← The Mel Robbins Podcast
The Mel Robbins Podcast
The 5 Top Health Lies & The Truth You Need to Feel Better Today
01:29:44
If you’re confused, anxious, or overwhelmed by your health and what choices to make, this episode is for you. In this conversation, Mel sits down with Doctor Mike Varshavski, the most followed medical doctor in the world, to expose the health lies and medical misinformation that are making people sicker, more stressed, and afraid to trust their own bodies. Doctor Mike has spent over a decade in clinical practice and continues to work in a community‑based family medical practice, where he sees patients of all ages and backgrounds. Every day, he witnesses the real‑world consequences of viral health myths, fear‑based medical advice, and misinformation spread online. In this episode, Doctor Mike explains how dangerous health lies lead people to ignore symptoms, delay care, avoid their primary care doctor and why some of this misinformation will result in preventable illness and death. This episode delivers the most important health truths you need to hear right now. Doctor Mike bre...
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- [00:00]
A
Hey, it's your friend Mel. And welcome to the Mel Robbins Podcast. When I started this podcast a few years ago, I sat down and I made a list of dream guests that I would love to talk to. And today I'm so excited because someone from that original list is finally here in our Boston studios. His name is Dr. Mike Varshavsky. Now, you may have seen Dr. Mike on social media because he is the most followed medical doctor in the world online. Every day he debunks medical misinformation, calls out lies, and raises awareness on health issues to 30 million followers. But here's what I love about Dr. Mike and why I wanted him on this show as a medical expert. Dr. Mike has been in clinical practice for over a decade and to this day continues to practice in a community based family medical practice. All this scary health misinformation and lies that are being spread online. He is experiencing the devastating impact that it's having on people that come into his medical practice. He will tell you that some of the lies online will result in children dying this year. They will result in you or your loved ones not taking your symptoms seriously or not consulting your primary care doctor and getting the support and the medical care that you deserve. Dr. Mike will tell you right at the beginning of our conversation today that the reason why it is so hard to do the things you know you need to do in order to feel better is because of all this misinformation. You're so flooded with conflicting advice and lies, you don't know who to trust or what to do. In a world that's always selling you extremes flat out misrepresenting medical facts or trying to sell you solutions that just don't work well, Dr. Mike is here to bring you the truth, to tell you the health myths, the red flags, what works, what doesn't work, what's complete bs, what will help you and what won't. So whether you're just trying to get healthier, caring for everybody else and your own health has come last, or you're at a point where just the basics feel really hard right now. This episode is going to be a lifeline and I cannot wait for you to experience it. Spring Black Friday is happening right now at the Home Depot and they've got deals on everything. You need to upgrade your yard tackle tough trimming with the Milwaukee String Trimmer Kit and clean up those overgrown lawn edges with ease. Or you can bring your garden beds back to life with Earthgrow mulch for a fresh, clean look all season. Ready to refresh your yard. Bring it this spring with lawn care Essentials during Spring Black Friday at the Home depot now through April 22, the Mel Robbins Podcast is brought to you by Home Instead. Home Instead provides in home care to help older adults stay safe, comfortable and independent in the place they love. It's not about taking anything away, it's about adding support, companionship and peace of mind for families navigating what's next. Home Instead is an approachable home care partner that helps make this transition feel more manageable so families don't have to figure it out alone. Contact Home Instead today@homeinstead.com Mel and begin your A Better what's Next. This episode is sponsored by Colgate Total. Look, you've heard it a thousand times. You don't wait for a crisis to change your life. You take action now. Real power is being proactive, not reactive. That's where Colgate Total Active Prevention Toothpaste comes in. It's clinically proven to prevent oral health problems like cavities and gingivitis before they start so you don't have to worry later. Stop reacting and start preventing. Pick up Colgate Total Active Prevention at your local retailer today. Your future self will thank you. 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This week, save 20% on your first order at PureGeniusProtein.com when you use code MEL+ there's a 30 day money back guarantee. Here's to your health. Hey it's your friend Mel and welcome to the Mel Robbins Podcast. I am so fired up for the conversation today. I'm thrilled that you're here because it's always an honor to be together and spend time with you if you're a new listener or you're here because somebody shared this with you. And I know this is gonna be one of those episodes that you share with everyone that you care about. I just wanna take a moment and personally welcome you to the Mel Robbins Podcast family. I cannot wait for you to meet today's extraordinary guest. His name, Dr. Mike Varshavsky. He is here to tell you the top 10 health lies and the truth you need to hear to feel better. Today, Dr. Mike is the most followed medical doctor online where every day he debunks medical misinformation, lies, and raises awareness on health issues to more than 30 million followers. But what I love about him as a medical Expert is that Dr. Mike has been in clinical practice for over a decade and to this day continues to practice in a community based family medical practice. And it's important because he sees patients of all ages who are experiencing the devastating impact of all this scary health misinformation and lies that are being spread online. He hosts the top health podcast, the checkup with Dr. Mike. And this year, Time magazine named Dr. Mike one of the top 100 most influential people in health. I am so excited for this conversation. I'm thrilled that you're here. So please help me welcome Dr. Mike to the Mel Robbins Podcast.
- [07:06]
B
Thank you so much for having me.
- [07:08]
A
Thank you for taking time out of your busy schedule to be here for me and for the person who's with us. And speaking of the person who is here with us, they are probably feeling a little overwhelmed and burnt out and tired, maybe confused about what the best approach to take is with their health is. And what I'd love to have you speak directly to is how might my life change if I take everything to heart that you're about to share with us? The lies you're about to dispel, the truth you're about to share, and I apply it to my life. What might change?
- [07:40]
B
You'll get better control of your life. These days, our attention is pulled in so many different directions. People promising us miraculous results, healthcare communities confusing us, the healthcare system screwing us. So my goal in presenting all this information and data that I've lived, experienced, practiced, guided patients through is that you'll have better control to make the decisions based on what's important to you as a doctor. My goal is to not make decisions for my patients. It's to present the data in the most transparent, relatable, honest way so they can take that data and make the decision for themselves that fits their goals. And that could be a different decision that I would make. And that's okay. So the goal is to give you the power today.
- [08:27]
A
I love that you said that's okay. Why is it okay if somebody doesn't take the advice that you're giving them when you know that it could possibly make them healthier or feel better?
- [08:39]
B
Because as a doctor, we actually screwed this up many times over the last decades, and probably even more so before my time, where doctors felt like they were telling you what to do. It's a very paternalistic relationship, very parent like. You have to lower your cholesterol, you have to do this. A patient doesn't have to do anything. In fact, everyone has their own risk tolerance that they're comfortable with. Everyone wants to live life in a slightly different way, and that's totally okay. What I want to do is give my patients the choice with the best information that we have at hand, unadultered, honest, so that they can choose. Do I want to participate in this activity? Do I want my child to do this activity? What are the risks of doing this activity? And then they can make the best decision. That's truly the heart of good medicine, and that's called informed consent.
- [09:28]
A
You know what I love about you? And it just occurred to me that so many people first meet you because you have the largest health and medical channel online on YouTube. You are the most followed practicing medical doctor online. But you also are a doctor in clinical practice who sees firsthand patients that come in, probably with printouts, probably that have gone down rabbit holes, misinformation, things from influencers that, you know, they've been convinced to think. And so as a practicing clinical physician, you're dealing with the misinformation in exam rooms every single day.
- [10:11]
B
I would even venture to say that my patients are dealing with the misinformation. In fact, the reason why I started this whole social media platform was because I saw in my residency training my patients falling victim to the same traps over and over again. The same fear mongering, miracle, promising approaches. And I hated the fact that they wanted the best for themselves. They wanted to live a healthy lifestyle, but they were making bad choices because they were presented with inaccurate information or overhyped information. Because the people who were best at selling these things were usually the ones with the biggest platforms. So the reason why I started out in making this content, trying to become the most followed doctor on social media, was simply to compete with all these loud voices who are Leading my patients astray.
- [11:00]
A
Why Dr. Mike, is taking care of your health feel harder than ever, I
- [11:05]
B
think because there's so much noise. And it's not just healthcare noise, it's political noise, it's technological noise. I mean, you get a phone and two days later there's an update for your phone. A month later there's a better version of your phone. There's so many things fighting for your attention in this attention focused economy that it becomes very difficult to make decisions without feeling overwhelmed. So I understand what that feels like when you're trying to do the best for yourself, for your loved ones, for your kids, and you're just not knowing what the right approach is because you hear three different options or promises and they're all directly opposed to one another. So I understand, I sympathize with my patients. Why it's so hard to make the right choice, especially with so much judgment out there as well.
- [11:53]
A
You know, I think it's one of the other reasons why I think a lot of us feel like when we really find somebody with the medical expertise or the research backed expertise on a topic related to health in particular, the recommendations tend to be like, oh yeah, that's right, I need to move my body. Oh yeah, that's right, I need to be healthy.
- [12:12]
B
Grandma was right a lot more than we give her credit for, you know,
- [12:15]
A
But I wonder if the reminders are more important than ever because there's so much noise that's clouding what you really know are the true pillars of what we should and shouldn't be doing.
