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Guest: Rebecca Washuta

Release Date: 8/19/2024

Welcome to Trulyfit the online fitness marketplace connecting pros and clients through unique fitness business software.

Steve Washuta : Welcome to Trulyfit. Welcome to the Trulyfit podcast where we interview experts in fitness and health to expand our wisdom and wealth. I’m your host, Steve Washuta. Co Founder of Trulyfit and author of Fitness Business 101.    

Steve Washuta : On today’s episode, I have my sister Rebecca Washuta on and we discuss trending health topics. This has been something I’ve really enjoyed to do on Mondays. So rather than have someone on and just go through the normal interview process. I’ve been having my sister on, and we’ve been talking about trending health topics.

Steve Washuta : Today’s topics are the Diet Coke challenge, Benadryl and dementia, food safety, Planet Fitness, Whole Foods and China, gamified fitness, and trying to untangle politics and health with no further ado. Here’s Rebecca and I discussing all these topics. All right, Rebecca, welcome to the truly fit podcast for who knows, the 10th or 11th time here. Why don’t you give the listeners who may be listening for the first time and don’t know you a quick background on who you are and your credentials, your Bonafede’s? Yeah.

Rebecca Washuta : Thanks for having me. I think this probably is our 10th time for anyone who hasn’t heard one of our podcasts before, we are related. We do have the same last name. We are siblings. I live in Miami Beach. I have a private nutrition practice here, and I focus on weight loss and metabolic health

Steve Washuta : On Mondays, the podcasts are either interviewing podcasts where I have someone on any fitness or health or medical space that’s interconnected with fitness or health. Maybe they have a supplement company, maybe they’re an expert on something, or nutritionist, a personal trainer.

Steve Washuta : Or I do these podcasts with Rebecca, where we sit down and we talk about trending topics that are longer form podcast on Thursdays, or my quick, short podcast where I just focus on one thing. Today we’re going to go down some trending topics. You should see those trending topics on the screen if you’re watching on YouTube, if you’re listening, we will be saying those topics in advance. The first one here is the Diet Coke challenge. Have you seen this? If not? Do I need to describe this before we talk about this?

Rebecca Washuta : Yeah, I haven’t seen it yet. So walk me through it. 

Steven Washuta  So I believe it’s now trending. I’m not good at understanding what’s trending and what’s not. These are not the things that I see virality wise. But there was a girl who basically put all of the Diet Cokes like in a box so we could see them from the outside.

Steve Washuta : We being the viewers, she can’t see them. And there are straws attached to them. They’ve done these videos before, like, funny videos where, like, what are you tasting? Kind of deals. But this was just five different diet coke versions. There was a Wendy’s one, there was a McDonald’s one, there was a Chick fil A one, there was a bottle one, there was a can one, right?

Steve Washuta : There was all these different iterations, and she got every single one right. She could tell the difference of each Diet Coke. And I thought it was amazingly impressive. But really, what I wanted to focus on is not that, is that, do you do you have any foods or any drinks where you think you could do the same thing blindfolded?

Rebecca Washuta : I wonder how many Diet Cokes she has had to drink to reach that level of expertise, right? Like, what is it in the 1000s? So mine’s not interesting, and I bet I can guess what yours is. So when I’m done telling mine, I want to guess yours. I am a water snob, so if you put bottled water in front of me, Aquafina, Dasani, Fiji, like the mineral waters? Fiji, Evian, I know what they are, um, and I have a preference.

Rebecca Washuta : Like, I don’t love the mineral waters, even though they’re more expensive, the evians and the Fiji’s, I don’t like the taste of them, and so, you know, at home, we do have a water purifier, but sometimes it takes too long, and if I forget to fill it in order to let it filter down, it doesn’t work. So we just have to grab bottled water. And we’re typically buying here Aquafina or Dasani, because that’s what’s just widely available at the stores, but I hate Dasani.

Rebecca Washuta : I don’t like the taste of it. It has a very distinct taste. And it’s interesting, because if you read the labels and you go on the website, both Aquafina and Dasani are purified by reverse osmosis, and they’re headquartered in New York, right? So the water should be coming from the same place. But yeah, I can. I can definitely do that with with bottled water. I’m gonna guess yours. You recently have, like, gotten obsessed with apples, so I feel like you could. You could really pinpoint an apple.

Steve Washuta : I think I could pinpoint an apple, but that’s not the first thing that came to mind. The first thing that came to mind for me is really weird, but it’s just something I’ve had my entire life, and I’m very picky about it. Is ketchup. I could definitely tell the difference between all the iterations of ketchup, whether it’s, you know, there’s even, even within its own brand.

Steve Washuta : So there’s, like, you know, Heinz has sugar free ketchup, or they have organic or they have, you know, vine ripened tomatoes, ketchup, and then you know the difference between Heinz and hunts and the difference between, like, the organic brands that are from the store, like, I know the difference between the ketchups.

Rebecca Washuta : I can tell that’s so funny. Yeah, I think we definitely need to put that on Tiktok. We need to do a video. Of you testing different ketchups,

Steve Washuta : And you wonder what it is like. I’m sure it’s just like a ratio of things, sometimes the ratio of how many ingredients and ketchup, it’s a lot of times it’s like, like, vinegar, onion powder, obviously, tomatoes and a little bit of sugar or something.

Steve Washuta : So it’s like, it has to be when you’re when you’re talking about things that are not that complex, and there’s only three or four ingredients. It has to be ratios, I would imagine, of said ingredients, much like water, which is really confusing. I know that you said that, but I mean, I certainly feel the same way. I can’t tell the differences between a lot of water, but I can.

Steve Washuta : I can drink water and be like, This is really good. I can drink a lot of this, and I can drink other water. Be like, I don’t really like this. But yet, the ingredients are typically the same exact thing, right? Or they could be coming. So it is really confusing as to, you know, what sort of micronutrients or minerals are in that water to make it taste that specific?

Rebecca Washuta : Yeah, yeah, just, I mean, just a fraction of a difference in in one of the minerals. And I’m like, Oh, this doesn’t taste good, but that’s funny about ketchup. How often are you using ketchup these days? Or was that a thing of the past? Like, are you still using it every meal? You know what?

Steve Washuta : This is a whole another topic. I feel like ketchup gets this really bad rap, like, people, people think, like, this ketchup condiment is, like, it’s just, it’s like, ingesting, I don’t know, alcohol, or some sort of cancer ridden insect repellent, like it’s my catch up is, look on the back of it, it’s organic tomatoes, no added sugar again, like onion powder and vinegar.

Steve Washuta : That’s all what’s in it. It’s got a total of three, maybe three natural sugars per serving. Maybe I use two servings at a time. Like, calorically, it’s not heavy. It’s not dense. I use maybe two servings worth of ketchup a day again. Like, that’s like 3050, calories worth of catch up a day on my eggs in the morning. But yes, I use ketchup, I would say on a daily basis. What is your what is your hate for ketchup?

