The $20,000 Microplastic Hoax and Other 'Wellness' Scams

Welcome to the first episode under the brand-new banner, Because Why?! The show where my curiosity gets the better of me, and I drag you along for the ride. (You're welcome?)

We’re still talking about the environment, but now the scope is much wider: science, ethical business, politics (even when it makes my eye twitch), and the weird, wonderful, and occasionally infuriating claims floating around out there.

In this episode, I’m kicking things off with wellness trends, dodgy health claims, and overhyped “miracle” fixes people keep getting sold.

From seed oil scaremongering to the microplastic “hoover,” cold plunges, cortisol face, and the mysterious world of “structured water,” let's dissect the pseudoscience to establish what’s true, what’s nonsense, and why these ideas catch on in the first place.

Transcript

Microplastics have been found in our heart, our lungs, placentas, testicles, pretty much everywhere we have looked for them. But in good news, a clinic in London reckons that they can filter them out of your blood and all it will cost you is $20,000.

Does it work? Well, no, probably not. There's absolutely no evidence to suggest that it does. But that's kind of the way the wellness industry works, right? They come up with an idea, they create some social media posts about it, and then it doesn't matter if it works or not, people get excited, it hits the media, and all of a sudden it becomes a trend.

And that is what we will be talking about today. Welcome back to Now That's What I Call Green. But surprise, we've rebranded, and welcome to Because Why. Why? Well, I started Now That's What I Call Green to chat about sustainability and eco-friendly myths and things like how paper bags are probably worse for the environment than plastic ones, but it's kind of gone a little bit further than that.

I am interested in pretty much anything except maybe tech or AI. And the pod has expanded into more science, ethical business, and kind of surprisingly, actually, politics? Even though politicians mostly just make my eye twitch.

Why is my favourite word. And because why is that sentence that kids get to when you haven't been able to answer their questions sufficiently, so they still don't understand the world they're in and they want to know more. And I never really grew out of that stage. So I've made it official.

Don't panic. I'm absolutely still going to talk about the environment. It's kind of my thing, but it's not like you can separate that from the real world, from science and policy and ethical business in general. So it all fits together beautifully.

So for my first episode under this new banner I wanted to start with a bang. I wanted to start with something that I knew would make some people mad because I am sick to death of seeing people scared and ripped off by grifters - which is word of the week - in the wellness industry. Which is, by the way, almost four times larger than Big Pharma. Which seems weird that one of them is vilified and one of them is canonised - which means, you know, made into like a saint. And it's the one that makes less money that people keep pointing the finger at. Anyway, food for thought.

I'm currently doing my master's at university because I really, really want doctor in front of my name one day. And I've tacked on a couple of philosophy papers because thinking about how we think and categorise things is fascinating, if not kind of supremely frustrating. And one of those papers is on conspiracy theories and pseudoscience, which is perfect for today's episode.

Now, there is something called the SEARCH method, which is basically just a way to tell if a claim is total bullshit. It's an acronym, right?

S stands for state the claim. If you can't say what they're claiming, it's probably not true.

E stands for evidence. What evidence is there for this claim? What data is there, what methodology, are they any good? Is it really just anecdotes and my cousin's neighbour's brother's dog felt better after taking this thing? Vibes are also not evidence.

A stands for consider alternative hypotheses, so what else could explain the facts.

R is for rating both of those hypotheses using some different criteria.

And then H, which hypothesis scores the best - which is usually not the one that feels the nicest.

And it's a really easy way to evaluate a claim and get a bit of a handle on whether it's total nonsense.

And it is really handy because I've always thought I was slightly better than the average person at spotting propaganda. And I'm pretty convinced that that may not be true anymore because I was going down a left-wing ideology rabbit hole and I didn't even notice. Because I have this other belief that left-leaning people are less likely to be psychopathic or narcissistic. And then I read a whole bunch of studies that said actually, well, extremists on either side of the political debate are just as likely to have psychopathic tendencies.