- [12:29]
B
Yeah, the reminders to do those basic activities, the tenants of health that we've practiced for generations of sleeping well, eating, a plant focused diet with fruits, vegetables, lean sources of protein, exercising, social connections, all sleep, all these things are so important. But then we also need to not get distracted off of these pillars because it's easy to sell shortcuts, it's hard to sleep seven to nine hours a night, especially when you're anxious. And then when you don't sleep well, you become more anxious. And when you're more anxious, you eat unhealthy and then your weight changes and you have a chronic health condition. And, and it's this spiral that you go down where it's like, how do I see the light? And usually that light is given by people who want to weaponize that or sell you something. Or sell you something. And honestly, I think this is where we fail in health care. We have pushed patients away so far from believing that there is a light that we've lost that connection to our patients. And the bad actors have capitalized on it. The grifters are partying day in and day out because doctors have lost that alliance that we spent years building with our patients. And partially it's the healthcare system to blame, but also it's us.
- [13:48]
A
Well, I also, I'm just, I'm gonna step in though, and say it's also the fact that fear sells.
- [13:54]
B
Sure.
- [13:55]
A
And that when you start to, like, cast doubt on medical expertise, it builds
- [14:02]
B
distrust every time you go online.
- [14:05]
A
Yes.
- [14:06]
B
And this is not just for patients. Doctors fall victim to this too. Because the first thing you organically want to do when you feel a symptom or you get a diagnosis is open your phone. And opening your phone these days and searching for a diagnosis or a symptom is literally like shaking a Magic 8 ball.
- [14:23]
A
And right now, Dr. Mike, if you're listening to this conversation, has one of those games from childhood, the Magic 8 Ball. If you're listening in a country or you didn't have it, it's just like a plastic pool ball and there's a window where you shake it, you get a different answer.
- [14:36]
B
And the Internet is a lot like this Magic 8 ball where no matter what question you ask, depending on which echo chamber you find yourself in, depending on who's digitally targeting the audience, the demographic you're in, you're going to get a different answer. So it's even more nefarious than the traditional Magic 8 Ball. I think this is more honest because at least this is a little triangle shaped thing in here that has an equal chance at landing on both sides. But in real life, there's someone messing and Pre programming the Magic 8 Ball in order to make themselves money. And that's where it gets really scary.
- [15:14]
A
It's such a great visual because you're right. It is almost like pulling a slot machine or shaking that Magic 8 ball. Depending upon who's targeting you, you're going to get a different response. And then based on what you searched, you're going to get served up more information, likely from people that want to sell you something or have you sign up for something.
- [15:33]
B
Correct. And what's funny is it sounds like I'm coming down on people making money or being financially successful. I am not. I am only doing that when people are doing it in lieu of giving people true informed consent. If they start hiding that informed consent or giving partial information in order to make a profit. I want revolutionaries to create new products, new surgeries, new medications to cure conditions. But I don't want it to be recommended without informed consent. I want people to be making the choice on good information.
- [16:06]
A
There are so many symptomatic issues in terms of the healthcare system. But what do you see as the biggest problems and who do they hurt the most?
- [16:17]
B
People who are busy, people who have jobs, multiple jobs, multiple children under their care, multiple family members under their care. That is why people sometimes ask me, what is the most proud moment of your career? And it's my day to day job taking care of patients at my community health center. The people who need the highest level of care are oftentimes the ones who are left behind by our system. In fact, most people in my position, when they're healthcare providers, when they get a level of notoriety, the first thing they do is they enter concierge care. They enter a high paying care system where they get paid huge sums of money to take care of patients. But what I'm most proud of is that we've created this very unique model where because of my success on social media, I'm able to deliver that high level of concierge care to people who are underinsured, are uninsured completely, and they can ask me questions directly, they can text me, they can reach out on the electronic health record where normally it's very difficult for the average doctor to do because they're facing all these pressures from the healthcare system where they have to see a specific number of patients, they have to get the right number of RVUs. That's our relative value units that we sometimes get. It's basically how doctors are judged on their productivity within a healthcare system. And some doctors have to perform a specific number of procedures, see a specific number of patients before they get their full salary. Where I don't have to do that, I can just focus on making sure my patients are getting the best level of care. I wish I could be there for more patients. But the reality is if you want to be a good doctor, a good primary care doctor for your patients, you can't shortcut the time. Time is that most important variable that allows that alliance that we've lost focus on to be formed, trust to be earned, information to be adequately processed by both parties. Because while the patient is learning about the condition, I'm learning about the patient and what choices they want to make. So when I'm giving advice, I'm not giving advice based on what I want. I'm trying to give advice based on what I've learned and what's important to them. So that takes time well, and as
- [18:34]
A
you were just describing that person, which I think is basically a normal person that has a tremendous amount of pressure on them, if you go see somebody that only has 10 minutes and your symptoms get dismissed or it's sort of like, well, you're just gonna brush it off, then yet again, you're getting the messaging that it doesn't matter anyway and I gotta just keep on pressing forward and living like this. And there's a way to actually reach people.
- [19:04]
B
There is. And there's a notion in the scientific community where people feel their doctors are gaslighting them more. They're feeling that their complaints aren't being heard, they're being ignored. And I understand why they feel that way. It's reasonable to feel that way. First of all, we have to validate that right at the outset. But at the same time, I have to be honest, I don't think doctors in 2026 are suddenly gaslighting their patients more often because they don't care. I think our healthcare system is so broken and is set up in such a flawed way where doctors have no choice but to leave their patients sometimes feeling gaslit. And it's terrible. And that is what's also leading on the flip side of the equation, doctors to feel more burnt out, more upset about the field than ever before, retiring earlier than ever before because of this feeling where, oh my God, I wanna do what's right by my patient, but the system doesn't allow me to do it at my best capacity.
- [20:03]
A
What are some of the things that you've heard people say just for the person listening who may have felt funny after seeing a doc who was doing the best that they can in a broken system that is gaslighting, Is it like denying symptoms? Like, what does that even look like?
- [20:24]
B
Yeah, sometimes.
- [20:25]
A
Because I will just say, I don't know, that I've at least in recent years experienced it. Maybe it's because I'm bossy as hell, but I can see how somebody could be run over and feel like their symptoms are not being taken seriously.
- [20:39]
B
If you happen to be a more passive personality type, you don't have a caregiver by your side to advocate on your behalf. It's very easy for the healthcare system to leave you behind.
- [20:49]
A
I'm also a white woman.
- [20:50]
B
Yeah, also true.
- [20:52]
A
So I would imagine if you are a minority, if you are don't have a lot of money for paying for bills, that that's also increasing how that might happen.
- [21:02]
B
You also have to figure as a minority, you're living in A city where sometimes health care budgets are even more strained, hospitals are more busy because they're shutting down in a lot of these inner cities. And as a result, there's more pressure on the ER to see more patients. And, and how can you give accurate care, standard care, even to so many people where you don't have the resources to do it? And you end up triaging in a way where people feel unseen, people feel hurt.
- [21:30]
A
So that makes a lot of sense and it makes me really sad. Another thing that makes me very sad is the state of the cost of getting medical treatment and the reality of how many people face bankruptcy after a big diagnosis or just the fear that people have over their medical bills. I have a very close friend who has a scan that she needs to get done. It has been recommended by a doctor, is not getting cleared by insurance. She is not getting it because she hasn't reached that kind of minimum payment that you need to make for it to be covered. And it feels like this weird, just unnecessary waiting game. What do you say to somebody who just opened a medical bill and they're panicked because they can't pay it?
- [22:21]
B
Whether or not they're panicked, whether or not it's a huge amount. Argue everything, argue every bill. You will get reductions on your bill. You will find resources to help pay your bill, financial aid to pay your bill. There are so many underutilized programs that just patients don't know because they get a bill and they assume they have to pay it. I'll give you a very specific example. There was a gentleman, I believe he was in Texas, he had a heart attack. Otherwise healthy, runner, teacher, good insurance, gets taken to an out of network hospital. It's not his choice. He's having a heart attack, but he's doing everything right. You have insurance, you have a job, you're taking care of your health. And yet you still have this unfortunate incident. Hundreds of thousands of dollars, a bill to survive this heart attack. And what happens? He goes to the media, he tells his story, he explains how this predatory billing practices of this hospital system was taking advantage of him. The bill's reduced to a hundred bucks. It's such a predatory system that you have to fight everything. And it's terrible that I have to put this on my already strained patients backs that I have to say, in addition to dealing with your depression, your anxiety, your cholesterol, your blood pressure, but hey, also call the billing department and fight with them. But if I don't say that, they may pay it and they may face bankruptcy. That's happening in our nation today.
- [23:54]
A
Dr. Micah, how do you fight a medical bill?
- [23:57]
B
Call the billing office.
- [23:58]
A
And what do you say?
- [23:59]
B
I want explanation why I need to pay this, why my insurance isn't paying this. Reach out to the medical office that did this service. Sometimes, Mel, because I, as a doctor, am putting on medical reasons for why I'm ordering a certain test. They may not be the ones that the insurance company likes to be placed for that condition. And sometimes it's as simple as getting the doctor to say, oh, well, I also ordered it for this and put another coat in. Boom, it's covered. Even worse, this is more aggravating. I order a basic antibiotic for my patient when they have a sinus infection. And because I'm ordering an electronic health record, I very quickly click the antibiotic. It was clindamycin, and I happened to order capsules. As a doctor, there's no difference between capsules and tablets. In my mind, I get a denial. Patient's insurance doesn't pay for capsules, but they'll pay for tablets. The patient went to the pharmacy, got denied, goes home. I have to call the insurer, find this out, call the pharmacy, change this to tablets, tell the patient, hey, you gotta go back. What an ineffective, terrible system.
