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Documenting Andrew Huberman's Lies
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this is Andrew huberman before we begin
I'd like to emphasize that this podcast
is separate from my teaching and
research roles at Stanford in 2021 just
a few years ago hubman had what seemed
like a definitive stance on blue light
and circadian rhythms it doesn't matter
if you block the blues yeah if you're
looking at bright light at night you're
going to disrupt your Circ he even sort
of made fun of companies that sold
gimmicky products to block blue light
the the concept of blue light being bad
um led to the a lot of product
development but last month he changed
his tune Roa and I designed these
glasses which as you can see have red
lenses that filter out the specific
short wavelengths of light that activate
the cells that wake you up did a
lucrative sponsorship opportunity change
his opinion on settled science or was
this in reality a gift to his audience
is however part of my desire and effort
to bring zero cost to Consumer
information about science and science
related tools to the general public
maybe the sponsorship was a necessary
tool to keep the lights on at huberman
HQ in keeping with that theme I'd like
to thank the sponsors of today's podcast
our first sponsor is Roka and you can
thank these very special sponsors too if
you just enter the code huberman to get
20% off your first order which sort of
begs the question how much money does it
take to change huberman's opinion on
settled science I could imagine that he
stands to make millions especially if
he's getting a significant portion of
sales just just based on what I charge I
don't think I would do any deal s if
they were under half a million dollar
maybe even a million dollar with his
audience and his influence this is
really like what you would call
conflicts of interest it seems very
strange that someone who professes that
he's providing things at zero cost is
doing something like this because you
don't need glasses like this blue filter
glasses this seems like a brilliant idea
except that Studies have shown that it
probably doesn't work and I have to ask
are these Partnerships even legal under
FDA guidelines that Outlaw making
specific Health claims for these kinds
of products practically wearing red Leen
glasses such as these can keep what's
called your cortisol a stress hormone
low these lenses allow you to transition
to a calm and sleepy state to wind down
so let's dig in and figure out what's
really going on with the most popular
science communicator on the internet Andrew
Andrew
huberman a few years ago when huberman
appeared on the podcast scene it seemed
like there was finally a voice of reason
and a source for unbiased scientific
information that everyone could trust
welcome to the huberman Lab podcast
where we discuss science and
science-based tools for everyday [Music]
[Music]
life what could be better than a
plain-speaking Stanford Professor
digging into a mountain of scientific
literature and Distilling everything
down into discret science-based
protocols for the Everyman after all
most of his recommendations were free
get early morning sunlight to set your
circadian rhythm do a little light yoga
meditation welcome to this 20-minute
non-sleep deep rest
protocol get cold and get hot and work
out he brought on people who he said
were the top scientists in their
respected Fields when he straighted out
of his core expertise of
Opthalmology it really did seem that his
audience was getting a great deal on a
free Stanford education he was speaking
science on Rogan and fighting back
against poorly researched bro scientists
and wellness grifters from Dave asprey I
have doubled my deep sleep by using the
glasses I made for sleep to Ben
Greenfield hey I'm Ben Greenfield if you
see me wearing blue light blocking
glasses nine times out of 10 I'm wearing
the raw Optics version and whoever this
is so everybody loves the red glasses
they want to know why are you wearing
the red glasses and the red glasses are
to block the blue light that is coming
off of all these lights that I'm around
he seemed different than every other
Wellness influencer out there because of
his credentials oh and at night it
doesn't matter blue blockers on the
people that made these products failed
to actually read the papers start to
finish or if they did they didn't
comprehend a critical element but was he
really unbiased for every Free Hack that
he doled out it also seemed that there
was a raft of supplemental products that
people could opt into his actual
sponsors were a who's who of Wellness
bro Staples like athletic greens learn
more at athletic greens.com a company
that was literally founded by a
convicted Criminal Who fled prosecution
in New Zealand for unfair business
dealings Chris ashen's green powder
skyrocketed to success not on the merits
of its spirulina research but because of
its generous marketing plan that shared
30% of Revenue with influencers just go
to athletic greens.com
huberman I did a whole video on ag1 that
you should definitely check out ag1
hired the most powerful defamation
lawyer in the country to kill this video
before it ever aired but as you can see
it didn't
work and huberman well he drove a huge
number of subscriptions to ag1 even as
his fellow influencers were skeptical of
the endorsement calling for example
athletic greens one or ag1 a highquality
greens powder is a little misleading
this episode is brought to you by
athletic greens yeah that and
that's just the tip of the iceberg H
