(gentle bright music) - Social media feeds are flooded with health and fitness trends, from ice baths to weighted vests, even high-protein diets.

But which claims are backed by science and which are just hype?

Tonight on "Health Matters," separating fact from fiction in the world of viral wellness trends.

(gentle bright music fading) Good evening.

I'm Aaron Luna.

From TikTok to Instagram, health and fitness influencers are promoting everything from creatine supplements to dunking yourself in nearly freezing water.

- Ice bath will approve your mental health.

- Wah!

- Millions of views and testimonials driving people to try the latest wellness craze.

But are these trends safe and effective or potentially harmful?

Joining us tonight to help navigate the world of social media health trends, Megan Vulcan, nurse practitioner with MultiCare Health Systems and the Rockwood Center for Weight Loss and Wellness.

Dr.

Ben Howie, sports medicine physician with Providence, Physical Therapist Amber Nelson, and Mental Health Counselor Katrina Knizek.

Thank you all for joining us tonight.

We are going to look at some specific health trends out there and review them one by one, starting with ice baths.

Let's take a look.

(upbeat music) - No.

- Oh!

Ah!

(water sloshing) (ice tapping) (influencer exhales) (water sloshing) (ice tapping) - Oh, whew, very chilly.

Yay!

(gentle mellow music) - Good morning, guys, it's day 844, I've taken an ice bath every single day.

- That's the reason why a ice bath will improve your mental health.

Doing the ice bath is a giant test of your nervous system.

If you get in and you freak out, you failed.

- (breathing heavily) Wah!

- I have to admit, this is one I've definitely tried.

Here are some of the claims being made about the benefits.

Influencers saying ice baths reduce inflammation and speed up muscle recovery, that it promotes weight loss by boosting your metabolism, and that plunging can even reduce the symptoms of depression and anxiety.

Amber, let's start with you on this topic.

Is there any validity to claims that ice baths can improve recovery?

And if there are benefits, what are they?

- I think it depends on what you're trying to do.

So, as with everything, you have to take these things with a grain of salt.

So if you're a runner who's out there or you're somebody who's doing double days and that is something that feels good to you, it can help.

If you're out there weightlifting and you're trying to increase your muscle building, it's actually not helpful.

I think you have to be careful with the ice baths, because there's some potential dangers as far as, you know, heart rates and worrying about, like, the things you need to probably check with your doctor before you start to do any type of new activity.

But as far as going out there and for recovery, if you like it and your doctor said, "Hey, this is okay," I think it can be fine.

If it's not something that you wanna do, then there's other things that you can go do that could be more beneficial.

- Sure, sure.

Katrina, there's some mental health claims here as well.

We heard it in the video, people claiming it's a test for your nervous system, that it can ease depression and anxiety.

How can it impact your mental health if that's even a thing?

- So the benefit to something like a cold plunge is that it does increase your dopamine and your norepinephrine, which creates a mild alleviation of symptoms of anxiety and depression.

However, one of the claims is that it's very helpful for folks with ADHD.

It's not like taking a stimulant, like Adderall, will help you for an extended time period.

So the benefits are limited and short in nature.

The basic response that happens is based on your mammalian dive reflex, which is a survival response.

You get in the cold water and your body decides, "We wanna survive, so we're gonna vasoconstrict all your blood to your primary organs."

And so you do have lessening of inflammation as things that people like to say.

However, that is gonna be driving on your fear response and can actually stress out your nervous system.

The other thing in that social media clip that jumped out to me is someone saying, "If you can't do this, you are failing."

And I think that's the big thing with a lot of these trends, it's very all or nothing, win or lose, with no nuance or consideration for different bodies, different stress responses.

If you are someone who, for instance, has active PTSD, putting your body into a stress response like that can be incredibly negatively effecting to your overall mental health, we'll say.

- Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

Amber, Dr.

Howie, weigh in on this one.

Are there safety concerns with ice baths?

Can you have too cold for too long?

Start with-- - Yeah, for sure.

I think if you're somebody that some sort of heart issue, high blood pressure, poor circulation, that's not something you wanna just jump in and do.

You wanna check with their doctor first.

And, of course, you could get hypothermia if you stay in there forever, so you just be smart about it.

- What temperature are we looking at when we talk about hypothermia?

- Well, it's, you know, above freezing.

So usually these cold plunges are anywhere from 40 to 60 degrees, and you can get hypothermia pretty quick in that.

So most cold plunges are three to five minutes.

So it's not that long and you're pretty safe on that front.

But people could say, "Hey, this is good.

I should just do it for more, it's gonna be better," and you gotta be careful.

