I have listened to PA from the beginning of his podcast, and I have bought and read his book, subscribed to his newsletter. I have therefore not reached my conclusions lightly. In short, I think PA talks a good game about evaluating evidence and the scientific method, but falls woefully short in practicing what he preaches. He underappreciates the role of diet in health outcomes to a farcical extent, and that’s based on his simply not keeping up with how epidemiological methodology has evolved - I have posted to this effect before (nutshell: today’s epidemiological methodology is not your grampa’s methodology). He runs far ahead of where the research is when it comes to exercise and when it comes to protein intake. The fact that he is unable to course correct, not just in the short term, but in the years-long term, means that I don’t want to waste time on listening to him expound on health issues, when I know that what he says might have very poor validity. Life is too short.
Rhonda Patrick, basically - lack of rigour. Kitchen sink approach. Her singular failing is something that, to be fair, most people share - including many of us here on this board - she fails to rigorously interrogate her conclusions. Instead, she - along with great numbers of people - looks for evidence that supports her thesis, instead of looking for evidence that contradicts it - the opposite of the Popperian conception of scientific hypothesis generation. Note, how she is all in on O3 FA, but refuses to update her advocacy in light of new research, which Antoine has laid out here over the past few days, and which, according to him, he has made her aware of. Why hasn’t she done for herself what Antoine has done for us here, or at the end, why has she not come out and told everyone why these studies do not impact her advice wrt. O3 FA supplementation. I try to adhere to the Popperian principles - and thus, for example, I eagerly search for negative and harmful effects of rapamycin and the drugs that I take (empagliflozin, pitavastatin) or intend to take (telmisartan, pioglitazone) - to me, that’s part of “first do no harm”. If given convincing evidence - as Antoine has done - that DHA supplementation is at the very least questionable, I’d JUMP on those studies… which btw. I have done already years ago, even before these newer studis, when there were mere hints of negative impact of DHA (on high grade PC), and have been avoiding supplementing with DHA, ever, which I have stated here months ago. That was before Antoine put together his critique of DHA in the last few days. When I saw hints of pioglitazone and rapamycin not playing nice together I immediately posted my findings (for which I got a lot of pushback!). Bottom line - I look for evidence that I AM WRONG, for the simplest of reasons - I do not wish to harm myself or others (through misinformation). I therefore find it very off putting that Rhonda Patrick has not dropped everything to immediately investigate this DHA issue, especially that her recommendations might harm countless people who follow her advice. All in all, I simply don’t trust her methodology in reaching her conclusions and her scientific rigour - this means I don’t want to waste time listening to her. Contrast that with Matt Kaeberlein and Brian Kennedy’s approach.
Again, that’s me - I am not saying others should follow these folks or not - everyone finds value in their own way, and if someone finds PA and RP of great value, I am very happy for them. And I try to be nuanced myself - if PA (or RP) have a very interesting guest, I’ll listen! Let me make it clear - these are my opinions about what value they bring to my life, and furthermore, I might be mistaken, so YMMV. I do express my - flawed - opinions/thoughts, in case someone else might be inspired to re-evaluate their own approach to health influencers and possibly benefit from such re-thinking.