- [25:07]
A
And every one of us has been in that situation, Correct?
- [25:11]
B
And here's the worst part. In any given moment of time, most people aren't sick. Most people aren't interacting with this broken healthcare system. But the reality is, at one point, we all will. We will all get sick. We will all have to deal with this crap system, doctor or not. Doctor, we will have to be a part of it. So if we don't advocate for this change, if we don't shine a light on these problems, it's only going to get worse.
- [25:40]
A
What's so sad about the whole thing is it could be fixed.
- [25:44]
B
Which is why I look to people who want to make Americans healthy again. And I say, please focus on the real problems that are driving our healthcare disaster. Let's not focus on some random ingredient in Skittles. Titanium dioxide. That's not where our problems are. Those are PR wins. Those aren't actual healthcare wins. So the people that support those in the administration that are wanting to make change, I feel bad for them the most because they're the ones that are being tricked right now. Because I want to be there for those patients. I want to help them get the best quality care. For the doctor to have a discussion, well, do you want to take an approach that's a Little bit less aggressive, less medication focused, more lifestyle focus to give you back the time to make sure that pharmaceutical companies aren't playing games with pharmacy benefit managers to make sure your medications cost more. Let's address those inequities. Where we'll get the best outcomes for our patients remains to be seen. If that will happen.
- [26:44]
A
Well, if we were to put you in charge, what were the big things you would go after right away?
- [26:48]
B
Transparency. The number one thing is we need to attack transparency.
- [26:51]
A
What does that mean?
- [26:52]
B
There are so many companies that are now functioning in all of these worlds. And I'll explain what I mean. There's companies that function in the pharmacy space, the pharmacy benefit manager space, where they actually decide what medications are covered and which ones are not.
- [27:08]
A
Capsules versus tablets, generics versus and here's
- [27:12]
B
the wild part about all of that. The PBMs, these pharmacy benefit managers were created to save us money. And now they've become billion dollar entities on themselves because they say, oh well, if we save a patient $2, we can take a dollar for ourselves.
- [27:26]
A
And they're owned by farmers, they're owned
- [27:29]
B
by the pharmacies, they're owned by the healthcare insurers, and they're owning the entire system. So they're taking money out of one pocket, shifting it to another. And no one knows exactly how that's happening because it's not transparent. Very poor regulation because of lobbyists and no one's really talking about it in a way that's getting attention. And as a result they're allowed to make a lot it at our expense.
- [27:52]
A
That's disgusting. Yeah, well, what the hell do we do?
- [27:55]
B
Fight for transparency, support those who are going to bat for patients in this way where it's patient first.
- [28:04]
A
It sounds like a racket, honestly. It sounds like it should be illegal for a healthcare system to own a pharmacy and the pharmacy benefit management company at the same time.
- [28:14]
B
We should put you in charge.
- [28:15]
A
I don't want to be in charge of that. I like doing what I do because I feel like I'm doing what you're doing in a different way that I really want to try to distill down the information that we all deserve and shine a light on the renowned and respected experts in their fields and give them a global platform to be able to teach and to empower and to call out misinformation to give people options that really empower them to make better decisions in their lives. Yeah, and so I'm not the expert. I feel like I'm the conduit. For conversation and information to flow to somebody else.
- [28:58]
B
I mean, it's a lot like family medicine.
- [28:59]
A
How so?
- [29:00]
B
I am not necessarily the expert in all of these conditions. I'm the quarterback that translates the information from these experts because of my doctorate, being able to understand what they're saying and why they're making their certain recommendations. And over my years, becoming more expert in certain aspects of healthcare in order to distill that and be a conduit for my patients to allow them to function in this broken healthcare system. And that's why family medicine's so fun. As you said, top to bottom, head to toe. I mean, there are patients that I've had on my OBGYN service that I've delivered their baby. Their baby is now my patient for 10 years. Their grandparents are my patient. And you get to watch the impact when you guide them in a good direction, where you allow them to make choices that they're proud of across the entire spectrum of their lives. It's truly beautiful and it's sad because it's falling out of favor. Med students aren't picking primary care. The incentives aren't there for them to be paid more. And it's one of the lowest paying specialties. And as a result, we're losing the brightest minds to more procedure based specialties.
- [30:08]
A
You know, it's interesting if you're listening, you're not seeing this, but if you're watching us on YouTube right now, maybe you caught it. You love what you do so much that you were smiling even as you talked about the fact that being in family medical practice is declining because it's one of the lowest paid slices of the medical profession. But I can tell it brings you so much joy.
- [30:34]
B
It really strikes at the heart of how twisted our incentives are in this country. Instead of focusing on what matters, which is mental health, lifestyle modifications, that's psychiatry, pediatrics, family medicine. That's not where our incentives are pointed at. Our incentives are pointed at who's putting the stent in, who's performing the surgery, and as a result, how much profit
- [30:59]
A
is the healthcare system making exactly?
- [31:01]
B
Many patients don't have an established primary care doctor. They're relying on urgent cares ers to function as their primary care doctors. But to be fair to those people that are seeing them as providers, they don't know them, they don't know their history. I have patients that when they walk into my room, I can tell that something is going on with them that they're not even vocalizing to me. I had a patient the other Day, she came in for back pain. But in talking to her about how her life is going, just general conversation, she started telling me about some weird symptom that she had in the middle of the night just a few days ago. I throw the back pain conversation out the window and I say, we're focusing on your heart. I ask her to go see her cardiologist. The next day she goes, see the cardiologist, Mel, she had a heart attack.
- [31:49]
A
It's a cardiologist.
- [31:50]
B
During that moment when she was denying her chest pain, she was writing off her own heart attack. She had severe stenosis in her blood vessels in her heart. She needed stent placed, and now she's advocating for women to take their chest pain seriously. But you can't know that as an urgent care doctor when you're meeting someone for the first time.
- [32:10]
A
That's so true.
- [32:11]
B
So you need that primary care.
- [32:13]
A
And what I love about what you said about this is that we tend to blame the doctors. And yet if you take a step back, if you're only going to a minute, click, or you're only seeing your doctor once every five years, when you need the prescript, the Z pack for your bronchitis that's come, or you're only going, or you don't even have a primary care, I'm sitting here going, oh, my God. My daughter out in Law Angeles still does not have a primary care doctor. And she's been out there for three years. And I realize she's young and healthy, but still.
- [32:38]
B
But some of the biggest lifestyle changes have the most important impact in that age.
- [32:44]
A
What do you mean?
- [32:45]
B
So, for example, with heart disease.
- [32:46]
A
Yes.
- [32:47]
B
The foundational layer of plaque that can form in the blood vessels in your heart start happening during your teenage years.
- [32:53]
A
They do?
- [32:54]
B
Yep.
- [32:55]
A
You're kidding.
- [32:56]
B
Yep.
- [32:56]
A
What are.
- [32:56]
B
Atherosclerosis starts decades before you have the heart attack.
- [33:01]
A
Wow.
- [33:02]
B
So if we can have that conversation early on, if we can make some small tweaks or perhaps screen more often for certain conditions based on certain behaviors or lifestyles that you choose, whether it's infection screening, STI screening, we can make certain changes that can keep you healthier, even if you want to live not the most optimal lifestyle. And that's okay. We live in this hyper optimized world where especially in the podcast space. I don't know if you feel this, Mel. I see this a lot. Where doctors will come in and start going into this hyper perfect optimized world of this is how many almonds you have to eat. This is how many minutes of your life you'll lose if you eat one hot dog at a baseball. I don't practice in that world, I don't live in that world. I think when we chase hyper optimization, we actually get worse health outcomes because we fuel health anxiety. And no one wants to be anxious about their health. They want just to be healthy and enjoy their life to how they want their life to turn out. And that's what a good primary care doctor does. They absorb the information about you, they explain to you what the risks of your current habits are. We try and mitigate those risks because we do have prevention strategies. But at the same time we need to not over promise because there are products out there that try and say we can prevent X, Y, Z and in reality they're overselling you. They're potentially leading you to downstream more testing, more radiation, more medical errors. You want to stay away from health care at times just as much as you want to get healthcare at times. And that's a weird dichotomy to live in, but that's the reality.
- [34:43]
A
Well, you know, to answer your question, I feel as though there is a lot of chasing for virality, a lot of chasing for clicks, a lot of content that seems only relevant for somebody that doesn't have to work a full time job, isn't taking care of another human being and has limited resources available to them to try to optimize their health. I've had the opposite thing almost happen to me on this podcast where the credentialed, practicing medical experts that come on, yes, there's always amazing new research or new insights, but it always comes back to these foundational principles of the way that your lifestyle matches your health and the magnificent ability of the human body to adapt to change when you give it what it needs. I kind of feel like we're all almost like a wilting plant in the corner and that if you move us into the sun and water us, we perk up and we grow in response to the things that we truly need. And to your original point, a lot of the super complicated, massively scientific, hyper optimized do this. It's gotta be perfect. Oh my God. It just makes you more overwhelmed. So you do nothing.
