program being know for a “bro” culture, and they had some real conversations about it and the reality that it might exclude some people, and they made changes because of it.
To be fair, I’m not sure what role the gender discussion played in this piece, and I’d probably say it detracted from the point overall, so I can understand your response to it. But I don’t think that makes the practice wrong, and perhaps both a couple of bros not aware of who it is we’re excluding?
> I would disagree pretty strongly that men are more into self-optimization than women.
Sure, it very much depends on how you define "self-optimization". Let's just say there is a group of people interested in certain (selected?) topics related to self-optimization that predominantly attracts men.
> I find it pretty understandable that people interested in gender would have something to say about the way gender interacts with that space as well.
I have no issue if someone says "This and that subculture attracts mostly men [with certain character traits] and here's why this is problematic" and then goes on to explore this topic in detail. But carelessly throwing around stereotypes of masculinity and feminity doesn't help anyone.
> I’d probably say it detracted from the point overall
Yes, I would say so as well.
> It feels counterproductive to take “masculinity” and what comes with it off the table for that discussion in the name of the ideal of equality, especially if that discussion might win you some real equality.
I'm not really sure I subscribe to this idea/desire of "real equality" (which I interpret as "equality of outcome", i.e. in this case a 50-50 representation of genders), at least not on a general basis. Different people have different interests and propensities, and it seems these are controlled by biological factors (e.g. sex) to some degree[0], though it is not clear how much exactly. In any case, not only does achieving a 50-50 gender distribution across all groups seem unrealistic, it would also go against freedom of will of the individual.
Now this is not to say that making a given group (e.g. a university's chemical engineering program) more inclusive and welcoming to all kinds of people (and all genders) doesn't have benefits. It does. But if, at the end of the day, we don't reach a 50-50 gender distribution everywhere, I don't think this is an issue, either.
[0]: See the debates about "systemizing vs. empathizing" and "people vs. things".
Respectfully put so I’ll offer what helps me. Political Correctness is for politicians, policy professionals and people writing about policy.
This blog author may be someone prominent. If you feel their speech has outsized influence and is using it to push stereotypes that harm vulnerable people, that’s a fair criticism.
There is no PC police that’s going to arrest you, seize your property and beat you with batons. People make money convincing people there is.
"Filter the things I'm professing through the lens of your own research and conversations with your doctor"
is something Huberman has said often in his early podcasts I've listened to. I'm an adult and I'm happy to trade my attention for free information that I know may be biased due to his sponsors or even wrong due to a bad read on The Literature. Still, if I were to act on any of his advice, I would do so knowing that it's ultimately my responsibility to evaluate and vett the info. Which is no different to how I would think a reasonable person should approach info from any source.
That said, this article definitely reads like a hit piece as another commenter mentioned. Quite a bit of loaded language and associations. I think if you call yourself a 'pseudoscience buster', you have probably established some incentives and now everything looks like a nail.
1. When he talks about supplements, it's mostly accomplied by discussion of peer-reviewed papers about the supplements.
2. Supplements and medicine converge in some ways - for instance, the line between "refined fish oil supplements" and "Vascepa, the FDA-approved medicine" is blurring.
3. The future of science is rooted in the educated hypotheses of scientists.
I read the first two paragraphs, and although they are presented neutrally I knew this was going to be a negative article.
> Combining the calm delivery and pared-down wardrobe of a Sam Harris with the more imposing physique of a Joe Rogan
> The aesthetics of Huberman’s show are that of masculine minimalism.
Such weird comments.
I do agree with some of this article though... I don't really follow Huberman, but I have seen a couple of his podcasts on YouTube. I also found the personalised advertising of supplements and health services quite distasteful. If it was a simple "sponsored by Athletic Greens" then fine, but reading an elaborate script about how much he personally loves Athletic Greens is a bit questionable given his credentials.
The actual information he presentee in the episodes I listened to seemed mostly fine though. Not perfect, but way better than most content on health and nutrition on the internet. Perhaps the quality has dropped more recently or something.
Firstly, I disagree with the core premise of the article. What Huberman does is worthy of applause and respect; I've watched about 20 videos of his, and I've never had the impression he pushes supplements on people. On the contrary, he sometimes even acknowledges people that prefer not to take supplements and says that's a completely reasonable stance as well. His job is informative, and he only recommends what he actually takes and has experimented with.