remember also sponsors element better
help whoop and plunge just to name a few
still if I were going to give huberman a
huge heaping benefit of the doubt and
say that his endorsements for those
companies were honest representations of
his personal worldview and that despite
the cash that he was bringing the deals
did not influence his scientific
interpretations his partnership with Roa
is different while we can argue that he
is not an expert on salts or spirulina
or therapy as a professor of neuro anal
anatomy and Opthalmology these glasses
are at the very heart of who hubman is
as a scientific Authority so let's look
at what huberman is specifically
claiming particularly since he has
substantially changed his opinions on
Blue blocking glasses since he first
started talking about them here he is in
2021 talking to samur hotter the section
chief on circadian rhythms at the
National Institutes of Health I I
personally I've tried the blue blocker
and I couldn't even wear them I I
thought they were just really horrendous
to be honest well along the lines of
blue blockers I think a lot of people
mistakenly wear them all day long oh my
God that would be very a lot of people
do that a lot of people do that they
think that that blue light is bad I
think that the the the concept of blue
light being bad um led to the a lot of
product development and a lot of people
are just assuming that viewing blue
light is what was giving them headaches
when in fact it might have just been
looking at screens at at close distance
all so here's the problem right here he
is again A year later 2022 in his
episode called Sleep toolkit first of
all you're going to want to avoid bright
artificial lights of any color Yes of
any color we haven't talked a lot about
blue blockers you know lenses that block
blue wavelengths or short wavelengths of
light you don't need them and even if
you do wear them you will find that if
lights are very bright doesn't matter if
it's a blue light a yellow light or a
red light those bright lights will wake
up your brain and body they will
activate the same mechanisms that were
activated early in the day by sunlight
and there are a lot of other Clips where
he generally says the same thing
huberman was actively critical of
companies selling useless blue blocking
Solutions and repeatedly said that blue
blockers don't really do very much he
explicitly blamed normal ambient
electric lighting for interfering with
sleep that was the cause not screens but
you can't really make that much money
from telling people to turn Turn Down
the Lights glasses though well that's
something else entirely Roa and I
designed these glasses which is to say
not only has he changed his mind on Blue
blockers but he has devised a way to
sell his own branded version roa's
website advertises wind down glasses
along with some very specific claims of
their benefits they write that their
glasses will quote lower stress levels
sink the Circadian rhythm and help
protect your mood further stating that
even minimal artificial light exposure
can interfere with your natural Rhythm
and suppress melatonin production what
do you say to that claim uh short story
is well partly right
after I learned about huberman's
partnership with Roa sleep scientist and
wellness debunker started pointing to a
recent review article that directly
studied how light from our screens can
affect our sleep so I reached out to the
lead author my name's uh Michael grisa
so I'm a clinical psychologist and my
speciality is just being inle sleep psan
Rhythm disorders grat aar's 2024 paper
called a bidirectional model of sleep
and Technology use in the journal sleep
medicine reviews examined all of the
available research on how technology
affects sleep and came to a surprising
conclusion the blue light from our
screens isn't generally bright enough to
affect our circadian rhythms at all
before we started collecting data we had
to take some measurements of the amount
of Lux coming from that screen of the
iPad and I was taking those measurements
I was in one of the uh sleep lab
bedrooms all the lights were off I had
the Lux meter and I had the screen and I
had a had a fully upright white content
in the background and I was only getting
about 50 lucks which was so low like
when we try to change someone's cative
rhythms therapeutically we we trying to
use like 500 or a th000 lux from an
artificial Source um so I actually had
to sort of bend my knees as I'm sitting
upright on this bed and and have the
iPad closer to my face cuz obviously the
closer you bring it to your face the
higher the Lux and we could only get it
to about 80 Lux in other words even if
you're in bed with a screen right up
against your nose that light is 5 to 10
times dimmer than what you can prove
scientifically would affect your sleep
lo and behold you know when we compared
a bright screen to a dim screen it only
took 3 and 1/2 minutes longer on average
to fall asleep if you had a bright
screen compared to a dim screen it was
really nothing it wasn't just grark own
research saying that almost every other
study that directly looked at the
effects of screens on human sleep said
basically the same thing if you look
overall at the 11 studies that tested
this effect of how much longer does it
take to fall asleep if you're exposed to
a bright screen it's only like a few
minutes so why would you spend a 100
bucks trying to get a few minute benefit
it just doesn't make sense to me it
seems very strange that someone who
professes that he's providing things at
zero cost is doing something like this
because you don't need glasses like this
