5HT: 5 Healthyish Things, including vibration plates and emulsifiers

#1 Being disliked

Everyone’s talking about Mel Robbin’s new best-seller, The Let Them Theory. 

Essentially, the concept revolves around how to stop wasting time and energy on what you can't control (guilty) and focus on what really matters. Robbins argues: If someone wants to judge you, leave you, or act a certain way—let them. So if someone says no to your pitch or doesn’t open your newsletter 😡, just let them and move on. In doing so, you set yourself free to focus on bigger and better things. 

I hadn't seen this concept before (or maybe I had, but it just didn’t resonate with me at the time). Right now, it aligns a lot with the inner work I've been doing. Letting go of control is tough for me. And letting go of wanting to be liked is even harder. (Another book on the same theme I’ve been reading: The Courage To Be Disliked). I’ve always sought validation from others, which, yeah, is pretty human. But in wanting to be liked, you can turn yourself into a chameleon and risk losing yourself—and there’s no question that ends up making people like you less.

#2 ThermBack LED

If you’re new here, you may not know that my back’s been a real pain, and this year’s been all about getting it in a better place. I recently ordered the ThermBack LED from TheraBody—a wearable back therapy wrap that promises to ease lower back pain, boost healing, and improve mobility. (Think less hot/cold wraps and more like a mini-hot  sauna for your back.)

After a couple of weeks, I’m into it! Through the connected app, I can control four things: 

• Heat

• Vibration therapy

• Far-infrared therapy

• Near-infrared LED light therapy

The app even has programmed routines for different scenarios like waking up, desk relief, and post-workout. I also love that each session is 10-20 minutes with auto-shutoffs—perfect for slotting into your daily routine. I’ve been obsessed with it and using it a couple of times a day—right from my desk.

There's also solid evidence for pain relief and recovery when these four therapies work together: Heat dilates blood vessels to relieve soreness; far-infrared therapy penetrates deeper to relax tight muscles; targeted vibration therapy boosts blood circulation to a specific area (this one probably has the least convincing science); and near-infrared light therapy reduces inflammation to accelerate healing.

While it doesn’t solve everything (unfortunately), it feels good, and I highly recommend it. Very cool new product, Therabody. 💪

#3 Vibration plates

Speaking of good vibrations, let’s talk about vibration plates.

TikTokers are raving about vibration plates as an “easy route” to fitness, claiming you can shed weight and build muscle just by standing on a vibration plate and letting it do all the work for you. (Some, though, pair it with kettlebells or squats, which is, you know, actually working out).

I can maybe see how vibration plates could be useful if you’re literally doing nothing. There is some research that suggests full-body vibration can improve muscle strength and physical performance, particularly for those less active—like older adults—and might even help with fat loss. But mostly, the research is clear that they are not a shortcut to fitness. 

Most experts agree they don’t challenge your muscles or heart enough to spark real muscle growth or burn fat. (To be fair, one of our writers at Healthyish Content recommended vibration plates for lymphatic drainage, and there is actually science behind that.)

Anyway, all these TikTokers selling these plates (and wow, are they popular on TikTok Shop) are basically scamming people, and that always makes me mad. My guess is they’ll go the way of almost all “do nothing and achieve everything” vibration gadgets like Power Plates (no longer in most gyms after a brief hot period), Vibro-Belt/Slimming Belts (LOL), and most importantly Shake Weights (double LOL).

#4 Emulsifiers

Are emulsifiers hurting our health? Some French researchers (chercheurs 👀) think so. They’ve linked these common food additives to cancer and type 2 diabetes. The theory: Emulsifiers mess with your gut microbiome, spark chronic inflammation, and hike up your cancer and heart disease risk.

If you're like, wait, what are emulsifiers, and am I eating them? Yep. Probably. Emulsifiers are added to foods to make them smoother and last longer. You’ll find them in everything from ice cream to nut milk to mayo.

Here are a few names you might find on ingredient labels if you walk over to your kitchen right now: 

• Lecithin

• Mono- and Diglycerides

• Polysorbates

• Carrageenan

• Cellulose Gum

Should you be concerned? IDKID.

A recent study published in PLOS tracked almost 100,000 French adults over 7 years and found links between emulsifiers and cancer risk. The findings were pretty interesting, showing that people who ate more emulsifiers—especially mono- and diglycerides and carrageenan—had a higher risk of breast, prostate, and overall cancers.