Secondly, I often find it useful to regard The Huberman Lab (his podcast) as a natural extension of his teaching at Stanford. He just goes as deep as he can, mentioning papers, and getting into the actual science of things, because he's a geek and a passionate researcher first and foremost.
I see some people complain he's too boring. I disagree; the problem is people expect that learning is supposed to be a light and fun exercise. The thing is, true learning takes time and a lot of effort. Otherwise, you'll just forget about what you're learning. When you listen to Huberman you might need to take notes and re-watch episodes to fully get a mental model of the things he talks about. If you just want tips and suggestions: sure, listen to it casually. But if you want to be in a position where you can precisely explain to someone why a certain intervention or practice is good, then expect to put in the time.
Personally, I even prefer reading the transcripts and taking notes instead of listening to him, though often I would only do that after I'm determined to learn deeply about a topic and I've watched a list part of the episode. Here's a list of resources you can use to read transcripts:
This reads like there’s an agenda and the author isn’t looking at the balance of Huberman’s content objectively at all.
The podcast repeatedly, almost relentlessly advises putting sleep, socializing, movement, and diet above all else (unless a situation warrants immediate remedy of course). He frequently suggests not taking supplements to address issues that foundational self-care should address first. He warns against taking many supplements, urging people to experiment carefully, reminding listeners that biology varies and people will experience varying results. There are no silver bullets.
The guy puts breathing, yoga nidra, and morning light exposure on a pedestal. My takeaway from listening to almost every single episode has never been to take more supplements.
Sure he is sponsored by people who sell them. Yes he takes them. My experience is that this is transparent and not foisted on listeners as the holy grail of health and performance.
I don't think Huberman has a dark agenda focused on supplements behind his contents, but I do wish he would find a pill he could take that make him record shorter podcast episodes.
His content suffers from the library size being large. I doubt in one sitting he’d suggest everything to a person all at once. I have adopted my own “stack” which works for me and many of the items I take work for me. So should anyone else who is interested in supplements. They should start slow and try to measure what works. They should periodically take breaks.
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[ 5.7 ms ] story [ 171 ms ] threadHowever, I am surprised by the state of the supplements market, and that there is no way to reliably know what you are taking.
Athletic Greens doesn't even try to suggest what amounts of different vitamins you get in a serving, apparently they just say it is a "proprietary blend".
There is a "Know Drugs" platform for tracking safety of recreational drugs, I believe another platform exists, I'm not sure about the space as I'm not a user.
I'm surprised a similar platform doesn't exist for supplements. How difficult is it to test for the amounts of vitamins and minerals in a supplement, say if you had access to a university laboratory?
I think he means well, but I don’t think I can trust his advice because of all his supplement advertisers.
I had a loved one with a rare condition and would talk with their doctor about lots of different things to try as I was desperate, the doctor said something that sticks with me “look, these aren’t harmful unless you consider the cost of spending hundreds or thousands per month for supplements harmful.”
Athletic greens is $100/month/person. It’s not bad for you, but that’s a lot of money. Couple it with fancy fish oil, lots of resvetrol, NAD, and all the other stuff and you’re looking at a high bill. Huberman isn’t a doctor, but it’s expensive to experiment with all the stuff he talks about.
All that being said, he’s still in my podcast feed and I listen to an episode every once in a while. So I think he had good info, but just requires lots of confirmation and research.
I think it’s tough for podcasters in this space to make money because naturally supplement people want to advertise. And the targeted ads for Huberman listeners are super frequent and full of all sorts of bio hacks.
I also get the impression that his audience is a fairly affluent one, so I don't even have an issue with the price level of the supplements he's advertising. So far they seem legitimate (again, even if they're wildly expensive for any associated benefits) so as long as they don't cross into snake oil territory, I see zero issue with any of it.
https://www.spl.org/online-resources/consumer-and-diy
Unfortunately I can’t find anything on ConsumerLab about my go-to unflavored whey protein powder (Natural Factors). I guess no news is better than bad news.
They do independent testing for supplements and provide rankings based on detected ingredient, heavy metals and adulterants per serving (I linked protein but they also test other types of supplements). My only complaint is that their database is limited so you may not find the brand you are looking for.
I've never used athletic greens but I've heard of them from podcast ads.