- [36:04]
B
Yeah.
- [36:05]
A
Dr. Mike, I cannot thank you enough for making the time to be here. I have so many more questions and topics that we are gonna get into, but I wanna take a quick break so we can hear a word from our sponsors and I wanna give you a chance to share this episode with everybody that you care about. This is one of those episodes that could truly change someone's life and change the way they think about their health and everything that they've been learning online. When we come back, Dr. Mike is gonna break down how to tell what's real, what's not, and what to do when you feel stuck. We'll be right back. Stay with me. When it comes to your health and wellness, trust matters. Whether you're working toward fitness goals, building a wellness routine, or just stocking up on everyday essentials for your family, where you shop really matters. And that's why I want to tell you about our new sponsor, iHerb. It's your one stop shop for vitamins, supplements, sports nutrition, personal care, and even grocery, baby and pet products. For nearly 30 years, Iherb has delivered wellness products sourced directly from trusted brands to more than 15 million customers around the world. And here's what sets them apart. There are no third party sellers on Iherb's website or app, so you can shop confidently knowing that for supplements and sports nutrition products, brands provide certificates of analysis and select products are independently verified through the Eye Tested Lab program too. And if something doesn't meet your expectations, IHERB makes it right with easy returns and simple refunds. Visit iherb.commel and use code MEL20 for 20% off your order. That's iherb.commel with code meltwenty I want to tell you about our sponsor, no Bull. NoBull is a footwear brand built for training and daily life. They have these incredible all day knit shoes that are perfect. Perfect for running errands, working out and everything in between. It means you don't need to switch shoes throughout your day. The all day knit from Noble gives you one less thing to think about. And by the way, you need fewer things to think about and fewer things that get in your way. That's the whole idea behind Noble, a footwear brand that's designed to support you as you build your physical, mental and emotional strength. Because real strength, it's not built on perfect conditions. You build it in the middle of real life when you're busy moving from one thing to the next and you just keep showing up. You just need the all day knit for your whole day. Exclusively for the Mel Robbins podcast listeners, NoBull is offering 35% off your first order. Visit nobullproject.com and use code MEL for 35% off your entire first order. That's www.n o b u l l P R O J E c t no bullproject.com and use code MEL for 35% off. If you have travel coming up, spring break, a wedding abroad, or maybe an international trip for work, imagine arriving and actually understanding the language, ordering food confidently, asking for directions without panic, and connecting with locals. That's the difference learning a new language can make. Rosetta Stone has been a trusted leader in language learning for over 30 years. Their immersive, intuitive method helps you naturally absorb your new language. No memorizing random vocabulary or relying on translations. Instead, you learn by connecting words, visuals and meaning in context, the way language is meant to be learned. I've been using Rosetta Stone to learn Spanish and it fits so easily into my day. The lessons are short. I can do one in between meetings or while I'm winding down at night. I love using it as a way to challenge my brain in a new way and to stay off social media. Ready to start learning a new language this spring? Visit rosettastone.com Mel today to explore Rosetta Stone and choose the language that's right for you. Go to Rosetta Stone.com Mel now and begin your language learning journey. Welcome back. It's your friend Mel Robbins. Today you and I are here with Dr. Mike Varshavsky, board certified family medical doctor. And today he is sharing top health lies and the truth you need to hear today to feel better. We have covered so much. There's so much more to dig into. Dr. Mike, let's just jump right back in. The next thing I wanted to talk about was this. Your parents have had a very profound impact on you personally and professionally. And I want to talk about both of them. Let's start with your dad. Speaking of good doctors, one of them was your dad who inspired you. And I want to talk a little bit about your parents because they are very important to you and I understand that your dad inspired you to want to become a doctor. And I'd love to hear the story.
- [41:04]
B
Yeah, it's paradoxical in nature because he actually was someone who was saying that the healthcare system is quite broken and perhaps you should seek a different career path. But what was interesting in coming from Russia at age 6, watching my parents adjust to a new language, a new culture, new lifestyle, I got to watch them adapt and I got to see how difficult life can be when you're facing limited resources to live on welfare, to live in welfare housing, that is something we all experience in my family living, the four of us in a one bedroom.
- [41:40]
A
Was your dad a doctor?
- [41:41]
B
So he was a physician in Russia. And living in that moment, coming to America, watching Him very quickly learn the language and apply to medical school again, apply to residency after medical school again, in his 40s, in a new language. I saw how strong he was and how strong you needed to be to overcome challenges. And because I was 9, 10 years old when he was going through his medical training, I was awake for it. I got to watch it. I got to watch his education process happen. He would bring me on his bring your child to work day and I would see what it's like to be a resident, to sit in on call room. And I fell in love with family medicine. I fell in love with the relationships that he was making with his patients, the ability to learn all of healthcare and be that quarterback. I really fell in love with the field and I said, there's so much value to this. So to me, family medicine was something I hard headedly chose and fell in love with because of my father. And at the same time, in spite of my father, because he saw so many problems, he foresaw a lot of the problems that we're experiencing today.
- [42:45]
A
Now, your mom passed away during your first year of medical school.
- [42:49]
B
Yeah.
- [42:49]
A
How did that experience shape who you are today and how you practice?
- [42:54]
B
You know, watching my parents come to a new country in their 40s, as I said, learning a new language. My mom was a PhD in mathematics in Russia. Her mom was the provost of the department. So when she came here and she had to walk two miles to work to save on bus fare, to sweep the floors, I knew how hard they were working in order to set a good life for me and my sister. And then just as my dad was getting on his feet, he finished residency. They struggled, and now they were about to have a little bit of success where they can own their own home and travel a bit more and enjoy the fruits of their labor that they worked so hard for. To watch my mom get sick and progressively pass away from this cancer, It's a specific type of cancer called cll. It was just heartbreaking to go through that. And being in medical school, I'm just starting to learn what it means to stop chest compressions. I'm learning what it means that we sometimes deliver too much care to people in their final years of their life and how perhaps we're actually hurting them rather than helping them. And while I'm learning those things in school, I'm taking my mom to her appointments at Memorial Sloan Kettering and I'm seeing her get more sick, more sick. But then there's always a ray of hope where just days before she Died. I picked her up from Memorial Sloan and the doctor shook my hand. He said, we cured her cancer. We just have to have her recover now because she had a stem cell transplant and now we just need her immune system to build back up and she will be okay. And just a few days later, she got a mean infection. Her body went into gram negative sepsis. It's a type of bacteria that creates an overwhelming response from the body. Blood pressure drops. We're all in the hospital and she's getting chest compressions, and we're the ones that are having to tell them to stop. And when you're doing that to a loved one so unexpectedly, because you have so much optimism and hope, it really awakens you to how short life is, how difficult our healthcare system can be, how healthcare providers who were doing the best that they could to save my mom. Also, when they went back to their cubbies, they were laughing about their everyday lives because they're humans too, and they have their own struggles. And I needed to be accepting of that. So there was so much learning that happened in that moment. And I think it really highlights an important factor in that. When you are a physician, we need to remind ourselves from this old adage, we're not robots, we're humans. If we want to cry in an exam room, if we feel that with a patient cry, no patient will judge you for that. In fact, it'll make you more human. Bring your experiences, your hobbies, your passions to the art of practicing medicine. So I think it's those moments, these moments with our families, our moments of loss, that if we can bring them into the practice of healthcare in a meaningful way, we can be better, we can get better outcomes for everyone.
- [46:07]
A
You know, you mentioned these moments of loss. If the person who's listening right now is in grief or experiencing deep sadness and things just feel very, very hard, what do you want to say to them about just the first step to take?
- [46:25]
B
Even today, to take the first step requires some bit of action. We're all seeking motivation, but the unfortunate truth is that action precedes motivation. We need to take some sort of action. So I try and think about what's the easiest action one can take. For some, that might be making their bed. For another, it may be taking a shower. For me, it was putting on my shoes. Putting on my shoes took me to the dog park. Putting on my shoes got me to take a boxing class. Putting on my shoes and taking a boxing class ten years later led me to fighting on Showtime pay per view. As a professional Fighter. So you will never know where putting on your shoes may take you. But unless you take that first step of putting on your shoes, making your bed, taking a shower, you just don't know where you'll go. So that's, that's the simplest step. And I know it sounds easy to someone who's not in the depths of grief, who's not going through something, they say, oh, putting on shoes, that's not going to get you anywhere. But when showering is hard, when combing your hair is hard, putting on your shoes is not the easiest task. But when you do, you never know where they'll take you.
- [47:44]
A
I want to stay right on this because I really deeply appreciate you validating how hard it is to take a shower some days. How hard it is to brush your teeth.
- [47:59]
B
Oh, yeah.
- [48:01]
A
How hard it is to not just put on your shoes, but maybe walk out the door. Why do you think those little things feel so hard at times in life? Because to me, it's really important that we break this apart because I think this is actually everything.