- "Let's do colder and let's do longer, and I'm gonna impress my friends right now."

- Yeah, and I think that gets into, if you're going to cold plunge, do it with a friend.

It's something that you wanna make sure there's some safety nets in there because of that shock to your system as you're jumping in.

And that is a good thing to just make sure that you've got somebody there who could be there in case it goes-- - It's a good point.

- Like, your body doesn't respond.

- Megan.

- Yeah, I think just knowing there's a cardiovascular risk.

If you shock the system, the heart can stop.

So we just have some people that we need to be really considerate of, that we're careful, and making sure we're not doing it alone.

So I really agree with that, that people should not be doing this at home.

They need to be in a controlled environment where somebody is observing and making sure they're safe.

- Well, if you're doing it on TikTok, people are watching and that's the whole point.

(everyone chuckling) - Your fans will come get ya?

- Your fans will come get ya.

- I hope so.

Yeah.

- Thank you.

Our next trend, and probably the most visible, weighted vests.

People are wearing them for daily walks, grocery shopping, even around the house.

(upbeat music) - [Influencer] I love using a weighted vest, because it challenges me, burns more fat, builds core strength.

(upbeat music) - Hey, guys, just a quick reminder, don't skip that after-dinner walk.

♪ What if I told you I'm ready now ♪ ♪ I let you down ♪ - Hey, girl, just a reminder, if you're wearing a weighted vest.

- Every night after work, I try to take my dogs on a weighted vest walk.

♪ Hey, Mr.

Postman ♪ ♪ Owa-owa ♪ ♪ I hit from the back and now she ♪ ♪ Bum, bum, bum-bum-bee-dum ♪ ♪ Bum-bum-eh ♪ ♪ I'm every ♪ - Mm-hmm.

Now, that's what I'm talking about.

- When you're walking, you're gonna feel this a lot more.

Get out there and do something today!

- Oh, the claims are pretty impressive.

Accelerated weight loss, better bone density, improved cardiovascular fitness.

Dr.

Howie, what's the reality here?

Are any of these claims accurate?

- I think the one benefit could be, you know, if you do walk with a weighted vest, it could increase your heart rate a little more than you normally would.

So cardiovascularly, might help a little bit.

Otherwise, for the strength or muscle, it does not help.

And so you would do way better to do focused resistance training, which, in my view, is 100% more important than a weighted vest.

But I think for the cardio part it could help a little bit.

But I really like to encourage people in things that are simple, safe, tried and tested, and so I'd rather people just go for a walk.

And if you're really good at walking and you need something a little harder, then, okay, go for it.

- [Aaron] Then you can bump it up a notch.

- Mm-hmm.

- Megan, can you speak to the claims that weighted vests can aid in weight loss?

- I'm an obesity specialist, so I get asked this question a lot.

And, I, personally, would rather that people do intervals, to walk fast, slow, fast, slow to get their heart rate up in a short period of time, or add a hill, or add some other difficulty.

But sometimes we'll hit plateaus of people that are losing weight rapidly, where a weight vest might be really beneficial.

Particularly, if you have a post-menopausal woman who might need to have that bone density benefit to a degree if they're in the midst of rapid weight loss, I think weight vests have a lot of benefit for people like that.

But, you know, adding weight resistance might not be easy for them, might not be their personal preference.

We would love to add weight training to people, but it's not always what they love to do, so some is better than none, but there's also the difficulty that that bears to weight on joints.

So if I have someone with a knee problem and I add 10 pounds of weight with a weight vest, I'm wearing and tearing on their joints, too, so there is some risk to adding weight when we don't need to.

So I think there's a balance there with adding that kind of an intervention.

- Are there other, like, maybe minuscule risks that could exacerbate a preexisting condition when you add weight to a walk?

- By all means, yeah, any sort of overuse tendon, muscle, joint issue, you imagine that just getting elevated with a weighted vest.

Think about, too, some people it's not comfortable, a lot of pressure on the shoulders, hard to breathe or get full breaths, you know, sometimes depending on what type you have on.

But certainly there are risks with it.

So that's why I like to stick with simple, you don't need one.

- Mm-hmm.

- Another health trend, high-protein diets, from extra high-protein recipes to protein-forward shopping lists, and even food labels declaring how much protein they have per serving.

(upbeat music) - Eating 150 grams of protein a day is hard as hell.

- It is high protein and high volume.

- [Influencer] If you're trying to lose weight, let me show you an example day of eating with 150 grams of protein.

- Protein is such an important macronutrient, and most of us are not eating enough.

- [Influencer] If you're trying to lose weight, let me show you an example full day of eating with 150 grams of protein.

