Stanford University is one of the most elite universities in the country, with many distinguished alumni and — far more important — the highest applicants-to-admissions ratio, at least the last time I checked, but was a while back, admittedly.
So I imagine the medical school is at least as good, which leads me to my question:
What the hell, Stanford Medical?
The school has three notable alumni in the news at the moment: Peter Attia, Casey Means and Andrew Huberman. Peter Attia, the “longevity doctor” was tight with Jeffrey Epstein. Casey Means, the “functional medicine doctor” is Brainworm Bobby’s friend and surgeon general nominee. (Her confirmation hearing was postponed when Means went into labor, and hasn’t been rescheduled.) And Huberman, another bro-podcaster with women problems. Several women, several problems.
All three have also gotten heavily into the biohacking / supplements / functional medicine thing. Lots of people I know are into this to at least some degree; I’ve seen supplement arrays that cover half a kitchen countertop. I think what lured these docs into this space, however, is their proximity to Silicon Valley. They see all these geeks buying yachts and figure: Where’s my yacht? Or even my boat? Why suffer through residency, on-call nights, the various miseries of a fully realized medical education, which includes (ick) patients, many of them challenging, when you can just follow the medical-celebrity career arc? Write a book with your heavily retouched face on the cover. Offer a healthy life to people who are already pre-selected to have one. (In that they are young, educated, mostly white, already in pretty good health, i.e. the sort of people for whom simple, common-sense lifestyle changes are likely to have a big impact.) Start a podcast. Make your medical practice “concierge;” Attia charges $100K/year. Cozy up to the new administration. Cash checks, many of them.
I asked the smartest doctor I know what he thought of functional medicine and he said, “Some common sense. Some flam-flam,” which is about what I’d say. Yes, it’s wise to eat a balanced diet, get sufficient rest, exercise and all that. No, you probably don’t need a thousand labs to tell you you need a supplement, and isn’t it a coincidence it’s available in my online store. No, you can’t outrun your genetics, nor time itself. Enjoy your life; we’re all here for a visit.
My doctor friend forwarded this Substack essay about Attia, which I think is about right, too:
To be fair, Attia does some things exceptionally well. His discussions of healthspan, marginal decade, frailty, strength training, and metabolic disease have helped raise awareness among people who often overlook those topics. But outside his sweet spots, a different pattern emerges. Much of his output is average, derivative, or produced by a research team, and in the areas where I have deep expertise – lipoproteins, atherosclerosis, and cardiovascular disease – I hear him make basic errors, overextend mechanisms, or convert weak correlations into causal claims with confident prescriptions. If I notice these issues in the fields I know well, I have to ask what I am missing in areas I do not. Can he seriously be the authoritative voice on skin care and mental health too?
And then there is the 25 percent of his output that is genuinely extreme and, in my view, harmful: high-dose testosterone therapy with bodybuilders as expert guests and little discussion of known risks; supratherapeutic protein targets; experimentation with rapamycin; constant biometric monitoring; and quasi-clinical protocols unsupported by longitudinal human data. This is not harmless enthusiasm for fitness and can’t be written off as “bro-culture.” It is the medicalization of normal aging, which imposes physiological, psychological, and financial burdens on listeners who believe these protocols are prerequisites for a healthy life. I discuss these dynamics in detail in my JAMA Cardiology commentary.
If a practicing clinician inside a health system pushed such a regimen, oversight bodies would get involved. In traditional medicine, the doctor-patient relationship tempers certainty, forces contextualization, and ties recommendations to real consequences.
Enough about these sawbones. I watched Bad Bunny in the Bowl last night, and really liked the show. I was amazed by the logistics of it, how they were able to erect and strike such an elaborate set in the time allowed, all without tearing up the field. Then I went to bed. I gather the game improved in the second half.
What did you think?
Jeff Gill said on February 9, 2026 at 8:36 am
The game improved if you were a Seahawks fan, but after Benito was done, we went over to “All Creatures Great & Small” which was wonderful, and still saw the last couple of scores and final trophy presentation. Probably missed a few fun ads, but hey.
Loved the show and his sentiments, admirably expressed in any language.
