5 Healthyish Things, including medical dramas and raw milk

Raw milk has been trending recently, mostly thanks to “wellness influencers”
(🙄) who claim they drink it for nutritional benefits like helpful bacteria and probiotics. Even my wife (hi, Sara!) asked about it.

But there’s no real evidence for that. The only difference between “raw milk” and, er, milk milk is pasteurization—a simple process where the milk is heated briefly to get rid of germs and bacteria. That’s a critical step because cow milk can contain flecks of soil, dirty water, cow manure, or bacteria from infected cow utters or dirty milking equipment if it isn’t pasteurized.

Raw milk greatly increasing your chance of catching something like E.coli, salmonella, or avian bird flu (!) is why the CDC has flagged raw milk as a risky food. However, sales have increased up to 65% percent in the last year and over half of the states have legalized raw milk sales. People are clearly still very on board the raw milk train—and hey, I can see some of the appeal. Anything farm-to-table sounds more natural and holistic, and it bypasses a food system that is not all that trustworthy. 

But… pasteurization is hardly unnatural itself. To me, the raw milk movement seems like another extremist trend with no real scientific backing. It’s one thing to be skeptical of the system, another thing to ignore logical scientific progress. Even if some benefits are true—that it tastes better or has slightly higher fat content—the trade off just isn’t worth the chance of getting avian flu for me.

A trending movement I’m into, on the other hand, is soft life. Popularized by Nigerian influencers, soft life prioritizes a peaceful and easy lifestyle over one that demands constant strength and hustle.

Of course, like everything online, many #softlife posts stray far from the original message. Now you’ll find videos of people flaunting their luxuries at seaside resorts. But my understanding is the soft life is not about money—it’s about letting go of perfectionism and sometimes choosing self-care over achievement. Rest is good, self-care is important, and I think we should all remember to add a little softness to a life that is already plenty hard on its own.

Okay so I’ve recently gotten into rock climbing (mostly so I could tell people I’ve been getting into rock climbing) and I had my first little accident last week. Nothing devastating, but I did sprain both ankles which was awkward. 🤕 Anyway, as I sat there post-fall I felt my fear mostly in my gut. This reminded me (in a painful way FWIW) of our undeniable gut-brain connection. 

I’ve learned much about this area through my work with Oshi Health, a digital-first GI care clinic. Yes, they’re a client of mine. And they’re also best in class, just announcing a $60M Series C raise this week. How? Well, a major way the Oshi clinical model is successful is by getting to the root cause of GI symptoms through the brain. It turns out the brain and gut are deeply connected by a gut-brain axis, which sends messages back and forth between our digestive tracts and our minds. Forget falling while rock climbing, have you ever felt “butterflies in your stomach”?

There’s now overwhelming evidence GI issues like IBS (very common) can be effectively addressed through the brain—think belly breathing, CBT talk therapy, and hypnotherapy. These are all regularly prescribed and effective at helping manage (and sometimes resolve) GI symptoms!

This might seem counterintuitive, but doesn’t it just feel right… in your gut? (See what I did there?) Anyway, the gut-brain connection is huge and not enough people appreciate how much it matters—and how strongly it underscores the importance of mental health for overall wellness.

Friend Tara Viswanathan has had quite a week… and quite a journey, too! Last Thursday, Fullscript announced its acquisition of Rupa, her 6-year old company. It’s a big win in a digital health space that has sorely needed one.

Tara was very early at Parsley Health, then went out on her own to launch a wellness practitioner marketplace (sound familiar?). Along the way, she pivoted to serving the practitioners themselves, learned labs were growing like crazy, and ultimately turned Rupa Health into streamlining the logistics of ordering labs & integrating the results. Plus, they're a big investor in quality content that’s actually helpful (see their website for courses and programs on everything from metabolic health to understanding food allergies).

It’s not a billion-dollar exit, but who knows what it’ll become over time. Fullscript is a super logical pairing for Rupa, given they effectively do the same thing but for supplements, allowing providers to easily write supplement plans and get them delivered to patients’ doors. Put together, they both serve to simplify diagnosis and treatment for the whole person, which is also a much needed win for the healthcare space. 🙌 I’m excited for Tara, her team, and the future.

Imagine a world where popular medical dramas tell realistic stories, not plots that end in the heroic doctor saving the patient right before everything returns to normal. 

Popular culture portraying conditions more realistically—think showing the true and complicated nuances of mental health or the life-long adjustments required with chronic pain—would go a profoundly long way to helping people living with those diseases IRL feel more seen and less alone.

The explicit example I’ve seen of pop culture muddling the patient experience has been through my work with NOCD (sorry, another client). The way OCD has been depicted in movies and television has made delivering OCD solutions very difficult because few people with OCD identify with the extreme (and often inaccurate) examples they see in movies and TV. If the portrayal was more subtle, it could make recognizing a need for treatment—and thus, accessing a better quality of life—easier. Instead, NOCD and others have to combat this misinformation and bring greater education and awareness before even presenting their patient-focused solution. 

Expecting TV to be more realistic is obviously unrealistic, but I’m flagging this can hurt people! So pull back on the drama, dramas. 😬

The Healthyish League

Building something in health? I love to help and love to recommend others who help, too. Here are a few of my carefully selected recommendations, all of which I’ve personally worked with (and some of which I have a formal relationship with): Herman-Scheer (branding & creative), Aequitas Partners (exec & board recruiting), Healthyish Content (my SEO & content agency), Perceptual Advisors (comms & public affairs), Right Side Up/Lantern/Matchnode (growth marketing), Verbose (embedded lifecycle marketing), Titan (exec coaching), and Lakehouse (pre-seed venture capital). Email me anytime for intros.