Can kimchi rid you of microplastics? Probably not. But the story is hilarious, and involves - I kid you not - a shadowy government department intent on manipulating people into buying more kimchi. gidmk.substack.com/p/can-kimchi...

Haven't done one of these in a while. Scientific error-checking, difficulty: medium. These are two tables from an RCT that's been cited 134 times. Find me mistakes. These are numeric or mathematical impossibilities, not just issues with theory or formatting. I have found ~many~

Kimchi may get rid of microplastics in your gut. Research funded by...the World Institute of Kimchi.

When I steal something: laws work just fine. When billion-dollar companies steal something: Oh no, the laws, they are ineffective. Woe is me.

Sometimes scientific error-checking is hard. Sometimes studies contradict themselves multiple times in three short paragraphs and you have to wonder how they got published in the first place

"Our results cannot be treated as evidence of causality, but also you should act as if they do". Ah, science.

An apple a day keeps the doctor away (if you throw it hard enough)

It is very odd to come on Bluesky and see people freaking out about the risk of COVID-19 in 2026. I haven't heard an offline person - even my infectious disease colleagues! - mention COVID-19 in years.

For some reason, the replies are turned off here so I'll just note that I'm not sure what macrotrends dot net is reporting here. That being said, life expectancy and death from most causes improved in 2024 as compared with 2023. The same will likely be true for 25 vs 24. www.cdc.gov/nchs/product...

Does complementary and alternative medicine kill people with cancer? ...maybe. My new piece: open.substack.com/pub/gidmk/p/...

Hey @ benryanwriter.bsky.social Why don’t you reply over here so we can ALL discuss whether I’ve actually read the Finnish study about completed suicides.

One day in the near future there will be an AI assistant that writes emails for you to send to another AI assistant that will read them for someone else and we can forgo human connection entirely. Bliss.

Oh hey, it's a Very Fucked Paper. See the pubpeer thread, it's a fun one: pubpeer.com/publications...

I wrote about this issue last year. In short, vaccines have been so effective that people have almost entirely forgotten what it is like to live with these really nasty diseases gidmk.substack.com/p/the-proble...

The US Government recommending that physicians train with ridiculous quacks and spend time learning about soil agriculture is about what you'd expect from the pseudoscientific fools in charge of the HHS at the moment.

I have now written up the issues with this study. Turns out it's even worse than I initially thought! gidmk.substack.com/p/multivitam...

Peak toddler this morning: Little Nerd demanded toast like daddy, then after said toast was toasted wanted porridge, then ate some of my toast anyway 🤣

Some people who think RFK Jr. is crazy wrong on vaccines (he is!) believe he's some kind of north star on food because he says "eat real food" - which EVERYONE in food has always said. He's mostly crazy wrong about food, too. @mikegrunwald.bsky.social explains. www.thebulwark.com/p/robert-ken...

The COSMOS study of multivitamins and cocoa supplements continues to be a ridiculous circus that mostly shows how broken science is. This time, it's DNA methylation.

The problem with health libertarianism a la MAHA and co is that it's fundamentally opposed to the evidence. You can't easily reconcile the fact that much of health is outside of individual control and the desire to remove all government intervention from public health.

My new piece about glyphosate and why it's probably fine for your health unless you're spraying the stuff in which case the data is mixed. Also, RFK Jr. got attacked by all of his friends and it was very funny to me. slate.com/technology/2...

What a remarkable statement. Both true and chilling. "It is clear that the sum of US policy choices amount to mortality worse than a COVID-19 pandemic, ongoing, year after year" @gavinyamey.bsky.social

I am being yelled at on Threads by a "medical astrologer" who believes that epidemiology is all about correlations and that oncological surgeons fund studies showing that pathological BRCA mutations cause cancer in order to drum up more patients.

The only remarkable thing about this is that the journal editors have not yet retracted every one of these papers. Making up data - even if it is a case report - is an astonishing breach.

Roses are red, Violets are blue, It was statistically significant (p<0.05) Which means that it's true.

I am the bed of many things

Everything is either a false dichotomy or just plain wrong.

Space is very cool and also horrifyingly dangerous and could kill anyone who goes there long term. My new piece on why I don't think we'll make it to Mars safely in my lifetime slate.com/technology/2...

a fun one by @gidmk.bsky.social! we really do have to make things work here on Earth slate.com/technology/2...

Shockingly, the scientific evidence still points to a zoonotic origin of SARS-CoV-2.

Having a toddler and a newborn is really improving my ability to eat meals one-handed and standing up.

My final piece in a 4-part series on vitamin D supplementation. I think that the evidence as a whole shows quite strongly that vitamin D pills are probably a waste of time for virtually everyone. Science! gidmk.substack.com/p/theres-no-...

Sneak peek at The GROCERY Cart Newsletter...look for mention of @gidmk.bsky.social @tpwky.bsky.social and more open.substack.com/pub/thegroce...

Given the renewed interest in glyphosate, here's my piece on the chemical and how we know that it almost certainly does not cause cancer: gidmk.substack.com/p/glyphosate...

A bunch of headlines have recently been screaming about nasty chemicals in headphones. It's nonsense. To paraphrase my wife, the only way chemicals in your headphones would be an issue is if you ate them. My new piece: gidmk.substack.com/p/your-headp...

Wow. AOC reposting abject pseudoscience from Mike Adams, founder of hard core anti-vaccine bullshit website Natural News.

This would be of great concern if people were EATING THEIR HEADPHONES. Seriously. This is a complete non-issue. It's like saying that there's potentially problematic chemicals in your TV. There probably are, but giant who cares.

Intermittent fasting: probably the same as any other diet. open.substack.com/pub/gidmk/p/...

Fun fact: half of the “experts” who wrote RFK Jr’s new food guidelines—which push people to eat more red meat, saturated fats, beef tallow, & full fat dairy—have financial ties to the livestock & dairy industries Looks like RFK Jr & Makary CREATED a corrupt food pyramid

Hahahahaha I figured out what happened! Hoerger gets his data from CDC's National Wastewater Surveillance System (NWSS). They show a crazy spike in Minnesota (obviously looks suspect)... 1/

It honestly baffles me that anyone believes this nonsense any more. It is absurd to suggest that there are similar numbers of COVID-19 cases right now to the peak of omicron! Just wildly ridiculous.

You know that coffee & dementia study that's going around? It's hogwash. For starters, it's not pre-registered (that I could find), which means it may have been the product of a fishing expedition looking for dementia associations. But even if it's not ... www.nytimes.com/2026/02/09/h...

Can't believe I missed this at the time. RFK Jr. lending credence to a flat-Earth level conspiratorial lie is certainly an indication of how totally anti-reality the Trump administration is.

A new study has come out showing some fascinating results about statins, some of the most prescribed drugs in the world. What do these findings mean? My new piece: gidmk.substack.com/p/the-truth-...

I think that the data is increasingly not really compatible with COVID-19 conferring an increase in the long-term risk of conditions like heart disease and cancer. This is, of course, a very good thing!

Drilling down into US life expectancy. The two big reasons that life expectancy is higher in 2024 than 2023 (and 2019): ➡️Drug overdose deaths are lower ➡️Covid deaths are lower 1/

Jay's passion for replication famously only applies to research he doesn't already agree with.

How...concerning. The team in question produced some rather problematic research on COVID-19 vaccines, so this is perhaps unsurprising.

Screw getting to Mars, I want science to figure out a way of getting newborns to sleep through the night from day 1.

Why did the racist head of The Racist Party post a racist meme on his racist website? No one is sure, but here's one white man's opinion.