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Dorothy said on February 9, 2026 at 9:23 am
I paid no attention to the game whatsoever, and tried to remember to pay attention to the commercials, but I failed at that a lot, too. I LOVED the half time show, and this morning Olivia told me she was allowed to stay up late enough to watch it with her mom, who is a high school Spanish teacher. “Mommy turned the volume up to 30, Mimi!” she told me. Then this morning I read about what it all meant. Best of all was seeing a guy on Threads say that he answered a casting call to be one of the people in the ‘grass’ which was really supposed to be sugar cane, of course. There were 380 of them! I swear there had to be 1,000 or moe people participating in all that fun. What a very cool performance by all of them.
I am so badly in need of escaping this cold and snow, and I’m only slightly appeased that we’ll get some melting in the next few days. Next week I’m heading to Raleigh for QuiltCon, and just the fact that there will be snowless sidewalks is enough to make me jump for joy.
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Julie Robinson said on February 9, 2026 at 10:03 am
As per usual, did not watch the game but caught the halftime show this morning. Even if I didn’t understand his words, I could feel the celebratory joy and message of love transcending hate. So many people are feeling represented and it’s wonderful to see their excitement. Also: maybe look into studying Spanish?
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alex said on February 9, 2026 at 10:33 am
We watched even though we don’t ordinarily give a shit about football and the halftime show was great. I made a rich Spanish stew called chilindron and now I need to clean up my trashed kitchen, but it was all well worth it.
Our local ABC affiliate saw fit to repost Tubby’s batshit Truth Social rant against the halftime show on social media this morning but it’s nowhere to be found on the station’s web site. The comments, predictably, are a mix of praise for the show and racist vitriol from MAGAts.
I need a vacation from news but don’t want to break my Wordle winning streak, which can happen if you miss a day, so I guess I need to scroll through, do my puzzle and then go on about my business and not get sucked in like I do every day. I’ve been up since 6:00 and here it’s 10:30 and I haven’t even read my Substacks yet.
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Suzanne said on February 9, 2026 at 10:42 am
I had my book club last night but got home in time for the halftime show (is that Lady Gaga?!? Yes!) and watched the 2nd half of the game. So many ads for AI stuff.
I was uncommitted to a team until I learned that the owner of the Patriots is all over the Epstein files so I was glad to see the Seahawks put the Patriots in their place.
Speaking of medicine…
https://people.com/dr-oz-urges-americans-to-take-measles-vaccine-11902542
“Dr. Mehmet Oz told people to “take the vaccine, please” amid an ongoing spike in measles cases, including South Carolina’s current record-breaking outbreak.”
Apparently, the was a large measles exposure at the recent DC March for Life, too. Which made my cynical, nasty side chuckle.
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David C said on February 9, 2026 at 11:19 am
My wife went to a functional medicine doctor once. She’s now known by us as Dr. Woo. Dr. Woo decided Mary’s problems stemmed from a difficult childbirth. According to her mom, it was so easy that they barely made it to the hospital. There were lots of lab tests, of course. Her prescription was some homeopathic crap and an aloe vera drink that was 10% alcohol. We didn’t go back. Still, Mary is a dedicated user of supplements. She doesn’t feel well a lot of the time and doctors don’t have any answers for her. We both believe she’s on the autism spectrum and I suspect that it has her nervous system turned up to 11. I’ve read that some of the spectrum feel things that are just outside of normal more intensely. Anyway, she doesn’t have any expensive hobbies and we can afford to keep her apothecary shop stocked. I hate funding the grifters behind the supplement industry, but if it gives her hope of feeling better, it’s OK.
I caught the last few minutes of the halftime. It was good. I’ll have to look at the whole thing later. From what I saw it wasn’t A-list like the Prince halftime, but it was good.
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Dorothy said on February 9, 2026 at 12:26 pm
Alex I’m not sure how you feel about apps, but I have the NYTimes Games app on my ipad and iphone, and I can play games without even seeing a preview of any news stories. I could ignore the Times’ homepage forever if I wanted to. Also speaking of the games, about a month ago I stopped playing Connections. It was making me angry most days and I finally realized “this is a GAME – which means FUN”. Or at least you’d expect something to be fun even if it’s challenging. But it was all just getting so damned stupid so I just stopped playing it. Here’s my order of play: Wordle, Mini Crossword; Wordle; Strands; and most days I play the first two levels of Pips.
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Peter said on February 9, 2026 at 1:16 pm
I only know a few words in Spanish, so I would have been very thankful for any sort of text at the bottom of the screen, but the dancing and the signing were outstanding.
Here’s something I learned this morning – the couple that you see getting married in the halftime show actually got married during the performance. They invited Bad Bunny to their wedding, and he wrote back and asked if they would like to get married during the halftime show instead, and they took him up on the offer.
