1094: Vanity Products | Skeptical Sunday

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Welcome to Skeptical Sunday. I'm your host, Jordan Harbinger.
Today, I'm here with Skeptical Sunday co-host Michael Regilio. On the Jordan Harbinger Show, we decode the stories, secrets, and skills of the world's most fascinating people and turn their wisdom into practical advice that you can use to impact your own life and those around you.
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Just visit jordanharbinger.com slash start or search for us in your Spotify app to get started.

Vanity.

As kids, we're taught it's both bad to be vain and that we should look good.

Vanity products like hair loss treatments, collagen drinks, teeth whitening products,

they fill the shelves, they make billions of dollars.

The fact is, it's good to look good.

Today, skeptic, comedian, and guy feebly attempting to age with grace, Michael Regilio, is here to reflect on vanity products. Hi, Jordan.
You're a recognizable figure. I'm sure there's some pressure to be presentable.
I don't know how recognizable I am, and yet, yes, I feel a little bit of pressure to look good. I was actually unable to upload a photo for my ski pass because the selfie I took was, quote, a photo of a celebrity, end quote, according to the website.
So that felt pretty good. That's amazing.
Who did they think you looked like? Yeah, not funny. Okay, kidding.
Seriously, what'd you do? Did you put on like a fake nose and try again? No, I actually have to go into the office and prove that I'm me, because otherwise it's just too unbelievable that Jordan Harbinger would get a ski pass in California where he lives. All right, well, good luck with that.
Look, certain things we do to look good, like working out and eating right, have health benefits. We look good and we feel good.
Certain things we do to look good have health risks, like taking drugs to regrow hair. Hair loss is no joke.
It can lead to serious depression and baldness, for that matter. Yeah, it can.
In fact, one study found that some women with breast cancer were more distressed about losing their hair than their breasts. By age 50, 50% of men and women are experiencing some level of hair loss, and 85% of those people experience anxiety.
Hair is important, I guess, to both men and women, as long as it's in the right place. Speaking of which, on average, a human has between 2 and 5 million hairs, of which about 100,000 are on the scalp.
So the majority of our hair is not on our head, which I guess makes sense,

surface area and all that. Right.
And blonde-haired Caucasians have the highest hair density, which I can relate to because as a younger man, I had a thick blonde shock of hair, but no longer. I now have a thin patch bordering on a bald spot at the back of my scalp.
This crop circle used to bum me out a lot.

Now, it only bums me out a little. But recently, I've noticed that there are a lot more hair regrowth products and drugs being advertised.
Yeah, it would be hard to miss those things. Hair regrowth products.
They're having a moment right now. Big one.
The advertising targets more than just middle-aged dudes now, too. I remember as a, even, was this in the 90s, I guess, reciting the Rogaine commercial? That was in

middle school. That was early 90s.
Yeah, and all these commercials have made me wonder if I'm,

like, missing something. Have there been, like, some major breakthroughs? Just how effective are

treatments now? Yeah, I'm doing okay in the battle to hold the hairline, but, like, all guys,

I'm curious about the technology, just in case I need it someday, which seems kind of inevitable. Yeah.
When I first realized my hair was thinning in the back, I was really insecure about it. Then one day I went to the movies with a bunch of friends and as fate would have it, I was in the row directly in front of my friends.
Why weren't you in the row with your friends? Look, I don't want to get into that. Look, but there they were, all staring at the back of my head.
Let me tell you something. When you have a bald spot on the back of your head, you might not be able to see it, but you can feel it.
Weirder still, you can feel people looking at it. So it's like you feel a draft, but also lasers.
I mean, look, it's not that weird, but sitting alone in the row in front of your friends at the movies, that is weird. Fine.
But look, the fact of the matter is I could feel the heat from their stares, those lasers you mentioned. It completely ruined the movie.
I was so self-conscious. But somehow after that night, I was less self-conscious.
I didn't need to hide it anymore. Everybody knew.
Then I began making jokes about it on stage. Those jokes got laughs.
And suddenly, I was okay with my patch. That is, until this new wave of hair replacement advertisements came along.
Suddenly, I started feeling all weird again. I could feel my bald patch again.
In the advertisements, all these cool dudes are just taking a pill and presto. They have a full head of hair.
Even without doing research, though, I know that's not how it works. When I looked at the topic list for Skeptical Sundays, I saw this topic and I thought, let's do it.
And while researching this topic, let's figure out if I should try one of these treatments. Wow.
So this is like a personal episode for you. And I know that subliminal advertising is on the list, too.
I'm wondering if maybe you should have researched that first, since these ads, they sure seem to have messed you up a little bit. But here we are.
Okay. So look, obviously, I'm not alone in wanting to go back to a full head of hair.
The history of hair replacement goes back thousands of years. In fact, it was around the year 4000 BCE that ancient Egyptians rubbed their heads with a concoction of ground up dates, dog paws, and donkey hooves.
Ooh, dog paws and donkey hooves. I'm curious why they thought that would work.
I'm not sure why specifically they believed animal feet cured baldness, but in general, people losing their hair will believe anything and try anything. Like another Egyptian cure found in a medical text called the Ebers papyrus, which instructed people to boil porcupine hair and press it to their scalp for four days.
Were they trying to grow the porcupine hair? I don't understand. I don't know, but I'm guessing most people would take porcupine hair over no hair.
In fact, I bet it would look sharp. Ah, isn't that kind of the point? Indeed.
Porcupine hair seems tame compared to what the father of Western medicine, Hippocrates, smeared on his big brain case. Opium, horseradish, pigeon droppings, beetroot, and spices.

