Mental Health Facts or Clickbait? with Andy & Aaron of Health Hackd | Ep. 50 (Audio Only)

Welcome to my podcast. I'm Dr. Nicole Cain, a naturopathic doctor with a master's in clinical psychology and a former anxiety sufferer turned anxiety freedom rebel. Everybody, thank you so much for being here today. Welcome to the get yout Life Back podcast. Today I am accompanied by the Health Hacked extraordinaires, who are also brothers, Aaron and Andy. And today we are going to talk about how you can start the process of demystifying data that you're reading. And so I want to read to you just a little bit from the bio that I have for Andy and Erin. And before I do that, I just want to say I'm so glad you're here. This is going to be an awesome interview. So thank you guys for being here.

Yeah, thank you. Excited to be here.

Let me just brag on you a little bit. So Andy and Aaron are brothers, and they started their careers as certified public accountants for a global accounting firm before discovering their passion for health. And after personally experiencing the shortfalls of the current healthcare system and discovering the power of preventative care, Andy and Erin decided to use their investigative expertise as financial statement auditors to apply those skills to health news. And before we jump into the interview, I want to make sure that if you're able to get on your mobile device or your computer is to write down their information because you're going to want to save it for later. You can find them on Instagram @healthhacked, and that's spelled health. And then Hacked is H, A, C, K, D. And in there, you're going to see a bunch of resources in their bio. And I highly recommend checking out their weekly health newsletter. It's got a ton of great information that you're not going to want to miss. And so, without further ado, let's dive into the interview. So thank you again for being here, guys.

Yeah, thank you so much.

Thanks for that introduction as well.

Yeah, the pleasure. We were just talking before we started the recording today about how we met, and I remember seeing your information for the first time on the social media wall of Ryan McGuire of the Pursuit of Happiness.

Yeah, I think he mentioned you and we connected and really liked the content that you were putting out on mental health and all that. And, yeah, I think it makes for a good connection.

It's awesome because I feel like there's this slippery slide between good data and just data that is put out there. Having the opportunity to straddle that integrative line where I come from, Western medicine, and I did breast cancer research at Baylor College of medicine. But then as a naturopathic physician, I've had this opportunity to kind of almost see both ends of the spectrum. And I really admire and respect your approach where you're looking at integrative treatments, you're looking at integrative claims, but you're really putting the accountability bar up higher to make sure that what's being said is actually reflective of reality. And I'm sort of curious, how did you get here?

Yeah, it's interesting. So both Aaron and I kind of had our own path to this whole health and wellness integrative health journey. Each kind of had our own path that converged at the same time. So I'll kind of give a little bit about how I got there. Then Aaron can talk about his side of things. So it started about four years ago when my wife was having some vision issues. It was just starting to get blurry in one eye, and she didn't think much of it and then started to get worse to the point where half her vision was just dark black in one eye. She couldn't see out of half her eye. That was scary. We went to the eye doctor and he ruled out detached retina and all this stuff, all the eye stuff on the surface level. So he said, you know, it may be neurological. So that was scary. Got an mri, and at that point she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, which is an autoimmune condition. And so that was a really scary time. We weren't sure, like, how to treat it, what's the best medication. So we cycled through a few different medications, and we wanted to see if there's anything else we could do, like, could we improve nutrition, exercise, stress, like, are these things going to help prevent the progression of it? And doctors told us, no, really, your only option is medication. And I have nothing against the medication, but she took the medication and it really caused a lot of fatigue. She just couldn't do anything. And so I found this doctor, Dr. Terry Walls, who herself, she has Ms. Herself, and she kind of developed this nutrition protocol, exercise, stress management, all these things to help manage the progression and kind of like rebuild the brain in a healthy way. And so we started implementing that. And within a month of doing the diet, the exercise, all that stuff, she felt like a new person. Fatigue was gone. She had all this energy back. She said, I feel better now than I did before I was even diagnosed with Ms. And so that just like completely opened my eyes to the power of some of these lifestyle practices, like how life changing they are. And she's been doing that for a couple years, have had. The past couple years, have had clean MRIs. The Ms. Does not seem to be progressing at this moment. I know that can change at any point, but at that point I just started doing a ton of reading, reading books, reading research from legit sources like peer reviewed journals, things like that, and just trying to educate myself on how nutrition, exercise, mental health, stress management, all those things can impact how we feel and how long we live. And I want to see other people have that same realization. We've talked about it on our podcast before, but 6 in 10 adults have at least one chronic disease, and 4 in 10 adults have two or more chronic diseases. And it's just sad to see some of those people like, I know I have friends and family that are suffering from chronic illness and people are living longer, but the quality of life is getting worse. And I hate to see that when there are things that we can do. I know some conditions are not preventable, but there are things that we can do to improve our quality of life. And so that's kind of what led me to, to this point in my health and wellness journey.