Rebecca Washuta : So I don’t hate catch I personally don’t like the taste of it. I’m a mustard girl, and I know, I know you have a whole thing on mustard, but I don’t know if people so much like vilify ketchup. I think that some people are trying to pass ketchup off as a vegetable, and then you get the pushback, right? Because honestly, in in the school lunch program for a while they were when they when they were trying to work it out, they were considering, like, ketchup on your french fries a vegetable.

Rebecca Washuta : And it’s like, this is outrageous. This is not this does not count. So I think it’s the pushback that that you’re feeling. But no, I think especially if you’re buying the organic and the real stuff with not high fructose corn syrup and added sugar, then you’re good to go, especially if it’s going to make you eat healthier foods, right? I tell my clients, like, if you want to use ketchup, if you want to use mustard, if you want to use ranch dressing, and it’s going to help you eat your vegetables, do it. Do it.

Steve Washuta : So I get it from both sides, though. Here’s the problem with ketchup. So you have the people who really don’t know anything about food, right? They don’t understand, like, caloric value, of macronutrients and micronutrients and how anything works. Just the general population. There’s nothing wrong with that, right? They have other things to do in their life.

Steve Washuta : They group all condiments together. They have no idea the difference between honey mustard. Look at honey mustard. The ingredients in honey mustard are neither honey or mustard, right? It’s just like, soybean it’s just soybean oil sugar, yeah, soybean oil and sugar and, like, some weird, like, like, chemicals, right? Natural flavors, yeah. And then they and mayo and mustard and ketchup and hot sauce, they couldn’t be more different.

Steve Washuta : All of these things I just named, right? Like, hot sauce is just pure sodium. And then you have ketchup, which is, you know, obviously a derivative of comes from tomatoes, but depends on what else is in it. Then you have, you know, Mayo, which depends on what’s in your mayo, and all of these things are so different, but people just group who don’t otherwise know better condiments as condiments, and they all condiments are bad.

Steve Washuta : That’s what I was told. And then you have the other people, right? The Hyper obsessed people who think that like any extra calorie or anything that’s not perfectly organic or specialized sugar in it is going to kill you instantly and take years off your life. So that’s the problem that I have, is when you live in the middle and you’re just like, No, I used to catch up once a day, one serving of it. There’s not that many people who live in my world.

Rebecca Washuta : I wonder if you’re also getting pushback from people who have what they would consider a more refined palate. Because I remember growing up like, Mom was, like, I just need a beautiful meal and you’re gonna put ketchup on it. Like, are you kidding? So I bet there’s some people too, that that turn their nose up, like, Oh, he’s using ketchup because there’s, there’s other condiments like that, right?

Rebecca Washuta : When we go to a sushi place, my husband and I love spicy mayo. And if sometimes, if it’s like, a really traditional sushi place, they kind of like side eye you, and I’m like, Just give me what I want. Like, I’m paying for it. I really want the spicy mayo. Give it to me. So, yeah, I think there’s probably some culinary experts out there who would, who would frown upon your your use of ketchup,

Steve Washuta : The refined palate conversation, that’s a whole nother for. We can go down some time. I have no control over my taste buds. I put something in my mouth, my taste buds send signals to my brain, and then my brain tells me if I like something or not, right? So, like, I can’t control it. I just, I do what my brain tells me. It’s like the wine snobs who say, like, Oh, this is like, really great wine they like, proved it all wrong, right?

Steve Washuta : They they’ve sat down with all these, like, quote, unquote wine experts, and they gave them what they were considering, $2,000 bottles of wine, they’re telling them. This comes from this region in France, and it was just $6 bottle of wine. They couldn’t tell the difference. So the refined palate stuff is a little bit overkill. I like. What I like? What can I do?

Rebecca Washuta : Hey, no judgment here.

Steve Washuta : Benadryl and dementia. There was a lot going around about this. A few years ago from some Alzheimer’s studies, I am somebody who, probably, for a while, was taking maybe, like, one Benadryl a month, just because it was the best antihistamine for me personally, nothing else really worked. Claritin didn’t work at all. Zyrtec was okay.

Steve Washuta : But Benadryl really, just like, would wipe away my allergies for like, three or four days if I took one at night. So I am hesitant to take it and all these sort of class one and histamine. Now, after reading more, do you know anything about this? And do you want to sort of lead the way explaining this, or do you want me to?

Rebecca Washuta : Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So I also saw the studies that came out, and it’s not, it’s not new news, right? Like, we’ve sort of known about it for a while, and it’s because, like you said, Benadryl is a first generation antihistamine. It works really well, like it knocks you out, but it’s not as advanced as some of these others, right, like the Claritin or the Zyrtec.

Rebecca Washuta : And so these first generation antihistamines, although you think you’re getting a good sleep, right, like for me, it literally knocks me out for 24 hours. I’m like a zombie, but it’s preventing you from REM sleep, and that’s what’s most significant, because, you know, if it’s if it’s reducing the amount of REM sleep that you actually get, that’s going to affect you in a number of ways. It’s going to affect your memory.

Rebecca Washuta : REM sleep is when we transfer short term memories into long term memories. It’s also when the brain starts to repair itself, right? If there are like neurons that have been damaged in any way, that’s when the brain repairs, and that’s when our body, you know, repairs itself, so our immune system. So they’re finding this not, you know, not just with first generation antihistamines like Benadryl, but also benzodiazepines.

Rebecca Washuta : So things like Xanax and Colona pan, that a lot of people take, where it feels like, I don’t know if you’ve ever taken them, it feels like you’re getting great sleep. You’re like, oh, I had the best sleep. But you’re it’s it the quality of sleep is different, right? So it may put you to sleep, but if you have any type of like fitness tracker, like my aura ring, can track when I’m in deep sleep, when I’m in REM sleep, and you can actually see the difference alcohol can do this too, right? You feel like.

Rebecca Washuta : Oh, you drink a lot of alcohol, you fall asleep quickly, but then you’re not well rested the next day, and it’s because you’re not getting enough deep sleep and enough REM sleep, and so that’s what it’s affecting. And so there’s been a lot of studies linking lack of sleep, poor quality sleep, to dementia, to conditions like Alzheimer’s. You know, even though we don’t we haven’t found a specific root cause for dementia. There are a lot of contributing factors, and so poor poor quality sleep is is definitely one of them.

Steve Washuta : Yeah, and I do think mechanistically, some of the studies have shown that it can block acetylcholine, which is important for memory and thinking, things of that nature, which they also believe in conjunction with lack of, you know, proper REM sleep could be a reason why it does lead to a dementia. It at least, if nothing else, it looks correlative to raising the risk of dementia. So, what, like, what why?

Steve Washuta : Why is it even worth it, right at this point? Like, especially, like, on a regular like, the usage of it on a regular basis. I am, I have not done a deep dive on allergy medicine, like, as a whole, it’s something like, I can’t really comment on. I’m going to because my daughter is, like, riddled with allergies. Went to the allergist. Basically, the panel was, like, your daughter has every allergy that’s ever existed.