The nutrition panel is on their site - the direct link is https://images.prismic.io/athletic-greens-new/293c294b-4f3f-...
Were you talking about something else or just didn't see the link to the details?
Oz promotes the wildest products as part of the grift but by all accounts isn't bad at being a physician (or escaped accountability thus far).
He's not an M.D.
This is an ongoing game played by "doctors" of chiropractic misleading the American public to perceive them as equivalent to M.D. Doctors. It's a cheap way to gain clout, but an M.D. is a professional doctorate, a PhD is not, the distinction matters here.
Beware of non-M.D.'s insisting on a Dr. prefix, or folks citing these people as such especially when it serves to bolster their medicine/health/nutrition claims. It at least suggests a desperation for authority.
Huberman's at best prefixed as Professor here IMO. Even that's being generous since he's an associate professor according to his wikipedia page.
For example, Ashwagandha is something I've been putting into daal curry for years; it has been a part of Indian cuisine forever. Not that you'd know by the style it is conveyed in; there must be a word for this style of dishonesty, where you purposely hide context to inflate the danger.
It's a shame because most supplements are clearly not necessary.
When you closely listen to his advice (and I'm paraphrasing), he suggests first getting your life in order (focusing on proper light exposure, sleep, exercise, and diet), followed by seeking behavioral modifications, and only then considering supplementation or pharmaceuticals.
The critique regarding his sponsors is legitimate. However, one should consider that producing this content is not free for Huberman, as he spends at least ten hours a week of his own time working on it, and it's reasonable for him to want to monetize his efforts.
That being said, I did try AG1 based on his recommendation (he claims to have used it daily since 2012). My significant other and I tested it for a month (costing over $160) and experienced no noticeable improvements. It's worth noting that I already take Spirulina and other supplements, so my experience may be an outlier, but neither of us felt any tangible benefits.
The thing he lacks is the ability to summarize.
I think he himself is a person who takes a lot of supplements and is looking for an edge in whatever way it comes. Maybe breathing a special way or ice showers or whatever. All that stuff feels like way past the basics that most listeners need to learn about. The best stuff I learned from him was basics, like alcohol is never good for you. And it's bad in low amounts in lots of subtle ways. That message will improve lives.
I hope he doesn't hit the doctor Oz spiral but it doesn't seem like he has so far.
This episode, # 86, changed my life. I’ve not had a single drink of alcohol since i listened to it in august 2022. I don’t expect I will again. SCARED STRAIGHT.
> thing he lacks is the ability to summarize
Yes! I have a love/hate relationship with him because of this. Many of his episodes could be half the length, so i just do not listen to him very often.
The alcohol episode is an exception and if a friend hadn’t recommended it, I would have missed it.
for a while there was seemingly some evidence that one glass of red wine a week was good for cardiovascular health. would he push that?
Yep. I rarely make it all the way through one of his 2+ hour podcasts. Sometimes you can find YouTube channels that pull out the most important parts of his longform podcasts into something that's maybe 10 or 15 minutes.
Any time a podcast is sponsored by "athletic greens" it makes me chuckle, because the product seems like 99.9% marketing in such an obvious way. The name alone is ridiculous. Very much like "Alpha Brain" being hawked relentlessly by Joe Rogan.
It’s excruciatingly boring, but I keep hoping he’ll talk about the risks of cannabis on the brain and body. Maybe that comes in hour three after he’s told me the various ways humans consume water?
I don't think he's dumb, but he's dangerously close to Dr Oz territory.
That's a feature, not a bug.
Discussing these topics for hours and hours is the primary draw of this type of info-tainment. The basics of healthy living and even 80-90% optimal diet/exercise could be summarized in a 1-hour podcast. The average Huberman listener would likely benefit more from improving sleep, exercise, diet, and other basics (which he does cover, but it only goes so far) than spending 4 hours learning about the latest round of supplements and associated research.
But summaries don't get people excited, nor do they prime people to feel the placebo amplification effect (or just raw placebo effect) of the latest supplement they just spent 4 hours hearing about.
"Try taking ____ supplement. It has shown to improve ____ in mice." is boring and doesn't inspire a lot of confidence.
Four hours of excited discussion about molecules and scientific lingo feels like real science. It's hard to argue with someone so invested in a topic that they spend hours and hours talking about it. This supplement must work and I must use it if I want to get ahead. That's the goal of these long podcasts.