It's kind of like necessity begats evolution or kind of looking at other options. And so it sounds like you were empowered with this wisdom and knowledge to a degree, and then at some point it became limiting. And what I think is also profound that you're describing is the experience of a doctor putting a period at the end of the sentence. And I really resonate with this because growing up, I witnessed health issues in my family. And oftentimes the response was, I trust my doctor. And I think it's important to trust your doctor and to also make sure that you don't put a period at the end of what your doctor says, because each person may have their own limitations or their own blind spots. And so you begin the process, this journey of looking for more information and looking for data. And that's part of what has helped this transformation for her.

Yeah, I know. I think that's great. I think it's all about. And you talk about it, taking health back into your own hands. You know, like, we do have some, you know, control we do have. So we're not helpless. That was one thing that we encountered. You know, my wife and I, when we were going through this, we felt helpless. Like we just wanted someone to tell us what to do. And it came to us just.

Having.

To do some of our own research, which is frustrating and it's time consuming. But the payoff was, well, Worth it.

Yeah. I think people really just want an easy answer. Now we're so overwhelmed with information that people are like, okay, what's just the easiest way to get an answer? And for health, it's like, go to your doctor and do whatever they say. More often than not, they. They will give you a better answer than. Than, you know. They're well trained in the profession, but they don't know all the nuances of your own life. Like, there's a lot of things in your history, whether that's physical or mental, that. That you just can't share all of that with your doctor. So it is important to do your own research, especially with now how much access to information we have. Like, we have the tools to really discover whatever you need to discover just through using the Internet. Now, it does take some work. You have to weed out the good information from the bad. That. That's a challenge on its own. But I think we're at, you know, a time in life where we can get the opinion of a professional, like, that's. That's necessary. But in addition to that, pair that with outside information and kind of converge those together. And maybe that's meeting somewhere in the middle on, on the actions that you actually take.

And so I'm curious, Aaron, to hear a little bit about your story. So Andy's going through this journey with his wife. And then it sounds like what you described in the beginning is you guys kind of converged in creating this amazing enterprise. And so I'm sort of curious if you could share how you got here.