First, and spices.

Second, once you got pigeon poop rubbed on your head, no one is thinking about your hair.

That must have smelled horrendous and looked worse.

Right.

So in a way, it was a cure.

I'm also guessing that once you've rubbed enough opium into your scalp, you'll stop caring about your hair.

Yeah.

You know what?

This was an okay treatment for baldness.

This is the first time I'm going to that once you've rubbed enough opium into your scalp, you'll stop caring about your hair. Yeah.
You know what? This was an okay treatment for baldness. Hippocrates did, by the way, tap into the true root of hair loss.
For real. He noticed that eunuchs never go bald, and he wasn't wrong to notice it.
He was onto something. Wait, what, you mean the men who had their testicles cut off? That's some Game of Thrones stuff right there.
Those guys never go bald, which is funny because isn't the guy in Game of Thrones totally bald? The eunuch? I don't know which guy. There's a guy that got his penis cut off.
He's got hair, I think. It's been a while since I've seen it.
Oh, I don't know. There's a lot of castration in that series, so I'd have to go back.
Oh, no, no, no. No, you're right.
There is a guy who's got his balls cut off and he's totally bald. So they're playing both sides on this one.
But look, as we'll see, testosterone and its byproducts are a part of the hair loss equation. I'm guessing no one ever decided to go with Hippocrates and just snip snip because they want to go bald.
Seems like a bad trade. Look, who's to say? In Rome, around 50 BCE, a popular treatment for balding was to rub myrrh berries into the scalp.
And I'm guessing that also did not work. No, but it probably dyed the scalp purple.
Baldness is like a real catch-22. There's nothing more embarrassing than balding, except, of course, getting caught with lame attempts to cover up balding.
Totally. The Romans who believed a full head of hair was a sign of favorability with the gods, they were particularly snarky to bald dudes.
As illustrated in this famous poem, On your bald pate, no wig you use. You draw hairs on with no excuse.
At least no barber needs to trim it. You can erase it in a minute.
I love that the Romans actually spent time, what, chiseling that into stone, a poem, making fun of bald people? They're like, this needs to withstand the test of time. Make sure this one lasts.
Yeah, actually, to be honest with you, the Romans wrote poems making fun of a lot of people. And there wasn't just one about bald people.
There's also, how can you have so little hair, yet have it show up everywhere? Man, Rome is a tough room. I'm actually more impressed that the poems rhyme in English.
How did that happen? I'm not sure, but one has to wonder what jokes were made at Julius Caesar's expense as the most famous example of the comb over. It's a hard look to pull off.
First of all, you can spot one a mile away. No, no, no.
Those are just the bad comb-overs. I've known some guys who take the art form to new levels.
Truly remarkable how effective a determined man in a bottle of hairspray can be. I'm thinking of a former president or that movie Kingpin where the guy's comb-over flops the other way while he's bowling.
It's just hanging out like a platter. Man, look, I never did anything that drastic, except I did once consider converting to Judaism for the yarmulke.
Maybe Caesar should have done that. That's not a bad idea.
Yeah, well, Caesar tried a bunch of stuff, including a home remedy recommended by his lover, Cleopatra, which included ground-up mice and horse teeth. Oh, that's gross.
Ground-up mice is gross. Yeah, it didn't work.
Well, that's, yeah, no surprise there either. And after he got the ground up mice wiped off his head, he opted for the cover up many people eventually adopt.
The hat. The hat, yeah.
In his case, a laurel wreath. Oh, I forgot about that.
No, but seriously, ground up mice, why? What's the logic on that? No, man, you and the ground up mice. Hey, look, the mice thing has legs, so to speak.
Ireland, around the year 1000 CE, there was a cure that instructed people to shove mice into a clay jar, seal it, bury it next to a fire, and leave it there for a year. Oh, gosh, more mice.
What am I missing here? I mean, mice are hairy. Is that kind of where the logic begins and ends or what? I'm not sure, man.

