Cells Don’t Have a Political Ideology

I didn't know cells had a political ideology.

Cells don't have a political ideology. When Mark Hyman said those words on Andrew Huberman's podcast, I jumped up and pumped my fist in the air and probably scared my neighbor's dog from all the yelling. Yes! Because that line hit me like a train and I immediately knew I was not just gonna steal it moving forward. I hope that's okay, Mark, but I was gonna live it. In this video, I'm gonna delve deep into why I think those words are so important, and I'm also going to react to another bit of pithy wisdom that came up in the podcast. Test, don't guess. I won't be coy. I honestly came up in the discussion around that particular quote.

I know you might have a guy named Nick Norwitz from Harvard on the podcast who's great.

He was, he, he can talk about this all day long and I'll play that clip later, But this isn't just a veiled self-promotion video. I really did enjoy the podcast between Mark and Andrew, and I want to discuss Mark's two quotes because there's so much to unpack and it is so, so important. So let's start with cells don't have a political ideology. Mark and Andrew spend a significant amount of time in the podcast, which you should definitely listen to after this, talking about the intersection of metabolism and politics. The too long didn't read TL;DR summary is there shouldn't be one, an intersection between metabolism and politics, but there is, and we need to contend with it. In fact, the intersection of metabolic health and politics is so present and palpable it only takes 4 letters to divide a room. You ready? M.A.H.A. Make America Healthy Again. It should be a unifying rallying cry, but now it's loaded with partisan baggage. The words "Make America Healthy Again" alone, they represent a goal to which we should all aspire as a community. I don't think that's in question. But these aren't just words. They're a slogan and a verbal brand for the right. That's not a judgment. Sincerely, it's not a judgment. I'm not trying to offend the right or the left in this video. This is simply a description of the present situation. Isolated from political landscape, the words "Make America Healthy Again" are clearly a positive and aspirational statement, but it's now impossible to separate Maha from RFK Jr., Trump, and all the ideology that comes with political parties and their leaders. Again, no judgment, just a blunt description of reality. And for what it's worth, I've spoken to brilliant researchers and clinicians across the political spectrum, and guess what? They all agree metabolic health matters, full stop. But as soon as someone says Maha, people divide like they're undergoing mitosis. Unfortunately, the blending of health sciences and politics creates large barriers to productive communication. It creates obstacles to reasonable dialogue and obstructs the implementation of solutions to the metabolic health epidemic. I'll double down on this. It is astonishing to me the degree to which politics bleeds into health sciences. People will literally assume your politics and ideological positions on abortion, gun control, affirmative action, and other DEI issues based on what's on your plate. It's a disturbing and insidious domino chain in the brain. People think, oh, if you're keto or carnivore, you're probably right-wing, which means you're probably pro-life, believe in just two genders, and so on. Conversely, if you're plant-based, you're probably left-wing and probably pro-choice, support trans rights, and so on. I mean, and I mean this literally, I've seen people stare at my plate like it's a political Rorschach test. If I'm eating a steak, they see a voting record. If I'm eating Brussels sprouts, they assume I'm a lefty extremist snowflake. Oh, lost it. Now, please pause and think about how