So it just goes to show that some of those beliefs you hold really deeply without even kind of realising it are actually nonsense. Which brings me back to our topic of the day. Let's start with seed oils because it's the thing I'm seeing the most of and it is absolutely maddening.

Because did you know seed oils are actually the reason that you're tired, that you're overweight, you're filled to the gills with inflammation, because they are almost single-handedly responsible for the collapse of civilisation? Or at least according to most wellness influencers at the moment. But the problem is that literally none of that is supported by evidence.

So when I say seed oils, I mean things like sunflower, canola, soybean, and they are mostly made up of something called polyunsaturated fats. Polyunsaturated describes the chemical structure - that they have more than one double bond on the carbon backbone. That's not really relevant to the discussion.

But within this category are some fats that your body cannot make for itself, and those are the essential fatty acids omega-6 and omega-3. Now both are vital for health but they do have different jobs. So omega-6 fats help with things like cell growth, skin health, immune function, while omega-3s are crucial for brain function, anti-inflammatory pathways and heart health. You need both in a reasonable ratio for optimum function.

The fear around seed oils seems to come from very cherry-picked animal studies that use extreme diets overloaded with omega-6s in particular and completely stripped of omega-3s. So in humans that are eating a fairly normal balanced diet, omega-6 does not increase inflammation markers like C-reactive protein - which is also known as CRP - or interleukin-6, both of which are inflammation markers.

In fact it's the opposite, because in study after study after study, replacing saturated fats - like what's in butter for example - with polyunsaturated fats consistently lowers your LDL cholesterol and is linked to a lower risk of heart disease. That is why every major health body, yes even the super duper bad ones that are hiding the truth from you, still recommends that you eat them.

These anti-seed oil evangelists are saying some of the most unhinged stuff. Like I watched a video the other day on Instagram where a woman was saying that the fat from the things you consume actually migrates into your brain. Your brain is 70% fat, which is absolutely true. But she's saying that whatever you consume that is made up of fat becomes your brain.

I want you to just have a think as to whether that would make sense. Do you think there are people wandering around out there that are mostly butter-brained, whereas some people are maybe olive oil-brained? Does that sound like something that would ring true? No, of course it doesn't.

And that's the thing, when you actually look at these claims, even with the smallest amount of logic, they start to fall apart. And I'm belabouring this point because I want you to be able to spot it yourself. I've talked before about how you can see bad science and propaganda and media bias. All of this comes together and makes you a much more educated, much less likely to be manipulated person.

And that is better for all of us. The people who hate seed oils are really relying on some older, very poorly controlled trials or observational studies. And those are studies that just look at associations. And they are completely ignoring the far larger body of evidence from things like meta-analyses and long-term studies showing the complete opposite. Because when you look at all the evidence, by far and away, polyunsaturated fats, like what you find in seed oils, are vastly superior for your cardiovascular health.

It goes hand in hand with the idea of natural being safer than synthetic, which is of course absolute rubbish if you think about that for even just a minute. Seed oils are a modern industrial product, and that is part of the appeal to nature fallacy.

The process of extracting oil from seeds is not inherently dangerous. People throw around words like hexane, but these things are tested to ensure that there are no residues left in the oil. There's one aspect to this myth that might have a grain of truth, which is the idea of oxidation. Because yes, oils oxidise when they're heated.

So when you heat seed oils, people are concerned that they will produce oxidation products. They are just the chemical compounds that are formed when fats in the oil react with oxygen. So those are things like lipid peroxides or aldehydes.

Now, some of these oxidation products can then generate something called free radicals when they're in the body or even during the cooking process. Now free radicals are unstable, very reactive molecules that have an unpaired electron. That's what makes them unstable. So they try to steal electrons from other molecules like your cell membranes or your DNA, and that causes damage. That is what is called oxidative stress.

But your body already produces free radicals all the time during normal metabolism. One of the biggest risks is of course the sun. And your body already has antioxidant defences to keep them in check. So when you're cooking normally at home, the level of these compounds in foods, even if you are heating seed oils, are well below what would overwhelm those defences anyway. So home cooking, totally fine.