Anyway, Huberman and Galpin were talking, and Huberman super interested in all sorts of things Galpin would recommend, and Galpin then says "My objective is to get you OFF supplements long term, fixing the foundational problems instead of the symptoms" - I found some transcription online here https://podscript.ai/podcasts/huberman-lab-podcast/guest-ser... around the 01:53:06 mark.
I think it's easy to miss in a +3 hour conversation about supplements someone actually saying: Long term you shouldn't need this stuff. So friendly reminder how supplementation is one of last things you should consider when trying to improve performance.
PS: Athletic Greens (which I tried for 3 months) is more like 99 since at least for California you need to add +20 for shipping. Interesting, I decided to try based on this review https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DjJOo78NiFI - and stopped because it didn't do much for me.
That's exactly what we expect from a Big Pharma sponsored university.
> Even though his podcast is firmly rooted in the masculine space of “body optimization”
While there's no doubt that self-optimization topics seem to attract more men than women, why is it that people who are into gender, equality and "toxic masculinity" topics – and, for the sake of this argument, let's assume the author is one of them – always have to put a label on everything, such as "This is male, this is female." They seem to be falling into exactly the trap they are criticizing.
The author goes on to say:
> Huberman is a lot less “bro-ey” than his fellow influencers. There’s a real gentleness and care to his delivery. The packaging is less aggressive, but the content does not stray far from Silicon Valley’s love affair with the tweaking of healthy human biology.
Ah, so gentleness is not associated with masculinity, but aggressiveness is, got it. Ergo, women must be gentle but not aggressive. Oh and "body optimization" is clearly not for females.
Why are they reinforcing the same stereotypes[0] they are fighting? Why can't we simply say
> While body optimization influencers often come across as aggressive and demonstrate little care for their delivery, Huberman's podcast…
? There, gender stereotypes and labels avoided.
[0]: I am aware that studies indicate that there is some truth to this specific stereotype in that – on average – men are more non-agreeable, women a bit less so (i.e. more agreeable). But this is a statistical average – an individual's personality traits can be far away from the average, and so I think stereotypes like "X is clearly male, and Y is clearly female" are doing us a disservice. Can't we all just be individuals?
Women are normally considered more egalitarian. I believe there’s studies on this. I run an online coworking community and keeping people who present as men is harder than people presenting as women. It’s been an issue with people noticing and commenting on the patterns of the community wrt genders. I try not to care about gender personally.
> always have to put a label on everything
> Ergo, women must be gentle but not aggressive.
> “X is clearly male”
This isn’t what people like the author who complain about “bro-ey” are normally trying to say. I don’t think they meant any extreme stuff like the above. I agree their tone could be better.
I’m speaking of what right wing means to the world, not just America (I’m American).
What do you call the Liberal Party of Australia? They aren’t left leaning at all.
I’d be eager to get an answer to this because I keep getting called elitist and I don’t get it. I thought Americans like myself aren’t supposed to think the world revolves around America.
“The Liberal Party of Australia is a centre-right political party in Australia,[21] one of the three[22] major parties in Australian politics” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberal_Party_of_Australia
You can also check how Wikipedia defines liberalism.
You don't even understand the terms you're flinging around. Ring-wing explicitly, unambiguously, means Conservative.
> What do you call the Liberal Party of Australia? They aren’t left leaning at all.
And the Liberal party of Canada is.
All of the Western world is Liberal. It can either be left-leaning or right-leaning.
It does not make a lick of sense to suggest that the only thing that anywhere near leans left is Socialism (this is the only possible conclusion that can be inferred from your rhetoric), while you lump everything else that functionally uses Capitalism as "the right". This is not the colloquial understanding.
The modern overton window is moving to the right as I’m sure you’re aware and you’re trying to say it has moved enough that being capitalist now means left wing. What year do you think this change finally happened? It wasn’t this way during the 50s. The Overton window was much more to the left back then.
Free market economies are a right wing ideal, no? Like China isn’t a free market economy.
I didn’t know Huberman was white by the way. I don’t use the internet with JS or images on sometimes. I may have skimmed the article too much.
I was giving a reason for why I didn’t know Huberman’s race to account for possibly why it’s obvious to other people like you. The white thing was brought up by you. Not for you to use my reasoning as some fodder while we are both on a hyper-capitalist VC forum.