ridiculous that is. People will literally draw conclusions about my opinion on the life status of a fertilized human egg based on the macronutrient composition of my meals. As I speak this, I know it sounds like hyperbole, but it's not. Not even a little. And the effects aren't small or meaningless either. This inappropriate fusion, this ideological Frankenstein where science is stitched together with politics warps both of them and it shifts news cycles, it shifts news coverage, and it shifts the scientific literature. It's just a small case in point that's personal. I've been contacted by Fox News 6 times in the last 6 months, along with the Epoch Times and Daily Mail and other right-leaning media outlets. Trying to find some media balance, and I have, I've reached out to left-leaning media like CNN and MSNBC in the hopes of getting balanced red and blue coverage about metabolic health and nutrition, but to no avail. They don't take my calls, they don't respond to my emails. And I really wrestle with this every day, not just as a scientist, but as a human who wants to be understood. I want to help people without being labeled. But what should I do? Sincerely, what should I do? Should I filter my research and my interpretation of the data through a political filter? Should I reject dialogue about metabolism nutrition, and hard data about physiology, biology, and medicine just because of which presidential candidate the majority of the audience of a particular news network supported? I personally think that would only exacerbate the problem. But now I ask you, what do you think? What do you think you would do in my shoes? If you're left-leaning liberal, would you appear on Fox to talk about metabolic health? Or if you're right-leaning conservative, would you appear on CNN or MSNBC to talk about metabolic health? In summary of my opinion, health shouldn't be red or blue because, as Mark Hyman put it, "Cells don't have a political ideology." I agree with that 100%, and I hope you do too. But I realize whatever I choose or other public health communicators choose, we necessarily invite assumptions about our broader beliefs. It's a crappy reality. I'm kind of angry about it, but it's one with which we need to contend because it is a reality. So all I can say is I'm asking you, I'm begging you, and I don't beg often, to the best of your ability, please try to separate nutrition, health, and medicine from personal politics. The more of us who can do this, the better off we will all be. That's what I think. And that brings us to Mark's second quote: "Test, don't guess." That's why I believe test, don't guess. Similar phrases that came up in the Huberman and Hyman episode included biochemical individuality and n=1 science or n=1 medicine, if any of those resonate more with you. Truthfully, this is the future. N=1 medicine is the future. We humans are incredibly heterogeneous with respect to our genomes, our microbiomes, our metabolomes, our transcriptomes. Our family history, our lifestyle practices, and our health goals. And the heterogeneity within each of these factors across humans doesn't just compound, it synergizes, creating individuals who exhibit dramatically different responses to the same interventions. So yes, there are people who authentically thrive on an all-meat carnivore diet, and there are those people who thrive while eating a whole food plant-based diet. And there are those people who benefit from dietary fiber, while others have a negative inflammatory response. I could go on. There are many ways in which I could provide commentary on this point—test, don't guess, n=1 medicine—but the most obvious is to elaborate on the case study Mark discussed with Andrew about, well, yours truly. I'll just play the clip, and I'll play it full screen as a cut screen so you don't see me blush.

