Since Gwyneth Paltrow generally believes that she alone discovered-and-invented everything Asian, it’s little surprise that Gwyneth has recently revealed that she also invented mask-wearing AND Covid-19. She was catching Covid before everyone else, and she caught the virus even though she invented mask-wearing in February 2020. Gwyneth recently described her long-running symptoms from Covid, and she said that even a year later, she still has “fatigue” and “brain fog,” which she’s curing with a strict Keto diet mixed with fasting and infrared saunas, of course. Her comments got so much play that now an NHS chief has publicly taken Gwyneth to task for her near-constant promotion of pseudoscience.
Gwyneth Paltrow has been urged to stop spreading misinformation by the medical director of NHS England after she suggested long Covid could be treated with “intuitive fasting”, herbal cocktails and regular visits to an “infrared sauna”. The Hollywood star, who markets unproven new age potions on her Goop website, wrote on her latest blogpost that she caught Covid-19 early and had since suffered “long-tail fatigue and brain fog”.
Paltrow said that after turning to the advice of a “functional medicine practitioner”, she was told “this was a case where the road to healing was going to be longer than usual”. She then embarked on a “keto and plant-based” diet, involving fasting until 11am every day, “lots of coconut aminos” and sugar-free kombucha and kimchi. Paltrow went on to recommend her brand’s Madame Ovary supplement and Seedlip, “the incredible herbal nonalcoholic cocktails”. She added: “I’m doing an infrared sauna as often as I can, all in service of healing.”
Paltrow also suggested there was evidence for the efficacy of such a diet. “I’ve been doing major research and finding some great stuff to support what I’m doing,” she wrote.
However, her unproven advice prompted a stern rebuke from Prof Stephen Powis, national medical director for NHS England, who urged influencers such as Paltrow against spreading misinformation. He said: “In the last few days I see Gwyneth Paltrow is unfortunately suffering from the effects of Covid. We wish her well, but some of the solutions she’s recommending are really not the solutions we’d recommend in the NHS.”
Powis added: “We need to take long Covid seriously and apply serious science. All influencers who use social media have a duty of responsibility and a duty of care around that. Like the virus, misinformation carries across borders and it mutates and it evolves. So I think YouTube and other social media platforms have a real responsibility and opportunity here.”
I mean… at this point can we just talk about Gwyneth as a complete loser? Yes, she’s rich, and yes, she peddling really dangerous pseudoscience, but mostly I just think we need to reimagine how we speak and write about Gwyneth. She sucks and she’s a loser. She’s stuck up her own ass, she has a dangerous ideology (based on an insane Diet Culture) and she says and does “outrageous” sh-t to get attention. She’s really not all that different from some lower-tier Real Housewife. Anyway, yes, when I covered Gwyneth’s original comments, I noted how Gwyneth’s answer to every medical issue is “go on a diet.” It makes perfect sense that her answer to inventing Covid is some kind of pseudoscientific argument for starving yourself.
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I wonder if she stopped to consider that perhaps her brain fog and fatigue or just normal symptoms of menopause and not Covid at all?
Or maybe from starving herself and all the other whacky stuff she does to her body.
just what I was thinking! brain fog and fatigue can be from not eating enough
That’s what I was thinking. I’m not one of those people who thinks, “eat a cheeseburger!” every time I see a thin person, but if you’ve been recreationally staving yourself for thirty years, you might be hungry. Hunger makes the brain do weird things.
That was my first thought Bryn!
From personal experience low blood sugar definitely impedes brain function
Hahahaha yes!
…. insert ‘jade egg’ comment here….
I’m finished with her. She’s utter bullshit.
She knows its all BS and does. not. care. All she cares about is the press attention and money.
And clicks. She does it forthe clicks
Every bit of advice includes the name of some product she’s selling. She’s moved from beauty and diet products to preying on the fears of people dying in a pandemic. You can’t get any lower than that.
I love the part where she claims she’s doing “major research”. Heehee!
Oh no, honey – looking at the Internet does not count as major research. I just can’t with her. I am not particularly science oriented, but her anti science nonsense is really leading people towards ignorance.
Agreed! She’s the definition of a keyboard “researcher.” Honey, that’s not research. Like, at all. At best she’s doing a lit review but I doubt she’s using PubMed or analyzing her bias in what she’s choosing to promote.
Yes! Her use of the word “research” needs an asterisk or something.
No, I’m sure she is doing double blind studies and peer reviewed research! She really is a twit!
TLDR, but while skimming, I did see that she fasts until 11am. That sounds like intermittent fasting and there’s some good science behind it. I only eat between 10:30 – 5:30 and fast the rest of the time. I feel great and have lost some pounds.
@Audrey Agreed. Intermittent fasting can be good for the body. But keto is WORST. It’s pretty much the opposite of what human bodies need. If she’d done actual scientific research she’d have stumbled across at least several studies about that.
I agree! I’m vegetarian, so keto is out of the question for me, which I’m fine with.