The real problem is repeatedly reheating oil at very high temperatures. So that's your industrial deep fries and takeaways, because that's when your oxidation products can accumulate to higher concentrations. But if you're sautéing or baking or frying at home, it's really not a meaningful health risk, I promise.

And then finally, there is the ratio argument. And this is the idea that omega-6 in particular are inflammatory, especially when you don't consume enough omega-3. And true, a lot of people actually have imbalance in their diets. Most people eat more omega-6 than omega-3.

But the problem isn't that they're eating too much omega-6, it's that they're not eating enough omega-3. But even that does not cause inflammation. It just means you're not getting enough omega-3 for optimum health. This is where the whole thing about eating oily fish or algae oil comes from.

And I wanted to know where this rumour came from because it seemingly came out of nowhere and all of a sudden became a big deal with fricking RFK over in the USA and MAHA, which stands for almost anything except Make America Healthy Again.

And after a bit of searching, it looks like this particular rumour quite literally comes from a couple of higher-profile podcast appearances that have just been repeated verbatim since the early 2010s. The initial claim was made without citing any peer-reviewed science, no clinical data, and there is no robust published research that supports the idea that a specific omega-6 to omega-3 ratio alone drives inflammation.

None of the claims made by the anti-seed oil groups actually hold any water. TL;DR: seed oils are not causing modern health problems. It's the fact that nobody's sleeping, we're all stressed, constantly on our phones, everybody's eating ultra-processed foods, nobody's moving enough, and we're all just fucking tired, you know?

But that doesn’t mean you should go and drink a bottle of canola oil. As with everything, moderation. And just as a quick aside, the average calorie intake in America is 3,500 calories, which is of course significantly more than the 2 to 2,500 recommended for adults. But the average American also only moves 20 minutes a day.

So I suspect that if you look, that is more likely to be aligned with some of the health issues than seed oils. And hey, if you’ve got any robust clinical trials done in humans that show the opposite, I’d be very happy to read them. So that’s one scam ticked off, let’s go to number two, which is what I have decided to call the microplastic hoover. I’m Manx, hoover means vacuum cleaner. I said at the beginning, microplastics are everywhere, and that is genuinely very scary. I spoke to a microplastic expert on the pod a couple of months ago and some of the things she told me did not fill me with joy.

So if this worked, I would be delighted. So there is a clinic in London that will draw your blood, spin it to separate the plasma, they will run it through a filtration column to filter all the bits out and then they inject it back into you. It sounds on the face of it that this process would work, right? And fair enough, because it’s actually something that we do a lot of already. It’s called therapeutic apheresis and the process removes things like abnormal proteins or unhealthy cells and other harmful substances and then pumps the clean blood back into the body. A little bit like dialysis, right? And this clinic pointed to a study that’s done in Germany where scientists treated 21 patients with chronic fatigue syndrome using two rounds of this apheresis. And then they had a look at what they found. And that they did indeed find some substances that had the chemical signatures of microplastics. But they didn’t measure before and after. They didn’t look at what they had actually found. They didn’t actually verify anything at all. And every expert that has talked about it has said that at best, the evidence is inconclusive, which basically means we have no idea if it works or not. And I’ve got to be honest, if something’s going to cost me 20 grand, I want to know that it works.

Because the main problem is that microplastics aren’t actually just floating around in your blood. They’re actually embedded in your tissues. And recent research this year actually found that they can get inside cells. And this process can’t touch shit when it’s in your cells, which is another conversation and quite frightening in itself. So it can only get the microplastics in your blood. Nobody knows what percentage it takes out because they haven’t done the bare minimum of measuring before and after. And then the biggest problem of all, of course, is why bother? And that might be a little bit nihilistic, but why bother taking it out when the next day you’ve probably consumed them all back in anyway? Unfortunately, microplastics have become so ubiquitous that everything from breathing to drinking exposes you to billions of them.