Steve Washuta : To man, I’m like, great. This is going to be a fun next 15 years, but it’s, you know, there are no free lunches, as I say, right? And I, I do want to do some more due diligence into these allergy medications before I give them to my daughter on sort of a daily basis, right? Which is now, which is now the prescription? Unfortunately, for someone like my daughter is like, Hey, you got to get ahead of this. You need to use this preemptively, proactively, so that she doesn’t get allergies. I’m a little bit hesitant to say the least.

Rebecca Washuta : Yeah. I remember growing up I had bad allergies, and I remember I was taking the maximum dose of Allegra every day. And. Calling, calling the pediatrician, you know, maybe I was like, 16, and being like, can we have my dose? This is before it was over the counter. And she was like, No, you’re at the maximum dose.

Rebecca Washuta : And I was like, I’m still having symptoms, like runny nose. I was always congested. And for me, it was, it was lifestyle induced, it was, it was some of the food I was eating, you know. But, yeah, you know all that to say when you’re talking about your daughter, that is the first line. It’s like, let’s put them on a medication for the rest of their lives. But what are, what are those effects, right?

Rebecca Washuta : And, and you can build a tolerance, like I did where Now, granted, it’s 15 years later, but I, you know, I’ll take allergy medication one week out of the year when spring hits here and, you know, there’s lots of pollen in the air, but in general, I don’t need it. So I think that there are lifestyle modifications you can make. There are also some herbs you can you can use. So nettle is a is a popular herb to use for certain allergies, and very safe and very effective.

Steve Washuta : There was a point in which I was maybe overdoing allergy medication. I had, like, an onset allergies. And I was taking, you know, Claritin in the mornings, and then sometimes Benadryl at night. I don’t also think those things are supposed to be mixed, to be honest with you.

Rebecca Washuta : It specifically says in the package, like, do not take this with any other antihistamines. Yeah. So.

Steve Washuta : I was, like, mixing in histamines. I don’t know, I had some sort of crazy rebound effect where I was out one day with my daughter and my wife. We were strolling around like a local downtown, and I’ve never had a feeling like this, where I basically, for like, five hours straight, couldn’t go more than 30 seconds without blowing my nose.

Steve Washuta : And I don’t know if it’s considered like a rebound effect, like, mechanistically, I don’t know if that’s that was the action that was happening in my body, but something happened wherein it wasn’t just the allergens in the air, because I’ve never had this anywhere, where I know the medication was involved in the process, which also sort of scared me away, because, but it could have been just what you said is that, you know, I had bought the antihistamines for too long, and I tolerance.

Rebecca Washuta : Yeah, yeah. And there’s, there’s not a lot of good options, because it’s the antihistamines or depending upon the allergy you’re talking about, right? We’re not talking about peanut allergies like anaphylaxis. They have, they have different steroids, but that too is that’s not something you want to be on long term. So I think whatever you’re taking, you need to think through and do your research right.

Rebecca Washuta : There shouldn’t be any medication that you’re taking regularly, because you you do find out years later, oh, wow, it has this effect on sleep and or acetylcholine, and that can affect, you know, overall brain health. So it’s just important to be, I think, aware and be an active participant in your health and your family’s health, right, and not just like nod and take anything that’s given to you.

Steve Washuta : I want to jump here to food safety. Recently, my daughter started a new daycare, and unfortunately, this is the first time I have to pack a lunch. Now they don’t have refrigerators at this daycare. So basically, inside of a really good thermos lunchbox, I put ice packs of all sorts. I put ice around it. There is milk in there.

Steve Washuta : Sometimes I make her like a cream cheese bagel. What should I be concerned with? What are the hours that are associated with these things? Are there foods you’re just saying, like, Absolutely not. Never do this if you don’t have, if you don’t know exactly what the temperature is like. Give me some sort of general guidance and specific guidance.

Rebecca Washuta : Yeah. Well, welcome. Welcome to the world of making lunch every morning I feel like, for whatever reason, it adds 20 minutes to my day. So, okay, great question. Technically, the USDA says dairy products specifically, if they are above 40 degrees for two hours, you should toss them, because the risk of developing a foodborne illness increases significantly.

Rebecca Washuta : But I think that depends on how good your thermos is and how good your lunchbox is, right? Is it the the little plastic things that we had growing up or or is it something that’s actually sealed and contained? The other thing to think about is, are you giving her something that’s sealed? Are you giving her a string cheese, right, that’s already in its package, or a yogurt that hasn’t been opened?

Rebecca Washuta : Because those are much safer, and I think those have a have a longer shelf life, but if you’re taking something out of a jar, if you’re taking cottage cheese out of the container from your fridge and putting it in, or if you’re taking anything out of a container and pouring it, then the risk of contamination increases, right? And that’s part of the reason why they they’ll tell you, if you look on you know, your milk carton, it’ll say expiration date could be August 30, but use within seven days of opening, right?

Rebecca Washuta : So if seven days of opening is August 15, they still want you to toss it after seven days, because the risk of opening it and having it open to your fridge and pouring it out and having different people touch it, right, the risk of contamination rises. So you have to think about how the food is packaged, and then. Um, you know, also consider, in your home how many different people are in the fridge and touching it, and how is it prepared? And are you preparing it in a safe way? Right?

Rebecca Washuta : Because, at home, if you’re cooking food at night, right, say you’re meal prepping, how long are you leaving that out on the counter? Right? If you leave that out on the counter overnight, you forget about it. Well, then the risk, you know, exponentially increases. They they estimate that every 20 minutes, these, you know, foodborne illnesses, these organisms, can double so, so it becomes dangerous at that point.

Rebecca Washuta : But I think, you know, depending on upon how risk averse you are, most daycares don’t have refrigerators. You know, ours doesn’t. So I pack it. We have a good lunchbox with a good thermos you can heat or cool. You know, the thermos to, like, keep everything at the appropriate temperature. And, yeah, you have to. There are a lot of variables to consider there.

Steve Washuta : In addition to that, it just makes packing lunches so much harder, because of all the things you just named, they won’t heat the lunches at this particular place. This is just me complaining. Now this is this has had nothing to do with that. They won’t heat the lunches and I can’t put it in the refrigerator.

Steve Washuta : So, like, now my options to pack one for my daughter, unless I just want to, like, Wait, like, take an hour out of my day to, like, drop the lunch off each day, are so limited on what she could potentially eat and possibly eat, which makes it all the more difficult. If you want your you know, if you want them to eat, in general, get enough calories, as we all do as parents.

Rebecca Washuta : And then also, I know, and it sounds so simple, but so Fridays at our at our little school, daycare is pizza day, so I don’t pack her lunch, and the mornings feel so free and liberating. I’m like, I don’t have to bag a lunch this morning, because there are all those things. Those things. It’s like, what can I make that I can what can I warm up in this thermos?

