Is Andrew Huberman more scam than science?
Is Andrew Huberman more scam than science?
Signs point to yes.
Andrew Huberman has millions of followers, but his podcast is rife with pseudoscience.
If you missed it, a NY Magazine piece came out, written by Kerry Howley on Monday on Andrew Huberman, the biohacking bro du jour, detailing extensive pathological lying, sexual abuse and addiction, manipulation, and scientific fraud. I had actually been contacted by “Sarah” in private several months ago, when I started talking about the bad science and wellness products Huberman propagates, so none of this was news to me. In fact, some of the gory details she shared with me were even more vile.
Now, I think many people can see the implications for these revelations on his credibility as a “science communicator” - if he is lying to women to sleep with them, why not lie to his audience of millions to exploit them and make money? But of course, the apologists were out in droves, saying that the article was nothing more than a hit piece from ‘scorned women’ - blah blah blah.
So, I wrote a different piece. This one, on the science. It went live yesterday in Slate.
I won’t rehash the piece itself, it’s free for everyone to read, but being constrained by 2000 words (which was supposed to be 1500, thanks editors for the leeway), meant there were a lot of others things that I had to cut prior to submission. This piece will detail a few.
He intentionally misleads his listeners.
I did discuss the Robert Lustig episode example in the Slate article, but the exchange where they tell listeners a study about ultra-processed food consumption inhibiting bone growth was entirely deliberate.
This particular exchange caught my attention because of how scripted it seemed. And indeed, the study the two of them went out of their way to tell listeners was a clinical study in humans was in rats.
If this episode was a paper submitted for publication, this would be considered falsification of data and academic dishonesty, and it would be rejected. But it is a podcast, where Huberman can use the trust that he has cultivated to say things almost unchecked.
He also cherry-picks guests and “experts”
When we talk about consensus, that doesn’t mean everyone in a given field agrees on the data. In every field, there are contrarians, critics of the body of data. These are the minority. In our scientific profession, contrarians who spread misinformation are diluted out by quality science. But that isn’t true for podcasting, where anyone with a big platform can say anything, unchecked, and elevate others in the same manner.
Now, Robert Lustig is notorious for misinformation about nutrition, so the content in that episode wasn’t a surprise to those who are familiar with him. But let’s take another guest, Sara Gottfried, one of the few women he has had on his podcast. She is an OB/GYN by training, but now practices ‘integrative and functional medicine’. She spreads misinformation about how you can alter your hormones through diet. Among experts in that arena, is well-known for not being evidence-based. Instead of publishing data that would be subject to scrutiny, she writes books with titles like “The Hormone Cure” and “The Hormone Reset Diet”. But even behind that veneer, her mentor is Christiane Northrup, one of the most notorious anti-vaccine activists and a member of the Disinformation Dozen. Why not bring on a credible expert on women’s hormones, like
? Because it would damage his carefully crafted ecosystem of pseudoscience. Others, like have similarly noticed Sara’s deception.Huberman deliberately chooses his guests to help cultivate a fanbase that believes he reveals answers to topics the ‘mainstream’ is hiding.
Now, many of his fans will say “well he has a comment section, you can correct any false claims he makes!”
Let’s take a look at that. After his horrifically egregious and dangerous “cold and flu” prevention episode, I started picking apart all 2 hours of that recording. You can read those pieces here, here, here, and here.
But Huberman doesn’t care about credible science.
He said so, publicly, on his Instagram post announcing that episode.
He did the same thing with his fluoride and oral health episode, platforming and citing a “functional dentist” who demonizes fluoride, a dental health intervention that has unequivocal data regarding benefits.
There are countless examples of Huberman’s pseudoscience which he delivers confidently and without regard for the ramifications (aside from making money and getting fame).
