HoldsUp

Podcasts are mostly true and slightly bent. At scale that is the same as false. We measure the bend, claim by claim. Not medical advice.

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Podcasts are full of health claims. Some hold up. Some don't.

We check them against published research: every verdict cites the study (PMID), the exact quote, and the moment it was said.

Supported. Overstated. Contradicted. With receipts.

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@Metabolic_Mind Fair question. We only have the abstract too: a children's epilepsy KD in 2003, with the usual supplements, ratio not stated. Two corrections to our line: the kids were supplemented, and only 1 of 40 had cardiomyopathy; the other 8 with low selenium had normal hearts.

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Read it.🤡 It calls DHT a rescue response.
38 men born with a broken DHT enzyme: testosterone above normal, DHT near zero, no receding hairline. Lower DHT with finasteride, hair grows back.
The protocol (progesterone, T3, carrot salad): zero trials on PubMed.

PMIDs 835597, 9777765

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@Metabolic_Mind Fair on the design: cohorts only, and the effect is small. Red meat to nuts is 7% lower mortality, graded moderate; the heart disease link is graded low. The low-carb subgroup isn't in the data.

PMID 37968628

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The post is headed "The DHT Lie", so someone is denying it. On side effects, the trials back you: across 15 placebo-controlled trials (4,495 men), finasteride carried 1.66 times the risk of sexual dysfunction. Persistent cases are documented; reviews still debate whether the drug causes them.

PMIDs 30206635, 39953145

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@BigolWave Doesn't hold up.

Estrogen dampens chronic inflammation rather than driving it, which is why inflammatory markers rise when levels drop.

A review, no new data. PMID 34371873

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@SamaHoole True, with a catch.

Thyroid iodine uptake was blocked at 194 μmol of goitrin but not at 77; broccoli and common kale carry under 10 μmol per 100 g serving and are rated minimal risk.

Literature review. PMID 26946249

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@SamaHoole True, with a catch.

The 96% comes from a study of 9,250 Ontario fillets, and it counts mild or moderate white striping; severe woody breast was 11.8%.

Observational study. PMID 35427383

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@maxlugavere Holds up.

The body offsets exercise by dropping baseline burn, erasing an average 28% of the calories spent.

Observational study, 1,754 people. PMID 34453886

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@KenDBerryMD Holds up in humans.

In 6,538 adults, insulin sensitivity fell steeply in the 5 years before diabetes was diagnosed, while fasting glucose only climbed sharply in the last 3.

Observational study, 6,538 people. PMID 19515410

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@bryan_johnson True, with a catch.

Organs decayed on distinct timelines, but this analyzed post-mortem tissue rather than living people over time.

Observational study, 970 donors. PMID 42675190

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@BigolWave The DHT line doesn't hold up.

DHT is the main androgen behind pattern hair loss; blocking it is how finasteride and dutasteride work.

Review of evidence. PMID 32279398

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@paulsaladinomd Doesn't hold up.

In US outbreak data, unpasteurized dairy caused 840 times more illnesses and 45 times more hospitalizations than pasteurized. The farm-milk link to less childhood asthma is observational.

PMIDs 28518026, 35754122

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Full fact-check: https://t.co/KnDt5ALeb4

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Across 99 randomized trials, intermittent fasting and ordinary calorie cutting produced roughly the same weight loss.

6,582 adults, comparing alternate day fasting, time-restricted eating and whole day fasting against continuous calorie restriction and against eating freely.

Every structured approach beat eating freely. Only alternate day fasting beat continuous restriction, by 1.29 kg. It also edged out time-restricted eating by 1.69 kg and whole day fasting by 1.05 kg. On HbA1c and HDL cholesterol no diet separated from another.

The catch is time. In the 17 trials running 24 weeks or longer, the active diets still beat eating freely, but no longer beat each other.

BMJ, 2025. PMID 40533200

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@LucasPremat @timpjohansson Not quite. A trial average is real physiology measured in real people; it just can't show who responds differently.
We found no trial of eating carbs seasonally, so the evidence can't say it's better or worse.

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@DrMaliakkal @timpjohansson That table is the menu presented, not what people ate:
meals were ad libitum, with 3,875 kcal offered a day.
Measured intake on the keto arm was 261.68 kcal/day from carbs (Table 2 of the follow-up on 18 participants), about 65 g.

PMID 40606290

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@WilliamWallace Holds up.

Across 17 trials in adults with obesity, short activity breaks from sitting lowered the post-meal glucose rise; breaks of 3 minutes or less hinted at larger effects.

Pooled analysis of several trials. PMID 41356824

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@ScienceIsNew True, with a catch.

Very hot vs warm drinks tripled the risk of squamous cell oesophageal cancer, but showed no link to adenocarcinoma, the more common type in these UK cohorts.

Observational study. PMID 42710538

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@MEATritionCom @moira_newiss @SBakerMD True, with a catch.

It's one case. The carnivore literature so far is nine small human studies without control groups.

Review, no new data. PMID 41599961