Rebecca Washuta : Then you have to preheat the thermos, and then I have to heat up the meal, then I have to put that together. Then what can I put in these other compartments that can stay at room temperature, but are still, like, palatable, right? And she’s going to eat, and it’s, um, yeah, it’s, it’s a, it’s a whole thing that messes up your mind, a whole nother thing to think about.

Steve Washuta : You also just sort of, what you just said was a little bit of a vacuum, meaning we’re also not talking about, okay, what did we eat the day before? Because I don’t necessarily want to give them the same thing as the day before. What are we having for dinner that night?

Steve Washuta : Right? So like, I make, I make dinner for my family, I make my wife’s lunch, and I make my child’s lunch. So it’s like, although all those foods have to sort of interconnect somehow. So it’s, it’s a, it’s, it’s quite, it’s quite the process.

Rebecca Washuta : Do you have a lunchbox with a with a proper little thermos for Okay,

Steve Washuta : Yeah, it’s got a proper thermos. I put ice packs in it. It spies, like specialized packs for it. You know, I’m not really concerned with the milk because of the fact that it’s just it’s surrounded by ice, and it’s in its own little thermos that’s already completely cold. And I’ve been in the daycare, the room is of normal temperature, so nothing to be concerned with there.

Steve Washuta : But, you know, I also did not to get through off topic here, but I remember seeing a documentary maybe about a year ago where, like, they were showing it, where romaine lettuce in California was like a one field away from where these cows were shitting, and they’re using the same water, and they’re saying, like, don’t eat bagged lettuce ever, because, like, that’s where all the E coli comes. But it’s really hard for me not to eat bag lettuce because it makes my life easier.

Rebecca Washuta : Yeah, it’s convenience, right? So you have to, it’s like, what is your risk? How risk averse Are you? Risk versus convenience? I get it, but, you know, overall, I don’t think it’s anything parents need to panic about, hoping the conditions in everyone’s home are clean and, you know, you’re not, you’re not serving leftovers that are six days old. So as long as you’re you’re cooking in a, you know, in a proper way, and storing it right in your home, it being in the lunchbox. I mean, my daughter eats at 1111, 30, and I’m usually like, I’m dropping her off at school at 830 it’s, it shouldn’t be that big of a deal.

Steve Washuta : The Federal Trade Commission recently, well, actually, they approved this a while ago, but now, apparently it’s being set forth here. It’s being put in place one click cancelations. Now this is for companies like cable companies or gyms who put you on a subscription or membership basis. And there are larger corporations and companies in which in order to get off of that.

Steve Washuta : You have to jump through all these hoops sometimes, like to get off of it for like, Comcast or something. If, like, show up on site to like a local Comcast or something, it’s like, well, that who could do that? If you’re, like, a single mother of four kids, and you’re working nine to five and like, Comcast closes at 430 and they’re not open on the weekends, it’s like, you just can’t cancel. So you just, you end up believing it.

Steve Washuta : So one click, cancelations were officially approved, they’re going to push that through. And this is another, yet another reason why I believe Planet Fitness and gyms that are similar to Planet Fitness, but Planet Fitness specifically, are going to fail because their base their member, they’re based off of members who just don’t come to the gym.

Steve Washuta : And one of the reasons why they don’t come to the gym and they still pay is because it’s so difficult to cancel it. Such a large barrier to entry, and people go, Wow, it’s only $10 a month. And what happens is, you try to cancel, it doesn’t work, and then you have this cognitive dissonance in your mind that tells you, yeah, maybe I’ll go next week anyway. Do I really want to spend this time canceling a $12 membership?

Steve Washuta : Nah, I’ll just I’ll make sure to go next week. That’s worth my $12 I’ll get there once and they don’t cancel. Now, with a one click cancelation, you’re gonna be losing a lot of members who don’t go to the gym, but you still have all the members who go to the gym, and then so that now the gyms are packed, right? You get in on one end, and then then you don’t have the extra memberships of people just paying and not going right.

Rebecca Washuta : I wonder you mentioned the cognitive dissonance. I wonder how much of that guilt sort of will keep people hanging in there, even with the one click, right? Because it’s like, well, listen, I didn’t get to go to the gym this week, but I have the membership and I’ll go next week. I didn’t get to go today because X, Y or Z came up, but I’m gonna go tomorrow. So like, just having the ability to go to the gym, even if people aren’t going, I wonder if that will sort of keep them, keep them as members.

Steve Washuta : I think so on a regular basis. But what we have to be concerned with, we being like the gym community, if, if you care about it, is just an economic downturn, which happened a lot, right? If you look, if you look at history, basically every 12 years we have a large economic downturn. We haven’t had one in a while. It may be coming soon.

Steve Washuta : So when you have something like, you know, 2008 crash, then people are looking for those extra costs to cut. And a lot of times that’s things like the gym, that’s that’s subscriptions, it’s not food, it’s not something that people need. Yeah. Also trends, right? Those trends, from time to time, new information, new science, comes out.

Steve Washuta : People go, oh, you know what? It is good to jog. It is good to do body weight stuff. Yeah, it’s bad to lift heavy. It’s taking years off our life. Whatever the new trend is might lead you for the next generation, right? Right now they’re, they’re getting Gen Z, who loves to lift heavy because they love vanity, because they get to put pictures of themselves all over the internet.

Steve Washuta : But you might have a backlash from the next generation that goes, I’m sick of seeing all these people trying to show their triceps off on the internet, and we’re just gonna work out at home and, like, we’re gonna do pilates reformer at home. It’s just about it’s about comfort and being in a room with other people and group fitness, and not about like, going to gym.

Steve Washuta : So you don’t really know where the trends are going. It’s subject to the wind. So I just think it’s a big it’s a big risk. Yeah, Whole Foods, freezer veg for freezer veggies. I saw a video recently. I don’t know if this is true or not. I didn’t, I didn’t look it up, but there was a video that this guy put out saying, most of their brand, whatever it is, like 360 market or something, comes from China. Is this true?

Steve Washuta : Do you know anything about this? If so, is this bad? This is one of these things where we go, Well, who cares that it comes from China? It’s freeze dried. China has some regulations us. Brings it over, we oversee it. Or is this like, is this news that people heard in your industry? And we’re like, holy shit, we need to look into this.

Rebecca Washuta : Look into this. Well, I think for people who it’s always been there on the label, right? So it’s like for people like me who read labels, for, you know, other nutrition professionals who read every label of every food they pick up, it’s not a surprise, and it’s not that big of a deal. But I think for other people, it is a surprise.

Rebecca Washuta : But let me start off by saying that it’s there are quality controls in place, right? It’s not just the wild wild west. So if we get, if the US gets organic, produce, organic anything from other countries, we have to evaluate that country’s organic certification program. So there’s like, a application and an accreditation process and compliance reviews and then regular reassessments, right?

Rebecca Washuta : So granted, I think USDA is probably underfunded. We maybe don’t have enough people there, but there are people whose job it is to make sure that other countries have the same standards that we have. The problem is, food from China is often contaminated with elements that we’re not testing for. So China has a lot of pollution, right?