- You should be getting about 0.7 to 1 grams of protein per pound of body weight.

- Okay, protein is one of the most important things you need to be eating enough of every single day if you have a goal of weight loss in mind.

- And, like they were saying here, the social media claims around those high-protein diets, people are being told that more protein means faster weight loss, more muscle gains, and even that more protein can prevent aging and stabilize our moods.

Megan, we'll start with you.

About the claims around weight loss, that's where we see high protein comes up a lot is weight loss.

How does protein intake actually impact weight loss?

- I work with four dieticians, so I'm gonna get hammered if I say this wrong.

It's one of the only nutrients that our body doesn't intrinsically make, and so we have to ingest the bare minimum.

So I've worked in obesity medicine for 20 years, and I've never seen a dietician tell someone to eat 150 grams of protein a day.

I've never seen that.

Unless they were a professional athlete, I've never seen that level of protein.

So, you know, we will emphasize protein because we have to have the minimum, but that doesn't mean that's the only thing that we eat, and we need a lot of whole foods.

So I don't know, I think high protein is not really the way to consider it.

It's really what are the minimums for protein, water, and other nutrients?

We need fat, we need carbohydrates.

Our culture's really swung from a no fat to, like, high fat, and then it really changes.

I've been here for long enough that the pendulum swings and it never benefits people when we go to keto, and we go to Atkins, and we go to the nonfat.

I was around in the '80s when we had no fat, and that was really a mistake and it really hurt a lot of people.

So I think we're finding this kind of middle ground that we need to eat all nutrients to the level of minimums to be healthy.

So water, protein, fat, and carbs, they're all necessary to be a functioning, healthy individual.

- Mm-hmm.

- So that's my opinion.

- And, Dr.

Howie, how does protein play into physical performance in the claims that the more protein, the higher the gains?

- Yeah, that's a good point, because if you're talking, like, the RDAs that you see on a label or actually from studies done on sedentary, healthy individuals, not people who are training hard, asking more of their body.

And so I would actually trend toward, this is one of those trends that is good in the athletic population.

We have a lot of, especially teenage kids, that aren't getting enough protein for what they're asking of their body.

And so if somebody is doing any sort of resistance training, wanting to work on their muscle growth, on their speed, they're recovering from something, it's very important.

And so the one gram per pound of body weight might be a little bit excessive, but I find that setting it a little high will get people to actually meet it at about 50 to 75% and get them where they need to be.

Because I think what is recommended now is not high enough if you're an active individual.

- Mm-hmm.

And, Katrina, there's some mental health claims here.

Is there any validity to higher-protein diets stabilizing our moods?

- I have not dug deep into the research in terms of mood stabilization, but I do work with folks with eating disorders.

And whenever we have that pendulum swing into any extremity of diet, that's when I start to get concerned.

We start putting moral or social value, we'll notice that a lot of these clips are based in men's and women's specifically.

For women, it's always weight loss geared, and, for men, it's typically based in athletic performance.

And so my nervousness with food trends, especially when we're saying "all fat, all protein," something like the caveman diet that was really big during the pandemic for men eating, like, raw liver, phasing into this, where now women are getting kind of the leftovers of high protein, high protein, starts to make me a little bit nervous in terms of, are we verging into a disordered relationship with our food?

We're neglecting fats, we're neglecting fiber, we're neglecting other factors.

- Mm-hmm.

- Yeah.

- We talked about hitting the minimums and probably not necessarily the need for any excess.

Is there a point where you might see excess protein actually being harmful?

- Yeah, so if somebody has kidney issues, I think is the big thing.

And if somebody is really trying to hit their protein goal and they eat a bunch of processed junk, I think that puts them at risk as well.

And so I really try to push people to do whole foods.

Things that they, you know, could get from the store that aren't in a package, and finding ways that they can keep that intake up and is cheap, affordable, and that they can keep doing.

Not just slamming a bunch of shakes and bars all day just to get to that number.

- I see a lot of kidney stones and gout that come from people who overdo the protein too.

So I work in the bariatric realm, and a lot of our patients in the pre-surgical realm, they'll develop gout and kidney stones, and it's like, this is all unnecessary.

If you're overdoing, you're not going to get there any faster, but you might have a health consequence that's really quite uncomfortable and requires a lot of treatment and a lot of medication to mitigate.

So, ironically, a lot of our surgical patients, we tell them they're on a higher protein diet, but they're really just set at a regular protein goal.

But they're just at a such smaller portion that they can't always eat regular without thinking about protein first.

So we want them to have protein as their highlight, fibrous carbohydrates as their second, and then everything else as after.

But some of my most successful patients have a bite of chocolate every day.