So this is nonsense. It’s generated a fair bit of press. People have got very excited about it, and I imagine it’s making some people very rich. Ordinarily I’d say good for them and their entrepreneurialness but I really hate it when people take advantage of people’s fear. If you want to reduce your microplastic exposure there are small things you can do. Drink loose leaf tea, not tea bags, because believe it or not tea bags are actually one of the worst and every single time it releases hundreds of millions of microplastics into your cup of tea. But there’s also things like don’t microwave your food in plastic, store food and drink in glass or stainless steel, don’t drink bottled water unless it’s absolutely necessary, interestingly enough, keep your house clean, vacuum and dust regularly to cut indoor levels, and of course, most importantly, pester businesses and governments to do better and cut plastic pollution. This is really just an incredibly expensive process with a side of risk, because of course it is a medical procedure.

Talking about risk, cold plungers. They have more risk than you might think and it turns out the benefits are massively overhyped. They are everywhere. They have been everywhere for a long time. Ever since Wim Hof hoffed his way into a frozen pond, people have been climbing into ice baths and claiming that they feel better and it’s the secret to better health and faster recovery and weight loss and bulletproof immunity and so on. Now, if it makes you feel better, great. It goes without saying, keep doing it. But the evidence doesn’t live up to the hype yet again. But it is easy to see why it caught on, right? It looks dramatic, it’s uncomfortable, but then you get this surge of happiness once you get out of the cold water because your brain is rewarding you for removing yourself from a dangerous situation.

Now there is some evidence that cold water immersion can help you feel less sore and less fatigued after a hard gym session. But that isn’t linked to some kind of magical shortcut to better performance or faster muscle gain. And in fact, jumping into icy water straight after training can actually lower the inflammatory signals that your muscles need to build more muscle. So it actually does the opposite. If you are using cold plungers to build more muscle, you are doing yourselves a disservice. And in more recent research which has been done on women, because of course I could talk about how women are quite often ignored in these sorts of studies, the results are even worse.

Now as I mentioned a lot of people do get a short-term spike in adrenaline and dopamine and a lot of people find that uplifting. But this is not a clinically proven treatment for depression or anxiety because in any studies that have been done on it, they’re small, they’re short and they’re inconsistent because it doesn’t last over time. Does it boost your metabolism? Cold exposure can activate something called brown fat and then increases calorie burn, but only to the tune of tens of calories. And then studies have shown that people who do a cold plunge typically eat two to three hundred more calories that day, completely offsetting that. So there goes your weight loss strategy.

So it doesn’t boost your mood, your metabolism or your muscles, but it can cause problems because cold shock can cause really dangerous heart rhythm changes in people with cardiovascular disease, of course, but you don’t always know when you have cardiovascular disease. And you might just find out in a horrific way. There’s the risk of hypothermia if you overdo it, which is why you should never do it alone until you’re absolutely convinced you know what you’re doing. And even perfectly healthy people can faint from sudden changes in blood pressure. This happens to me. I cannot do cold plunges because my blood pressure does not allow it. I already have baseline low blood pressure. I get dizzy when I stand up, it’s very annoying. And I have tried to do the cold plunge thing a few times, but every time the same thing happens, and I have tried to do cold water showers a few times to try and get into this. So you have a shower, and then just before you come out, you turn the shower all the way down to icy cold and stand there for a minute. You don’t turn the shower back to warm. That’s how you get the benefits. Every time I’ve done this, I have only done it a couple of times, my vision goes black. There is risk in exposing your body to big changes like this. You may remember the ice bucket challenge from years ago that was a social media phenomenon raising money. Somebody died and this is why.

So if you enjoy cold plunges because you like the ritual or it does give you a mood boost, or you find it does help with your recovery, then go for it. But if you are looking to build muscle, it is not your friend. If you are doing it for weight loss, it’s definitely not your friend. Do you know who else is not your friend? It’s people on TikTok telling you you have cortisol face. The next two are a little bit linked because apparently you can now diagnose your stress hormone levels by looking at your face in the mirror. You’ve probably heard the term cortisol face which is supposedly a set of features like you’ve got puffiness, you’ve got rounded cheeks or you’ve got eye bags and that supposedly means that your cortisol is high. It’s pretty catchy, it’s trendy, it’s very visual and it’s completely unsupported by science.

