The world's top life coach has a new book, Life Force. Seemingly bulletproof to criticism due to connections in high places (and a litigious legal team), Tony Robbins's new book is a perfect example of the conspiritualist grift: mix science with sciencey sentiment and package it in a shiny revolutionary marketing package that promises much and delivers little more than confusion. Derek reviews. Show NotesA single blood test claims to detect dozens of cancers. Skeptics wouldn’t bet your life on it.The 700-calorie breakfast you should eat if you want to live forever, according to a futurist who spends $1 million a year on pills and eating rightWhat supplements does Ray Kurzweil take and why?Instagram: Low testosterone is one of the most underdiagnosed conditions in American menEpigenetics: It doesn't mean what quacks think it means Siddhartha Mukherjee: The Gene Detox: What “They” Don’t Want You To Know
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Thank you.
This is a supplement I want to look at a little bit more closely.
Now, first off, before we get to the health claims, I want to think about where Robbins is sourcing these ingredients from.
Because remember, in the book, he talks about natural supplements and how important they are.
And he even goes so far to say that if it's natural, should you be worried about it?
Which is kind of fascinating because in one of the podcasts, he talks about how cyanide will kill you quickly.
And cyanide's natural.
So again, you get this juggling act of like, I'm going to say these things, but I'm going to contradict myself later.
I've referenced this often over the years on the podcast, but Paracelsus says that, you know, what harms in large amounts can cure in small amounts.
That's the basis of inoculation or vaccination.
Pointing to natural supplementation, here are two of the ingredients in methylation that are also in some of the other supplements.
One is beta-power betaine anhydrous.
And it comes with an interesting trademark.
Oh, that's because it's owned by DuPont, the chemical manufacturer, which merged with Dow Chemical in 2017.
Now, as I said, a number of Life Force products contain this proprietary DuPont blend.
And I just find it very interesting that you're hearing someone talk about the benefits of natural.
And in 2019, DuPont ranked number one in the Toxic 100 Water Polluters Index.
And the company has consistently been fined on their environmental record.
In fact, in 2017 in West Virginia, The company had to pay out over $670 million to families that were affected by their unregulated toxic chemicals.
But isn't that the grift though?
Create toxic chemistry while also producing the detoxification materials you'll need once the environment is polluted.
I'm honestly not surprised that DuPont would want to affect your biology at every stage, but the fact that Robbins chose to source that ingredient from them kind of lets you remember that this is really about business and not health.
Now, I don't know how this particular ingredient ended up in the bottles.
But I do find that a little suspect.
And then there's another trademark substance in this blend for methylation.
It's called opatac glutathione.
Which, okay, at the very least it's owned by a small organic farmer in, oh no wait, it's owned by Mitsubishi.
Yeah, that's the company that in 2016 was involved in a fuel economy scandal.
Now the company admitted that it had been given the wrong information on fuel consumption from 2002 onwards, and they used inaccurate testing methods while selling one of their supposed fuel-efficient cars.
Leaving the supplement grift aside, I really have to wonder why Robbins is partnering with conglomerates that have terrible environmental track records.
To be fair, both companies have come out over the past year and announced that they're cleaning up their acts.
Which is what a company does after they get caught, so you know.
But let's move on to the grift itself.
What is methylation?
It's a process accomplished by enzymes, which is a big component of Robbins' book overall.
Now, methylation can modify heavy metals, can regulate gene expression, RNA processing, and protein function, and it has been recognized as a key process underlying epigenetics.
which is the study of heritable phenotype changes that do not involve alterations in the DNA sequence.
Now, I'm going to link to some more information on this.
I don't want to get too bogged down in the science, but Galaxy Brain Joe Dispenza talks a lot about epigenetics, and it's usually not how it's associated in clinical medicine, where epigenetics is actually being used to study cancer research and diabetes, for example, two fields.
I just want to note that epigenetics is also a term used in developmental psychology, but in both Dispenza's case and here in Robbins' case, that's not how they're actually using it.
And I'm just flagging Dispenza because we're doing a full episode on him soon, and we'll be looking at some of his claims.
To gain some insight into how these conspiritualist influencers are using the term epigenetics, let's look at Dave Gorski's 2013 article, which is called Epigenetics.
It doesn't mean what quacks think it means.
Now, he discusses Joseph Mercola and how he uses the term, which very much lines up with how Dispenza uses it.
One idea is the notion that your thoughts can cure cancer.
Both men have thought of that.
Not Robbins, though, to be clear, although Robbins does have some of the thought controls your health vibe to him as well.
Gorski offers a succinct but technical definition.
So again, it's linked to in the show notes.
But he also talks about how the term has become a catch-all for a wide range of processes, including gene regulation, physiological adaptation, and disease responses, which is in large part how conspiritualists exploit the term and attempt to mold it into their own brand.
Since it's such a wide field, they're able to say, oh, let's just take a part of it and then line it up with whatever is selling right now.
Gorski concludes his definition by writing, Suffice to say that epigenetic modifications can be viewed as mechanisms that can ensure accurate transmission of chromatone states and gene expression profiles over generations.
We now recognize many epigenetic processes and mechanisms that can regulate the expression of genes, and their number seems to grow every year.
It's become a hideously complex field.
Now, I find it interesting that the first cohort of people to exploit the term epigenetics was actually creation theorists, and they falsely stated that epigenetics proved Darwin wrong, even though Darwin had no idea what DNA was.
Um, Now, from there, naturopaths and self-professed healers jumped onto the bandwagon in their the-secret-style-thoughts-cure-everything nonsense.
So they're basically latching on to the latest science-y buzzword to sell their courses and books and supplements, whatever else they're selling.
Gorski concludes by writing that, "...understanding epigenetics is likely to help us understand certain long-term chronic diseases, but it is not, as you will hear from complementary alternative medicine advocates, some sort of magical panacea that will overcome our genetic predispositions." That's really important.
Nor will it be likely to allow us to pass the health benefits of your healthy lifestyle to your children through epigenomes reprogramming your DNA, as is frequently claimed, as much as one might want to do that.
Now this goes back to what the Nazis were experimenting with as well, this idea that you can change DNA through certain forms of reprogramming.