Now this discussion isn’t about any of the original comments. Why not discuss things instead of shutting down any convo?
> Ditch the superiority 'i think differently than everyone else' complex.
When could that statement not be used against someone like me defending my position even with ridicule happening? Or not used against your comment?
Edit: your comment is dead now. I didn’t downvote/flag it.
My last question was not rhetorical.
Someone who replied to me pointed to what others have seen. There’s overlap between other right leaning people and Huberman. Their comment is deleted now though.
Brought it up again because didn’t want to leave you hanging in there, but other than a comment either about YT algo or audience overlap, I didn’t want to make the whole thing too much about USA politics.
I think I could look around and list 100 people on the left and right. Various small or big time streamer sort of people. The overlap is minimal.
Bill Maher for example appears on leaning right stuff nowadays not left leaning things since politics and socialism have become clearer and more mainstream since Bill Maher was incorrectly seen as a Huberman type character. Some one in the middle. Not leaning right.
Tldr: People who don't believe in the virtues of capitalism are not interacting much with Huberman and vice versa. Same with the leaning right people listed.
Also how about any other part of my post? Besides doing what someone else did and bringing up how I’m a bully or conceited while being far more dismissive than myself.
> Huberman usually does not interact with people who don't at least lean right.
> I didn’t say most were right wing.
You contradict yourself. Pick one.
> Besides doing what someone else did and bringing up how I’m a bully or conceited while being far more dismissive than myself.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/conceit
That’s confusing. Let me use another word: Huberman and Joe Rogan are liberals. So are a lot of the researchers and other people he brings on. If we agree then we are discussing semantics. Any conceit was a misunderstanding of me using words that you disagree with because of your world perspective vs mine.
I try to see politics from an economic perspective first. That usually isn’t appreciated on HN.
I didn’t realize we are talking US politics. I try to be understanding and talk about things from an international perspective. I see the world unfairly revolves around the US and I’m American myself.
I would disagree pretty strongly that men are more into self-optimization than women. Instead, I’d wager men are more into “Self Optimization,” which is more a unique subculture than a goal or activity, and societal ideas of masculinity get a lot of play in that space. I find it pretty understandable that people interested in gender would have something to say about the way gender interacts with that space as well.
Honestly I don’t think that people are always being deeply normative when they talk about these things, they can just see features of the culture around them they find interesting and may dislike, and say so.
For example, for the bro culture comment - I think most people would agree bro culture exists, that it’s male dominated, and that concepts of masculinity have a lot to do with it. I’ve had lots of discussions with people, men and women, who feel excluded by that culture. It feels counterproductive to take “masculinity” and what comes with it off the table for that discussion in the name of the ideal of equality, especially if that discussion might win you some real equality. An example I’ve encountered in real life was my universities chemical engineering program being know for a “bro” culture, and they had some real conversations about it and the reality that it might exclude some people, and they made changes because of it.
To be fair, I’m not sure what role the gender discussion played in this piece, and I’d probably say it detracted from the point overall, so I can understand your response to it. But I don’t think that makes the practice wrong, and perhaps both a couple of bros not aware of who it is we’re excluding?
> I would disagree pretty strongly that men are more into self-optimization than women.
Sure, it very much depends on how you define "self-optimization". Let's just say there is a group of people interested in certain (selected?) topics related to self-optimization that predominantly attracts men.
> I find it pretty understandable that people interested in gender would have something to say about the way gender interacts with that space as well.
I have no issue if someone says "This and that subculture attracts mostly men [with certain character traits] and here's why this is problematic" and then goes on to explore this topic in detail. But carelessly throwing around stereotypes of masculinity and feminity doesn't help anyone.
> I’d probably say it detracted from the point overall
Yes, I would say so as well.
> It feels counterproductive to take “masculinity” and what comes with it off the table for that discussion in the name of the ideal of equality, especially if that discussion might win you some real equality.
I'm not really sure I subscribe to this idea/desire of "real equality" (which I interpret as "equality of outcome", i.e. in this case a 50-50 representation of genders), at least not on a general basis. Different people have different interests and propensities, and it seems these are controlled by biological factors (e.g. sex) to some degree[0], though it is not clear how much exactly. In any case, not only does achieving a 50-50 gender distribution across all groups seem unrealistic, it would also go against freedom of will of the individual.