So cortisol is an essential hormone that’s produced by your adrenal glands. It follows a daily rhythm, it is the highest in the morning when you wake up and it tapers off throughout the day. It does spike temporarily with, say, exercise or illness or anything your body perceives as stress, like a phone call from an unknown number. Please, God, would you stop ringing me. Now some people do have chronically high cortisol levels. Now I am one of those people who does have slightly elevated cortisol levels because I maintain a nice healthy stress throughout my entire life and I don’t do enough to relax. I don’t have cortisol face. The only time when cortisol reliably changes how you look are rare medical conditions like Cushing syndrome or long-term high-dose steroid use. And in those cases you get fat deposition around the face and neck and that happens over months or years. It does not happen overnight. You don’t wake up one morning and suddenly you’ve got cortisol face. And if you just buy the supplement from this person who looks totally legit you won’t anymore.

This is so popular because it is a quick fix for what people perceive as a fault. They don’t like what they look like in the mirror and they think they can fix it by buying this thing that a grifter is selling them. I’m sorry to tell you it’s not true. There is no validating, cortisol face is not used as a diagnostic tool. There are no blind trials, there are no biomarker correlations, there is absolutely nothing. The videos you see online are anecdotal and something called confirmation bias. So this is where people pick imagery that matches their narrative and they ignore all the other evidence against it.

Now, obviously, that’s not to say that chronic stress isn’t a health problem. I’ve just told you about mine. And persistently elevated cortisol, when it’s confirmed by proper testing, is linked with things like impaired sleep and immune function and metabolic health. But unfortunately the solutions are the same thing. They are more sleep, balanced diet, consistent exercise, social connection, which is the hardest of all probably, and evidence-based stress management techniques. So a cream, a powder, a supplement or a detox, they are cashing in on a made-up problem.

And that rolls nicely into the idea of hormone balancing. This is something I just see so much of and it makes absolutely no sense because not a single one of those people talking about hormone balancing can probably name three hormones. Your body runs on hormones. They are incredibly important and so the idea of balanced hormones sounds again quite legit. Which is why it’s one of the wellness grifters’ favourite phrases because it sounds medical but it’s also kind of vague. So the person who’s selling you something can make it mean whatever they want to make it mean and then they can sell you something to fix it.

In reality, your hormones are super duper regulated by very complicated feedback loops, which include things like the brain, glands, and various tissues. And they fluctuate naturally over the day, across your menstrual cycle, with things like age and stress and illness, what you eat. There is random snapshot testing out there, like single time point saliva or dried blood spot kits, which will tell you absolutely nothing useful because they are a moment in time. If you are truly looking at what your hormones are doing, and there are absolutely many medical reasons to do that, you need to do that under the supervision of a medical practitioner and evaluate the results over time. Conditions like hypothyroidism, PCOS - polycystic ovarian syndrome - menopause, low testosterone, they are absolutely real. They are diagnosable hormone disorders. They require proper testing. No one can tell you if you have them by looking at your symptoms.

There is one disorder that you will hear about and that is not a recognised diagnosis and that’s adrenal fatigue. Now, I know a lot of people are absolutely adamant that they have had or have adrenal fatigue, but it is not a recognised diagnosis. Don’t shoot the messenger. True adrenal insufficiency is incredibly rare and life-threatening. And it is very specifically diagnosed with something called stimulation tests, not a mail-in kit. So if you truly think you have a hormone disorder, go and see a doctor. They are very important. And if you are suffering with things like fatigue and brain fog and low mood or stubborn weight or excess hair growth or a multitude of different things, go and see a doctor.

By treating hormone issues without medical supervision, people can do themselves real harm. I’m seeing people inject things like NMN on TikTok - which isn’t even a hormone, but the fact that people are self-injecting anything without training is concerning. There are also so-called bioidentical hormone creams, and these can disrupt your own natural hormone production. There have even been documented cases of children coming into contact with, for example, their father’s testosterone cream and being harmed.

