Saunas, Supplements, Cold Plunges and More
Food, We Need To Talk
Juna Gjata
4.8 • 2K Ratings
🗓️ 16 February 2026
⏱️ 60 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In this episode, we sit down with Dr. Rachele Pojednic, a Stanford faculty member and Chief Science Officer at Restore Hyper Wellness, to talk about the confusing gray zone between wellness fads and real science. We get into why so many health trends (like saunas, cold plunges, supplements, red light therapy, and IV drips) feel like they work… even when the research hasn’t caught up yet. Rachele breaks down how wellness companies and influencers often take small, weak studies and turn them into massive claims — and how to spot that as a consumer. We also talk about what actually looks promising in the research right now (yes, creatine comes up), and why “natural” doesn’t automatically mean “safe” or “effective.” If you’ve ever wondered what’s legit, what’s hype, and what’s just expensive placebo, this episode will make you feel so much smarter.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Eddie, so today's episode, I think, is kind of different for us because it's not specifically |
| 0:07.7 | about nutrition or exercise or the environment. It's actually about, I think, something that we |
| 0:13.2 | try to do in every single episode of the podcast. So, you know, I think what we've been trying |
| 0:18.4 | to do, actually I'm pretty clear about this since 2019 when we got started, wow, that was a long time ago, is to take the science that we have, |
| 0:27.0 | the evidence, and to merge it with the wellness opportunities that we have there. What do you |
| 0:32.7 | trust? What should you listen to? What changes should you make in your life based upon what you're hearing? |
| 0:39.1 | And I don't know about you, Eddie, but I feel like I've noticed this trend where we have really |
| 0:43.1 | legitimate scientists come on here and basically say every single health fad you've ever seen is fake. |
| 0:47.8 | There's no science behind any of it, right? |
| 0:49.9 | Yeah, but that's also not true. |
| 0:51.7 | But then you have like people who are out in the world actually using things like saunas or cold plunges or supplement. |
| 0:57.7 | And they say, like, well, I actually feel a lot better when I use these things. |
| 1:01.6 | And so in a lot of ways, the research hasn't quite caught up to the fads that people are doing. |
| 1:07.1 | But then there are actually truths of the fact that a lot of claims being made are totally overblown. |
| 1:11.4 | So what's a person to do? |
| 1:14.8 | A person is supposed to listen to this episode. |
| 1:17.8 | So today we're going to try to bridge that gap. |
| 1:20.4 | We are talking to someone that Eddie has known forever. |
| 1:23.4 | She is amazing. |
| 1:24.4 | She was on the first season of Food We Need to Talk, believe it or not, like six years ago. |
| 1:28.3 | And she has worked on both sides of this. So she's worked not only in academia, but also in industry. |
| 1:33.0 | And we're going to get the tea on cold plunges, saunas, supplements, and while a lot of the science seems to be lagging behind a lot of these new health interventions. |
... |
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