you've got something inbuilt on your
phones if you've got um control of your
light lighting environment just dim your
lights down or turn them off at the
bottom of the page on roa's website
huberman links to a handful of studies
that are meant to support his health
claims but as is the case with
references in most of his podcast They
Don't Really hold up to scrutiny I went
over them with gratar and the research
generally didn't control for Luminosity
which is the key factor and the tests
that did well they were done on mice not
humans so you don't get much benefit you
don't get much return on investment by
using these glasses so I don't know why
we've got now a mouse study when we've
got human studies on the very topic that
these things are supposed to be about
for a lay person maybe this mistake
wouldn't be so objectionable we've all
heard how blue light from our screens
can mess with our sleep but it is worth
emphasizing that huberman is a Stanford
Professor with a specific expertise in
neuroanatomy and Opthalmology this is
literally what he is known for he of all
people knows the science on this he
simply has no excuse for this error his
Roa partnership is a pure and
unadulterated grift from beginning to
end and this is really what I want to
talk to you about for the remainder of
this video in general I don't
particularly care about any single
specific prod product or business plan
that people get up to in order to
monetize their podcasts what I care
about is the much larger problem about
trusting things that we learn online I
care about how the business of influence
has changed the way that people learn
about science and health information and
how that in turn affects the way that
the general public trusts information in
general at large but before I dig into
that and because it just feels wildly
appropriate right now I want to take a
moment for a word from our sponsors
which is
you I spend a lot of time thinking about
how I can monetize this Channel and I'm
extremely cautious about who I'm willing
to take money from I can see the
slippery slope of how sponsorships
change the message and that's why
crowdfunding is so important to the
future of online journalism I've gone
toe-to-toe with some of the biggest
scammers on the internet they've
threatened me with lawsuits which makes
putting these videos together not only
technically difficult but expensive to
produce from a pure business perspective
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button and we'll go back to the video right
right
now the problem with celebrity
scientists it's not exactly new now
again we always had celebrity doctors
right we had all of these famous doctors
um working for maror back in the day
remember marketing cigarettes in a
nationwide survey doctors in all
branches of medicine were asked what
cigarette do you smoke saying like this
is the doctor number one favorite I'm a
doctor and you know I I smoke marelo
lights every day so it's not new um it's
just a with the internet you see this
sort of marketing scaling to a level
that we haven't seen before and people
developing these very sort of parasocial
bonds with the science and medical
influencers that they're following I
reached out to Taylor Loren a former
Washington Post reporter and author of
the book extremely online to ask her
about how much she thinks thinks that
sponsorship deals alter the way the
public understands science one thing
that I think that's really dangerous is
you see a lot of these like science and
medical influencers um engaging with in
increasingly extreme sort of sections of
the internet like it's not so much of a
problem right if like huberman is is
endorsing a product but say he goes on
someone like Joe Rogan to endorse the
product or starts partnering with you
know other disinformation podcasters and
influencers on this point I did a video
a few months back about what I call the
yes and effect it's about how Top
members of this grift overse support
each other's increasingly extreme
statements in order to expand their own
reach Joe Rogan currently sits at the
top of that ecosystem which is who
incidentally Andrew huberman appeared on
to break into the mainstream those
influencers also end up working with the
same Brands like ag1 and grab similar
affiliate marketing deals it is a whole
ecosystem of grift and unlike the sort
of Journalism that I do well there's
real money in it I asked Taylor what she
thought hubman was making on his Roa
deal it's so hard to know how much
somebody is making I don't know that
he's getting Millions but I could
imagine that he stands to make millions
especially if he's getting a significant
portion of sales just because I imagine
he's able to drive a huge amount of
sales through pushing this product as
part of his sort of expertise in brand
so I think I think this just goes back
to like why we need more transparency in
this industry generally it's it's we
just don't know kind of what someone
stands to gain and so that's why it
makes it very hard to trust this type of
stuff the complete lack of transparency
in financial terms for influencers is
incredibly frustrating it's one thing to
know that a company sponsors a
particular product but there is a big
difference between bringing in a few
hundred and a few million dollars for a
spot the academic literature isn't much
help clearing things up the best I found
was a 2023 article by two professors of
communication at Stanford Angelie
Kristen and yingang luu they examined
1,082 posts on Instagram by influencers
talking about their business models at