- [48:24]
B
It probably strikes at the heart of the humanity of meaning. When you live every day with your family members surrounding you, you have one idea of what life is. But when tragedy strikes and that gets completely flipped 180, you panic. And in order to protect yourself, your brain shuts down and says minimal activity. Much like when in boxing you get hit with a liver shot. To make a strange analogy, you go down because you're worried about circulation. Same thing here. Your body's protecting you, but at the same time, you need to be able to be the judge of what's safe, what's acceptable. And sometimes it helps to have a team member. That's where doctors come in, therapists come in. The most unique part of what I've learned in practicing healthcare for the last decade is that for mental health success, support system is crucial. So having family members, friends, so important. But then getting help from a medical specialist, a mental health specialist is the second most important. But what's not so important is, are they a social worker? Are they a psychologist? Are they a family medicine doctor? Are they someone from a religious background? As long as it's someone who's not taking advantage of you and wanting to tell you the truth, to help you get through this moment and shows you that you too are valuable, validated, and wants to help you overcome this, this tragedy, that's what gives you a good outcome.
- [50:01]
A
Dr. Mike, what would you say to somebody who is focused on caring for everyone but not themselves?
- [50:06]
B
Well, Mel, in Front of us, we have a really good example and a clear example of how this can devolve very quickly into everyone losing. Okay, we have five glasses here and a pitcher of blue colored water. Just to show as an example of what happens in someone's everyday life as a caregiver.
- [50:25]
A
So the caregiver is the pitcher of blue water?
- [50:27]
B
No, this is effort.
- [50:28]
A
Oh, this is effort.
- [50:29]
B
This is effort. This is energy. This is what's fueling the ability to do things. And each one of these cups will represent a different scenario in one's life. So, for example, people have to show up to work. People work. Right. That takes a lot of effort, a lot of energy. Boom. Some of the blue water goes in there, but they also need to take care of their kids. Right. That's important. I've read about the problem situation that you experience and how stressful that was.
- [50:59]
A
A lot of energy.
- [51:00]
B
Should I pour more into that one? But look.
- [51:03]
A
Feeling I need to save it for other things.
- [51:05]
B
Do you see how quickly we're losing the energy? Yes, but then you're a caregiver to your aging parents. You continue losing. Uh oh, uh, oh, uh, oh, oh, wait. You have a spouse. Oh, wait. You want to maintain some sort of connection with your spouse. You want to love each other, you want to spend time, you want to travel, you want to do something interesting, a hobby.
- [51:26]
A
Dr. Mike. That's the idea.
- [51:28]
B
Okay.
- [51:30]
A
Oh, my God. There's no energy. And I have to cook dinner, go to the grocery store, clean the house. We didn't even do laundry yet.
- [51:37]
B
How are you going to take care of yourself when that's what you have left to deal with? The healthcare system, joy, sleep, lowering your cholesterol. You've taken care of everyone and everything else except yourself.
- [51:56]
A
What the hell do I do? Because. Because when you look at this and the visual is stunning as you're listening, the picture is empty. So we're out of energy. Every other four of the cups are full. We haven't even gotten to laundry, grocery shopping, cleaning, all the other stuff that you need energy for. And the one cup on the end has, like, just a little tiny couple drops of blue in it. That is what you give to yourself.
- [52:22]
B
And I don't want to ruin your studio setup here, but if we were being honest, these four cups would also have cracks in them and be perpetually losing water and need refills, because that's how life is. So even when you give everyone the adequate amount of attention and effort, there will always be problems that need refilling and if your cup isn't being refilled, you're gonna fail at helping your loved ones.
- [52:51]
A
So how do you recommend when this is the reality of your life? How do we get our energy back? If the blue water represents energy and
- [53:02]
B
we don't have any, there are steps that we can take to help refill our cup.
- [53:06]
A
What is it?
- [53:07]
B
First of all, I know we're being pretty critical that four cups are full and one is empty. But it's nice to have happy family members and healthy family members so we can look at positive things in our life and remind ourselves about those positive things. So one of the things I help my patients with is small things. Write three good things that happen at the end of a day. Remind yourself that there are positives here. Good night's sleep, making sure you're taking care of your own mind and body. And one of those things is these little tasks that we can do, like the three positive things. And then most importantly, validating yourself that this situation does suck. We forget that we judge ourselves so much more harshly then we would judge someone else in the very same scenario. Allow yourself to feel shitty in this situation. One of the things that we try and work on with patients in family medicine is explaining that therapy antidepressants, they're not meant to make you not feel sad or anxious. They're meant to give you a layer of control to identify when you're feeling sad and in a rut. And you could take some steps to snap out of it, but it's not to not make you feel. In fact, if a medication or a treatment that I'm giving to my patient makes them not feel, that's probably not a good treatment for them. So reminding patients about validating themselves is a really important tool.
- [54:29]
A
It's so helpful to see the visual because you feel it in your body that wow. And when you said it's energy that I haven't heard anybody talk about it in that way, and it's way more hopeful because I do believe that the energy can be regenerated when I see it as pieces of me versus energy that I can recoup through better sleep and taking a little bit better care of myself versus carving out time that I don't have that feels like something I could do, that would make a difference for sure. I wanna shift gears now and ask you another question, Dr. Mike. You are known for cutting through just health misinformation and bullshit online. What is it about your approach to spotting and calling out, especially the lies and misinformation that really makes you resonate with millions and millions of people every day.
- [55:27]
B
What I strive to do, which I hope people admire or appreciate, is to be as authentic and transparent as possible. Why I'm making certain recommendations. Being someone who had to study really hard to understand certain concepts, I had to simplify those concepts quite often. And in doing those simplifications, I realized I can use that same simplification to teach millions of people across the world these more complex subjects. And by being a family medicine doctor who's on the front lines and seeing what patients are experiencing, it really made me better to be on social media. And at the same time, when I'm researching certain topics for social media, it makes me a better provider for my patients. So it's this unique symbiotic relationship between healthcare and social media that I never knew existed and in fact was discouraged from going down this path by some colleagues, by the medical community at large. I think now they're waking up and realizing, oh my God, we've let this tool go underutilized. It was co opted by bad actors and now we're playing catch up in some of the most difficult ways.
- [56:37]
A
I actually think people can cut through bullshit and that it's very clear if you spend any time listening to your story that there is a genuine and authentic mission tied to what you're doing. And that's why you resonate with people.
- [56:55]
B
I appreciate you saying that.
- [56:56]
A
No, I mean that I think your heart truly comes through and that's why you resonate. I would love to know what are the health trends and misinformation that you're seeing that drive you absolutely bananas? And since there's probably so many, what are the ones that drive you craziest or you think are doing the most damage right now?
- [57:20]
B
I think in social media, the trend surrounding longevity is one I've been fighting against for a really long time, which sounds strange. Why is a doctor arguing against longevity? But it feels like everyone is falling into this anti aging bracket. And my main problems with it are twofold. One, people view aging as a disease and I don't feel like that necessarily needs to be the case. There's a way to practice healthy aging that we can discuss and not view it as a true pathology, as a true illness. And second is that a lot of times it takes information, research that is so preliminary that it should maybe give us hope for something on the horizon. And it gets blasted to the front pages, to the front headlines, to the Shopify stores where people are selling these things that don't hold up under scrutiny. And therefore people are not getting good care or they're getting false information. In fact, when a doctor says they're a longevity doctor, it kind of throws me because I think almost every doctor is a longevity doctor with one exception. I'm curious if you can guess, what specialty is that? Exception?
- [58:36]
A
Palliative care.
- [58:36]
B
Yeah, hospice. Because they're focused on comfort, right? Not prolonging one's life. But every other doctor wants you to live longer. They want you to have a better quality of life. Why is this being stolen?
- [58:49]
A
I, you know, I'm curious, Dr. Mike, is aging a disease?
- [58:52]
B
I don't think so. I don't think it needs to be viewed that way. And in fact, the more we view it that way, the more negative outcomes we get from aging.
- [59:01]
A
Well, this is going to be one of those admissions that I kind of feel a little dumb saying. I'd never heard that aging. When you said aging is a disease, I'm like, no, it's not. It's just something we do. It's not a. But is it a disease?
- [59:13]
B
Well, people feel that they break down over time. They get more tired. They can't accomplish all of their goals that they were setting for themselves in their 20s. They're. They can't pull 18 hour days. But the reality is, you just told me, I think before we started this conversation, that you're happier now than when you were earlier.
- [59:32]
A
Yes. So I'm way happier in my late 50s. I'm way healthier. I think I feel better, look better, I'm stronger. I can do more pushups. Again, it comes back to this thing you keep saying, which is we are designed to grow. We are designed to respond to the lifestyle and health things that our grandparents have always done. And your body loves it when you do it.
- [59:55]
B
And our minds evolve, our neurochemistry evolves. How much we sleep evolves. We don't need as much sleep once we're older than when we were babies. So you thank. Things change. But if we view it with a negative lens all the time, it will make it worse.
- [60:13]
A
So how do you know if somebody is selling you something, is a grifter, is trying to market something to you, he's got a red flag.
- [60:22]
B
This is. You got to have one of these in your minds, in your mind's eye.
- [60:26]
A
Okay.
- [60:26]
B
All the time.