While intermittent fasting can be good for you (I generally eat between 11:00 and 6:00) Keto can cause a host of problems from low blood sugar to kidney damage to nutrient deficiencies to loss of bone mass. Guess what? Goop was diagnosed with osteopenia, the precursor to osteoporosis, a few years back. Wait til she goes through full-blown menopause…the sh*t will hit the fan. Only I’m sure she’ll start touting the benefits of bio-identical HRT even though continued use of it raises the chances of breast cancer astronomically.
Signed:
A breast cancer survivor who stayed on HRT too long
That’s what I was thinking also. Waiting until 11am to break the overnight fast is hardly starving yourself. In olden times, we just called that “brunch”. And Catholics in those ancient days of my extreme youth used to wait until after Mass to eat routinely if they were taking Communion.
If she’s getting enough food to maintain her weight and feels better eating a certain way, no real problem. I have to eat around my allergies myself and sometimes that means eating on a non-mainstream schedule as well as eating non-mainstream foods, which definitely bothers some people tied to their own cultural norms.
It’s not like she is claiming Dr. Fauci is advising her on diet. It’s ok for her to say she does such and such on the advice of so and so and feels better as a result. She just needs to be careful not to sound like she is prescribing for others because of her public presence as an alleged “influencer”. Nobody is going to mistake her for a COVID expert but she does have the right to tell her own experience.
she is a loser – and frankly she is a good example for why society shouldn’t listen to celebrities!
Nooo I hate that she’s peddling Seedlip, because I love that stuff! I ordered it for Dry January this year and it really does make a fun mocktail that tastes more complex than seltzer water and juice. The rest of this is no surprise to me cause she’s full of it. A Keto AND plant based diet – how is that even possible? I went vegan for a few months last year and it was basically all carbs and nuts. Vegetables are carbs. If you’re truly eating a keto diet you have to watch how many of many types of vegetables you eat. So… if she’s literally starving I guess she could be doing both, otherwise no.
Actually, the keto approach can be modified for vegans or vegetarians pretty well. Not all keto diets are the same. The strict approach is probably not useful for prolonged periods for most people but apparently can be useful if you’re having certain health problems. Same with intermittent fasting.
Celebrities tend toward faddish extremes, not necessarily the fault of the dietary approach they choose. Their work so often depends on staying thin that they get rather twisted about food and exercise.
I’ve watched Eric Berg’s videos sometimes (he has a lot of short ones on YouTube and now an app for easy access to them) and he’s pretty reasonable about both keto and intermittent fasting and adjusting as needed for individuals, and good at explaining his rationale. I’m a chemist and have never caught him saying anything that isn’t right on the mark about body chemistry.
I don’t “do keto” but find it interesting and commercial products labeled “for keto” (and also “for paleo”, oddly enough since I eat vegan) often are safe for me also (allergies). Berg’s version doesn’t seem extreme to me. Not enough to make me run to be in ketosis, though, but it sounds reasonable.
My natural eating pattern has always been “intermittent fasting” so it’s nice to know that it has some benefits and won’t kill me. Berg always says to be flexible about choosing your eating window, and if you’re truly hungry when you wake up – go ahead and eat. I think it’s suggested that women may need shorter fasting periods, starting with 12 hours and then experimenting from there to see what feels right. The big benefit seems to be to avoid insulin spikes for a good chunk of time, which can be especially helpful to people prone to insulin resistance (pre-diabetic or a type 2 diabetic).
“The Hollywood star, who markets unproven new age potions on her Goop website”
Ha! The shade. Also, stop engaging in such disordered eating and maybe some of that brain fog would dissipate.
I think we’re just supposed to take her with a grain of salt. When she recommends a highlighter/bronzer/lip gloss I take her at her word. Beyond that not as much but I do find her entertaining.
I dunno. Her hair and makeup game is as bad as her health/diet recommandations.
Personally, I think that it’s a terrible idea to not call out pseudoscience and quackery every time you see it. That stuff is dangerous, her suggestions can lead people into developing eating disorders, her beloved enemas can lead to the tearing of the gut… None of it is healthy. The more it is promoted unchallenged, the more people will believe those are acceptable takes and that this stuff is just as good as evidence-based therapies when it’s simply not true. She is a snake-oil vendor and deserves to be treated as one, with all the consequences that comes with that.
The only thing I agree with her is on the use of infrared saunas. You can read up on the benefits, yadda yadda yadda, long story short: you feel amazing while you’re in there and afterwards. That’s all.
Saunas are good for relaxation and can help with sore muscles and stuff like that for sure! Of course, it won’t help you detoxify (cuz that’s what your kidneys and liver do) and I doubt it does anything for long haul covid outside of helping you relax.
She’s no better than Trump and his bleach nonsense, just a different audience.
So long-haul covid is gonna be the new atypical Lyme and Chikungunya amongst a certain type of celebrities, eh?
What Goop promotes is dangerous, expensive and completely useless. An eating disorder won’t help with long haul symptoms. At all. I’m almost looking forward to learn what she suggest shoving up your vag/butt as a cure though, we all know that’s coming
Perhaps she has brain fog because she’s been on a diet for 35 years?