But look, smearing the dead mouse on his head was wild.

But Caesar was onto something with the wreath.

I say bring back the laurel wreath.

Can you imagine if dudes wore wreaths instead of baseball caps?

I'm not dissing the baseball cap.

I'm just very pro-wreath.

Instead of sweatshops pumping out pollution and baseball caps,

we'd have farms growing baseball wreaths and cowboy wreaths. Yeah, I mean, those are biodegradable.
And of all the crazy things you've said on this show, and that list, by the way, is impressive. This one is actually kind of interesting.
Time to invest in a wreath farm? Not just yet. Keep me in the loop.
California agriculture is having a moment. I guess so.
But hair loss has stumped doctors for a very long time. As recently as 1889, doctors believe baldness could be prevented with exercise, fresh air and good hygiene.
That can't hurt, right? If you've got the blood flow going, you're washing yourself once a year or whatever the standard was in 1889. Come on.
Totally. You're right.
It can't hurt. But if you've got hair loss coming down the genealogy highway, you can't exercise your way out of it.
I've always heard that it's something like, oh, your grandfather on your mother's side. And if that guy's bald, you're in trouble.
Is there truth to that at all? Although hair loss is hereditary, that old nugget of wisdom is not necessarily true. So if you're looking at a bald maternal grandfather and worrying about your luscious locks, don't.
It might not be your fate thanks to modern advancements. Starting in the late 19th century, the first real treatments began in the form of hair transplants.
The early techniques were crude and often resulted in unnatural looking hair. Yeah, to be fair, I've seen some modern examples of hair transplants that absolutely look unnatural.
And I think we've all seen that. There's a few famous people with those bad 80s hair transplants, right? Yeah.
The fact of the matter is the cutting edge of hair transplants are starting to look really good. Doctors have been refining the techniques that were begun in the 1950s with the concept of donor dominance.
That's a technique that uses hair from the back and sides of the head and transplants them to the top. I'm surprised nobody ever tried sewing dead mice to the top of someone's head.
I mean, when did that die out? Those dead mice treatments, they did a number on you. Yeah, man.
You know what? I've actually seen a few hair transplants that did look like someone sewed a dead mouse to someone's head. But the problem with hair transplants is that they don't address the root causes of hair loss.
Understanding those causes and creating drugs to counter them have changed the game. You know what's better than sewing dead mice carcasses to your bald head? The fine products and services that support this show.
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Now back to Skeptical Sunday. Now I know last time during the cannabis episode, people were like, there's too many puns.
I'm just going to say roots of hair loss. I'm going to let that one slide.
Okay. One cause of hair loss is stress, which sucks because losing your hair stresses you out even more.
Oh yeah. And then you lose more hair and you stress more because you're going bald and you're losing more hair in the shower.
I've actually personally, when business would be like really bad, I've had some periods where I was so stressed. My hair was falling out in clumps.
Not like you pull it and there's a big bald spot, but you're just like, oh, normally when I shower, there's 10 hairs on the ground. Now there's 50 and it's my morning shower and then my evening shower for the gym.
And it's, oh God, it's really terrifying because you just think there's no going back. Luckily, that stress stopped.
And I guess my hair grew back because I still have all my hair or at least most of it. Yeah.
Well, lucky you. Most people over 50 are experiencing some level of hair loss.
So what happens on average at age 50? Do we know? Hair loss has probably been happening very slowly since 30, but at 50, you start to notice bright overhead lights become your enemy. Hair goes through three stages of its life cycle.
The first phase is called the antigen phase, and that's where the hair is still growing. Interestingly, the antigen phase for the hair on your head is up to eight years, which is why you can grow your hair so long, while the antigen phase of an eyebrow is just a couple months.
Except for I have one straight eyebrow hair, and this thing, the antigen phase is considerably longer, possibly infinite. Jen, she'll be like, oh, hold on.
I got to get this thing. And she'll pluck this sucker.
And of course, I want to see it. But if she let this thing go, it would like interfere with my eating.
This thing goes inches long and it's just amazing and gross. And it's one of those things where I'm like, OK, when we're both 80, you're not going to be able to see that.
And I'm not going to be able to see that. And our grandkids are going to be like, holy crap, grandpa's got an eyebrow that's wrapped around his whole head twice.
As a comic, I have to say, I'm very impressed. That might've been the first antigen phase joke in history.
Phase two is called the catagen phase. This is where the hair is growing dormant and is dying from the inside out.
Kind of like me. That's a dark turn for a guy that just witnessed the first antigen phase joke in history, I mean, we should be excited about that.
We should be celebrating that. Okay.
Phase three is called the telogen phase. The hair pinches off and dies.
Some hairs can re-enter the life cycle. Others can't.
Scientists now understand that it's hormones that drive these phases. Hormones are the drivers and the brakes on these processes.
Hormones determine if you're a shag rug or a hardwood floor. I'm getting way outside of my pay grade here, but dihydrotestosterone or DHT, which comes from testosterone, is a hormone.
And I'm totally oversimplifying here, but DHT can send your hair into the telogen phase, and that's bad. So the issue stems from testosterone, as in the male hormone.
That's why Hippocrates maybe noticed eunuchs, aka guys with no testicles, all kept their hair. Once castrated, I guess a guy has no testosterone.
Well, that can't be right. Well, women, by the way, also have testosterone.
In fact, I learned that women have more testosterone than estrogen, but they have more estrogen than men.