There is no such thing as a “hormone balancing” product. What hormone would it be balancing? If your hormones are genuinely out of balance, there’s a reason for it, and no generic cream or supplement is going to fix that. Yes, some people report anecdotal improvements from supplements, but there are several explanations for that. There’s the placebo effect. There’s regression to the mean - people usually seek help when they feel their absolute worst, and naturally drift back toward their baseline afterward, attributing that improvement to whatever they tried. And finally, there’s natural healing, because the body is often very good at defending itself if supported properly.

So, if you’re still watching a video about “cortisol face” or someone trying to sell you hormone-balancing powders, creams, or supplements -run the other way. And if you’re concerned, go see a doctor.

Now, onto one of my favourites because it’s funny, but also not: structured water. Also marketed as hexagonal water or vortexed water. The claim is that someone has rearranged H₂O molecules in a special way that makes them more hydrating or healing. It’s not unlike homeopathy - another idea that has no evidence, but borrows scientific-sounding words to make itself seem legitimate.

Water molecules are in constant motion, forming and breaking bonds trillions of times per second. Any “structure” that’s supposedly created by spinning it in a jug or vortex disappears instantly - certainly long before it gets to your mouth, let alone your cells. And even if such a structure could somehow persist, there’s no reason to think it would be any better for your health or hydration.

Then there’s hydrogen water - where molecular hydrogen gas is dissolved into water using tablets or special machines. Here I’ll be careful: there is some very early, inconsistent research in very specific medical conditions like oxidative stress and metabolic syndrome. But the studies are small, short-term, often company-funded, and haven’t reached scientific consensus. For healthy people, there are no demonstrated benefits. And hydrogen is extremely difficult to contain, so once you open the bottle it dissipates quickly. Unless you’re chugging it straight away, you’re basically drinking expensive tap water.

Despite this, devices and sachets for “hydrogenizing” your water can cost tens of thousands of dollars. It’s a classic grift, often backed by weak animal studies or tiny human trials. None of that justifies the claims or the prices.

This might sound amusing, but here’s the serious side. In 2019, a measles outbreak killed 83 people, mostly children. Vaccination rates had dropped to about 30% due to fear and misinformation, much of it linked to high-profile anti-vaccine voices. Parents, understandably desperate, took sick children to traditional healers. And those healers had been sold machines by an Australian company claiming they could make “immune-boosting” water. That’s why I keep talking about this. It’s not just about rich people wasting $10,000 on a water vortex machine - it’s about misinformation leading to real harm.

Structured water is nonsense. Hydrogen water is extremely overhyped and not worth your money. If you want better hydration, drink water, eat fruits and vegetables, and take electrolytes if you’ve been sweating heavily. You don’t need magical molecular rearrangement. (Though, to be fair, “Magical Molecular Rearrangement” would make a pretty good band name.)

I had to stop at six wellness scams, but I could have kept going. There’s oat milk, myths about EV batteries making you infertile (they don’t), or gluten being public enemy number one (it isn’t). The wellness world is saturated with misinformation, and it drives me mad. To the point that, when people ask me in business settings how I “maintain my wellness,” I physically cringe. That word has been so badly bastardized.

If you genuinely enjoy these practices - cold plunges, expensive water machines, whatever - then do you. No judgment. But please make sure you have accurate information and aren’t being manipulated.

The boring truth about health is that the unsexy stuff works: sleep, exercise, a balanced diet, and lots of fibre. (Seriously, I need to do a whole episode on fibre, because 95% of people don’t eat enough and bowel cancer rates are rising fast.) Don’t overlook the role of social connection either - it’s hugely important for reducing stress and supporting health.

And, perhaps the most sobering fact: the number one predictor of health and lifespan isn’t supplements, hacks, or wellness trends. It’s wealth. Poverty is strongly linked with worse health outcomes. That’s the grim truth.

So, thank you for joining me for this first episode of Because Why. I still need a catchphrase - if you think of one, let me know. And please, if you see wellness trends worth debunking, send them my way. I’ll keep digging into them, because hey - one day, one of them might actually be true. Mā te wā.