This week, Emily and Perry go toe-to-toe with the scammier side of the wellness industry: regenerative medicine clinics that claim to inject you with stem cells. Are they the fountain of youth? (No.) Are they even injecting you with stem cells? (Not really.) Are they preying on sick people? (Most definitely yes.) From knee cartilage to sickle cell disease, we've got the miraculous, the bad, and the truly ugly of stem cell therapy.

Plus: the generational woes of lead poisoning, debunking stress as a cause of cancer, and doulas for all!

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This week, Emily and Perry dive into the here, there, and everywhere of microplastics. We know they're in the air we breathe and the water we drink, but how bad are they for us, really? How do our bodies respond to them, and how long do they even stay inside us? And can they be avoided?

Plus: Leucovorin approved to treat autism, whether ChatGPT is a trustworthy triage nurse, and curious reports of painful sex in college students. 

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This week, Emily and Perry shine a light on red light therapy: its origins, its heroic use of the mighty mitochondria, and the supposed countless benefits (better mood, wound healing, facial rejuvenation, hair regrowth?) of sitting in front of a hot red light that may or may not even be able to penetrate your skin.

Plus: the disturbing return of polio, whether multivitamins have an effect on epigenetic aging, and if the pitch clock, while modestly good for Emily's enjoyment of baseball, is ruining pitchers' elbows.

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This week, Emily and Perry discuss GLP-1s, those blockbuster weight-loss drugs that have taken the world by storm -- and not just what you already know about them. From the origins in Gila monster venom to the surprisingly long history of their use, they explore their effectiveness, side effects, lingering questions about long-term usage, and the weird knock-on effects in both the brain (libido?) and our society (protein water?). These drugs are here to stay, so let's understand them from every angle.

Plus: RFK vs. Dr. Mike, a concerning Surgeon General pick, and unsurprising data around football head injuries.

Concussion & CTE Foundation

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This week, Emily and Perry plunge, as it were, into the temperature extremes: cold plunges and saunas. Is there any actual value to shocking your body with ice water or sweating out an ocean? Or are we just gluttons for punishment? 

Plus: soaring measles rates, Jay Bhattacharya's double federal appointment, and pandemics lurking under the ice.

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This week, Emily and Perry tackle peptides, the purported panacea for all health ailments. Can an injection of these tiny bits of protein actually boost your metabolism, plump up your skin, heal your injuries, and overall prolong your life? And what could possibly go wrong when you inject a peptide stack of dubious origin anyway?

Plus: mRNA flu vaccines, hormone replacement therapy, and the optimal time to hoard condoms at the Olympic Village (wink wink).

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In our inaugural episode, Emily and Perry talk all things sperm: if it's on the decline, how to juice its quality, the perils of tight underwear, and what a high sperm count says about your manliness (spoiler: absolutely nothing).

Plus, vitamin K shots at birth, the keto diet to treat schizophrenia, and, in honor of the Olympics, whether penis pumping helps your air time.

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GLP-1s. Colostrum. Microplastics. Red light therapy. Vaccines. There’s a staggering amount of health and wellness news and information, and it’s bombarding us everywhere we look. Who’s got time to parse it out, to verify it, and then to actually do the work of improving our health? And what if those wellness influencers actually knew how to read a medical study?

That’s why we’re here. We are Emily Oster, best-selling author and data expert, and Perry Wilson, a medical doctor. And our goal is to separate fact from fiction, causality from correlation, so that you can stay informed without being overwhelmed. Every episode, we cover the health news of the week, take listener questions, and do a deep dive into a buzzy and misunderstood wellness topic so that you can actually make the best decisions for your own health.

So join us for a weekly dose of sanity. It might actually be just what the doctor, and the economist, ordered: health advice for real life.

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An announcement from Emily about the podcast.

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For many people, when we start thinking about a family, we assume it'll just happen nine months from the moment we start trying. But that isn't the way it happens for all of us. And fertility can often be a journey that's more winding and more complicated and more confusing than we expected it to be. That's why ParentData has launched a new content vertical, Trying to Conceive (TTC), covering everything from ovulation windows to donor eggs to infertility treatments, along with a newsletter all about infertility treatment in particular, which aims to answer all of your questions with data. It's our mission to provide real evidence-based information so you can make the best decisions for your family.

Today on ParentData, we're airing the audio from an event Emily did with three of the people who have contributed most to our new initiative: Dr. Breonna Slocum, a reproductive endocrinologist and fertility specialist, Marea Goodman, a licensed midwife and author, and Dr. Pooja Lakshmin, a perinatal psychiatrist. This roundtable of experts discuss about where to start with fertility, answer audience questions in real time, and consider what they all wish that they knew before starting the journey of trying to conceive.

Explore to Trying to Conceive on ParentData.org, where you can also access new articles every week on data-driven pregnancy and parenting.

This episode is generously supported by:

• Hatch
• LMNT
• StrollerCoaster Podcast

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