Yeah. So I think it goes back to the early start of our career. Like you mentioned in our bio, we're both certified public accountants. So we studied accounting in college, and then we went. Went on to work for one of the big four accounting firms. And if you don't know much about, I guess, the history of those like it, you. You are working. It's a grind. Like working there is a grind. Especially your first few years, you get to periods where you're working, you know, 80 to 90 to 100 hours a week, and that takes a toll on you, both physically and mentally. And something I was experiencing kind of through that period and leading up to it was I was having just really bad stomach pains and digestive issues, and I couldn't figure it out. I tried to kind of do my own thing at first, and then I went to a point where I just. I went to a doctor and try to get some guidance there. And that's a very complex issue to get Any type of, you know, gastrointestinal issue solved. I mean, it can be a. A thousand different things. I didn't end up going to a specialist. I stayed just with a primary care doctor. And I went two different times and was basically given medication both times to try to solve the issue. And unfortunately for me, that didn't. That didn't solve it. There was some underlying issue that was still present and I didn't go on to seeing a specialist. I wanted to kind of still wait it out a little bit. And at this time, I was transitioning actually out of that career of being a CPA or of working at a big four accounting firm. So I was there for two years. And those two years were very hard on me, like, physically and mentally. Like I mentioned, my sleep was very poor. My diet was really bad. I wasn't exercising as much as I had used to. That used to be a big part of my. All throughout college I was exercising and I kind of put that on hold. My personal relationships were not great, My mental health was not great. And all this was just in a really bad spot. And during this time, I moved on from that job. I decided I want a more steady job to where it is not affecting my physical health. So after about three months of transitioning out of that job, I started doing these things. I started really focusing on the importance of getting seven to nine hours of sleep, of eating whole foods, exercising consistently, and really focusing on just on de stressing and remaining in a good headspace because that was not at all what I had experienced over the past two years. And over the course of that time, the stomach issues just slowly started to fade away and to a point where I am nearly back to like, no issues at all. Like, occasionally I'll have an upset stomach, but for the most part it's completely gone. And I should mention this before, I did get tested of like all types of. I got my blood tested and I got like any type of allergens tested as well, and those came back negative. So it wasn't. It wasn't something I was eating. So it was these lifestyle changes of sleep, of getting rid of stress, of improving my relationships, of working out, doing those things consistently over just three months had an impact on my physical health. So I can't pinpoint to exactly what it was. I think it was a mix of all of those things. I don't know what the underlying issue was in the first place either. But that goes to say that lifestyle choices and lifestyle habits do have a really significant impact on. On Your on your physical and mental health. And just like pinpointing the mental health there, those two years of working in that job were very, very challenging mentally. So getting out of that, it just completely shifted, I guess shifted and improved the anxiety and it was just a bad, a bad headspace. And it's interesting to see how, how much that side of like the mental health side does impact your physical health as well. So kind of a long winded story there. But just the end result was lifestyle changes like Andy story as well can impact your, your health very significantly.

I think that's a really empowering reminder too for my listeners who feel like they're at the end of their rope that feel completely helpless that their doctors like, you're going to have to take these medications forever and if they don't work, then that's tough luck. It's as good as it gets. And both of you have a similar story where getting information, doing the research, reading the data and then making changes. And both of you tell the story about changing lifestyle nutrition and then you specifically emphasize too Erin, the importance of stress and how the stress is impacting the mind body link that the proof is in the pudding. It's what you see. And yet at the same time, there are research articles that come out that say it doesn't matter. In fact, I remember reading a study about how vitamin E doesn't work. And so it was all over. My dad actually thinks he's a doctorate in Google so he'll send me these articles. Oh, Nicole, why are you trying to get us to take vitamin E? Doesn't work with this. And so then if you read deeper into the research, it's like, okay, so it's a chemical derivative of vitamin E at a subclinical dose for a short amount of time in like an N of 6.

Right.

And yet it's being disseminated all over the place and political agendas are being founded on these research articles. And so this is where health hact can really make a profound impact. And so I'm kind of curious about the conversation that happened between you two and how Health Hack was born.

