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Andrew Huberman's Claims About Cannabis Annoy Drug Experts
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- api 2y agoPopular influencer or pop science writer has become a contrarian indicator for me.
- Wonnk13 2y agoSeems to be the nature of the beast sadly. Huberman, Attia, Ferris, to me all started in super niche subjects and now it's like anyone can come on. I've lost interest in almost all podcasts now because they've all converged into one hive mind of read the stoics, lift weights, do an ice bath, blah blah blah.
- vosper 2y agoIt’s the trap of the weekly science/academic podcast. There isn’t enough science, they eventually run through their expertise, their friends’ expertise, but they gotta keep cranking podcasts out. Quality inevitably goes downhill. Most of them become part of the book-promotional podcast circuit. Just look at EconTalk.
- prepend 2y ago> read the stoics, lift weights I mean, these are generally true so kind of good they are part of hive mind.
- hattmall 2y agoIf you're going to attempt to provide information for maximizing the a human life experience and want to do so based on empirical data that is pretty much where you will inevitably end up.
- TillE 2y agoAbsolutely. One guy making big public claims should be treated with particular skepticism, even if they have relevant credentials.
- sureglymop 2y agoYes. Personally I don't care about title, institution or anything. If the claims are not verifiable and reproducible, then I am inclined to take it with a grain of salt. We can do it in computer science, I'm sure it can be done in other fields of research also.
- alan-hn 2y agoAfter hearing that he advocates for nicotine use to prevent Alzheimer's I'm pretty skeptical of him. He seems to entirely ignore the risks associated with nicotine drive vasoconstriction all for a possible minor benefit. I suppose you don't need to worry about neurodegeneration if you die from a heart attack or aneurysm before you get that old
- noname120 2y ago> he advocates for nicotine use to prevent Alzheimer's Could you source this?
- debacle 2y agohttps://podcastnotes.org/huberman-lab/episode-90-nicotines-effect-on-the-brain-body-how-to-quit-smoking-or-vaping-huberman-lab/ https://podcastnotes.org/huberman-lab/episode-90-nicotines-e... It has been known for a long time that nicotine, as well as caffeine and other stimulants can delay Alzheimer's. I don't think that Andrew's claim is novel or controversial, but he is making an observation not a recommendation.
- jjtheblunt 2y agohttps://www.hubermanlab.com/episode/nicotines-effects-on-the-brain-and-body-and-how-to-quit-smoking-or-vaping https://www.hubermanlab.com/episode/nicotines-effects-on-the...
- sickofparadox 2y agoDo you have a specific timestamp of him advocating for the use of nicotine? From the description and timestamp chapters this seems like a fairly reasonable episode on the effects of nicotine in the brain, which, given the topic of the podcast seems in his lane. It even dedicates a decent portion of runtime to quitting smoking and vaping, even though that isn't really on topic.
- jjtheblunt 2y ago
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- kashunstva 2y agohttps://archive.is/tQ69B https://archive.is/tQ69B
- labrador 2y agoI don't care who they are, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Michio Kaku, Andrew Huberman or Robert Sapolsky (especially him), I always take what they say with a grain of salt because the lure of the almight dollar corrupts their objectivity and why not? There's nothing wrong with making a buck and the general public needs to have information that is at least grounded in reality. If it's enertaining too they'll pay attention and learn something, which they didn't do in high school.
- kylecazar 2y agoWhy especially Sapolsky? Is he selling something (other than his book) that I'm unaware of? I get why you mention the others. AFAIK he's just a biology professor convinced that we don't have free will.
- labrador 2y agoBecause I watched him progress from a respected professor at Stanford to a self-promoter who sits on Twitter looking for mentions of his name, not that there's anything wrong with that. It's a personal experience for me, so it may not be generally true. I found his lecture on depression in the mid 2010's and it helped me a lot. By 2023, I mentioned on Twitter that I didn't buy his idea that we didn't have free will and a minute later he liked my tweet. I hope he's making good money with his no free will idea. He's out there promoting it enough.
- cooper_ganglia 2y agoHe couldn’t help but like your tweet, he had no free will.
- alecst 2y agoI was terrified when you lumped Sapolsky in with those other guys, but if this is the worst you’ve got then I’m breathing out a sigh of relief.
