"I think it's hard for people to come to terms with their own mortality"

October 31, 2018 1:40 PM

Timothy Caulfield is the Canada Research Chair in Health Law and Policy, Professor & Research Director at the University of Alberta. He is also fascinated by pseudoscientific celebrity health advice, specifically how it's based on bad science, and on that topic, published the book Is Gwyneth Paltrow Wrong About Everything? (Goodreads). He also uses his humour, quick wit and science knowledge to investigate trendy diets, ancient therapies, wellness and anti-aging products to separate science fact from fiction in a series called A User’s Guide to Cheating Death (YT, trailer). He's into his second season of six episodes each, streaming for free from Vision TV for folks in Canada, and all 12 episodes are available on Netflix, too. More below the break.

Links below go to the Canadian Vision TV website first (where available, as the show is still airing), then listing their episode titles where they differ from the "official" title and the related IMDb episode page second.

Season 1:

1. Detox Debunked - The Truth Behind the Phenomenon (15 second YouTube teaser; VisionTV Q&A)
2. The Fountain of Youth - Science of Cosmetics (15 second YouTube teaser; VisionTV Q&A)
3. Genetic Revolution/ Full Potential - Genetic Testing and the Rise of Personalized Medicine (15 second YouTube teaser; VisionTV Q&A)
4. Slimming Down/ Losing It - Extreme Dieting (VisionTV Q&A)
5. The Natural Way/ Au Natural - Turning Our Back to Modern Medicine (VisionTV Q&A)
6. Scienceploitation (IMDb; VisionTV Q&A)

Season 2 (currently airing on Vision TV):

1. I'll Sleep When I'm Dead (IMDb)
2. Vitamins and Supplements (IMDb)
3. Sex and Relationships (IMDb)
4. Germs (IMDb)
5. Body Hacking (IMDb)
6. Spiritual Science (IMDb)

posted by filthy light thief (6 comments total)

The podcast Sawbones also delves into this stuff and why it’s all somewhere on the continuum of misguided to dangerous. I’m looking forward to delving into these links when I’m at a computer and not a phone. People really really want the just world hypothesis to be true, and believing in various “one weird tricks” helps people think they have control over their lives. It’s something that has to be combated. Thanks for the links Filthy Light Thief!
posted by Homo neanderthalensis at 3:52 PM on October 31, 2018 [3 favorites]

Thank you for posting about this! It looks like something I'll love, and I probably would not have looked at the show if you hadn't posted about it. The title and Netflix's blurb makes it seem like it's a show about life extension or the singularity where we all become machines or something very depressing like that.
posted by monopas at 5:24 PM on October 31, 2018

I'm interested to watch more of this, but also am intensely skeptical about the evo psych framing of "following people with prestige in the past made sense because they had evolutionary advantages" in episode 1. Like, small part of the episode but that is a big, big lift.
posted by nixon's meatloaf at 5:32 PM on October 31, 2018 [5 favorites]

Is Gwyneth Paltrow Wrong About Everything?

at first my faith in Betteridge’s Law was shaken, but then i realized that this is a book title and not a headline, so we’re free to come to the obvious conclusion of “yes”.
posted by murphy slaw at 6:42 PM on October 31, 2018 [2 favorites]

Dr. Jennifer Gunter (unofficial Goop fact-checker) dressed as Paltrow on the cover of Goop magazine for Halloween this year.
posted by vespabelle at 8:36 PM on October 31, 2018 [5 favorites]

Oh nice, I loved his book about nutrition called The Cure for Everything: Untangling Twisted Messages about Health, Fitness, and Happiness. This looks like more of the same.
posted by jessamyn at 2:51 PM on November 1, 2018 [1 favorite]