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ROGirl said on February 9, 2026 at 1:59 pm
There’s an app called spellbee.org that I came across last year. It has a good selection of word games with different levels of challenges.
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Brandon said on February 9, 2026 at 1:59 pm
Bowl? What Bowl? The Super Bowl.
The game itself wasn’t much of a contest, but the halftime show was wonderfully done, just like Kendrick Lamar’s last year.
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Brandon said on February 9, 2026 at 2:07 pm
However, Chris Brown was hating.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/music/news/chris-brown-takes-swipe-at-bad-bunny-following-his-super-bowl-halftime-show-performance-they-need-me/ar-AA1W0lIZ?ocid=msedgntp&pc=HCTS&cvid=698a3043e5c5405c9bfd36cfa90d97fa&ei=20
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Deborah said on February 9, 2026 at 3:49 pm
Didn’t watch any of it, as usual. I was out at the cabin so it probably wouldn’t have been possible. I will try to watch the halftime show somehow this evening.
The weather is quite mild in northern NM lately, I’m taking a zoom call outside in a few minutes so people inside don’t have to tiptoe around, only the birds to interrupt.
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Dexter Friend said on February 9, 2026 at 4:26 pm
I am a baseball fanatic who watches football , college and pro. The game was awful. Maybe a few of you read how I was a whiny bitch complaining all throughout on FB.
The show blew my mind wide open. I thought…is that LGG as a 1950’s Latino club attraction? Is that an older looking Ricky Martin? And BB was amazing. Now I completely understand how he made it to #1 entertainer in the world. Those happy dancers, the incredible sets, the telephone poles reminding us of the power outages in PR. I was so into it I got goose bumps a couple times. I am 76 but I can appreciate talent. Then I had to watch again this morning. I damn nearly had a tear in my eye.
I applaud Bad Bunny and whoever those folks were who designed the set and produced the show. Ain’t nobody ever gonna top it in my remaining time, I know that. It reminded me of long ago, 1977, when I witnessed The West Indies Day Parade in Brooklyn. That lasted hours. For TV, Bad Bunny can’t possibly be beat. No way.
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Sherri said on February 9, 2026 at 4:35 pm
I’m a Seahawks fan, so I loved the game!
I also thought the halftime show was fabulous, even if I didn’t understand the words. You don’t have to understand the words to appreciate opera, after all. The music, the choreography, and the staging were all amazing, and I could definitely understand the part where he called out all the countries in the Americas!
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Sherri said on February 9, 2026 at 4:45 pm
Add current NIH director Jay Bhattacharya to the list of bad Stanford MDs. He was anti-lockdown and anti-masking, and is overseeing the destruction of the NIH. He never even bothered to do a residency after his MD, and has never practiced medicine.
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Deborah said on February 9, 2026 at 6:10 pm
I was able to watch the halftime show and damn that was good. Best one I’ve ever seen.
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Heather said on February 9, 2026 at 10:00 pm
Loved the halftime show, the message of love, and the reference to the unreliable power in Puerto Rico thanks to the federal government basically ignoring the damaged infrastructure there.
It was also fun to go over to X, where I have a burner account, to see the conservatives melting down. “I couldn’t understand the lyrics!” I can’t understand the lyrics to most of the songs in English I hear. Also, I know Spanish, but for some reason the Puerto Rican accent is very tough for me. Nevertheless, the music was great.
David C. @6: Has your wife ever explored somatic therapy? It focuses on calming the nervous system through movement, which is a simplistic way of explaining it. It can be tough to find practitioners though. I did an online course and it did help. I should probably redo it given the number the current hellscape is doing on me.
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basset said on February 10, 2026 at 6:47 am
We watched All Creatures and the Olympics, no interest in the game but I thought we should probably look in on the halftime show since we’d heard so much about it. Did that and lasted maybe two minutes, couldn’t connect with it at all.
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basset said on February 10, 2026 at 5:21 pm
Vance, Olympics, 45-vehicle motorcade: https://www.jalopnik.com/2098157/jd-vance-olympics-motorcade/
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Suzanne said on February 10, 2026 at 5:35 pm
I read somewhere else that Vance also brought his own food. Who the hell brings food to Italy??
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David C said on February 10, 2026 at 6:57 pm
Republicans. Remember when W went to Britain and brought along his own cooks? The British press called them the five fajita stuffers.
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