Now this is not to say that making a given group (e.g. a university's chemical engineering program) more inclusive and welcoming to all kinds of people (and all genders) doesn't have benefits. It does. But if, at the end of the day, we don't reach a 50-50 gender distribution everywhere, I don't think this is an issue, either.
[0]: See the debates about "systemizing vs. empathizing" and "people vs. things".
Yeah, but it's a bell curve pair - distance from the mean only increases the discrepancy.
This blog author may be someone prominent. If you feel their speech has outsized influence and is using it to push stereotypes that harm vulnerable people, that’s a fair criticism.
There is no PC police that’s going to arrest you, seize your property and beat you with batons. People make money convincing people there is.
"Filter the things I'm professing through the lens of your own research and conversations with your doctor"
is something Huberman has said often in his early podcasts I've listened to. I'm an adult and I'm happy to trade my attention for free information that I know may be biased due to his sponsors or even wrong due to a bad read on The Literature. Still, if I were to act on any of his advice, I would do so knowing that it's ultimately my responsibility to evaluate and vett the info. Which is no different to how I would think a reasonable person should approach info from any source.
That said, this article definitely reads like a hit piece as another commenter mentioned. Quite a bit of loaded language and associations. I think if you call yourself a 'pseudoscience buster', you have probably established some incentives and now everything looks like a nail.
2. Supplements and medicine converge in some ways - for instance, the line between "refined fish oil supplements" and "Vascepa, the FDA-approved medicine" is blurring.
3. The future of science is rooted in the educated hypotheses of scientists.
> Combining the calm delivery and pared-down wardrobe of a Sam Harris with the more imposing physique of a Joe Rogan
> The aesthetics of Huberman’s show are that of masculine minimalism.
Such weird comments.
I do agree with some of this article though... I don't really follow Huberman, but I have seen a couple of his podcasts on YouTube. I also found the personalised advertising of supplements and health services quite distasteful. If it was a simple "sponsored by Athletic Greens" then fine, but reading an elaborate script about how much he personally loves Athletic Greens is a bit questionable given his credentials.
The actual information he presentee in the episodes I listened to seemed mostly fine though. Not perfect, but way better than most content on health and nutrition on the internet. Perhaps the quality has dropped more recently or something.
Secondly, I often find it useful to regard The Huberman Lab (his podcast) as a natural extension of his teaching at Stanford. He just goes as deep as he can, mentioning papers, and getting into the actual science of things, because he's a geek and a passionate researcher first and foremost.
I see some people complain he's too boring. I disagree; the problem is people expect that learning is supposed to be a light and fun exercise. The thing is, true learning takes time and a lot of effort. Otherwise, you'll just forget about what you're learning. When you listen to Huberman you might need to take notes and re-watch episodes to fully get a mental model of the things he talks about. If you just want tips and suggestions: sure, listen to it casually. But if you want to be in a position where you can precisely explain to someone why a certain intervention or practice is good, then expect to put in the time.
Personally, I even prefer reading the transcripts and taking notes instead of listening to him, though often I would only do that after I'm determined to learn deeply about a topic and I've watched a list part of the episode. Here's a list of resources you can use to read transcripts:
1. https://www.hubermantranscripts.com (powered by ChatGPT, it has search, and does episode summaries) 2. https://www.steno.ai/huberman-lab 3. https://podscript.ai/podcasts/huberman-lab-podcast/
This article seems to be implying something that just isn't there in my perception.
The podcast repeatedly, almost relentlessly advises putting sleep, socializing, movement, and diet above all else (unless a situation warrants immediate remedy of course). He frequently suggests not taking supplements to address issues that foundational self-care should address first. He warns against taking many supplements, urging people to experiment carefully, reminding listeners that biology varies and people will experience varying results. There are no silver bullets.
The guy puts breathing, yoga nidra, and morning light exposure on a pedestal. My takeaway from listening to almost every single episode has never been to take more supplements.
Sure he is sponsored by people who sell them. Yes he takes them. My experience is that this is transparent and not foisted on listeners as the holy grail of health and performance.
sure you might not need them now. but keep listening and eventually there will be one that you think you might need.
2. Dis on it in a public platform, usually a blog post or twitter thread, or a news article
3. Profit from the attention you get by riling up people from group in step 1