Rebecca Washuta : They’re they’re very overpopulated, so they have pollution in their air, in their water, in their soil, and so the plants are naturally going to absorb those contaminants, heavy metals and and other toxic contaminants from the air and the water and the soil, and it’s going to be in the plant. And so, you know, we’re not necessarily testing for that, and neither is China. So that’s where the complication lies.

Rebecca Washuta : But, but I don’t want to say it’s just in China. You know, there, there are FDA recalls on things from from the US. Just this last year, there was an FDA recall on pouches of applesauce made here in the US because they had high levels of lead.

Rebecca Washuta : And this is because, you know, I think it was grown in California, but it’s at certain plants absorb heavy metals from the soil, and so it wasn’t like, you know, the company is injecting heavy metals into the it’s, it’s, it’s in the plant. Plant, because the plant is absorbing it from the soil, and so it’s, you know, it’s hard to avoid. It would be great if, if we were testing for that, if that was a regulation, it’s not.

Rebecca Washuta : Some companies do third party testing for that. I think it’s really important for baby food. So, you know, that’s something to consider with anything coming from China. I’m a big tea drinker. I don’t drink tea from China, you know, because the tea, the tea plants, can absorb all of these heavy metals from the soil. So if you can avoid product, produce that is produced in China, even if it’s organic, I would say, to do that. I think most people hear organic and they think that’s the number one choice.

Rebecca Washuta : Sometimes locally, produced is is a better option, and that’s because, one, the transit time is a lot slower, right? So I don’t know if you have a Whole Foods or something in your area, but it’ll say, like, these tomatoes were produced in such and such Florida, right? Like 20 miles away, and so the transit time is going to be reduced. They’re going to be more nutrient dense and and a lot of these smaller farms don’t have the people or the money to apply for the organic certification. It’s not just like, it’s not an easy process, right?

Rebecca Washuta : You have to have an inspector come out and come to your farm and pay all this money and do the things. And some small farms just don’t have the ability to do that. So sometimes locally produced is better. And then also, you know, I always tell clients to look at the Environmental Working Group puts out a list every year of the Dirty Dozen and the Clean 15.

Rebecca Washuta : So the Dirty Dozen are the types of produce that are most contaminated with different types of pesticides and heavy metals, and the Clean 15 are the safest. And so, you know, the clean fifteens are, are ones that you do not have to buy organic, because the conventional varieties are usually pretty safe, where the Dirty Dozen you should really focus on buying those organic.

Rebecca Washuta : It’s, um, it wasn’t a shock to me. It’s not the end of the world, but it’s some it’s something to be aware of that if you’re if you’re consuming even organic produce from China, there’s a risk that it could have higher level of metals and other contaminants.

Steve Washuta : For all those people out there who brag about eating so clean and organic and you’re eating these vegetables, you’re making fun of me for having my ketchup. This is what you deserve. Okay, I have my Heinz ketchup Made in America. That’s none of that nonsense. You can have your Chinese vegetables now. It’s a that’s good information.

Steve Washuta : I assumed that there was still a process in which, once that food is sent over here like anything else, there’s still, you know, regulations. It’s not like coming directly from there into the freezers without there being some form of regulation process and or, like you said, their regulation process being oversaw by by someone here.

Steve Washuta : So that is good to know. I don’t have a whole foods near me, at least not within 30 or 40 miles. And I didn’t, yeah, I did when I was in Oklahoma City, but it’s just not a store that I personally shop at. But that is just good to know gamified fitness. Is this the future? Do you know what gamified fitness is? Do you know what I mean, I’m assuming

Rebecca Washuta : It’s like a like, we like Nintendo Wii, right where you’re playing, like sports, yeah, video game.

Steve Washuta : Some people just say, you know, fitness is even gamified in the sense of, like, orange theory. When you go to orange theory up on the board, it’s like, yeah, I have to make sure that I, you know, I’m in the orange zone today. So it could all be considered gamified. But yeah, if we push that more towards the spectrum of what you were saying, like, hey, maybe I’m on a treadmill and I’m wearing Oculus, you know, glasses, and I’m inside of a game.

Steve Washuta : I’m inside of an old school game like Doom or duke mukum, where I’m in like, you know, first player mode, and I’m going around with a gun and I’m running away from guys and I’m shooting people in this, like, fantasy game. But I’m running, I’m running in all directions, and I’m squatting and I have to jump and I have to do all these things. Is that the future? I think it could be. I mean, this is not something that’s new. It’s been proposed for a while.

Steve Washuta : Even they have similar things to what I’m saying. I didn’t make up what I just said. I’ve seen it before. Is it going to be big? Is it going to be everywhere? I think it should be. It should be promoted. If you’re going to have kids now who are so ingrained into doing this stuff, or you have these stadiums filled now with people playing video games, I think we do need to worry about the health component of this right for them sitting down all day long.

Steve Washuta : We talk about how adults have to do it their whole lives, and that’s bad enough, but for kids to have to do that only to then go into adulthood and never really have the opportunity to build the proper musculature and to and to get healthy. I think that’s that’s going to be detrimental long term, for their health and for society.

Steve Washuta : So I think we have to find a way to push this more gamified version, where, yes, they’re on treadmills running around playing these video games. They are moving in all directions. You see these funny videos where they’re like, running into the walls, like. We don’t want that. We don’t want like, Grandpa putting it on and like, boxing someone, and like, you know, knocking down, you know, the vase, or, you know, the grandma’s urn and her,

Rebecca Washuta : Oh my gosh.

Steve Washuta : I think we do need to find a way to do it. I don’t know if it’s the future meaning, like, everyone’s going to do it, but I think it’s something we should push kids to do if we’re going to let them play video games, at least let them have some sort of iteration where they’re moving and not just sitting down and playing.

Rebecca Washuta : Yeah, I 100% agree with you. I think video games have improved since we’ve been young in that you know you were, you were able to have your friends over and play, but if it was a rainy day and you stayed inside all day to play video games, you were pretty isolated, right where now, kids can be at home, especially during covid, right, and play.

Rebecca Washuta : I don’t know what the newest games are, but they can talk to each other, right? You can be there with your friends and so that the social aspect is at least there you even if it’s virtual. So I think that that’s big. But yeah, how can we, how can we get people moving? Because it’s, it’s not an understatement to say that sitting is the new smoking, and it’s childhood obesity is at a high.

Rebecca Washuta : And we just, we need to get people out there, right? We need to get people moving. And I think even as adults who grew up playing video games, seeing numbers and things like that, like you said, whether it’s orange theory going to a spinning class, right? We were names on the board using the fitness trackers. Like, I’m constantly like, did I meet my step goal today? Did I do this? Did I do that? I think those numbers really motivate people.