It's all about seeing all food as healthy, but knowing what the portion is supposed to be.

So a piece of chocolate might be very healthy for you.

If you can make sure it's not 10 pieces at once, then most people can do very well.

And the people who restrict tend to be the people who binge, which can be very dangerous too.

- I love how you said that, too, starting with protein and vegetables, you get full much quicker in that sense.

Rather than you go to a restaurant, they give you, you know, chips or breadsticks 'cause they know you'll keep eating and you'll still order an entree.

If you start with the protein and vegetables, you'll get satiated quicker, and so the overall calorie consumption will probably go down.

So that's a benefit.

- Yeah.

All good things to keep in mind.

Our next trend is one I see a lot on my feeds, creatine supplements.

It's being promoted not just for athletes, but as an essential part of everyone's routine.

(upbeat music) ♪ Dance ♪ ♪ Let's dance, dance ♪ - [Influencer] Boost performance, strength gains, improve recovery, increase lean body mass, boost energy, improve cognitive function.

- A new study reveals just powerful creatine, just like we have in Smart Creatine+.

- More creatine in your muscles allows you to train or perform harder and for longer.

- Here are the top reasons why you, as a woman especially, should be taking creatine.

- [Influencer] And this is me after another 2 1/2 months of bodybuilding, this time with creatine.

- Hey, it's Dr.

Balduzzi.

Creatine is one of the best supplements on the planet, and here's exactly how to take it properly.

- Well, here are the claims being made, build muscle mass, support recovery, enhance athletic performance, boost energy, who doesn't want that?

And it's improved cognitive function and memory.

It's also being said, it's one of the most researched and therefore the safest supplements on the market.

Dr.

Howie, I wanna start with you on this one.

I know you were excited to talk about this.

First, what is creatine?

Is it truly as researched as people are claiming?

- So what is it?

So your body actually can make it from proteins that you actually get.

What it does, it converts ADP to ATP.

ATP is like our energy fuel that we use in our brain, in our muscles, everywhere.

And so supplementing with that allows that process to happen a little better.

And so it is one of the most researched supplements, and so it's been around for a long time and it's thousands of studies on it, so that part is actually true.

And there are some pretty good studies showing some benefit to specific things.

You mentioned a couple, so strength, power, and recovery in active individuals.

Some newer stuff too.

Coming out with a cognitive benefits potentially, as we age, potentially being a help or even after concussions I've seen, and I actually started adding that on occasionally, because the brain is very metabolically active and it needs that energy, especially after an injury.

So there's a lot more to be done.

But I think in some sense, at least in the physical performance aspect, there is pretty good data and it's pretty cheap and available, in general, and I like that.

One of those commercials had a special kind of creatine, you don't need that.

Just straight up creatine phosphate, that's it.

If they say it's better, it's not.

- It's all kind of the same.

- Be careful.

Mm-hmm.

- Yeah.

What should people expect when they start taking this stuff?

I mean, is there an immediate reaction?

Or what should people look for to see if they're, you know, benefiting from a supplement?

- Sure, I think most would notice about, you know, five to 10% increase in strength, so that might be something to note.

A couple pounds of weight gain, which is actually fluid in the muscle, not necessarily, you know, in your subcutaneous tissues, gonna make you feel puffy and things like that.

That's one of the things I hear frequently.

But so strength and performance I think is where you'd notice it.

All these things are, like, minimal improvement.

Right?

- Right.

- If somebody is not taking care of the pillars of staying physically active, eating well, sleeping well, having, you know, beneficial relationships, don't waste your time on these things.

But if you are already and you want a little boost, okay, this is a decent one.

- You're saying there's no simple fix?

- Yes.

- I get asked this a lot, of, "What dosage should I take?"

And I think it's really important that we delineate in medicine that we don't have dosages necessarily on a supplement that is not researched.

So, in the United States, they're not regulated like a medication.

So I can't prescribe how much creatine for my patient to take.

So when I have someone who asks me, I'm like, "Do one thing at a time, because I can't tell you if what you're taking is safe or not."

You might take 500 from one and a thousand from another, and they're telling you they're equivocal and similar.

And there are some people that are more at risk when you're adding a supplement that you don't know how it interacts with their medications.

So when I have someone who's on a blood thinner or a medication that has a lot of risk, I really worry about things like creatine.

I don't get asked that a lot in my specialty, but I always worry about people that are on blood thinners, or antibiotics, or medications that have a really narrow window of risk.

So that's something that I would want the public to think about when they add a supplement of that nature.

Do one at a time and slowly go up with your health risk.

- I wanna jump in with that, when you're adding supplements, a lot of people don't think about drug interaction, because they're not tightly regulated like medication is and there are all kinds of side effects that can happen.