- [60:27]
A
Dr. Mike has a red flag. Tell me how we know. Give us a few examples.
- [60:31]
B
Okay. Overconfidence. You have to be waving this in your head. And I'll give you a very specific Example, if a patient comes in with a symptom, the odds that I can definitively say that it's one condition is almost zero. I can be confident that based on the presentation, my physical exam, the blood test, the scans, that it's pointing to a condition, a diagnosis. I still have a differential, which means I have other options of what it could be that are mimicking that same presentation. Because humans are not all exactly identical. So in healthcare, good doctors, good nurses will always hedge. And when you're hedging, you don't look super confident. Because when a doctor is not afraid to say, I don't know, that's when they're being honest. That's when they're being vulnerable. To tell you from a humble standpoint that this is tough, further investigation is necessary. A clear answer is not here. Most importantly, they're not interested in slimming your wallet.
- [61:43]
A
Hmm. That's a good one. Yeah, because it's true. When somebody says, I don't know, you tend to go, red flag. You're not listening to me. And what they're basically saying is, I'm thinking about all the things and I don't have something definitive. We gotta dig in.
- [61:59]
B
Because I could even think of bad actors that will make a short form piece of content on TikTok on Instagram and will say, do you have headaches? And if you have headaches, you're like, oh, my God, I have headaches. You're not consuming enough pink Himalayan sea salt, Mel. This is content that exists online.
- [62:19]
A
I got surprised because one of the big ones that I see online right now is somebody going, they're in a grocery store, and I'm sure you've seen this, even if you're listening, they flip it over, blahbity, blahbity, blah. And then they go to Home Depot or a hardware store and they're like, and this is in I don't know what else. And I'm like, this is basic chemistry.
- [62:39]
B
Yeah. The chemo phobia is real.
- [62:41]
A
What is it called?
- [62:41]
B
Chemophobia, where they're scared of all chemicals and it's really strong and they're really good at it. They scare people a lot because what's a chemical? I even had. This is interesting. The director of the FDA was on my show and he said that he encourages people to eat organic produce. And I said, interesting, why? And he said, because traditional produce has pesticide residues on it, and organic means they don't use pesticides. And I had to kindly remind that there is organic pesticides. And he said, well, no chemical pesticides. What is no chemical pesticides? This water is a chemical. The air we're breathing is a chemical. And this chemical fear that we have needs to be validated because there's some companies who have destroyed our environments by throwing chemicals everywhere. We're dealing with these forever chemicals in our environment that we need to desperately investigate and put money into research to see how they're impacting our health. Yes, but at the same time, we don't want to be to the point where we're afraid of all chemicals.
- [63:45]
A
We.
- [63:45]
B
When they can, in fact, be beneficial to us.
- [63:47]
A
I want you to explain to the person listening what you meant when you said water is chemical because you were talking about it based on the chemical property chart that we learned about in chemistry class. But because there's so much misinformation, just you're talking about a specific definition of the word chemical that now everybody's like, wait, it's a chemical.
- [64:10]
B
Water is dihydrogen monoxide. But that sounds scary. Water sounds a lot more palatable, but in reality, just a chemical formula.
- [64:19]
A
H2O.
- [64:20]
B
Yeah, H2O. Right. It's. It's really simple. And they've even. I remember Penn and Teller did this skit where they would go to some conference and they would get people to sign a petition banning dihydrogen monoxide because they were telling people that, oh, someone can overdose on it, they can drown out their electrolytes with it. And people signed it because they were being taken advantage of and they were highlighting it, perhaps in a bit of a predatory way, to show how easy it is to trick someone into believing that chemicals are bad, when in reality, we can't live without water. You need water to sustain life.
- [64:54]
A
Dr. Mike, thank you for just cutting through the BS. There's so much of it out there. Thank you for being transparent about your opinions. And I really also love that you combine medical expertise with real humanity. You can really feel how much you care about people and how much it bothers you how this is impacting people's ability to make choices. I have so many more questions. I know as you've been listening to Dr. Mike, there are people in your mind that are popping up. I want you to take a moment and share this with them, particularly if this episode is helping you. If you're feeling seen, if you feel less alone, if you're thinking, oh, my gosh, finally somebody is saying what I've been thinking. If this is helping you, it's gonna help everybody that you care about. So send this conversation to people that you love. Alrighty. Don't go anywhere. Dr. Mike is back with so much more when we return, so stay with me. Let me tell you something. No one wakes up. Fearless confidence is built one decision at a time. You take a breath, you push yourself a little bit forward every day and then you wake up and you do it again the next day. That's how growth happens. So if you're ready to take on a challenge, the Defender is too. It's not just a vehicle, it's a statement. The Defender is built for people who push boundaries. Whether you're heading into the wild or sneaking away for the weekend, it's ready for whatever adventure you dream up. This is an icon reimagined, rugged and purpose built on the outside with modern comfort and smart design inside, durable materials, extreme testing and next level tech 3D surround cameras, clear sight views, intuitive displays and driver aids to make even tight parking feel like a breeze. And there's a Defender for every kind of explorer. The Defender 90 is a compact two door powerhouse city ready with serious grit. The Defender 110 balances off road capability with on road comfort and the Defender 130 room for eight and gear to match for the journeys that demand more. Explore the full Defender lineup at Land Rover usa. What if I told you that grocery run, the hardware store, even the vacation you just booked could all earn you a little something back? Almost feels too good to be true. But with the US Bank Smartly Visa Signature card, you can earn an unlimited 2% cash back on every purchase. It's such a simple win. Get cash back on what you're already buying. No quarterly activations, no categories to Track, just unlimited 2% cash back on every purchase. Visit usbank.com smartlycard to learn more. The creditor and issuer of this card is U.S. bank National Association. Pursuant to a license from Visa USA Inc. Some restrictions may apply. Dell PCs with Intel inside are built for the moments you plan and the ones you don't. They're for those all night study sessions, the moment you're working from a cafe and realize every outlet's taken. The times when you're deep in flow and can't be interrupted by an auto update. That's why Dell builds tech that adapts to you built with long lasting batteries so you're not scrambling for an outlet. Find technology built for the way you work@dell.com DellPCS built for you. Welcome back. It's your friend Mel Robbins. Thank you for being here. Thank you for sharing this episode with people that you care about. Today you and I are here with Dr. Mike Varshavsky, board certified family medicine doctor. And he's sharing the top health lies and the truth you and I need to hear today in order to feel better. All right, Dr. Mike, what do you do if somebody that you love goes down the misinformation rabbit hole?
- [68:41]
B
Dr. Mike Validate, validate, validate.
- [68:44]
A
Why do we validate?
- [68:46]
B
Because you have to seek to understand first. How did they get there? What are they experiencing? Perhaps you have a misread of the situation. Approaching it with that level of charitable thinking fosters healthy communication and healthy communication, the goal of any healthy communication should be truth seeking together. So perhaps you'd learn something about your loved one by having that conversation that might change your opinion. I think we all need to approach these conversations with open minds. You know, I surrounded myself with those who are vaccine hesitant on a show called Surrounded. It's like a jubilee series that they do. And it was me versus 20 people who were vaccine hesitant. One of the people said, there's nothing I could say that would change their mind. I said, why? She said, because I actually read and study. I was bewildered because to me, when you approach a truth seeking conversation with that mindset, you are making yourself more immune to facts and new information than you are to a disease. You're missing the opportunity to become immune to illness. So we have to be open minded. We have to be skeptical for everyone. Be skeptical of me. Be skeptical of your doctor. Be skeptical of new treatments. Not cynical, but skeptical. Like we should foster that trait in people a little bit more than we have over the last few years.
- [70:13]
A
The skepticism.
- [70:14]
B
The skepticism.
- [70:15]
A
Yeah. But, but I, I mean, the reason why I'm pushing back is I am shocked by the number of people that are trying to be healthy and end up going down some weird rabbit hole. And all of a sudden they distrust doctors, they're anti vaccine, they are suspicious of medical and scientific institutions. And I think the distrust is a real problem right now.
- [70:43]
B
It's a huge problem right now.
- [70:45]
A
Why do you think this is happening?
- [70:48]
B
I think the pandemic hurt people's trust of the healthcare system and the government, of how they overpromise certain things with presenting data, with perhaps too much confidence. We lost in healthcare a bit of humility, perhaps in an understandable way during a moment that is unprecedented. A new novel condition that was impacting the globe. And we were scared, but we made a mistake. We didn't communicate well. And then the second thing, we wrote off social media as a tool that's beneath us. We thought we needed to be in our Ivy League institutions and at medical conferences and research journals, but that's not where people are. And people want information faster than ever before. And when you pair the difficulty it is to see a doctor to get good quality access with the fact that we're not communicating well, with the fact that we're not present in the one place where people are searching for answers the most, that's ingredients that are bound to explode. And that's what I think is happening with the distrust.