- labrador 2y ago
- o0-0o 2y agoYou must listen to Andrew Huberman and Dr. Jack Kruse on Rick Rubin's Tetragammon or whatever his podcast is called. Huberman quite literally knows next to nothing compared to a real Doctor. He embarrasses himself over the course of four hours. If I were Stanford, I would pull his tenure.
- kashunstva 2y agoSome of the cannabis researchers interviewed for the article have legitimate complaints about facts that he is claiming; but in other cases it’s about use of language that could be construed inaccurately. The latter is a risk of popularizing science, so the complaints are a mixed bag. Overall, I take his recommendations for ingestion of any substance with skepticism. He often bundles his health recommendations into “protocols” or combinations of interventions which may have been studied in isolation but likely not in combination. Yet the term “protocol” carries a weight, that suggests that the bundle of interventions is better studied than they are. But maybe that’s just me. And one can make what one will about his financial association with supplement suppliers. Of course, it’s all disclosed; so listeners can decide for themselves whether or to what extent bias may enter the picture.
- koziserek 2y agoalso ref. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobel_disease https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobel_disease
- jl2718 2y agoSo in summary, all of the few “experts” on the drug are getting paid to say it’s harmless, so we should believe them, and the generalist neuroscientists that study intelligence, as well as the subjective experiences of most people, are wrong, but not in any specific way; just everything is wrong - stop thinking and smoke. Okay thanks journalists.
- refulgentis 2y agoSelf-peasantization is a vice, not a virtue. I, for one, even when I disagree with an article, cannot make myself scare quote experts and whine about journalists. It tortures me that, at the end of the day, I'm either: A) I'm just making excuses for disagreeing by pretending groups of people are monolith and there's no such thing as subject matter expertise or B) I'm just generally upset and going on an off-topic rant. I wish for a 3rd and better option, lashing out has a nice opiate effect, but I really can't stand looking mendacious.
- jl2718 2y agoI don’t disagree with the article. There’s almost no content to disagree with. The journalist picked bad experts and provided nothing but character assassination persiflage under the appeal to authority fallacy. This is a top-level publication, so it’s not unreasonable to suggest commonality with the profession. Why say this? Because I’ve learned that the mendacity of paid experts and journalists goes unchecked when ordinary people say nothing, and quite often the crowd opinion of people with nothing to gain is more trustworthy.
- refulgentis 2y agoThere's a ton of things to disagree with -- ex. as you said, they're being paid to tell lies. I don't think it's respectful to you to pretend there's no content in the article. I don't think you're foolish, and simultaneously believe A) nothing was said B) nothing disagreeable was said C) they were paid to say lies. That'd be an incoherent rant, and you're perfectly legible.
- debacle 2y agoAndrew provides citations for all of his claims from scientific journals, very often clarifies when there isn't enough good science to make certain claims, and also provides a mechanism for other researchers to reach out to him when they feel that his claims are inaccurate. I don't know whether he is right or wrong in this specific instance, but he deserves some amount of credit and this Rolling Stone article (and this thread) are mostly full of dismissive invective.
- giarc 2y agoI saw a video just this morning where he said that the chance of getting pregnant when having unprotected sex is 20%, so if you have sex 5 times and are not pregnant then you should see your doctor because something is likely wrong with your eggs or your partners sperm. Just terrible advice.
- clwg 2y agoI just saw the clip your mentioning[0], I don't think he understands statistics. [0] https://twitter.com/Andercot/status/1788605009535655951 https://twitter.com/Andercot/status/1788605009535655951
- stvltvs 2y agoWas the second part of that statement ("so if you have sex 5 times") what he said or what you inferred from what he said? If he said that exactly, that's pretty bad.
- giarc 2y agoSee comment above with link. He said if it doesn't work the first time, "she should probably repeat that 5 or 6 times" and then said something about it being cumulative because 20 + 20 + 20.... is 120%.
- debacle 2y agoHe did not say "have sex," he said "attempt to conceive." He even states at the end "at the end of six months." He's talking about menstrual cycles. Be less cynical.
- anhedonic 2y agoHill and Klumpers are two of the most intelligent people in the world on the subject. Both are ICRS alumni. If they’re pushing back, Huberman should get ready to be properly educated.