But testosterone, that's for everybody.

Yeah, that makes sense.

It's been a minute, but that seems obvious now.

So why is it that younger men

who have more testosterone, right?

Their stuff's healthy.

They got those 900 counts or whatever.

Why do they have more hair?

Shouldn't it be less?

And why, if women have testosterone,

don't they also experience hair loss at similar rates as men? And I know that's two questions, but... And you're asking the wrong guy, because again, this is way past my pay grade, but I did actually ask the same question.
And the answer I got was that it's the conversion of testosterone to DHT. As men age, they have more DHT, which causes hair loss.
The other thing that causes hair loss is decreased blood flow to the scalp. A healthy blood flow replenishes nutrients and oxygen.
Understanding these mechanisms built the entire hair growth industry. So here's where I assume you're going to tell us about all the drugs on the market that deal with DHT and whatnot.
Yes, but let's go in order of potential side effects. This is a good place to mention that a lot of these treatments work best in tandem with other treatments.
One thing that works really well with other treatments has almost no side effects, and that is microneedling. Have you heard of it? I haven't, but that sounds super painful.
Needles in general, but microneedling just sounds like there's a lot of needles happening.

Yeah, well, I was surprised.

I hadn't heard of it either,

but microneedling is,

it's like a kind of acupuncture for your scalp,

except it seems to work.

Okay, unnecessary jab at acupuncture,

although we've done our Skeptical Sunday on that as well.

What is microneedling though exactly?

I mean, it sounds like a zillion small needles.

Am I close?

And it kind of is.

Microneedling is using a roller device of really small needles to micropuncture the skin,

which is still better than the side effects of modern drugs. I suppose that makes sense.
The idea of doing that to myself, though, is making me feel a little bit sick. Are there any, I don't know, like herbal treatments that are doing anything? Sure.
Yeah, there actually are. And they're not all placebos.
Some herbal remedies have been studied, like salt palmetto. Oh, I've heard of that.
This herb is being investigated for its potential to inhibit the enzyme, which converts testosterone into DHT. DHT, which causes hair loss.
And that's why before people right now, they're like warming up their emails like, testosterone doesn't just randomly convert. There's an enzyme.
We know, we just, we didn't want to have to draw hexagons all over the script for this episode and explain it. But we're taking some serious shortcuts.
Yeah. We're going to get into the enzyme because it does some really interesting stuff that we're going to get into in a sec.
But the fact of the matter is saw palmetto might actually work. So might laser treatments, which are being studied.
The lasers are thought to have an anti-inflammatory effect on the scalp and promote hair loss. But either way, you're getting zapped in your head with a laser and that's pretty sci-fi, kind of cool, kind of how I imagined all medical procedures will look like in the future someday.
It reminds me, do you ever see Starship Troopers, that movie? I saw it, yeah. Yeah, I mean, a million years ago, right? But it reminds me of when they were getting a tattoo of their unit, when there's the montage of them bonding and having fun and going out and get wasted and stuff.
Instead of going to a tattoo place, they just hold their arm in front of these lasers that burn the tattoo into their skin and they're like, yeah, because they're hammered. But it does feel right for a 21st century treatment.
It would be weird if the key to hair laws turned out to be opium and donkey hooves. That would be the surprise.
Yeah, that would be weird if the cure for baldness was a drug we had all along, like caffeine, which, in fact, turns out to be an effective treatment for growing hair. No way.
How is that possible? Everybody's been drinking coffee for, what, centuries and tea before that for a thousand years. If caffeine cured baldness, there would just be no baldness, except for Mormons.
They're blonde and have that thick hair, but they abstain from caffeine. Those guys would all be bald.
Just because I've had a conversation with a Mormon recently about this. It's not caffeine that they're not allowed to have.
It's hot drinks, which was interpreted as coffee and tea. And most Mormons are soda pop addicts.
Really? Full of caffeine. Yeah.
Okay. I always thought it was caffeine.
Hot drinks. That's a kind of a weird prohibition.
I understood the caffeine because it gives you a mood lift and maybe that was the logic, but now we just don't want you to have warm stuff. Kind of a little bit more abstracted.
We can get into Mormons another day. No, no, no.
I'm trying to be respectful. They know how I feel about spiritual belief, but they're still welcome to listen to the show and learn about hair loss.
Absolutely. Don't worry, Mormons.
God bless. Anyway, you said drinking and that was your mistake because who said anything about drinking?