Yeah, so I think you had mentioned it in the intro, but Health Hacked is just a weekly newsletter that sort of compiles all the latest research on nutrition fitness. We have like a mindmental health section. Sometimes we'll do sleep or other lifestyle things. A lot of people, there's so much information out there. Like when you go to Apple News or Google News or just browsing social media, it's so hard to know what to believe and what actually has evidence behind it. And there's a lot of conflicting information. And when people see conflicting information, they kind of freeze. They don't know what to do. Wait, actually this was just a, a study that will, I think we're including in our next issue of Health Act. But basically if people see conflicting information, they're less likely to help take health recommendations moving forward. And so you have all this information out there. People don't know what to believe. And so what we wanted to do, and we recognize this all the time because like when we were, it started as a podcast and then we made the newsletter, we were seeing all this information and it took a lot of time to actually like dig down into, you know, the evidence like you were saying, like sometimes you actually have to dig into the studies and see. Well, even the conclusion they're making or the conclusion in this article or social media post is making does not agree with like the study or it's just a poor quality study. So we thought, how can we. But nobody's going to want to do all the research that is required to get to that point. Understandably. A lot of people don't have the energy and time, especially for just a normal person who isn't interested in health. Like it's not a hobby to them. So we thought, how can we take all this information out there, filter out the garbage and just take actually high quality research and put it in a way that people will actually read. And like normal people that are browsing and getting their most of their information from social media and news outlets, how can we make them want to read this? So basically what we do is we take latest research, again, it's all from high quality studies and we kind of boil it down into a couple paragraphs so people don't have to read the entire study. They don't have to read through an entire article. It's just boiling it down into a way that is short right to the point. It gives people the takeaways how they can apply it themselves. You know, and we try to, we try to work in some humor too. So it's entertaining and people want to read it. So. And we weren't seeing that done out there. You know, a lot of like things that you see are just clickbait. So we wanted to filter that out and we want everything that's in that newsletter to be actually useful and applicable and most of all supported by evidence.

Yeah. And how we, how we got it. The point of the newsletter, like we started out as just a podcast. So we had a podcast for two years and we still do do the podcast weekly. And with the podcast you can, you know, explain things, talk through them and really dive into details and explain, go to go through a study and explain it in detail without having to do this super high level stuff that we do in the newsletter. And plenty of people, there's plenty of great resources out there with podcasts. We enjoy doing it, so we continue to do ours. But there are fortunately a lot of good resources out there with various podcasts who give great information with the newsletter. That's the reason we wanted to kind of break off and also do the newsletter was because we saw when you're like Andy said, scrolling through the headlines, you do see a lot of clickbaity titles where they aren't necessarily the content of the article, it's not necessarily backed by a study or if it's backed by a study, it's not necessarily a good one. So that's why we decided to add the newsletter on as well. Because it we want to break in to that news cycle and that information that people get out there and try to provide something that people can read quickly that's entertaining but also more importantly backed by high quality studies.

I love how you've executed that because the content is something that you can digest really quickly. Like I finish a meeting, just need to distract, my brain can read it in a minute or less. It is entertaining. I love that you put humor, a little bit of quirkiness into that. And brevity is not always my strong suit, but it is yours because you are able to distill pretty complex, complex topic into something short so that you can get the data and move on. I'm curious if you could because you do have this very analytical background, both of you in your training and finance. I'm curious, what kinds of metrics are you using when deciding, okay, this is a legitimate study or this part is good, but that part isn't, I'm going to include this in the newsletter or I'm not just kind of curious about your process?

Yeah, that's a good question. So we start, we try to go to the source number one. Does this come from a peer reviewed journal? Is this from a reputable source? Who conducted the study? Where was it published? That's important. You alluded to one of them. Sample size is important. The type of study that was done. So was this just, was this just observational? Were we just looking at data correlations which can be very useful and can point us in the right direction. But a lot of times when you're looking at studies that are just simply looking at correlations, you can draw a wrong conclusion because correlation does not always equal causation. So if we can, we try to find studies that are trials, randomized control trials, so that actually causation can be associated with that. Now we can't do that every single time because it's not like a perfect study comes out every single week, but that's one. And then, you know, was it done on humans? Because, you know, animal trials don't always translate to human trials. So those are some things that we use. How long was it done? You had mentioned that as well. Was this a two week, two week trial or was this done for several months? So that's how we, we kind of do it. Those are some things that, that we evaluate. Aaron, did I miss anything?

No, I think that covers the main ones. I mean, one thing to be aware of and there's. It's hard to always watch out for this, but it's just any type of potential bias within the study. You can look at most, I don't know if I think all show at the very bottom of the study, like where the funding came from to conduct the study. And you know, that's not always. Just because a bias looks apparent there doesn't always mean that bias is within the study, but it is something to take note of. So we do try to watch out for that. Just take a quick glance at who funded the study. And if there is potential bias, we try to take that into account as we're reading the study. So that takes a little bit more, I guess, work to figure that out. But that's a one additional thing, what we watch out for when we're reading different studies.