His episode on the gut microbiome he discusses a study that relates to sensor cells in the GI tract. These sensor cells apparently can detect sugar, and steer an organism toward a preference for more sugar. Huberman makes comments about how humans have these cells, and how sweets are detected in our guts. But he never once mentions that the study he is discussing is using mice, and mice cells. He makes a blanket statement about how such ‘food preference studies’ have been done in humans, but none of those are included in his references. But he does this because it goes to his thesis of how sugar is bad and it changes your brain chemistry, alters your microbiome (another buzzword du jour, used inappropriately by way too many people in the wellness sphere), but, he’s got the fix: you can buy AG1, or Thorne, or any of his myriad of supplements, all of which are “science-backed” ways to OPTIMIZE your gut health and your brain function. (if you didn’t catch it, that was sarcasm)
Countless exercise physiologists have commented, almost wryly, that his other advice on exercise (in addition from the immunological comments I debunked) are also wrong. He’s said repeatedly, absurd comments about how “floppy feet” are a measure of tibialis anterior strength, which is wholly incorrect.
He’s also undermined the safety and efficacy of sunscreens, citing a study that doesn’t appear to even exist. Cosmetic chemist Dr. Michelle Wong debunked that one.
He also hypes organic food, which is not healthier, safer, or better for the environment. Mental health and neurodivergence experts have also called out the harmful misinformation he has spread about autism, ADHD, and others.
He even said that he believes his Bluetooth headphones are harmful, feeding into the Wi-Fi/radio conspiracy theories of his friend RFK Jr. He uses an anecdote on his episode with Rick Rubin, claiming that he was getting ‘swollen lymph nodes and cysts’ behind his ears, and insinuating that “heat effects” of them were harmful.
A lot of folks have debunked that, including the claim about radio waves and heating.
Here’s the data:
The specific absorption coefficient (SAR) is a unit of power per tissue mass (W/kg) that measures the energy absorbed by tissues and organs. A SAR of 4 W/kg is required to produce any harmful effect on human health. The SAR defines the power, or energy per unit of time, absorbed per kilogram of body mass.
For a 10-meter range, Bluetooth (Class 2) uses a maximum wattage of 2.4 milliwatts (mW), which is 0.0024 watts.
Could Huberman do even the most basic fact-checking? Apparently not. “Sarah,” from the NY Mag piece, told me that as he got more and more famous, he prepared less and less for episodes. He told her, according to her, that he knew he could say whatever he wanted and people would believe him.
This was apparent to me during the cold and flu episode. Anyone that had even listened to ANYTHING in the past 4 years would know that antibodies are made by B cells, even if they knew NOTHING else about immunology, because every story about COVID-19 vaccines made note of that. And yet, Huberman ranted for 2 hours about immunology as a purported expert and couldn’t even get that part right.
Spreading health misinformation causes harm in multiple ways.
Scientists all have specific areas of expertise, just like any career. It is impossible to be an expert in all areas of science, and if someone is pretending to be, that is always a red flag. Even in biological or biomedical science, it is impossible. That’s true not just for the sheer amount of information, but also for how research is conducted, and how you would interpret a scientific study. If you don’t work in the immunology field, how would you know whether a research model being used to investigate an infectious disease is even realistic?
Instead of educating his listeners on the complexities of scientific research and biology, he exploits the confusion of the scientific process and scientific consensus. The term “scientific consensus”, doesn’t mean that a group of scientists sit around a table and say, okay, we all agree. It means that the body of data on a topic, weighted by the evidence quality, supports a given position. Science, and our knowledge about given topics, accrues over time. What is published in a study today is building upon studies that were published yesterday, last year, ten years ago, fifty years ago.
But instead of educating on this complexity, he exploits it. He picks tiny inconsequential details to make it seem like he’s doing deep dives on a topic, and then after his hook, promotes unproven wellness hacks that he makes money off of.
It erodes trust in robust evidence-based science, undermines public health, and propagates medical conspiracism. All the while, he makes a lot of money. As someone with a PhD in a science field, he knows full well that what he is saying is wrong. It is reckless, irresponsible, and quite honestly, insulting to every scientist who adheres to the integrity of data-driven methods.
What’s even worse, he acts like he is the gatekeeper of science, with his “thanks for your interest in science” nonsense, when he shares the opposite.
Huberman’s notoriety and the misinformation he propagates is causing far more damage than many people realize.
All of us, scientists and non, have a duty to call it out.
As always, thanks for joining in the fight for science!
Thank you for supporting evidence-based science communication. With outbreaks of preventable diseases, refusal of evidence-based medical interventions, roadblocks to scientific progress that improve food and crop sustainability, it’s needed now more than ever.
Your local immunologist,
Andrea