This is caffeine that you would apply directly to your scalp.

Wow.

So are people rubbing coffee on their heads, which I guess is brown like some people's hair and also not as bad as horse teeth and pigeon poop, but comes in slightly behind

opium in terms of the fun factor. Yeah.
The best part of waking up is having Folgers ground into the back of your head does have a certain ring to it, but no, it's not coffee, but cream, a caffeine cream. Other new treatments include platelet-rich plasma in which a person's own blood cells are injected into their scalp.
I'm glad you told us it's a caffeine cream. I get some emails from people that I'm like, we did not advise you to do that on Feedback Friday.
That's the whole do-your-own-research before applying anything you hear on the show, and people are like, of course I will, because I don't want a dozen emails from people who dump scalding hot black coffee on their head as a result of this episode. They're like, yeah, it also promotes blood flow, and it has caffeine.
People have done some insane stuff as a result of the advice here.

So I am highlighting that it's likely a prescription caffeine cream that is for applying to your

head.

What about the biggest dog on the balding block, which is Rogaine, and not to be confused

with Spotify's most popular podcaster?

Yeah.

Okay.

So here we go with the stuff with side effects.

The active ingredient in Rogaine is minoxidil. Minoxidil was developed to treat hypertension.
it.

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I'm not going to do that. was developed to treat hypertension.
Actually, it was developed to cure ulcers, but it didn't work for that. But it did lower blood pressure, so it was approved for blood pressure.
But it ended up growing hair on people's heads, so they just switched it to that. Wow.
Okay. So it started as ulcer medication, switched to a blood pressure medication, then switched to hair loss medicine.
So they just sort of, it seems like they just tripped and stumbled into the hair game. Yeah, pretty much.
Minoxidil works by increasing blood flow to the scalp and everywhere else. As one would expect when taking an ulcer slash hypertension slash hair regrowth slash dessert topping

medication, there are side effects like ankle swelling, headaches, and dizziness. That's definitely not good.
Other side effects include reduction in libido, reductions in overall feelings of well-being, and increases of male breast tissue. Oh, man.
That's a hell of a catchphrase. Minoxidil, grow hair and breasts, and also maybe completely lose interest in sex and life altogether.
That's horrible. Yeah, it's not always an easy choice.
Plus, the hair growth is only effective as long as you're on minoxidil. So it's either take it for life or stop at some point and watch your hair fall back out.
So minoxidil might not be for you. There's always finasteride.
That's the drug in all the other big brands like Propecia. I have heard of that one.
Actually, I thought that was something else, but I have heard of that. The history of finasteride turns out to be an interesting one as well.
It all started with the study of a group of intersex children in the Caribbean who were raised as girls then at puberty grew external male sex organs. Wait, you're saying these girls grew penises.
Tell me what you mean right now, Michael Regilio. This is so bizarre.
Okay, that's not quite what I'm telling you. What I am telling you is that these individuals who appear to be female at birth and are raised as girls grow penises at around 12 years of age.
And usually they'll switch from identifying as girls to identifying as boys. They're called guevadoces, which in Spanish means penis at 12.
Right. Okay.
Oh my God. I have no idea what this has to do with people growing hair, but I think everyone's on the same page when I say we absolutely are going down this rabbit hole right now.
People growing a penis spontaneously is way more interesting than anything else we could have planned for this show. So can we do that? This is so weird.
Of course, you're right. And it is super interesting.
And it does, by the way, have to do with hair regrowth. It all has to do with a genetic condition that is incredibly rare everywhere on Earth except one small village in the Dominican Republic called Salinas.
In Salinas, one out of 90 boys are born with this condition. Before any of this was understood, one would have been justified in saying that in Salinas, one out of 90 boys are born with this condition.
Before any of this was understood, one would have

been justified in saying that in Salinas, one out of 90 girls born turn into boys at around 12 years

of age, which is what people used to think. Hey, ladies, did you grow a penis at age 12?