- AnEro 2y agoEven though he cites his claims, and adds warnings of them being new or lacking other supporting evidence to live by, it is weird to then have still be elevated by him on a health podcast that people often apply to their lives. I try to think of it like if there was a programming content creator saying Elxir is powerful and ready enough to use everywhere. Though it is true enough that it can be used anywhere, but anyone here could probably point out a bunch of situations you really should never ever use something like it. But imagine someone without that experience not knowing and taking their word for it and put it into prod blindly, it be a huge waste of time and money. Time and money is one thing but in health, knowing media and reading literacy is dropping, its just something if I where in his position I would see it as irresponsible to even mention some of the stuff he does.
- mrinterweb 2y agoYou lost me on the Elixir analogy. Elixir is great . I'll concede Elixir would not be well suited for a 3D physics engine or for writing hardware drivers.
- AnEro 2y agoFair enough, my point is mostly that even though it is great we have evidence it's great, but without context of a professional insight it can be terrible. Alot of those studies are the same situation, it is great in their context, terrible outside of it only doctors and most of the time specialist will be able to tell. Then that information is structured for a layman, like imagine brand-new devs walking into a bootcamp thinking Elixir is safe main language to learn based on YC hype. As good as it is, it doesn't have a big job market, has specialized use cases, and has the same dev environment/knowledge base of node/js in the late 2000's early 2010's.
- goalonetwo 2y agoCannabis research is highly politicized. Researchers go in that field with an agenda. That's at least my experience with that field. Most weed users will nitpick research that shows weed is safe and good for you while most detractors will find research that says the opposite. I don't know the science but at least to me it "feels" like the weed benefits have been pushed a bit too much too widely lately (legalization lobby) and we are now seeing a huge backlash. I'm seeing the same trend happening with Mushroom/Psylocibin (about to get legal so a ton of research/articles to make it look perfectly safe).
- meowfly 2y ago> weed benefits have been pushed a bit too much too widely lately Totally agree. The entire legalization political momentum started because cannabis has real medical benefits. Early legalization efforts focused on cancer, and AIDS, because the benefits there are very real. Marinol is a synthetic cannabis drug. Then some how the movement lost the plot and people started purporting benefits for things like ADHD, insomnia, and anxiety. I am confident the large majority of medical professionals would claim there are better drugs for those conditions. Then legalization was sold as a better alternative to alcohol and opiates (which it is). But some how the low addiction rate got sold as no addiction. There are scores of people who are probably making their anxiety worse with daily cannabis use, who are under the impression they are self-medicating their anxiety. When they quit they might go through withdrawals, despite believing it's not addictive. I think the science is fairly clear and maybe not settled in certain places, but I think the pendulum has swung from the misinformation of DARE to the misinformation of the Cannabis lobby.
- Gud 2y agoCannabis comes in many shapes and forms and it can absolutely help relieve anxiety. You need to ingest or smoke a high CBD strain with low THC. I generally buy the legal CBD stuff I can get here and mix it with street weed which is generally high on THC and it does wonders to relieve my anxiety and stress. Smoking CBD itself is great but has a much more limited effect, in my experience.
- chung8123 2y ago
- incomingpain 2y agoIve seen some of his content. Generally I find that he regards science and such well. Something I've noticed going through a cannabis legalization. What we were told in the 1990s about cannabis was completely wrong. In their defense, because of it's classification it wasn't possible to do any studies. Only now can researchers actually research with it and we're overthrowing a great deal of ancient science from the past. But also paving way for future understandings. Looking at the allegation, his main assertion is 'there is literally no research that has ever been done" Sure because it was illegal. Now the studies are coming in and perhaps the best argument is that it's not settled science? Or perhaps that Andrew overstated positions?
- polotics 2y agoA few colleagues are fully enthralled by Hubermann, I forwarded the hit-pieces about his infidelities, the colleagues did realize that humans need more than drink green goo and see morning sunlight to feel right :-p
- tj-teej 2y agoI saw a Huberman clip this morning where he said that because women under thirty have a 20% chance of getting pregnant after a single attempt that they should try five times before seeing an OBGYN because 20% x 5 = 100% and that six times would be 120% but "that's something totally different". It blows my mind that a Professor at Stanford could have such a terrible understanding of statistics.