I see a lot of folks who are taking an antidepressant or an anti-anxiety medication and will kind of pepper in like, "Oh, and also I'm trying St.

John's wort," or "also I'm trying," and everybody just here nodded, because St.

John's wort is not one to take.

If you're taking other things, it can be very dangerous.

So in the realm of supplements, there are a lot of things that are, quote, unquote, "natural" that are not necessarily healthy for everyone to take.

And I appreciate that you pointed out the advertisement piece of, like, Dr.

So-and-So's creatine.

That and the weighted jacket, the weighted vest, I think it's important to point out these are all sales and marketing techniques.

When you're watching TikTok or Instagram, these people are making a pretty good commission on people clicking their link and buying that product.

So a lot of this constant, endless cycle of new fitness fads, and especially weight loss fads targeted at women and AFAB people, there is a huge market share on that.

So if you're asking yourself, "Do I need to take creatine and I'm not an athlete?"

The answer is most likely, no.

Is it gonna benefit your life?

Probably not that much.

Will it make you feel mentally clear, and happy, and wonderful?

Maybe, maybe not.

But you should check with your physician and make sure there's not a bigger health risk.

'Cause best case, it does nothing, you know, you just process out what you don't use.

Worst case, there are actual serious considerations to take in.

- Right.

Amber, I just wanna check with you and see what you're hearing in your realm.

- Yeah, so we hear a lot of this from our athletes.

We hear a lot of this from, you know, people who are out and about.

And I think the weighted vests and the creatine, you listen to those studies and we talk about, like, there being advertisements, and all of them, like the weighted vest, go out and walk.

Yeah, go out and walk.

I think just being active in some way, shape, or form is going to benefit everybody, and you're not gonna have the cost of the vest and the creatine.

It's like you can't outrun a bad diet.

You can't outrun, out-supplement poor habits.

So, in my world, I'd much rather see people change some of those habits, that's free, that's easy, working on cleaning up your diet, working on that.

Talk to your doctor, talk to a nutritionist, whatever that needs, because that's gonna benefit you much more than the fads, and it's easy.

- Yeah.

- I mean, it's easy to say.

It's hard to do, it's hard to eat right.

But yeah.

- Well, Megan, Dr.

Howie, Amber, looking at all these trends, what red flags should people watch for when evaluating health information on social media?

What should trigger that "step back" sort of response?

Katrina, obviously weigh in on this one for us please too.

Just something that people can say, "Hey, I might actually be being duped here."

- If it's too good to be true, I would really weigh into that.

And when I was asked to come to this, I was reflecting on a recent one that I fell prey to that I might reference just because it was funny.

There was a TikTok that talked about preserving avocados in your refrigerator in water.

And I was like, "I love avocados, this is great."

- Who doesn't?

- I love them and I hate that I throw them away black.

And then, I saw warnings from the FDA about listeria, and they were like, "If you wanna poop your brains out, you can do that."

And I felt really foolish that I fell prey to that.

And I am a very experienced clinician in a weight management realm, and I fell prey to a TikTok where we think about people that don't work in the health field, where they might not look it up after.

And I looked it up before I did that to my family.

So I really think if it sounds too good to be true, really ask those questions.

And the hard work, you can get that work done with support.

We know that people have someone behind them, they do better.

They don't always need the most expensive treatments, the best medicine, or whatever.

The more touches that they have with someone who cares about them, they will do better.

So I think, more than anything, have a good person that you can bounce those questions off of, and look to people that are making small strides towards the right direction.

So with my patients, I always say, "What's the low-lying fruit?

What do you think you could change today that will eventually be a permanent habit?

How do you put yourself on your own calendar?"

is what I ask people.

- We are really getting close on time.

Is there anything someone wants to add very quickly to that?

- No, I love that.

I think that those little changes that you can persist with for the rest of your life and make little changes that become habits, that's where big changes happen over a long period of time.

Little things that you barely notice, and I love that.

So just change your trajectory a teeny bit, and, years later, that will have big benefits.

- Mm-hmm, and remember, there is a marketing component to it.

People are out there, they wanna sell you something, and they're also getting something back.

All right, thank you so much, everyone.

I wanna thank you all for helping us separate the science from the hype.

Remember that dramatic claims and quick fixes are often too good to be true.

Always consult with healthcare professionals before making major changes to your health routine.

You can share this episode at ksps.org.

For "Health Matters," I'm Aaron Luna, goodnight.

(gentle bright music) - [Announcer] "Health Matters" is proudly supported by MultiCare.

(gentle bright music continues) (gentle bright music continues)