If not, console yourself with the fine products and services that support this show. We'll be

right back. This episode is sponsored in part by FlyKit.
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Now for the rest of Skeptical Sunday. So, okay, it's a genetic condition because I'm thinking, how have I never heard of this if it's so common? But this is starting to make some sense because Dominican Republic is on an island.
Is Salinas also an island? I don't know. It's a small village.
So what's the condition? Do we know anything? What's going on here? As we know, at conception, a person destined to be a girl has a set of X chromosomes, while a person destined to become a boy has an X and a Y. Then at around eight weeks after conception, the sex hormones kick in.
If you're genetically male, the Y chromosome instructs your gonads to become testicles and sends testosterone to something called the tubercle. And the testosterone is converted into DHT.
Ah, yes, DHT. I'm starting to see the connection here.
And the DHT turns the tubercle into a penis. In guevidoces, the reason they don't have what we would recognize as a penis when they are born is because they are deficient in an enzyme, which we mentioned earlier, called 5-alpha reductase, which converts testosterone into DHT.
But at puberty, when genetic males get a second blast of testosterone,

they finish growing the penis.

This is why people believed that these girls were growing a penis at 12.

This is flat out incredible.

So at birth, they're believed to be girls.

It's not like some sort of weird superstitious thing. They look like maybe every other girl.
They're raised as girls. and then it's like, oh,

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Yeah. Wow.
That opens up a whole host of new questions. And we still haven't even discussed how this has anything to do with hair loss or finasteroid.
Oh my gosh. You're right.
It does open up a whole host of new questions and I'm sure we could do a whole episode here. So I'll just hit you with this little fact that I thought was so interesting.
Despite being raised as girls, most guevadoses grow up to be heterosexual males. So much for the people who think you can turn someone gay or turn someone straight.
Sorry, gay conversion advocates. Yeah, I don't need to learn about guevadosis to understand that.
Gay conversion has been an intellectually bankrupt idea for a long time. And this whole thing with the enzymes and stuff has profound implications for people that are transgender or all this stuff that we're just now beginning to fully understand.
But you haven't told me how this has anything to do with finasteride. Are we getting back to that? Yes, right now.
It's because guevadoses had smaller prostates due to their genetic disorder. Scientists used what they learned about guevadoses to help people with enlarged prostates.
It was in studying guevadoses that scientists were able to develop finasteride. Wait, finasteride is for hair growth, not enlarged prostates, or is it for both? Yeah.
Turns out that taking finasteride grows hair. That's the hair growth industry's motto.
Someone will accidentally invent something for us. How effective is this? It can increase hair growth by 20%.
It can reduce hair loss in 90% of people. It increases hair thickness by 20% to 30%.
I mean, that all sounds pretty good, but does it make you spontaneously? Well, I guess if it makes you grow a penis, most guys would be fine with that. I don't know if women maybe should take this.
It kind of has the opposite effect because it can also cause erectile dysfunction, suicidal thoughts, depression, and low sex drive. That all sounds pretty bad.
Man, they never tell you to appreciate your side effect freefree head of hair when you're young, do they? No, they don't. But those are just possible side effects.
For lots of people, these options work out great, especially when done in conjunction with other stuff like microneedling. Hair is so important that we're going to risk erectile dysfunction, suicidal ideation.
We're going to rub poop and opium on our scalp, stab ourselves in the head thousands of times to grow it or keep it. Yep.
So that's vanity product number one. You were also going to tell us about collagen drinks, which just can't, sounds fake to me and always has.
Guess what? Collagen is all the rage. Influencers and celebrities are doubting collagen drinks like crazy.
Collagen drinkers claim collagen gives them healthier, younger looking skin, hair and nails. And since the natural collagen our bodies make provides support for these very tissues, these claims actually seem plausible.
It sounds cool, but it also kind of sounds like, oh, Rhino Horn makes your wee-wee work better.