She’s always struck me as someone who has always been uncomfortable physically and so keeps trying different things, hoping something will make her feel better long-term. She just needs to be quieter about it.
Fact is that we don’t really know that much about how to deal with many chronic problems, and basically you have to be your own detective. Just try to check for safety as best you can. If it’s not expensive and reasonably safe and won’t interfere with other treatments, trying it to see how you respond to it is a good idea. Many fruitful approaches will never undergo clinical trials – such trials are very expensive and if they can’t be patented, it is very unlikely that anyone will fund them. At best, individual practitioners will report their experiences with a limited number of patients.
Plus there are serious limits on what can be decided on the basis of such trials for various reasons. Generally they serve as guidelines for research and treatments to try. Safety is the major concern of the FDA, efficacy doesn’t have to be that clear to get a pass. The extremes of dying like flies vs miracle cure might be evident, but in between can be murky. Often problems surface only after a treatment is widely used for a long time. With the COVID vaccines, for instance, we are all in a huge post-marketing-approval clinical trial. That is normal, although the numbers of participants is not usually this high (which is quite comforting when so few problems seem to pop up).
Anyway, modern medicine has a disturbing tendency to just toss out very old therapies (and their centuries of experience) while it can take decades for newer approaches to seep into the medical schools. Medical approaches and theories are constantly changing anyway.
I’ve taught pre-meds myself and in the US, they are often rigid and blinders-on even at age 18. A friend’s sister who is an MD has reminded him more than once that only a few doctors were at the top of their class. They try their best, but don’t know everything and few have enough contact with patients or ask enough questions. Hang on to the exceptions, especially the ones who admit they don’t know and don’t think it’s all in your head because they are mystified.
Thank you Kaiser! I cosign all you said!
The latest British Psychological Society Research Digest email covers some studies into conspiracy theories and people’s susceptibility to them. One study from a few years back found a link between belief in ‘widely doubted conspiracy theories and people’s need to feel special’. Now while most of her nonsense probably wouldn’t qualify as conspiracy theories the underlying theme about needing to feel special and buying into extreme ‘niche’ ideas seems to hold true here.
This is slightly unrelated, but has anyone else noticed how often in the last few weeks she has been papped in or around her Mercedes G Wagon. Tons of pap shots of her driving, but you always see the Mercedes sign, or of her next to the car, but it’s always obvious what car it is. I know she can afford to buy it without help, but is there a down low sponsorship happening?
I started watching Modern Family during the pandemic and I LOVED the episodes in which they mock Goop. They do start shortly after the one in which Chris Martin guest stars though, which I found odd but funny nonetheless.
I just watched that episode yesterday. LOL.
She is peddling an eating disorder (that’s what intermittent fasting is) during National Eating Disorder Awareness week. So on-brand. Smdh.
Intermittent fasting is not an eating disorder. You may prefer a different eating schedule, but definitely that approach is quite normal for many people and has been shown to have certain benefits. In most cases, it just means not eating for a few hours before bedtime and delaying breakfast. All quite normal, non-disordered patterns long before the term intermittent fasting came into use.
Did anyone see that study that found she and Al3x Jones sell the exact same supplements. just don’t get what is so special about her that women flock to her and want to follow her?
Also I feel bad for her – numerous deficiencies will give you brain fog and fatigue, which she probably got from eating almost nothing. But if she ate then she wouldn’t be a size zero and she would have to face up to the fact may be she isn’t all that special and her so called doctors and friends have been blowing smoke up her butt for years, like Tracy Anderson and Will Cole and Shaman Durek.
Thank you , thank you , thank you! For calling it what it is, a starvation diet (instead of all the misleading euphemisms celebrities use, like cleanse or detox).
Goop seems very insecure to me, and cannot accept aging. She has been in starvation mode for decades, except when she was pregnant. G has never been the same since the news of her ex-husband Chris cheating on her years ago. Goop thought she was better than him because of her family status in Hollywood, and figured he would never have the audacity to cheat on her. Since then we have had to endure her “lifestyle” advice, which is mostly unhealthy, ignorant & borderline insane.
She’s like that annoying acquaintance who gets heavily into an MLM and won’t stop talking about it, only with a lot more money and exposure.
I just giggled to myself about him calling her an ‘influencer’ – he just put her in the same basket as the trouty-lipped instagram idiots that I’m sure she thinks she is so far above.
Wasn’t she diagnosed with osteoporosis or something like that when she was barely 40? Apparently its due to being underweight and with chronic malnutrition. I despise her promotion of dangerous diets and other faux-wellness nonsense. I’m glad to see people finally calling her out on her BS
Lord to be this important 👀 lol. I agree with your take on her.
While what we eat is pertinent to our well being, to think your restriction diet & crazy hocus pocus is the miracle cure no one, ever, was deep enough to think to of?!? This is a step beyond I’m glad someone called her out.