the top end these researchers discovered
that influencers with around a million
followers were making
$100,000 for a single post along with a
few related stories now with his 6
million followers on YouTube and 7
million on Instagram huberman stands to
make considerably more than that as an
aside it's also relevant to remember
that huberman also makes money with
generic YouTube ads a good ballpark
estimate for his Niche which I'm basing
off data of my own huberman related
videos on my channel is that he's making roughly
roughly
$55.50 for every th000 views on his
videos or about
$5500 per million views with 3 61
million views on his channel this means
that since he began uploading 3 years
ago he has brought in about 20 million
through AdSense alone so think about
that when huberman begins his sponsor
segments by repeating some iteration of
this it is however part of my desire and
effort to bring zero cost to Consumer
information about science and science
related tools to the general public by
his definition everything on YouTube is
zero cost right and you would think that
he would be able to survive on that cool
$7 million a year in just YouTube ads
without bringing on sponsors especially
considering that glass door reports that
the average Stanford Professor earns between1
between1 139,000
139,000
$251,000 per year why isn't huberman
content with 28 times the normal salary
for his position as an associate
professor maybe it's just me but I never
really have been able to wrap my mind
around what motivates people to amass
endless wealth I make around $5,000 a
month on YouTube ads and through my
substack and patreon overall I'm pretty
okay with where I am my goal has never
been to get rich but instead just
wealthy enough to have the freedom to do
what I love which as you can see is what
I'm doing but I guess in order to keep
his valuable science free for the
average listener huberman needs to wet
his beak with a little more than what he
pulls in through
AdSense enter his specially curated list
of 17 sponsor that he's featuring on his
Channel right now now I reached out to
the team at Roa to inquire about how
much the sponsorship deal was worth with
huberman but they never got back to me
huberman himself didn't respond to a
similar request that I made on threads
however I was able to talk to an
influencer who knows people in
huberman's orbit and has a good idea of
what people make in this space he asked
not to be identified specifically
because well he wouldn't mind similar
deals himself but here he is with some
tasteful blurring and voice modulation
it's probably a licensing deal where
he's getting you know maybe 20% of the
revenue brought in by the
glasses um I mean my guess would be he's
only doing deals where he can make upwards
upwards
of 500,000 a year 50,000 a month that
would be a a a guess I can't imagine
he's doing many deals that are under
that unless there's like an equity play
where it could be sold down the road and
he's getting equity in the company but
yeah I mean if if I were huberman like
just based on what I charge I don't
think I would do any deals if they were
under half a million dollars maybe even
a million dollars with his audience and his
his
influence um so yeah that would be a
guesstimate and and again I highly doubt
that this is just a compensation play my
guess would be that he is getting either
equity in the company or it's a
licensing deal where you know he gets
20% of the revenue let's say that's uh
brought in from this specific line of
classes that uh that he's doing actually
looked pretty cool which is basically
the same ballpark that Taylor Loren's
guested as well it also lines up with
what one of huberman's ex-girlfriends
told me when she said that huberman
cleared at least $20 million in the
first year of his show
maybe you're okay with that maybe you
think that greed is good Greed for lack
of a better word is good greed is Right greed
greed
works so let's ask a different question
legal the Food and Drug Administration
has some very stringent rules for
communicating about the health benefits
of specific products supplements and
devices and while they very rarely
actually enforce their own mandates it's
worth noting that roa's windown glasses
are registered as class one medical
devices which requires the company to
stick to extremely limited claims about
what they can or cannot do huberman and
Roa both claim a number of things on
their various platforms including that
the glasses lower cortisol that they
will help you fall asleep more
efficiently and that they will quote
sink your circadian rth since these are
specific Health claims they fall outside
the purview of how these glasses are
actually registered according to the
fda's guidelines on sunglasses the
manufacturer cannot make quote
unsubstantiated claims of therapeutic
value ambiguity half-truths and trade
puffery or fail to reveal material facts
considering the state of the scientific
literature that I presented here and
huberman's own Mercurial opinions and
protocols Reg ulatory authorities should
take a second look at the wind down
glasses at least in my opinion but even
if the glasses actually do something
which I think there's good reason to
doubt we should also ask whether or not
they are worth the inflated price that
Roa is selling them at while Roa has a
few pairs of $95 glasses the vast
majority of their selection of
non-prescription glasses retail at
$165 that is unless you have a way to
get them a little cheaper if you'd like
to try Roa glasses you can go to Roa that's
that's