Aaron, I'm glad you mentioned that because I was thinking about Prozac. When it was introduced to the market, it took over 20 studies to prove that it was better than placebo. And the manufacturers of Prozac were behind funding the study. And yet they couldn't, even before 20 studies demonstrate efficacy. And it still got pushed through. And then we have one really crummy study on vitamin E that isn't really following the high scientific method that we would expect on pharmaceuticals. They aren't being applied to some of these integrative methods. And so then they're getting thrown out. And so it's like this larger, not to get too much into politics, but it feels like there is this larger political bias because if you have more money, you have more Freedom to keep doing studies. And Mark Twain says there are lies, there are damned lies and then there are statistics. Having the financial freedom to kind of work towards getting the data that you want. And I feel like that's got to be a really large challenge because you are approaching the integrative world. And how are you navigating that dance?

Yeah, it really is tough because a lot of these labs, they're doing the studies, they want to do research. But sometimes like the biggest funding is coming from pharmaceutical companies and you know, they don't not saying there's always like this collusion but like there is some influence there. Like if somebody, if this big company, this organization is going to write you a grant to continue your job so you can continue to employ, you know, your workers, like that's, you know, you're going to want to write a more favorable outcome and not saying that that happens all the time, but like it's just something to really, really be aware of. But, but, but it's tough too because like with studies around like Prozac, those, those are going to get a ton of funding from pharmaceutical companies. But nutrition studies, really well done. Nutrition studies are hard because you have to be really specific about what you're tracking because there's so many inputs, it's not just like a pill, there's many different ways of eating. And then what's really the benefit to who's the end beneficiary of a study that shows? I don't know, but whatever vegetables are, vegetables are good for you. I mean there's not a ton of the beneficiary, there is really the patient, the in person. So there's not a ton of ton of money to be made in nutrition research, which is very frustrating.

It's like the ruler that we're using to measure something's value is it's almost like valuing a fish by its ability to climb a tree. So it's like I give you this pharmaceutical, in a double blind study, I created this method for analyzing it. But then maybe nutrition. If I have someone eat an apple a day and they don't get better, and yet somebody else eats an apple a day, they do get better. We can't necessarily use that same rule of measurement to create that same outcome. And so it's like in some sense research and doing these studies can be life changing and opening of therapies for people. But then in another sense it can almost hold us captive to this idolatry of study.

Yeah, yeah. And I think that's where a Lot of call it conventional medicine, they can be very effective at treating acute conditions. Like for instance, you have a broken arm. Well, if you just have a broken arm, like you need to get that fixed. Like just eating an apple is not going to just make your arm magically heal. So good at like acute conditions, but very, very bad at managing chronic conditions. And I think that's where preventative medicine comes in, is really effective at meeting preventative at treating chronic illness. But those things don't get as much funding, which is unfortunate because I feel like it really could save people so much pain and misery and money.

And I feel like just the healthcare system as a whole is very, it's more focused on being proactive, being reactive rather than proactive. So like, even if you just look at, you know, the types of things insurance covers, like anything any type of problem that you existingly have and you go into the doctor, insurance will like, yeah, we'll cover that. But if you're trying to do something to prevent an illness, so like just take a chiropractors or like massage therapy, things that you know you're doing these things to help continue your body state aligned and healthy and the muscles loosened up, like those types of things are ignored. A lot of times just therapy, like a therapy for any type of mental conditions, anxiety, depression, a lot of times it's harder, much harder for insurance to get that covered. And like those are really important things and things that the problems don't, you don't see the problems until they happen. And there's so much preventative care that can go on, but people often just don't do it because it is expensive. And you do have to do your own research. And if you want to get it, if you don't want to do your own research, you have to go to some type of integrative doctor. And again, a lot of those aren't covered by insurance. So the healthcare industry as a whole is, it's much more reactive than proactive, which is unfortunate. And I think there's starting to be a little shift in that with the popularization of integrative medicine. I think we're seeing preventative care be more, the importance of it is becoming more realized. So hopefully that shift continues.