- [71:55]
A
I also believe some of the things that I've read from experts that I respect and trust, that when you are anxious, when you are uncertain, you automatically look for ways to control. And that the anxious and uncertain and upset brain is more likely to believe conspiracy theory than a brain that is calm and rational and strategic. That's just what I think. That people reached for a lot of things that were unfounded as a basis to put blame during a situation that was unprecedented. That most people were doing the best that they could to try to navigate in real time, whether it was the school system or it was the healthcare system or your local hospital, all of
- [72:48]
B
it, to me, that's understandable. We weren't there. We weren't saying our side of the conversation accurately or honestly. What do we expect? We created a vacuum that bad actors weaponize the system, the game against us. And as a result, people have this very scary or negative perception of what health care is, of what a doctor is, that when I go and do these jubilee conversations with people who disagree with me, the first thing the participants say is, well, you're different. I'm not any different. I practice in a healthcare system with hundreds of doctors and they're all doing the best that they can and they all want the best for their patients. But when on social media, the viral pieces of content only show the fear mongering of the evil doctor that doesn't care about you versus the flip side is what they care about you. They'll give you the natural remedy that will solve everything that ails you. I mean, the list of things that they claim some products work for is just, that's a miracle potion. Because at some point it's like, wait, this cures mental health disorders, energy. This makes me stronger, faster. Like, how can it do everything with no side effects? But when the healthcare system feels cynical, like they write off natural remedies, they write off lifestyle changes because they're so cynical that no one wants to make those changes, suddenly that person looks more reasonable than that evil doctor that you have painted in your head. So we need to be there. We need to use these tools and not just villainize them and saying they're what's responsible for misinformation. Well, yeah, if we're not going to be there, they will be.
- [74:28]
A
You know, Dr. Mike, you're making a very compelling case for the first step, which is validate. And whether it is you being somebody that has gone down a rabbit hole and you think your family's crazy for still believing certain things, or you have loved ones that have gone down a rabbit hole, the first step is just validate. How did they get there? Was it fear? Was it control? Was it that they were getting dismissed by the traditional systems in medicine or whatever else? And once you validate, what's the next thing to do?
- [75:06]
B
Speak from your emotional side and don't be a boss. No one likes bosses. They want people who empathize. In fact, the worst thing you can do when you're trying to seek some sort of community eye to eye with someone is put a stone in between you. So explaining why someone is so important to you, why you care about them, the reasons for why you're making these recommendations, a lot of times are more valuable than the recommendations themselves. And people want minds to be changed in the course of one conversation, in the course of just one statement. And that is so far from reality. There are stages to grief and there are stages to behavioral changes, especially when those ideological changes become part of one's identity. So do not expect one's mind to be changed after one conversation. At best, you can take them one step in the direction of perhaps they're now in the pre contemplation stage of making a change. So it requires a lot of patience.
- [76:16]
A
Dr. Mike, there's so much misinformation about vaccines. What is your take on vaccines?
- [76:23]
B
Vaccines are one of these advancements in scientific progress that should be considered a miracle. We can protect ourselves from infectious diseases that cause death, disability, harm without ever needing to experience this disease. Because with many vaccines, yes, you can have immunity from experiencing the natural illness, but how great without having to experience any of the risks of having the natural illness becoming immune, or perhaps mitigating the risks of having that condition. And when people try and throw shade or confuse people about vaccines, they're raising issues as if we haven't addressed those issues. In healthcare research, they say statements like, when it comes to vaccines, we should leave no stone unturned. There's no doctor, there's no scientist who would disagree with that statement, and we've overturned every stone. We've looked at population studies to hundreds of thousands to make sure at the highest level of scrutiny for vaccines. And why? Because vaccines, unlike pharmaceuticals, are given to otherwise healthy people. So we need to make sure that we're approaching them with a much higher level of scrutiny and a much higher level of surveillance than we do with pharmaceuticals. Because those are given to people who need something. They're sick already. So if there's some benefit to be had, we might be okay with more side effects. When you're giving something to someone who's otherwise healthy, we're not okay with side effects. They need to be minimal to none of them for us to be accepting of that treatment. And vaccines are that.
- [78:13]
A
What are some of the most common claims you're seeing, Dr. Mike? And how do you respond when it comes to misinformation related to vaccines and scientific research?
- [78:23]
B
To be honest, there's not many clear claims that people make because a lot of times it's arbitrary. Oh, vaccines are a chemical that we introduce to children and people get scared of that because of that chemophobia that we discussed before. They try and create lies about vaccines that they're not as tested as pharmaceuticals. Lie. It's the exact opposite. The first vaccine, smallpox, 1700s. We've been doing this for centuries, protecting people in order to prevent them getting illness. In fact, some of the community that is anti vaccine a lot of times criticizes our healthcare system for being too reactive and not proactive, not preventing illness. And I agree we do need to do a better job there. But vaccines are an example of prevention. They talk about pharmaceutical companies making money off these medications. Well, when you get a vaccine, you don't need treatments because you won't get sick with those illnesses.
- [79:31]
A
Is.
- [79:32]
B
And the scariest and most sad part is the victims of this are going to be kids. I have no doubt in my mind that this year children will die unnecessarily from vaccine preventable illnesses like measles. It's a guarantee. And why those children need to die. I don't have an answer for these people who are proponents of anti vaccine rhetoric. They used to say that it was thimerosal, a mercury component of vaccines, that was driving the autism epidemic. Why autism rates were going up. That was a claim they made. We've eliminated thimerosal in childhood vaccines. Autism is still going up. All their claims that they made are untrue. But now they move the goalposts to another thing, another thing.
- [80:23]
A
Where do you fall on this Dr. Mike, when it comes to all of the claims all over the Internet and autism and vaccines that prevent children from
- [80:34]
B
dying of preventable diseases, well, we need to be honest. Autism rates are going up. We don't have a clear answer. This is where we had our red flag and we need to not waive it. When the medical community says we don't know, we need to understand that we're seeking the answers. But Mel, the way we get answers in science is not by just saying, oh, the expert said this so we will agree with them. It's by testing different theories, constantly being self critical, constantly putting forth a hypothesis and ruthlessly testing it over and over again, trying to disprove our own theories. But in this day and age of social media, people want to put out a theory and find evidence to support their theory, which is not how good science is done. Good science tries to put out theories and adequately challenge them over and over again. And the more you fail in challenging your own theory, that's when you usually have a good theory and we're losing sight of that.
- [81:32]
A
As a medical doctor in clinical practice and seeing the impact that it has on the day to day life of your patients, how does this misinformation show up in your daily clinical practice? Just seeing folks as a family medical
- [81:48]
B
doctor, patients are turning down vaccines for their children. They're turning down the hepatitis B vaccine. And what's so wild to me is it's not like the research isn't there
- [82:00]
A
and we have the health outcomes to prove that the recommendation works universally.
- [82:05]
B
Right.
- [82:05]
A
And yes, there are isolated risks.
- [82:08]
B
Correct.
- [82:09]
A
I want to run through some of the things that I know I'm seeing. I'm sure as you're listening or you're watching on YouTube, you have seen or heard about and I would love Dr. Mike to have you give us like your medical take. So many parents are concerned about vaping. One of our kids recently admitted that we had no idea that there was a year or two long period in their life where they would literally wake up, reach for the vape, suck it in, had it in their pocket. All I had no idea, absolutely no idea. Now what I'm seeing, I see those disgusting pouches in everybody's mouth now and people pretending as if it has no real impact on anything, which I think is the bigger issue.
- [82:51]
B
Let's get this out here. Boom. Pouches.
- [82:55]
A
Yep.
- [82:56]
B
Vapes. Smoking.
- [82:58]
A
So Dr. Mike has three big mason jars. One is labeled smoke, the other is labeled vape and the other is labeled pouch. So these are the delivery mechanisms for the nicotine.
- [83:09]
B
Correct. And here we have some good old poker chips.
- [83:13]
A
Okay.
- [83:13]
B
That allows us to show the barriers one faces from a societal perspective or personal perspective into doing each one of these habits. Smoking, the most problematic behavior, the most cases of copd, the most cases of cancer come from smoking. But society frowns upon smoking, so it makes it harder to smoke. Can't smoke indoors in most places. Got to put a chip in there. Smoking stinks. Makes your clothes stink. People don't like it. Societal cost. Children of smokers, even when they don't smoke around, their children have higher allergy rates. So people who smoke want to not hurt their children. Cost smoking really expensive. Taxed up the wazoo in most states. Costs a lot of money. Well, there's a lot of things to smoking. Let's move on to vapes.
- [84:12]
A
Well, also, like, there's the inconvenience. You gotta go outside. Well, yeah, your partner may hate it. You can't stay in the house. Like, just. I can see all the barriers that you're talking about.
- [84:23]
B
So it makes it a little bit also harder to hide.
- [84:26]
A
Very hard. Because you smell like it.
- [84:28]
B
You smell like it. People know you're smoking.
- [84:30]
A
Very visible in your car, on your clothes.
- [84:32]
B
Fire alarms are going off.
- [84:33]
A
Well, God, what are you smoking?
- [84:35]
B
Well, but the smoke is there, so there is some carbon monoxide. So then you have vapes. They don't smell that bad. They're easy to hide. They are expensive. So let's throw one in there. Can kids hide them well?
- [84:51]
A
Yeah. Case in point.
- [84:53]
B
Do they need to make a big thing in order to use them? Maybe not as bad as smoking, but they still need to maybe get out of the classroom and go to the bathroom. But they can do it in the bathroom.