r.com and enter the code huberman to get
20% off your first order meanwhile you
can get an almost identical pair of blue
blocking glasses on the Chinese version
of Amazon called teu for just
$8.9 now I can't tell the functional
difference between these two different
pairs of glasses at all other than the
fact that huberman endorsed roa's
version but just maybe huberman has some
special American sauce that makes his
glasses even better than what comes out
of China and to figure out if that's
true I did a little digging into
shipping manifests on the website import
Yeti and found that Roa Imports quite a
bit of eyewear from Chinese
suppliers now my guess here is that the
inflated price for roa's windown glasses
doesn't stem from a particularly
stringent manufacturing prod process but
comes from paying for huberman's
endorsement the premium you're paying
goes right into his pocket in the same
way that for every $89 that someone
spends on a1's mostly spirulina powder
$30 goes right into the pocket of the
influencer whose discount code you used
this was
$99 it was 90 quid it was $180
Australian dollar for this tiny little
pouch so now that we have a couple more
relevant data points let's put it all
means can you trust Andrew huberman now
I first met Andrew back in 2018 which
was about 2 years before he got famous
here with Scott Carney that's me and I
have to say that my personal experience
with him raised some major red flags
I've done a few videos about how I was
really impressed with him at first and
how I began to re assess who he really
was over time well I'm not an expert on
Neuroscience by any stretch I am an
expert on cold water immersion after I
wrote two books on the topic and
Andrew's scientific explanations of cold
water protocols have always been off if
you want to dig into that check out this
deep dive I did on huberman and Susanna
soberg I'm glad that I was able to spend
a little bit more time doing traditional
reporting on hubman for this video than
I did in some of those previous videos
in fact in some of those a lot of
commenters have said that they could see
that I was struggling with my personal
relationship with him versus what my
professional duties were and to some
degree that's true I have been very
close to huberman over the years which
is why I feel so strongly about
correcting the record I think the most
powerful evidence on whether or not
hubman is a Force for good or not good
on the internet comes down to how he
changes his protocols and teaching ings
based on the input that he gets from
sponsors and what he has done with blue
blocking glasses in the last 2 years is
direct evidence that he is bought and
paid for he started out as a skeptic but
changed his mind once a lucrative
sponsorship opportunity crossed his path
and this doesn't change the fact that
the world needs credible scientific
authorities who the general public can
trust when he first came online and
started to gain popularity it really did
seem like Andrew huberman could be the
one who organized complex health
information for the masses unfortunately
even if his intentions were at one time
pure it's clear to me that the money and
fame are more important to him now than scientific
scientific
integrity and once you lose your
integrity I don't know how you get it
back and maybe you have an opinion on
that I'd like to hear it down in the
comments below is there any way that
huberman can get back as credibility or
maybe you don't think it was lost just
because he's taking these sponsorship
deals irregardless of all of that we
should all collectively try to remember
that when you get something for free
you're not the customer anymore you're
the product and huberman has sold you
down the river to a whole host of
affiliate marketing Wellness grifters
whose primary goal is to convince you
that their scammy products are based on
real science as the internet's most
prominent science influencer huberman
has a duty to uphold the highest
standards for integrity otherwise he
hurts the way people trust scientific
information in general and that to me is
an unforgivable sin thank you so much
for staying with me on this deep dive
into internet science grift and
influence if you like this sort of
fiercely independent journalism I would
love you to hit that like And subscribe
button and consider supporting this
Channel with a premium membership on
substack I I have no desire to
infinitely sell you out to sponsors by
lying to you about some products
Effectiveness and I'm going to back up
what I'm saying with a kind of
transparency that you very rarely see
from a talking head online let me show
you how much money I actually make over
the last 2 years this channel has
brought in about
$35,000 from YouTube ads you can see for
yourself so ask yourself who do you
trust more the man making at a minimum
$7 million a year slinging an
everchanging version of for-profit
science communication or someone who is
so passionate about the truth that the
money is secondary if you liked this
video you can find other ones like it on
my playlist the Liars cheats and
charlatans of the gyft overse and I
think you're going to find some really
interesting information there from poke
bear LLC in Denver Colorado this this
was Scott Carney investigates thank you
so much to all of my supporters on
patreon and on substack who make this
work possible if you want Early Access
and to get your name on the honor rooll
um please check out those links down
below and you know it just means the
world to me that you're here from poke
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