It's a little bit too much of a direct connection for me, but what exactly is collagen? Collagen is a protein. It's the most common protein found in the body.
It is in skin, hair, nails, bones, cartilage, and tendons. It works with other stuff in our body to give our skin its moisture and elasticity.
It's also partly what hair and nails are made of. Collagen also helps wounds to heal.
So I assume our bodies make it. Why do I need to eat it, for example? Okay, well, our bodies do produce collagen using foods like bone broth, meat, and fish.
But old man time, sun exposure, smoking, and drinking decreases the amount we produce. Although I'm sure smoking sun and sipping booze deplete collagen, I'm guessing time is 90% of it or whatever the real factor at play.
There's just no amount of sobriety in the shade that's going to keep you from looking old. Yeah, and that's true.
Over time, our bodies make less and less collagen. And no matter what we drink, we get brittle bones and we get all wrinkly.
So in our never ending quest to slow the hands of time, people have taken to gulping collagen. And where does all the collagen come from that we're gulping? Because it's going to be something gross for sure.
Right. Well, you're not wrong.
Mostly from cows, pigs, chickens and fish. Nothing like a big glass of cow, chicken, pig, fish juice.
Ooh, yeah, you did find a way to make this gross too. However, it almost had to be, right? So bravo.
Before I imbibe cow chicken pish fig juice, let me ask, does it actually work? Because if it does, I'll suffer through it. Yeah, several studies have been conducted and results are promising, particularly when it comes to the skin.
The others found that taking collagen supplements daily for at least three months improved skin elasticity and hydration and reduced wrinkles. In addition, another study found that collagen supplements were linked to improvements in cardiovascular health, including blood pressure and cholesterol levels.
All right. Sounds great.
Get them animals in the blender. In addition, another study showed that men who drank the barnyard slurry while working out showed increased muscle strength compared to those who just took a placebo.
Okay. I've heard whey protein, like protein made from egg whey, basically the stuff you see meat heads like me drinking on the regular is better for building muscle than collagen.
And I will say the study shows that consuming protein helps with muscle growth. It's okay.
That's not new. Yeah.
And you're right. Weight is better for building muscles.
But if you're already drinking collagen for skin health, this might be an extra added little benefit. Are there risks though? No, not really.
According to recent study, collagen is safe and carries very low risk of side effects, even at really high doses. I guess you can safely drink the entire cow.
The only caveat I saw is that there's no real evidence that collagen is beneficial to hair and nails. Yeah, that's okay.
We always have our jars of porcupine hair and pigeon crap for that. I live in Southern California, and I can tell you that if you want to look good, there's something to that staying out of the sun advice.
Well, yeah, Hollywood. I mean, tans are out and spray tans are in and you see older folks that go to the beach every day and they look like they've smoked their whole life, even if they're super healthy.
Absolutely. You know what else is in is teeth whitening.
And I've seen people whose teeth are so bright you get a tan just from standing in front of them. In fact, I kind of have this public service announcement.
There is such a thing as too white of teeth. I'm looking at you, local newscasters.
I have noticed this and I thought, oh, is it the lighting? But it's like veneers plus teeth whitening plus makeup plus the lighting. And I have noticed some insanely white teeth out there, not just on TV as of late, especially when I go to LA for meetings.
I'm like, what is with everyone's teeth? Just you got to wear sunglasses and look at these people smile. That's true.
But actually, it's not just as of late. Our old friends, the Egyptians, started tooth whitening 4,000 years ago.
They had a paste made of ground pumice stone and wine vinegar. Then, like now, white teeth were a sign of beauty and wealth.
Back then, though, just having teeth at all was probably a sign of beauty and wealth. I mean, didn't people lose their teeth when they were like 20? Yeah, absolutely.
But you're going to love this one. The Romans, they had a great way of whitening teeth.
I bet they did. They used urine.
The ammonia in the urine was the bleaching agent. Oh, this is, it's so weird.
I did not expect this episode to be the grossest episode ever of Skeptical Sunday. I thought for sure it would be like circumcision or something like that.
How did you make this grosser than the plastic surgery episode? It's really impressive. Oh, yeah.
It's gross. And you'll notice, by the way, I did not say they used their urine to clean their teeth.
Oh, no. I just said they used urine.
I couldn't find where they actually got the urine to clean their teeth. But don't just assume because there were lots of places to get urine in ancient Rome.
They used it for a bunch of stuff. They washed their clothes in it.
Oh, this is so far off the topic of teeth whitening, but tell me more. No, it's not that far off of tooth whitening because like I said, it's the properties of the urine that whitened the togas that also whitened the teeth.
In ancient Rome, there were giant pots placed in front of laundry businesses. Anyone could pee in the pot.
In fact, the owners encouraged you to pee in their pot. Later, it would be collected and used to clean clothes or possibly whiten teeth.
So everybody had a pot to piss in. Seems equitable.
That's got to be where that expression comes from, for sure. Maybe not.
Never mind. That was the Romans.
In the late 1700s, the barber took care of your teeth. He did normal stuff to whiten your teeth, like filing them and applying acid to them.
Oh my gosh. I barely trust my barber to cut my hair, but I can think of two things wrong with using a file and acid to whiten teeth.
My gosh, that is, they made mistakes with that that just ended horribly. Oh yeah.
Luckily, we discovered fluoride in the 19th century, which is better for tooth health than acid, but actually fluoride stains teeth. But it's not the real problem like coffee and tea.
Tooth whitening works by using bleaching agents. The most common today are hydrogen peroxide and carbamide peroxide.
And the terrible side effects are? None. Really? Really? Wow.
Yeah, there is a risk of increased tooth sensitivity.

