AIBU to think "Wellness gurus" are mostly spouting bollocks?

[WellnessWally]

I was referred to Nuffield Health for their joint pain programme and had my "Health MOT" with the lady I had assumed was a physio (she runs the twice-weekly exercise class). Retrospectively, I think she was more a salesperson, as I had to hear all about their ongoing fees, children's membership etc. but that's perhaps another issue.

During the health MOT, I'd had to disclose other medical conditions - for me, mainly migraines. She asked me how much liquid I drank a day, and I said about 5 cups of tea. She acted as though I said I regularly shot heroin into my eyeballs. She told me that tea was no good and caffeine was dehydrating, and I wasn't getting ANY water at all. I know a little bit about this, so I said that actually yes, if you have pure caffeine it's dehydrating, but the amount of water in tea more than makes up for that. (Many studies have shown this.) She was insistent that I needed water or would become very ill. I said that I'd managed to survive so far - and it had probably been about two weeks since I had an actual glass of water.

Then she really pissed me off by telling me that's why I get migraines. I said to her that they were hormonal, I can pin the day of the month I'm going to get them and they are (hard-won) well-managed with medication. My daughter and my dad also get them, so there's a strong genetic link and it has nothing to do with caffeine. She disagreed.

I'm just so sick of people with no GCSEs in science spouting quasi-medical bollocks in what was basically a medical setting (I was referred by my GP). I'm not looking forward to seeing this woman twice a week for the next twelve weeks - though open to her being a better exercise leader - perhaps that's her strength.

But Wellness people - please, please stop spouting bollocks about clean eating and protein and caffeine and ultra-processed foods, unless you have the science to back it up (and I don't mean "watched a video on TikTok").

Rant over.

I agree. No doubt there will be people showing up in this very thread advocating to drink a gallon of water a day for some magical health benefits. H2O molecules are identical whether they come from tea, milk, soup, baked beans or tap water. And, in fact, there was a study which assessed short term hydration of various liquids and water had the worst score (presumably, due to lack of electrolytes which is what "holds" it in your cells). I'm not even going to go into the whole " when you are hungry, you might actually be thirsty" and "when you are thirsty, you are already dehydrated" BS. I've given up long time ago trying to explain it to people and just nod politely and roll my eyes internally.
I only drink water when I exercise and seem to be in perfect health.

The advice to drink water now and then isn't wrong. Did you ask her qualifications?

YANBU. Any time I see anyone using the words 'detoxing', 'low toxin', 'clean eating', 'additives', 'chemicals' or 'hormone balancing' with regard to food I know they're a charlatan.

Have you heard the Conspirituality podcast? There are many cases on there of wellness nonsense...

I have to have electrolytes or celtic sea salt in my water. Just water only would make me feel gross.

I was a whisper away from saying, "My body has a magic way of telling me I'm dehydrated. It makes me feel thirsty." But apparently by the time we feel thirsty, we're SECONDS away from irreversible kidney damage.

Sorry but there are strong scientific links between caffeine and migraine. Why not Stop the caffeine, drink plain water for afew months and see what happens.... would also recommend daily magnesium and omega 3s to help reduce migraine - my wonderful wellbeing herbalist ( also qualified PHD scientist) recommended these and its been life changing.

The physio was just trying to help.

Maybe yoga meditation would help reduce your rantings and lack of patience and bad language?

Love and light ✨️

But surely this was a nurse or whatever at the Nuffield (that you chose to seek care from privately), who certainly has some GCSEs, because you can’t get a job at McDonald’s without GCSEs, let alone in a healthcare role, who advised you to drink whatever when you said you were only having caffeinated beverages and migraines? That sounds like sound evidence based advice.

This wasn’t some wellness guru from Instagram telling you that what you need is crystal healing. Even if you were drinking 5 mugs of water a day that probably isn’t enough, only a little over a litre. You probably are dehydrated. Do you drink alcohol too? I’m often hearing people whinge about feeling rough when all they drink is coffee or tea all day and then 2 glasses of wine every evening, and have headaches and feel like they are dragging all day, but it’s definitely their ADHD or perimenopause, not the 5 cups of coffee and half a bottle of Chardonnay. 🙄

I have a friend with no medical background. However they often read the latest academic research papers, re a chronic health problem.

Perhaps do this ref drinking water - then you can quote back actual facts and figures if she starts on at you again. Quoting research papers seems to shut them up, because usually their facts are second hand.

Reframe it - away to educate yourself and her. I think I read somewhere (defiantly not a research paper), that the recommendation of drinking x amount of water was not scientifically backed?

Agree OP.

We’re flooded with a twenty-first century version of Victorian quackery. Instead of magic potions sold from newspaper ads we get ‘wellness’ flogged on the internet and pushed by food ‘gurus’.

The depressing thing is that all this water drinking, kitchen cupboard remedy and ‘healthy eating’ shite is now so embedded that no amount of evidence or common sense can drive it out.

‘Therapy’ also seems to me to be in large part a giant fraud.