And it all has to do with cholesterol transport, cholesterol synthesis in the liver, it's kind of a little complicated scientifically. I know you might have a guy named Nick Norwitz from Harvard on the podcast who's great. He can talk about this all day long.

Nick has great online content. Folks should check out Nick Norwitz's X and Instagram handle. He's a very smart kid. Very smart guy. Very smart kid. Very spirited. I've encouraged him from the first time I saw his content to keep going.

Yeah, he's like, he's an Oxford PhD in metabolism. Harvard. He's got Harvard MD. He's graduating medical school this year.

And not afraid to go against the grain. No. He just goes with his experience and the data.

Yeah, you're explaining about different diets for people. He had colitis and almost died. He went on a carnivore/keto diet and actually ended up curing it and is fit and healthy now, right? But his cholesterol, his LDL went up to 500. Is that where it sits now? Yeah. And so there's a whole group of these people that have LDLs that are through the roof. It would make most cardiologists have a heart attack just looking at the number.

So what do we do? Let's say someone takes an ApoB test. What would you do? Or from their doctor and, and they've got an ApoB that's like 110.

What do you do? Well, the NIH basically is great. They now said that the n-of-1 research is among the highest quality research. And that what that means is you compared to you.

I can validate everything Mark said was true. And on last check, my LDL cholesterol was actually 566. An LDL of 566, let's just say it's not recommended by 99.566% of doctors. Unless you're conducting a scientific experiment on yourself, which apparently I always am. But this isn't the moment for a physiology lesson on why my cholesterol levels went through the roof when I went keto. When I was on a mixed standard diet, just eating cookies and burgers, my LDL was about 90. And there are some bizarre biohacks I can do to change my LDL as well. Including eating Oreo cookies. But again, this is just a teaser. I'm not going to go into that in this video. The point I really want to make here, plain and simple. You ready for it? This is my n=1. It's not yours. And I emphasize this because I have put a tremendous amount of thought and time into my personalized medical care. I have spent dozens of hours, if not hundreds of hours, conversing with experts. Including my own doctors, publishing 4 case reports on myself, and collecting mountains of data, including my own whole exome sequence, cardiac imaging, and countless blood tests. And after all that, I've come to a decision about which I'm still not entirely confident. And that, that is the art of medicine and the burden of real science. We love certainty as humans. But biology doesn't. Biology is messy. Biology is unpredictable. Biology humbles everyone eventually. And if you want more of a discussion on the topic of my personal decision to remain untreated despite my astronomical levels of LDL and ApoB, especially in the context of our recent rather controversial research findings, please see this episode on the Metabolic Mind channel with cardiologist Dr. Bret Scher. But back to what I said a moment ago. This is the art of medicine. The art of medicine is making the best decision you can for an individual patient, in this case myself, given incomplete and imperfect information. That's the art of medicine. It's not easy. It will never be easy. We can't guide optimal individual patient care with reductionist guidelines and catchphrases like lower LDL cholesterol is better, because every intervention comes with a multitude of effects, side effects, risks, and benefits that carry different weight depending on individuals' health backgrounds, their metabolic context, their personal preferences and priorities, and so on. Sometimes the thing that sounds right is wrong, and vice versa. Biology is not here to confirm your biases or fit your narratives or fit the guidelines. It's here to be understood. And that requires curiosity, not certainty. So my intent, the reason I'm here talking to you at all, is always to encourage people to approach their own n=1 journey with thought and care. I believe this is best done by trying to teach people about the fundamentals of metabolic health, elucidate new data as they come to light, and consistently push the narrative, one of very few fundamental truths in healthcare, that every individual has the power and capacity to improve their health, provided they stay curious and realize that the n=1 scientific process, your n=1 scientific journey, it's not a chore, it's a joy and a privilege. And one of the reasons I'm so grateful to live in this day and age is the emerging technologies, there are many more easy and accessible ways to get your own data in your own hands. As two quick examples, you can get your own continuous glucose monitors, for example, through Levels Health, or you can get cheap and easy at-home lab testing kits with a ton of biomarkers, about 17 on last check, using things like SiPhox at-home lab testing kits. I'm affiliated with both these groups, and on SiPhox, we're actually doing a metabolic health awareness promotion. With a 50% discount on 2 kits. Details to these products with discount codes are in the video notes, and I promote them because what they're trying to do, these companies, are empower you with your own data, and I think that's an amazing mission. So don't guess, don't generalize based on the preponderance of evidence. Instead, demand your own data. Get your own data in your own hands. There are people and platforms that'll help you do it. So let me leave you with this: cells don't have a political ideology, and neither should your pursuit of health. Nutrition isn't left or right. Metabolism doesn't care about how you vote, and biology doesn't play for an ideological team. It just is. But what you do have control over is your curiosity. You have the power to ask better questions, to demand better data, your own data, and to own your health journey like no one else can. That's what test, don't guess really means. So I challenge you, no matter who you are, no matter where you fall on the political spectrum, to step outside the noise, step away from tribal narratives, and step into your own n=1 experiment. Your body doesn't need a political party. It needs honesty. It needs you. So get curious, get your data, and don't stop asking hard questions until you find the truth. Stay curious. And if what I and Mark said resonates with you, like and subscribe to cast your vote and promote leading with openness and apolitical metabolic health discussions. And also check out the conversation with Andrew Huberman and Mark Hyman on the Huberman Lab podcast, as well as my conversation with Mark Hyman on his podcast. All the links are in the video notes. So let's build a world where health is the common ground. Not red, not blue, just human. Stay curious. Thanks.