Rebecca Washuta : I think we need to look at it for children and for adults. How can we make fitness more interesting? How can we make it more fun? How can we incorporate it into things that people already think are fun? And I think video games are offer a great opportunity to do that. Yeah, and

Steve Washuta : I don’t think this should be like top down government regulated. I think this has to start from the grassroots, just like families have to look at their individual kids and say, like, is this worth it for my kids? So, so you can go on the other end of this, like, there’s all these famous basketball players, Luca doncians, and all these players, Kyler Murray, who are basically like streamers.

Steve Washuta : They they play their individual professional sport or and, or train for the sport, like, six, seven hours a day, right? They’re playing basketball. They’re going to the weight room, they’re eating they have nutritionists to do all the stuff. And what they like to do in their downtime is sit down on the couch and play video games. Like, okay, I get it. Like, that’s what some people watch movies, some people read books, some people, you know, whatever.

Steve Washuta : Some people maybe at the bar, drinking and having fun. They like to play video games. It’s okay for them to do that right there. These guys are busting it on their other end, like and they’re staying healthy in other ways. But that’s not the same as you know that the eighth grader, who is 562, 180 pounds, and he’s slamming back, you know, a bunch of orange sodas and Cheetos while he sits with his headset all day on Sunday, you know, playing whatever is the latest and greatest video game.

Steve Washuta : So I do think it has to be at a, you know, the parental level, the grassroots level, but I really think maybe to from a physician level, right? You know, I think about my wife, who’s a pediatrician, it’s a good conversation to have with these kids. Be like, you know, what do you what do she does? Because it’s she champions like obesity with her, with her patients. So not, not to be obese, but to fight it.

Rebecca Washuta : She doesn’t champion it.

Steve Washuta : Champions fighting obesity. So and she, you know, has conversations like, what do you do? What do you do? What sort of sports are you in? What are your leisure activities? And I think all all pediatricians general practitioners have to start doing this and be like, Oh, you like video games.

Steve Washuta : Well, you should try X, Y and Z, video game that has this attached to it, so we can make sure that you’re moving and doing these and and so on and so forth. But again, there’s, there’s no way to force anyone to do it. Ultimately, there has to be some maybe, you know, parental incentive in the local nuclear family that guides that. Yeah,

Rebecca Washuta : I want to expand on one point you said about, you know, the eighth grader sitting down playing video games and then eating junk food. Because I really think one bad decision leads to another, right? If you go out and you’re playing flag football with your friends, yeah, maybe you’re going to get something to eat after but you’re not pounding candy in the middle of a football game, right?

Rebecca Washuta : Like you’re you’re playing, you’re moving, you’re doing things, you’re drinking water, you’re staying hydrated. But when you sit down in front of a screen, what, what is most commonly associated with that grabbing a snack, right? And said, when you grab a snack, maybe you grab a soda, if you keep soda in the house.

Rebecca Washuta : So I think, you know, that’s where it starts to snowball. It’s not just the sitting all day, it’s the junk food associated with it, and then maybe it’s the loneliness associated with playing the game that makes you feel bad, that makes you eat more, whatever. But I think really can snowball, and so if you can nip it in the bud and. And do the things you were talking about, get the physician involved, get the parents involved, to make those changes. The effects could be exponential.

Steve Washuta : Yeah, and just to continue the talk, because this is sort of circular, right? What I mean by that is, I just talked about the physician. What happens, though, unfortunately, if that kid is doing exactly what you said, he’s sitting down in front of the screen, he’s eating the Cheetos. He’s shrinking the he’s shrinking his, you know, whatever, six Cokes, and then he goes to the physician. The physician goes, well, you know, we gotta start moving more.

Steve Washuta : But here are the medications I believe that you should be on in the interim, right? And they don’t address, like, sort of the root problem, and they’re just trying to, you know, deal with the symptoms of said kid, then then that leads to a bigger spiral out of control. So I do think I, you know, I’m not. I don’t want to talk about, like the the industry, like the medical industry, is trying to get these kids obese or something.

Steve Washuta : But I do think again, it’s, it’s, it can’t just be relying upon the physician to make the right choices and to tell the kid, although I think they need to be part of it, I think that the parents have to take the reins and say, Listen, you just there’s got to be a limit to how long you’re doing this. A day.

Steve Washuta : We’re not going to have this in the house. We’re not going to do this because the fix for somebody who sees you for 15 minutes isn’t, isn’t always the proper fix. The fix that somebody who wakes up and sees you every day is going to have the better answer typically, 100%

Rebecca Washuta : Yeah. I tell people, health doesn’t happen in the doctor’s office, right? The 15 to 30 minutes you’re with your doctor, whatever, every six months, that’s not where you get healthy, right? So I laugh when people are like, Oh, I gotta go figure out what’s going on. I gotta go to the doctor.

Rebecca Washuta : And it’s like, I can tell you what’s going on. You’re not sleeping, you’re not eating well, you’re not exercise. Like, there are all these things that happen outside of the doctor’s office, all these lifestyle choices you can make that have a profound impact on your health. And it starts at home. It starts with the family.

Rebecca Washuta : And you know, not to go too much off on a tangent, but something came out last year where, I think this, or the new Surgeon General, basically said obesity is genetic. And you know, it’s not people’s fault. It’s genetic. It runs in families. And are there genetic components to metabolism and weight gain? Yes, but the reason why obesity runs in families is because you’re not just passing down your genes.

Rebecca Washuta : You’re passing down your habits. If your parents, on Saturdays, sit around all day on the couch and drink beer and eat potato chips, that’s what you’re gonna do, right where? If your parents are like, let’s go to the park. Let’s do this. Let’s get out. Let’s move around. Let’s have a salad. Let’s have fruit that those are also the habits that you’re gonna pick up. So it’s like, at home.

Rebecca Washuta : At Home is where the examples get set. And it’s, it’s so important to to recognize that, that we have to instill healthy habits in our children and even and model healthy behavior, right? It’s not, it’s not even just saying, go outside and play. It’s like modeling that, because they, they really are absorbing all of that, even if, even if they’re not, you know, verbally telling us.

Steve Washuta : And thatleads perfectly into the next topic. You know, the Surgeon General has no incentive to not pathologize obesity. He only has incentive to do that right because his industry is then going to pump out the proper medications. There’s no There’s no incentive to say you can go walk around your local park.

Rebecca Washuta : Right? Because who’s making money from that? Who’s making money by you go to the park, who’s making money from you being healthy enough to not be on medication. And I can tell you that, sorry, yeah, go on. I can tell you that the majority of clients that I see, I’m mainly working with older clients now, 5060s, they’re not just on one medication.

Rebecca Washuta : They’re on like, eight medications, right by the time everyone is on high blood pressure, medicine for high cholesterol, like, and it’s just, you know, Metformin for pre diabetes, or already have type two diabetes. And so many of these conditions can be treated nutritionally, can be treated with exercise.

Rebecca Washuta : You know, there’s dietitians are present in hospitals for a reason. There’s medical nutrition therapy. There’s actual foods that can impact your body in ways you know, that can prevent and manage these conditions. And it’s, it’s really frustrating to to see where, where we’re at today with all that, yeah.