I did find a horror story of a woman in the UK having her lips swell up like balloons,

but after further reading, turns out she just went to some random person's house,

and God knows what this person put on her teeth.

For the most part, it's safe.

If you want white teeth, go for

it. I just think super white teeth look weird, especially on high def TV, particularly in front

of a green screen weather map. But hey, that's just me.
Yeah, I almost wonder if the computer

is making that worse, but they have to know. Gosh, her lips swelled up.
It must have been the donkey

hooves or whatever. But those giant white newscaster teeth always remind me of that movie,

Something About Mary. I was trying to think of the name of the movie.

Yeah, that is a hell of a- Gosh, her lips swelled up. It must have been the donkey hooves or whatever.
But those giant white newscaster teeth always remind me of that movie,

Something About Mary.

I was trying to think of the name of the movie.

Yeah, that is a hilarious movie.

It turns out white teeth come with half the headaches as a fresh new head of hair

in terms of the side effects and all that.

What about that bald spot?

Are you going to do something about that?

Probably not.

For one, I'm married, so she's stuck.

And for two, in researching this topic,

I decided that I disagree with the notion

And something about that? Probably not. For one, I'm married, so she's stuck.
And for two, in researching this topic, I decided that I disagree with the notion that there's anything about me that needs to be cured. In fact, I was reading this old British newspaper from the 1700s when they had sham cures for baldness coming out.
And the author said that the best cure for baldness is to just not be bothered by it.

And I thought, you know what?

That sounds great.

Definitely has the least side effects.

So that's what I'm going to go with.

Unless, of course, a cheaper, more effective method with fewer side effects comes out,

then I'm all in.

Thanks, Michael.

And thank you for listening.

Topic suggestions for future episodes of Skeptical Sunday to me, Jordan, at jordanharbinger.com.

Show notes on the website as well at jordanharbinger.com. Advertisers, deals, discounts, and ways to support the show, all at jordanharbinger.com slash deals.
I'm at jordanharbinger on Twitter and Instagram. You can also connect with me on LinkedIn.
You can find Michael Regilio at michaelregilio on Instagram. Tour dates are up now as well.
We'll link to that in the show notes because nobody can spell Regilio. This show has created in association with Podcast One.
My team is Jen Harbinger, Jace Sanderson, Robert Fogarty, Ian Baird, Millie Ocampo, and Gabriel Mizrahi. Our advice and opinions are our own, and I'm a lawyer, but I'm not your lawyer, certainly not a doctor.
So do your own research before implementing anything you hear on the show, especially when it involves putting something in or on your body. Also, we may get a few things wrong here and there, especially on Skeptical Sunday because these topics are so involved.
If you think we've really dropped the ball on something, definitely let us know. We're usually pretty receptive to that, and y'all know how to reach me, Jordan at jordanharbinger.com.
Remember, we rise by lifting others. Share the show with those you love, and if you found the episode useful, please share it with somebody else who could use a good dose of the skepticism and knowledge that we doled out today.
In the meantime, I hope you apply what you hear on the show so you can live what you learn. And we'll see you next time.
If you're looking for another episode of the Jordan Harbinger show to sink your teeth into, here's a trailer for another episode that I think you might enjoy. What I tried to do was thank a thousand people who had even the smallest role in making my cup of coffee possible.
And a thousand you go, oh, that's not a lot. It's a that's a lot.
Oh, my God. It was a lot.
A hundred people would be a tedious. No, it was it was way more than I anticipated.
Ten times that many. Everything we do requires hundreds, thousands of interconnected people and that we take for granted.
And just making this mental switch just from a selfish point of view is very good because it really does help you appreciate the hundreds of things that go right every day instead of focusing on the three or four that go wrong. There's a great quote.
I wish I'd come up with it myself, but it says,

it's easier to act your way into a new way of thinking than to think your way into a new way of acting. So I had to fake it for a long time.
You know, I would wake up in a grumpy mood,

but I'd be like, I have to spend an hour calling or visiting people and thanking them.

And I'm not in the mood to do that.

No. So it was like acting.
It was like method acting. And I would force myself to do it.
But I'll tell you, by the end of that hour, your mind, you know, the cognitive dissonance is too much. Your mind will switch over to gratefulness.
There's a great quote that happiness does not lead to gratitude. Gratitude leads to happiness.
Having that mindset really will make you happier.

For more with AJ Jacobs and his fascinating journey

to thank everyone involved in his cup of morning coffee

and an inside look at just how complex

the supply chain of our lives really is,

check out episode 174 of The Jordan Harbinger Show.