I do not doubt caffeine is a migraine trigger for some people but a scientific experiment (with a sample size of 4!) on own family shows:

• DD(10) drinks no caffeine - gets migraines
• DF (75) drinks moderate caffeine - gets migraines
• DB (35) drinks no caffeine - gets migraines
• DD (14) drinks a small amount of caffeine - gets no migraines

There is a genetic link - and whilst there is usually a trigger (or more likely a combination of triggers for migraines), the National Migraine Centre said to me that most people never figure it out. For me, I can link it very strongly to lack of carbs - e.g. eating soup for lunch (weird, I know - must be a blood sugar thing - or perhaps I'm overhydrated) and to hormonal time of the month.

And no, you don't need to drink a litre of water every day. You get water from food, from literally any type of liquid. H20 is H20.

And anyone who wants to try and dim my palette of wonderful swear words can take a flying fuck at a rolling doughnut.

Sample size of four not really scientific is it - very quasi sample b#@!%£#@!

The words “Health MOT” is enough to tell you it’s a snake oil salesman.

Yet there is enough gullible people around to fall for it, maybe people should engage brain first

I just reckon drinking some water is the most low stakes intervention that has been proven in some cases to improve migraine...so why wouldn't you? There's nothing easier, it's effectively free, requires no prescription, has zero side effects except beneficial ones, it doesn't have climate impacts of causing comples medications to be created... it seems odd to me to be crippled by migraine and not just add in the simplest things automatically along with the more complex ones.

Health MOTs at BUPA and Nuffield are fantastic- different levels available and cover whole range and combinations of tests and lifestyle reviews - definitely not snake oil or quackery! Take a look at their websites !

I do yoga and occasionally meditate, but there's not enough yoga in the world to make me find Goop-style shite anything less than insufferable.

I love Dara O'Briain's take:
"Oh, herbal medicine's been around for thousands of years!" Indeed it has, and then we tested it all, and the stuff that worked became 'medicine'. And the rest of it is just a nice bowl of soup and some potpourri, so knock yourselves out.

Haha brilliant! Loving your swearing palette 😆

I don't like water. Can't drink it 'neat' and almost never have. Drink tea, and lots of it. Am still here and, apparently, exceptionally healthy.

I'm just so sick of people with no GCSEs in science

Do you know this woman has no GCSEs in science?

If you genuinely think this, then don't see her for advice every week of the next 12 weeks.

I'm not sure what to say about this.

I was referred to Nuffield Health for their joint pain programme and had my "Health MOT" with the lady I had assumed was a physio (she runs the twice-weekly exercise class). Retrospectively, I think she was more a salesperson, as I had to hear all about their ongoing fees, children's membership etc. but that's perhaps another issue.

I'd assume that anyone working for a Nuffield hospital was qualified and they'd done detailed background checks.

WHO referred you and with what aim in mind?

Did you not check out who you were seeing and what they were doing for you?

If you were referred by your GP why were they wasting NHS money on someone not qualified?

Was this a private appt paid for by NHS?

Regardless of who she is and what she does, it's your personal responsibility to check out who you are referred to (look on the venue's website for her or google her) and see if it's what you need.

You're not a passive bystander in this- it's your health and your choice to see her.

“Lightwell · Today 09:54
I just reckon drinking some water is the most low stakes intervention that has been proven in some cases to improve migraine...so why wouldn't you? There's nothing easier, it's effectively free, requires no prescription, has zero side effects except beneficial ones, it doesn't have climate impacts of causing comples medications to be created... it seems odd to me to be crippled by migraine and not just add in the simplest things automatically along with the more complex ones.”

I agree with this. Your migraines may be hormonal but you can still try to reduce the risk/intensity, surely. You’re clearly resistant to adding to your fluid intake (i await a volley from your excellent swearing palette 😀) but 5 mugs of tea a day doesn’t sound much to me even if you add in fluid from foods. Full disclosure - i speak as someone who has been prone to UTIs in the past and lack of fluids has definitely been a trigger for me so i’m rarely far from some kind of water-based drink.

YANBU about wellness gurus, although it doesn’t sound like that’s what this woman was.

I think fair enough for her to initially talk about water (although I agree she is wrong about tea actually dehydrating you). I imagine she has some people who come in and mention various health things and are actually a bit oblivious to very simple things that could be tried to see whether they help. But she should have backed off when it became clear that you are not in that situation. I would assume that anyone who has had migraines for years and fought to get effective medication has probably tried giving up caffeine at some point because they’ve probably tried everything (OTOH, if actually you haven’t because you know some people who don’t drink caffeine and still get migraines, then tbh I think you’re a bit silly).

Try drinking water. I suffer with migraines (using sumatriptan to manage), or well I did until 2 years ago when I started drinking a litre of water each day. I rarely have any now. I honestly can't believe the difference and if somebody had told me to just drink water I'd have told them where to go! I'm not giving up my caffeine though, I need that to function!

This was at one of their gyms. And I was making a scientific joke about the sample size.