Steve Washuta : And that’s why I say you can’t really untangle politics from health and medicine. And I don’t mean politics like who you’re voting for, I mean how the how the system is run, so to speak, right? So it doesn’t really matter who you’re voting for. A lot of times it matters it’s zero who you’re voting for, because the system just runs as is.

Steve Washuta : So you know, when we talk about something like Lipitor, right? You take all the studies on drugs of the same ilk, or Lipitor specifically, you know, I think, you know, four days is the difference. If you’re looking at like all cause mortality, like you might live four more days. And that’s not take all. Side effects of said drug.

Steve Washuta : We have to understand that the FDA has, they don’t want to be called in front of Congress, right? That’s their incentive. I want to be called in front of Congress. I want to make sure that medicines not are maximally beneficial, but that they don’t necessarily have huge side effects, right? I don’t, I want to, I want to make sure, I want to limit the side effects, but that doesn’t mean you want to maximize the benefits.

Steve Washuta : So that’s, that’s one problem. The other problem is the they’re not, they, they’re they’re sort of a nanny state, like regulation of of, of all these products, wherein the trial and error gets tampered down, and we we don’t make as many successful drugs as we should be so, so there’s something called Moore’s law, and Moore’s law is basically, I’ll mess it up a little bit, but in the computer industry, it’s like, every two years, the computing power, or What is, what is inside of, like, the chips that give the computing power doubles, right?

Steve Washuta : So obviously, we had, like, you know, in 1979 an IBM computer filled up my entire house, and now my watch has more computer power than it does that make sense? Yeah, right, right. There’s the reverse law. So they take the word Moore’s backwards. It’s not really a law. It’s more of these are more just observations than like statistical analysis or perfect statistical analysis, I should say.

Steve Washuta : And it’s the word Morris backwards in rooms law and E rooms law says basically the opposite has been happening since 1980 in that all the biological and biotech advances, all the logistical advances we have, all the ways in which we can the applications of medicine, we’ve actually been exponentially doing less with medicine, right? We’ve come out with less beneficial medicines.

Steve Washuta : This isn’t just the approval, the slowdown approval, this is the efficacy, right? And the ability to, like, push these medicines out and for them to be useful. Why is that? You know, some people say, Well, you know, the argument is, we just came out with so many good medications that it’s, they call it like, better than the Beatles, like, at some point, like, you just, you’re not going to make a better album than the Beatles or find a better band, right?

Steve Washuta : But I just, I don’t believe that’s true, right? I believe that it’s, there’s so much regulation, and the regulation has bad incentives. They don’t have the good incentive models. I’m not telling you that I have the best answer as to what to replace it with, but it doesn’t seem to be working if, if we can’t put out medications at the same speed that we can, let’s say, increase the chips speed of our computers.

Rebecca Washuta : Totally. And you know, if you think about it, and this isn’t conspiracy theory, right? This is economics. If you think about it, the pharmaceutical industry is incentivized to keep you as a repeat customer. What’s better for you? Steve, someone who works out with you once, or someone who’s going to work out with you for the rest of your life. I want a long term client.

Rebecca Washuta : I want a client that I know and it’s easy and is, you know, sending, sending me a check and is going to just show up, right? So they want you to be a long term customer, because it’s easier to keep a customer than it is to acquire one. Doesn’t matter what business you’re in. So if it’s just a one and done, that’s it.

Rebecca Washuta : They want to, you know, all of the medications that are coming out are daily or monthly medications that you have to be on for the rest of your life. We’re not carrying things anymore. We’re treating them. We’re no longer, you know, and I was in the I was in the biotech industry, before I pivoted and became a nutritionist, and I started to see I want to be upstream, right? I don’t want to be managing and treating disease.

Rebecca Washuta : I want to be preventing disease. I want to be, you know, supporting optimal health before we even get there, right? Let’s prevent it. Let’s optimize health. So, but there, yeah, doctors aren’t really, you know, they’re not given the time to do that. Like you said, Kayla gets maybe 1520 minutes where she’s reimbursed by insurance to meet with a client.

Rebecca Washuta : That’s not enough time. So I, you know, as a dietitian, I could take insurance, but I don’t, because insurance, again, would only reimburse me for 20 minute conversation. And I mean more than that, right? I want to meet with my clients for an hour. Let’s go through your whole medical history. Let’s talk about everything. Let’s, you know, identify the root cause. Let’s talk about lifestyle changes.

Rebecca Washuta : Let’s, let’s really find a fix, rather than just, like writing a prescription. So, you know, there’s, there’s problems from the top down. And I think, like, similar to what you said when you talked about gamified fitness, I think it has to start at home, right? Because, like, overnight, you’re not going to change the laws.

Rebecca Washuta : You’re not we’re not going to change the way that these like regulations are passed, or how this works. But you can start at home right by becoming a more conscious consumer, by understanding that there are, you know, lifestyle changes that can be put in place before you start. Start a. Lifetime medication. Yeah.

Steve Washuta : Well, said, but I want to go back to something you said and just add to that and maybe have a little branch off of that. There’s a big issue, I think, with people using the term Big Pharma and leaving that as sort of the last link in the chain, when that’s not the case. Big Pharma answers to who the FDA so there’s, there’s been pharmaceutical reps that come out that say, like, hey, we want to push this drug out.

Steve Washuta : And like, we can’t. They, like the FDA said, No, we just absolutely can’t, although. So like, take, if you ever seen Dallas Buyers Club, which is, you know, movie about AIDS, it’s like they had all these, like, what was considered experimental drugs that people weren’t allowed to take because the FDA was saying, No, you can’t take them.

Steve Washuta : They’re like, We’re dying, like the doctor gave me a week. What do you mean? I can’t take this experimental drug? It’s my body, right? So it’s like, so again, this goes back to politics. You have this, you have a section, people go my body, my choice, and it’s like, well, but it wasn’t to the FDA. It’s like, can’t you can’t have that both ways, right?

Steve Washuta : So I think there’s, there’s something to be said about, you know, long term, at least, not allowing like this, this big sort of bureaucracy, oligarchy, to be controlling over what people take and what people don’t take. Because the pharmaceutical industries, if you just leave it to incentives.

Steve Washuta : Yes, there is a bad incentive that you just named, right? The bad incentive is, I want you to be a customer for life, but if you allow other pharmacies, right, other pharmaceutical companies to then make that opposite pitch, right? So Steve’s pharmacy says to you, why would you want to be a consumer for life? I invented a medicine that cures you in a month, you’re going to come take my medicine, right?

Steve Washuta : But the pharmaceutical companies can’t do that because the FDA won’t regulate those medications, right? So I think the last link in the chain people just have to realize isn’t the pharmaceutical companies. Ultimately, the pharmaceutical companies have to do what they have to do because they’re taking orders from the FDA.

