Deborah Cohen: The Wellness-Industrial Complex
About this episode
Deborah Cohen discusses the wellness-industrial complex and its impact on health anxiety and trust in medical evidence.
Deb Cohen is an award winning investigative journalist and correspondent who trained as a physician and has worked with the BBC and BMJ. She just published BAD INFLUENCE, a book which takes us deep into the wellness-industrial complex—the confluence of the supplement, testing, tech, and pharma industries, and how they sell health anxiety to healthy people. Here are some of the points we discussed: —The big market in healthy, well people. Tests, wearables, imaging, supplements, etc —Algorithms feed the health anxiety in an amplifying, vicious loop on the social media platforms. When the algorithm knows you better than you. —The special qualities of influencers, likable, relatable, vulnerable, appearance as friends, certainty, cultivating parasocial relationships. “I understand you, I see you, I hear you.” Often with financial conflicts of interest. Plus hidden financial benefits. —The inverted pyramid of evidence and displacement of trust. Anecdotes believed and accepted as best evidence instead of rigorous randomized trials. A big flip, doctors losing trust to influencers and the sponsors of influencers. —The Nocebo effect of harm through expectations —The epidemic of neurologic…
More episodes of Ground Truths
- Two Landmark Studies Challenge Dogma About our Brain Immune Cells and Aging
- Sarah Urbut: Predicting Your Health Arc
Explore listener stats, chart rankings, contacts and more on the Ground Truths podcast page.