But yeah, and I think you're a part of that shift. I think that the work that you're doing in demanding high integrity research and working on stopping the spiral of clickbait as a primary form of information dissemination, but rather you are seeing a problem and you've identified a solution that has the potential to positively impact a mass group of people. And I really admire and respect that. And so if we kind of do a zoom in, zoom out. And I'm curious about how your lives over the longitudinal trajectory as you've taken your own personal zigs and your own personal zags, how it has happened that you've kind of ended up on this mission together. And I'm kind of asking kind of like a long, winding question as I think about it out loud. But maybe if there's like a moment when you were younger or a way that your family culture was that you were younger, that sort of helped plant the seed for where you are now.

Yeah, that's a good question. One thing that just immediately comes to mind is watching our grandparents age. My dad's dad had Parkinson's, and that was a long, slow decline, physically and mentally. That was. Was difficult to watch. And then until eventually he just. He died, there wasn't. It was just, how can we slow down the progression? And it was this slow descent. And then his wife, my grandma, she was a diabetic her whole life and never didn't really manage it well and didn't have a lot of the support from the preventative area. It was just, you know, take your. Take your shot. She was type 2, type 2 diabetic and just didn't get a lot of, like, support or education on how best to manage it. And that was also hard to watch as she got neuropathy in her feet and she was just miserable all the time. And it's hard. I think that's when it hits you the most, is when you see somebody you love start to decline and just live in chronic pain. It's tough to see. So I think that planted a seed.

Yeah, I mean, really, all four of our grandparents, they all passed away, like, when we were really young. For me, my early 20s, when all four of our grandparents were gone and you saw the lifestyle they lived out in terms of how well they took care of their bodies, it wasn't great. And we saw the impact that had, and it affected us because we didn't get to. We didn't get to have him around extremely long, and that was difficult. But that has not only impacted us, it's impacted their son. So our dad has. I think he's seen that as well, and he's made a huge shift in his lifestyle. So I don't know. I mean, he's always been fairly healthy, but in the past 10 years, he's been very healthy, constantly active. I mean, people like, he. He does CrossFit style workouts, and he's in his late Mid. Mid. He's in his mid-60s, and he is, like, has a six pack. He's looks more in shape than we are. So it's crazy to see, like, how. How much that impacted him as well and trickles down to impact. Impact us. So now we see him, it's like somebody who's in their mid-60s and has a six pack and is in great shape and eats well. Like, that's also inspiring for us to see that and to want other people, you know, other people in their 60s to be like him and have those same lifestyle changes.

Yeah. And that's like, when we all get together, we work out like he's 63 years old and like, we can all still work out together, which is just. I'm so grateful that, you know, he has made some changes. And again, like, he. He kind of had his own journey, I think, seeing his parents go through that. But then with our journey, we've kind of. Whenever we got together, we'd talk about health stuff. And my whole family, Our whole family has kind of just gradually shifted to this more integrative approach, which has been really, really cool to see. And it's given me optimism. I know when you're out on social media, it can feel like there's no hope left in the world, but there is a lot of people, and there's a lot of research being done on how we can live not only longer, but live better. Like, I joke, but I'm kind of serious. Like, I think I can live to 120, and I can be in my 90s and be completely active. It's just a matter of kind of making some of those changes today. But it's possible, like, our bodies were built for more than just sitting around it and deteriorating. And I think that's coming to light more and more now.

Yeah, I love what you said. We were built for so much more. And one of my favorite authors, his name is Samuel Hahnemann, and he writes a book called the Organon of Medicine. And in the book, in chapter nine, he calls them aphorisms. In chapter nine, he talks about the goal of health. And it's really different, but because in the Western medicine model, health is the absence of disease. But Hahnemann writes that the goal of the physician is to help the body enter.