Rebecca Washuta : Yeah, but I don’t want to villainize the FDA either, because they’re they’re not the one. Yes, they are. They’re creating red tape, right? Because if you believe I get a big government versus small government for things to get approved, they’re creating the red tape. But they’re not the ones you know, making all of the money, right? It is the pharmaceutical companies that are making all of the money, and the pharmaceutical companies get to determine, listen, I will equate, let’s go full circle there.

Rebecca Washuta : I will equate Big Pharma with big food, right, with General Mills and Kellogg’s and all of these other things. It’s like, if you go abroad, if you go to Europe right now, and you buy Trix cereal. I don’t even know if that exists anymore. Lucky Charms, okay, they’re made with different ingredients than they are here, because the EMA has more strict regulations with food dyes and coloring and natural flavor.

Rebecca Washuta : So it’s different ingredients. You read the label, the same thing goes similar with pharmaceuticals. It may not be different ingredients, but it’s different pricing, right? We are gouged for pharmaceuticals here. You can go abroad and and get them from much cheaper same same drug, same company, you know, everything. It’s just cheaper there because the government has regulated that the pharmaceutical companies must drive their costs down. that’s

Steve Washuta : Not the main reason, but go on. I’ll tell you why that’s the case. But go on, okay,

Rebecca Washuta : But, but there is, there is a benefit, you know. So I think the there’s, there’s not one villain, it’s the entire system, right? Because what we really need to do is be incentivizing doctors to say, Oh, John Smith came in today and you didn’t have to put him on any medication.

Rebecca Washuta : Well, then you get, you know, here’s a bonus for you, right? We need to be incentivizing doctors and the whole healthcare community, to be keeping people healthy, incentivizing people, right? Employers. It needs to, it needs to happen on every level.

Steve Washuta : Yeah, another reason why they’re so cheap overseas. So there’s a, there’s a process called harmonization, so it’s big in the computer industry. So like, if I, you know, I own a gift registry, if you go on, shameless plug, Skip, wish, calm, if you want to have a gift registry for whatever you can, you can start one on skip. Wish, calm on skip.

Steve Washuta : Wish, calm, you can sign in. You can log in via, let’s say, Facebook. I think we might have took the Facebook one off. Maybe you can log in via Google now or something, whatever. Right? That’s called, like, a harmonization process, and that helps, right? That it makes things easier. Well, that that applies in the in Big Pharma, from the US to the UK, so we do all the research. Our FDA regulates everything.

Steve Washuta : These companies are paying 30% higher than they used to cost to create something. But then the UK says, Oh, the US already did all this regulations. So we’re just so we have very little regulation at this point, because we’re just going to oversee what they already did. And that’s why they drive their costs down, because they’re not and they don’t end up paying for those costs, which is another whole problem too. It’s like. If these drugs are going to help the whole world.

Rebecca Washuta : Would hope you’re talking about, like, the the compound pharmacies. You’re talking about like a generic. So it’s like, if someone comes out with whatever, then the generic version, they’ve just leveraged it. And that’s why it can be cheaper.

Steve Washuta : No, so, so and so, just, just, just imagine there’s a new drug created tomorrow, right? That whatever it helps constipation, and has to go through all these like stage three clinical trials, right? Double blinds, and it goes through these trials, and then it gets approved somewhere. Here in America, there was a, there was a company that had to do all this R and D research too on the front end, right?

Steve Washuta : So the company is called Steven washuta pharmacos pharmaceuticals, the European and the EU can, can now accept that drug on the basis, right, without having to do their own in depth research. So they’re a little bit of research. So, so my company paid for all the R D. That’s why the price is driven up, because we have to, we have to, we have to recoup that money.

Steve Washuta : But, but the drug that just gets passed over to Europe, then it’s different. Because, yes, it is. It’s another company making that drug. It’s not steeple shooter pharmaco pharmaceuticals over there. It’s just the proprietary sort of like ingredients that makes sense. So, yeah, I guess you can call generics long term.

Rebecca Washuta : It’s the other company. Yeah, because the the EMA still does. You know, they have regulations sometimes, again, they’re more strict than the FDA. Sometimes something will be approved here and isn’t approved in Europe.

Rebecca Washuta : Or Europe has stricter standards about how, how things are manufactured. But yeah, it’s so the burden of debt. And the burden of debt lies on the company that does the R D. But that’s why they have a, I forget what it’s called. But they have a a rule where sometimes there can’t be a generic for many years.

Rebecca Washuta : Have you? Have you heard of that? Like, if the when you come out with Lipitor, and it’s like an IP, it’s like a patent rule. Okay, this drug is so great and you spend so much money on it. That you get five years where no one can make a can. Where no one can make a similar drug, but you make a good point. Like it happens on every level. It’s the it’s the regulating agencies, it’s the pharmaceutical companies, it’s the doctor’s office, and it’s it’s at home, right? So a lot of that is out of our control. Where, where can you start?

Steve Washuta : There was just a recent study put out. So they’ve been doing these trials for a while with MDMA being used to help PTSD and it makes sense. If anyone’s ever taking MDMA Guilty as charged. So it makes sense why that would help people with PTSD. It makes you more empathetic.

Steve Washuta : It makes you see, sort of like a more loving side to the world, right? And it makes sense, but there is a euphoria that comes along with it. So they did these studies, right? These double blind studies, and they basically like, although they passed even like the phase three of these studies. It then went to some independent group that the FDA basically has the call them experts. Who has oversight over everything else, and they turned it down.

Steve Washuta : And basically they said. Well, it can’t really be a double blind. Because anyone who experienced euphoria knows that they took the drug. And if you didn’t experience the euphoria. You know that you didn’t take the drug. Therefore, you know, we’re gonna it’s like, well, we ended up going into the study.

Steve Washuta : So you so you had people spend, you know. Who knows, 10s of millions, if not more, hundreds of millions of dollars on these. Like longitudinal studies, and taking up all these times in people, and then you say. Like the euphoria component, which should have already been understood, that it was a characteristic of the drug.

Steve Washuta : This is why we’re throwing this out. No, you’re throwing it out. Because it’s an easy fix to a problem that you don’t want to be fixed easily. Most likely because there’s some other, some other reasons why. So it’s just yeah, that’s not to say I again, I don’t have an answer for it. We need regulations. We need some form of regulations. But how do we get those incentives? to all align where we are actually just trying to push the best medications out there? I don’t know the answer to that, but I know we’re not doing a good job of it right?

Rebecca Washuta : Now. Yeah, agreed.

Steve Washuta : Well, this has been another episode of the truly fit podcast. Becca, why don’t you let everyone know where they can find you. Specifically on Instagram or reach out to you if they have any questions concerning nutrition or otherwise.

Rebecca Washuta : Yeah, absolutely. So my Instagram is happy healthy nutritionist and my website is the same happy healthynutritionist.com Awesome.

Steve Washuta: Thanks for joining us on the Trulyfit podcast. Please subscribe, rate, and review on your listening platform. Feel free to email us as we’d love to hear from you.

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Thanks again!

https://www.happyhealthynutritionist.com/

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