Another recent study by French researchers published in The Lancet (one of the more prestigious academic journals) followed 100,000 French adults for 14 years to investigate associations between emulsifiers and the risk of type 2 diabetes. Their findings claim certain emulsifiers were linked to a 15% increased risk of type 2 diabetes.

Sounds scary, right? But let’s not forget: Correlation does not equal causation. 

Put simply, people who eat more emulsifiers are likely eating a lot of other processed junk, too. So it’s tough to isolate what’s really to blame. We need more rigorous clinical trials to figure out whether emulsifiers are the real villain. For now, no large human study can definitively say they’re harmful.

Look, some people will want to freak out about results like these. Lots of public figures will want you to freak out about results like these, even Mark Hyman. I’m definitely not defending emulsifiers. But are they the smoking gun? Based on the current evidence, I’m not convinced. Studies like these sometimes lead to fear-mongering (which people love to do) and blow results out of proportion. But, hey, if this moves more people to actually read ingredient labels? Great! 

Bottom line: The emulsifiers in your Ben and Jerry's will probably not kill you. But if you’re crushin’ Cherry Garcia 🍒 (my fave is Chunky Monkey) on the reg, that’s a different story.

#5 23AndMe

In case you haven’t heard, 23andMe has gone bankrupt. Despite Anne Wojcicki, the co-founder and CEO, trying to buy it back, the board continued to shoot her down, making the collapse pretty much inevitable.

It’s a bummer, and everyone has opinions on what went wrong. Friend Chrissy Farr believes it's because they raised too much capital and got sidetracked with pharma partnerships. Others argue their business model was unsustainable, and they missed the change to pivot when kit sales peaked. And let’s not forget their 2023 data breach, which didn’t help.

Broadly I just think timing played a huge role. Timing is everything, especially in health tech. 23andMe was ahead of its time but, in some ways, too ahead. They got misdirected, and companies like Function, GRAIL, and DUTCH stepped in to fill the gaps they very well could have. So, despite their lead in the consumerizing health data, 23andMe fell back. 

It’s a shame they couldn’t turn early success into a scalable model that continued to help people understand their health better. They could’ve been the go-to personal health OS (the new race is on to build this) if they’d gotten it right, but they got lost somewhere between consumer and investor expectations.

That said, they did open people’s minds to analyzing health data, starting with DNA—and that’s huge. Their early work laid the foundation for companies that followed, enabling us to assess everything from hormone levels to early cancer detection. By popularizing personalized health insights, they paved the way for a future where individuals can make more informed decisions about their health.

Still, it sucks when a company doesn’t get the exit it deserves, especially one with such big potential. My hope? Wojcicki has a chance to buy it back and try again with a clean slate. Either way, I deleted all my data (and you should definitely do the same). 

Other things

• Did you know the world makes 40 billion earplugs/year, most of them petroleum-based? I didn’t. 🫠 But, now that I do, GOB’s single-use. 100% plant-based earplugs are a small swap I’m really into right now.

• What’s your Costco name? Mine’s “Executive Smoothie”—pretty on brand, considering I’m drinking straight from my Vitamix as we speak.

• Rumor has it that RFK Jr plans to ban pharma ads on TV 👀. If there’s anything to it, it’d mark a major (!) and welcome shift in how drugs are marketed.

• In good news: Dementia rates in the U.S. have actually been steadily declining over the past 40 years. Other factors are at play—and cases will likely rise as the population ages—but the trend is a real reason for optimism.

• Pepsi wants to get into the prebiotic soda game and just bought Poppi for nearly $2 billion…buuut the announcement came days after the soda brand settled a class action lawsuit over its low prebiotic fiber content. Got it. 🤨

👋 Who’s this newsletter from again? I’m Derek Flanzraich. Over the last 15 years, I've founded two venture health startups, one successful (Greatist) and one not (Ness). I’ve also worked with countless others you probably know (GoodRx, Midi, Parsley, Galileo, Ro, Elion, Oshi, Allara, Certify, Peloton, & NOCD). I also run a health content & SEO agency called Healthyish Content.

Every Thursday, I share 5 health-related things I feel strongly about. I explore, double-click, and curate healthy things so you can live healthyish. (Disclaimer: I’m more your friend with health benefits than an expert. None of this should be used as a substitute for real medical advice.) 

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