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.

100% hard agree!

Everyone is so different and I wouldn’t dream of giving advice. My daughter has had some luck with eating protein every day at 3pm (her headaches always start around 4) so we’ve linked it to blood sugar. Mine are more hormonal (and the smell of dark chocolate can trigger me!).

The Migraine Centre said it’s often a combination of things - eg a poor night’s sleep wouldn’t necessarily cause a migraine, but it’s like filling a bucket of triggers - for example, bad sleep, a trigger food, hormones - and when the bucket tips it’s migraine time. This also makes it hard to isolate causes.

Their website is excellent and I would recommend it.

The underlying truth of this is that we live in an age when a lot of medicine is very sophisticated and that the dimmer sort of person is incapable of accepting that the expertise is out of their reach.

Some diagnosis is by remarkable machines, scans and tests; treatments for conditions are frequently drugs created by incredibly detailed and complex research.

But some people are deep-down frightened of a part of life they can’t understand and in which they must place their trust in others. So they invent these absurd ‘health’ regimes to try to feel more in control (and more ‘in the know’ and therefore self-important). Add in a debased religious impulse - woo is just ritual - and you get pointless water drinking and bollocks about detoxing, ‘unhealthy’ food and other such nonsense.

Of course we could all/mostly do with drinking more water, as a race.

However this insistence that caffeine = bad, carbs = bad, etc, as blanket statements, is factually and scientifically wrong.

As for needing 'detoxes', I refer you to my previous post. Everyone already has a built-in, free, highly efficient facility for this - a LIVER.

Google suggests it's been a required subject since the introduction of the National Curriculum in 1988. So most under 50s would have a science GCSE.

Clearly stuck on this but I thought was a shitty comment from the OP.

It might be required to take - but it doesn’t mean someone has passed it, does it? Plenty of my friends didn’t, but have gone on to have objectively much more successful careers than me (thankfully not as medics).

I don’t give a shit if you’ve passed GCSE Biology or not - so long as you’re not using a personal training qualification to give incorrect medical advice.

For all this sophistication, tests and scans etc, migraines have no cure… medication can control the symptoms but does not get rid of them entirely.

This is all rather silly.
English maths and science are compulsory parts of the national curriculum in the UK.

This doesn't mean everyone passes a GCSE in any of them- in fact a large percentage of students don't pass English or Maths!

Hate to tell you this, but we've been 'rejecting simple water with horror' for centuries, mostly because it's rarely been the case that everyone has access to pure, naturally filtered, uncontaminated or untreated water.

In Victorian times, people drank beer because the water wasn't fit to drink on its own. Today, the stuff that comes out of the tap for many of us won't make us ill, but in order for it not to make us ill, it has been treated with stuff that affects the taste. So many of us carry on the ancient practice of adding to it to make it palatable. It's really not new at all.

In fact, what actually makes us 'spoiled' is the very fact that any of us can talk about drinking 'simple water' without having to, at the very least, boil it first.

Most of us don't have access to naturally filtered, pure water sources. I loved somewhere with natural springs once, and the water was like nectar, but it was tested regularly and wasn't always fit for consumption.

Water isn't simple. It's easily contaminated and has a different 'taste' dependent on the chemicals/minerals it has been exposed to. Our drinking water has been through several treatments and miles of pipe. Nothing simple about it. Even rain water isn't 'simple'.

If you have a problem with this, you should go back to your GP if they referred you and say the advice was inappropriate.
It would be far better than wasting your day here.

I assume this woman is the first person anyone like you (who is referred) sees and she takes a medical history.

If she goes beyond what she's qualified to do, you should take that up with a) your GP and b) the gym.

She won't be employed as a wellness guru so that's rather a silly title to ascribe to her.

Sorry but when I start feeling a headache coming on a coffee often helps stop it

Don’t get me started on cancer stuff that pops up on Facebook the anount of unqualified people giving out rubbish and even dangerous advice. There’s a reason oncologists study for years …

It is all bollocks that only mugs fall for

but that wasn't my point at all. It's not about safety at all, I am talking about fussy.

"Water refusers" are a modern and rich society luxury from people so spoilt they prefer sugar or processed drink, the same way people prefer to eat junk food and look in horror at healthy food.

In fact, what actually makes us 'spoiled' is the very fact that any of us can talk about drinking 'simple water' without having to, at the very least, boil it first.
and none of the water is unpalatable, that's the point.

Some of it can be useful I think. I once had dreadful period pain and a woman gave me a magnet to put on my tummy. The pain went away very quickly. No idea how it worked, but it definitely did!

I know what you mean. I have been diagnosed with refractory migraine which is when all the usual and some unusual treatments don't work.
I'm seeing a private neurologist who specialises in hard to treat migraines.

I'm so far from "caffeine and dehydration" as the triggers but I still get people trying to diagnose and advise me unsolicited.

I don't think all wellness people are spouting bollocks and I do see the value in a lot of their treatments for general wellness, not for complex health conditions.

Are you on TikTok OP?

If so, go and have a look at Dr Mike's page. He is a medical doctor and calls out a whole bunch of these wellness claims, giving an medical opinion.

You can just see the frustration oozing out of him at all the false information being handed out by gurus.

Same, I rarely have caffeine but it helps me when I feel a migraine coming on

As has been covered above, caffeine can both trigger and treat migraine - the vasoconstrictor effect can narrow dilated blood vessels at the start of an attack.

Well she's right that caffeine often worsens migraine. You won't get ill from 5 cups of tea a day but as a doctor I would advise you to cut back if you have regular migraines - it won't cure them but might help a bit.

If you feel thirsty it does mean you are dehydrated. As you should be drinking enough to not feel thirsty.

and yes lots of tea and not enough plain water will contribute to headaches as will too much caffeine. Headaches can be from so many different things, you can just trial and error.

yes wellness gurus with no quals are also grifters. Both can be true.

I currently have three drinks on my desk, I maybe over hydrated 😅

Yes, it is. I prefer a little squash to take the chlorine taste out of the water, here. It is, indeed, unpalatable to me to have something in my mouth that tastes of chlorine. I'm sure it is to most people, isn't it? Is it really so 'spoiled' to add something that's available to make it more pleasant to drink?

People have been doing that for centuries, as I said, because of both safety AND taste. I'm sure you season your food to your taste. I season my water to taste.

You do what you want, but if you pretend that you COULD NOT possibly drink potable water without adding processed sugary rubbish in it (or sugar-free processed rubbish) would prove my point.

Any fussy drink-refuser is miraculously cured the day they get thirsty and don't have pops available

Alex Mytton from Made in Chelsea spouts off a load of shit on instagram now. It’s so funny. We’ve all seen him pissed, shagging all the girls (we haven’t literally seen him do this part!) and now he’s selling wellness and buying land to live in the woods. Feck off with ya!

…processed sugary rubbish in it (or sugar-free processed rubbish)

Here’s a prime example of woo. It’s squash. It’s not Polonium or arsenic. 🙄

You will do yourself no good by running away from ordinary food.