- [85:04]
A
I see a lot of people thinking they're very sneaky. They do one of these, like, you've seen this. They pull the hand up like they're about to, and then quickly down.
- [85:11]
B
And there are some limitations to where you can vape. So let's give it another three. So we have five to three. Okay, now we get to the pouch. Does anyone know you really have the pouch hidden in your cheek? Not really. There's no scent. You're not bothering anyone. There's no stigma attached to it. And all of a sudden, you have a very accessible, very easy, frictionless experience to get nicotine for teens in a way where parents don't know they could be doing it anytime, anywhere. And therefore, to me, even though the pouch is not as problematic for health as smoking, because there's not a lot of chips in here. It can be more problematic.
- [85:57]
A
What do you do if you're a parent? Like, what do you say to somebody, Dr. Mike, who is addicted to vaping or pouches or nicotine, and you don't know what to do?
- [86:10]
B
First, we have to do some education to explain why nicotine is harmful for the teenage brain.
- [86:15]
A
Why is nicotine harmful for the teenage brain?
- [86:17]
B
The teenage brain is still very much in a neuroplastic state, which means it's still developing, it's still learning to form new connections, it's trimming old connections. It's very adaptable. What happens when you allow your brain to be exposed to nicotine as a teenager? Your attention span changes, your reaction time changes, your tolerance builds up much quicker to nicotine than if you're an adult. Your dependence, which means the likelihood that you'll experience withdrawal happens faster as a child, As a teenager. So all of these things that are important to the developing mind, decision making, impulse control, attention, those will be impacted. If your child's addicted to nicotine. That is not to fear monger. That is simply to tell the truth. And the way that we counsel our patients about this is first we need to screen a lot of doctors, rightfully so ask patients, even teenagers, if they smoke. But we forget to ask the question, do you vape or do you use other nicotine products? So first we have to identify the problem. Then we have to understand that there is in fact a problem and the child is addicted, the teenager is addicted. Then we have to create a strategy, a mitigation strategy. How do we get them off without feeling the terrible impacts of withdrawal? Because nicotine withdrawal is real. It comes in waves. It's very uncomfortable. And it's why so many get addicted long term to nicotine and a lot of times end up moving up this pathway instead of as how we'd like it to be down this pathway. So the goal is, if I have a smoker, it would be nice to get them to vape and then from vaping, get them to a pouch, then perhaps to a patch, and then off nicotine product altogether. But if it's happening in the other direction, especially with teens, we can be creating new vape users because they started with the pouch. And a lot of these vapes, a lot of these pouches, have such a potent dose of nicotine that people on their first use get nauseous from them because it's that impactful.
- [88:25]
A
In the teens and young adults in my life, I have heard them express this sense of Wanting to not be using it, but not feeling as though they can stop using it.
- [88:41]
B
That is part of the addiction definition.
- [88:45]
A
And what do you think the first step is after you've done the screening, but as a parent, to open up the door to this conversation with your kid. If you keep throwing out the vape pens and you keep having the conversation and the car stinks now, even though it smells like cherry or whatever flavor,
- [89:06]
B
I think you need to loop in someone from the healthcare community. This isn't like getting off of soda. It's difficult. There's withdrawal symptoms to manage, and there are approaches to manage these situations. Whether it's wearing a patch and then using gum as a breakthrough for those cravings when they do happen, an education from nicotine cessation program about how to handle those withdrawal symptoms, what to expect. Because a lot of times, as I said, they come in waves. So sometimes, if you can, you'll get the wave. People say, well, what if I don't get. You'll get the wave. But if you can withstand the wave, perhaps you can overcome that wave. And each time someone tries to quit, nicotine products can be an operand. They fail. That could be an opportunity for learning. What are those triggers that led you to fail that perhaps in the future you can address and be more successful?
- [90:05]
A
What really strikes me in having this in depth conversation with you is how reasonable you are that you are really trying to discern where people are coming from and then bring us back to the facts. The person who's listening really were to just try to tune out the noise and focus on the kind of core pillars that matter to your overall health. What are those things?
- [90:36]
B
None of them are novel. Sleep, eat, moderation, healthy foods, colorful foods. That's going to be different for every person, depending on genetics, choices, culture, medical conditions, family history, exercise. Now, some people say, oh, this exercise is better than this exercise. If you're exercising, I'm happy, given the state of the United States right now, how sedentary we all are, how much we're spending time in front of screens, any exercise to me is a win. Now, if someone's doing something that's potentially raising the risk of injury, which will stop them from being consistent, I'll raise that flag. Or if there's a piece of exercise they could be doing, I'm thinking about women and resistance training and how beneficial it is to bone health, I'll recommend it. But if they want to just walk with weights, I'm for it. They're getting their cardiovascular exercise in. They're getting their endorphins from that, that's important. Human connection, utmost importance. In as digitally connected world we live in, the fact that we're more lonely than ever is confusing, but it's also extremely problematic to the quality of our lives, to our mental health. So finding ways to connect in person is more important now than ever and takes more effort now than ever.
- [91:55]
A
Dr. Mike, what are your parting words?
- [91:59]
B
Some healthcare is better than none. More healthcare is not better than some. But find a primary care doctor who can guide you on what sum is appropriate for you.
- [92:12]
A
You know, if the person who's listening does just that, that you re engage with your primary care doctor, you re engage with the pediatrician, that you really get back into a dialogue and you think not about sick care, but truly about your healthcare. And working together with that medical expert, you're going to be in much better shape because you're not going to be alone in the sea of misinformation that we currently live in.
- [92:45]
B
I can't promise that they'll be in better shape, but what I can promise is they will be more in control of what shape they choose to be in. And ultimately life is about making choices based on what's important to you. And what a lot of these voices that are popular on social media these days are doing is subliminally they're taking away your control, they're hijacking your control over your health, your relationship with your doctor. And if you want that control back, invest in a good primary care doctor. Get individualized care for what's right for you. Learn about yourself, learn about science, and ultimately have not just a long life, but a life that's worth living for you, whatever that means for you.
- [93:29]
A
Dr. Mike, I cannot thank you enough for coming to Boston for spending so much time with us, and more importantly, for doing the work that you're doing not only in the community based family medicine practice, but the way in which you're translating all of this information, you are just unapologetically going after the misinformation, the nonsense, and helping us make sense of a very confusing and overwhelming moment. And I just, on behalf of myself, this team, the person listening, and everybody that you inspire every day, thank you.
- [94:07]
B
Thank you for the opportunity to be able to reach people with this message. Because these days it's harder than ever in the attention economy where we live. So it's any opportunity to allow people to see that there's so much humility behind healthcare. And when we are fact checking misinformation, what we're really highlighting is how much we don't know as opposed to what we do know, and that there's so much more to be discovered, which is why I'm hoping that we stop canceling clinical trials that the NIH is funding, and we start putting funds back into researching, back into making innovations so that our country can be the powerhouse that allows our loved one to live 10 years, 20 years longer in a more meaningful way.
- [94:50]
A
And isn't that what we all want, Dr. Mike? So thank you for helping us sort through the noise so we can make better decisions for ourselves and the people that we love. And thank you for making the decision to listen to this or to watch this on YouTube. There's no doubt in my mind that everything that Dr. Mike shared with you can change your life or the life of your loved ones for the better. So I just deeply appreciate you being here, and I'm so excited for all the positive change that can come from this one episode and you sharing it with people that you care about. And in case no one else tells you today, as your friend, I wanted to be sure to tell you that I love you and I believe in you, and I believe in your ability to create a better life. And one of the things that will make your life better is when you start prioritizing your health, you start taking better care of yourself. And Dr. Mike today gave you so many ways that you can do that. I trust, truly hope you will follow his expertise and put his advice into action. All righty. I will be waiting for you in the very next episode. I'll welcome you in the moment you hit play.
- [95:58]
B
Yep. Do not just.
- [95:59]
A
He's a professional.
- [96:03]
B
No, no, it's good. Sometimes I've forgotten. And then it rings mid episode, like,
- [96:08]
A
damn it, you're killing it.
- [96:10]
B
Cool.
- [96:10]
A
We were doing the rehearsal for the tours yesterday, and we were talking about, like, your life changing in five years. And I'm like, yeah, I'm going to be 63 that year. That's a big goddamn number.
- [96:22]
B
Well, if you're healthy, you're probably enjoying it just as much as you did when you were 43.
- [96:25]
A
Actually, more. You are so good. So good. Oh, and one more thing. And no, this is not a blooper. This is the legal language. You know, what the lawyers write and what I need to read to you. This podcast is presented solely for educational and entertainment purposes. I'm just your friend. I am not a licensed therapist, and this podcast is not intended as a substitute for the advice of a physician, professional coach, psychotherapist, or other qualified professional. Got it? Good. I'll see you in the next episode.
- [97:09]
B
SiriusXM podcasts.
- [97:16]
A
We gather here tonight to bring women back to their rightful place. The Testaments a new Hulu Original series from the executive producer producers of the Handmaid's Tale.
- [97:26]
B
It's easier to accept a story than believe that the people around you are monsters.
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A
The battle isn't over.
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B
There comes a time when you have
- [97:33]
A
to take action, when you have to
- [97:35]
B
choose your own destiny.
- [97:39]
A
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