• What's the deal with full body scans?
    Jun 25 2026

    This week, Emily and Perry debate full body scans: MRIs that scan your entire body like a giant humming hammer in search of nails. Will it find something wrong with you? (Yes.) Will it be something you should be worried about? (Almost always no.) But what if that one time it's the one thing that ends up saving your life? (Yeah, this is actually kind of complicated.)

    Plus: a totally not shocking flu outbreak amongst our troops, fantastic news about the HPV vaccine and cervical cancer, and RIP blue and brown M&Ms.

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    1 hr and 3 mins
  • What's the deal with sleep?
    Jun 18 2026

    This week, Emily and Perry tackle the weirdest, most wonderful thing all living things do: sleep. If evolution has forced us to be completely vulnerable for eight hours at a stretch, there must be a darn good reason. So what is actually happening to our brains when we sleep? What disrupts it, and how do we optimize for quality and quantity? And what are the risks of getting too little sleep...and enlisting chemical help to get more?

    Plus: screwworm is (appropriately) nightmare fuel, a cure for Ozempic butt, and hard seltzer vs. your kidneys.

    Submit a question for our weekly mailbag at wellnessactually.fm.

    ParentData episode on the placenta.

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    58 mins
  • What's the deal with hypoactive sexual desire disorder (HSDD)?
    Jun 11 2026

    This week, Emily and Perry are coming in hot to discuss the existence of sex, specifically whether or not women have a DSM-5-designated disorder when they don't want it, or if that's a pathology designed to sell women meds. Turns out the data of sexual desire is a complicated and noisy thing to study, but fortunately that's a turn-on for our intrepid hosts.

    Plus: a diabetes conference gets politicized, losing sleep over getting sleep, and preventative HIV drugs in South Africa.

    Submit a question for our weekly mailbag at wellnessactually.fm.

    ParentData survey on sex after kids

    ParentData episode with Emily Nagoski

    Buy her book!

    Previous episodes referenced:

    What's the deal with testosterone?

    What's the deal with HRT?

    What's the deal with peptides?

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    54 mins
  • What's the deal with cupping and dry needling?
    Jun 4 2026

    This week, Emily and Perry dig into dry needling and cupping, the wellness equivalent to pain equals gain (maybe?). What are the therapeutic properties, and the risks, of yanking at or poking holes in your skin? Warning: this episode is not for the faint of heart.

    Plus: extraordinary developments in pancreatic cancer treatment, Google wants to fill the air with millions of sterile mosquitoes, and also farts.

    Past episodes referenced:

    What's the deal with creatine?

    Submit a question for our weekly mailbag at wellnessactually.fm.

    See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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    1 hr and 2 mins
  • What's the deal with red meat?
    May 28 2026

    This week, Emily and Perry pull out their steak knives to cut through both the hypers, and the detractors, of red meat. Is it as bad for you as people say? Is there value to a (fiberless) carnivore diet? What makes it red, anyway? And why is nutritional science such a heap of hot, correlation-is-not-causation garbage?

    Plus: a peptide scandal in the running world, myths around mitochondria, and more Ebola, unfortunately.

    Past episodes discussed:

    What's the deal with peptides?

    What's the deal with protein?

    Submit a question for our weekly mailbag at wellnessactually.fm.

    See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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    57 mins
  • What's the deal with methylene blue?
    May 21 2026

    This week, Emily and Perry bravely platform methylene blue, a synthetic dye with almost godlike properties according to the influencers, and some fascinating uses (and risks) in reality. Fatigued (?) mitochondria, the electron transport chain, and blue poop? AP Bio was never this fun.

    Plus: strawberries won't kill you, Ebola might, and keeping teens out of tanning beds.

    Submit a question for our weekly mailbag at wellnessactually.fm.

    See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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    57 mins
  • What's the deal with psychedelics?
    May 14 2026

    This week, Emily and Perry take a trip into the groovy world of psychedelics: what they are, what they do to our brains, and the myriad mental health problems that they seem to have a pretty interesting effect on. Join us for the most uniquely incredible experience of your life, we promise.

    Plus: hantavirus redux, the (now former) FDA commissioner pressured to approve flavored vapes, and a bad breast cancer study regarding perennial topic GLP-1s.

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    See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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    59 mins
  • What's the deal with colostrum?
    May 7 2026

    This week, Emily and Perry explore bovine colostrum, the alleged secret weapon for muscle growth and immunity, and cure for the much-maligned leaky gut. Does it actually work, who does it work for, and how do you know when it's safe? What's so wrong with having a gut that leaks anyway? And should someone be thinking about the poor deprived baby cows?

    Plus: Ozempic for Alcohol Use Disorder, the hantavirus outbreak on that cruise ship, and, finally, an end to the saga of perennial-no-longer Surgeon General candidate Casey Means.

    Submit a question for our weekly mailbag at wellnessactually.fm.

    See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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    53 mins