ConsumerLabs Alarming New Research on Water Filters & More with Dr. Tod Cooperman

DR. MIKE MORENO: Welcome to Wellness Inc. I’m Dr. Mike Moreno, taking a deep dive into the big business of wellness. After twenty-five years of practicing medicine, I am fascinated with the booming wellness industry. I’ll be exploring apps, gadgets, and discoveries. Everything new to help us all get and stay well.

Well, today we are in great hands and I know because my guest, I have utilized his services and let me tell you, anybody out there who’s listening you are going to get something out of this. I guarantee you this is a helpful thing to say the least. Dr. Tod Cooperman is a founder of the internet site Consumer Lab. It’s a godsend to health-conscious consumers. Haven’t we all asked is this label true? Now you can find out on Consumer Lab. After testing wellness products in labs, the results are published on www.ConsumerLab.com. That means you don’t have to wonder if a label is true. You can see the results right there.

He is nationally known. Testified with the US House of Representatives, US Senate, as well as NIH. I will tell you; I cannot begin to thank you enough. Dr. Cooperman. First of all, welcome and thanks for being with us.

DR. TOD COOPERMAN: Thanks for having me on Dr. Mike.

DR. MIKE MORENO: I got to tell you, you know what I love is that what you do, and Consumer Lab is so important to everybody, I mean, to say this is a godsend is the biggest understatement there is because this is about educating consumers. Now, I will say as a consumer, I am a consumer, doctors, hospitals, everybody is utilizing this, and we need to know we don’t have the FDA in our corner when it comes to supplements and so many things. So, talk to us a little bit about how you got into this and where you came up with this idea. I got to know the whole back story.

DR. TOD COOPERMAN: Yeah, well, first thanks for that nice introduction. I appreciate it. So, we’ve been at this now since 1999, so it’s our 21st year. The way that I got into this is there had been some articles that came out in the 90s showing problems with dietary supplements, mostly herbal supplements, because in 1994 a law was passed called “DSHEA”, which basically allowed supplements to be marketed with claims that couldn’t be made before. Not that they could cure or prevent or treat anything, but that they could help sustain and strengthen the immune system. All kinds of things and there was a boom in the marketplace. People were going out buying supplements like they had never before and I was wondering, well, who’s actually checking these? And it turns out the FDA is not checking supplements. It does have regulations, but they’re fairly laxed and weak relative to drugs. It’s really left up to the manufacturer to really do the right thing if they want to.

DR. MIKE MORENO: Yeah. You know, it’s the Wild West. It really is. I remember when I first learned of this fact I was like scratching my head. I was like really? People have this idea that it’s just a supplement. You can buy it online; you can buy it at your local drugstore. Whatever it is, it’s got to be okay and for many reasons that we’re going to go into today, that’s not always the case. I talk with my patients about this stuff all the time. Just because you can go online or walk into a grocery store and buy this does not make it necessarily safe. More importantly, how do you know what’s in the bottle? So, it’s incredible. The supplement business, and you’ll know more than I do, is a multibillion dollar, if not even more, hundreds of billions of dollars, how does nobody watch what these guys are doing?

DR. TOD COOPERMAN: Yeah, we are the leading group really watching what’s going on out there. There are some other groups that are testing for manufacturers exclusively like USP. You’ll see their seal on products and USP is a very old organization that set standards, but it only got into testing supplements after we did. We’ve been doing it 21 years, maybe they’ve been in it 18 years, but what we do that they don’t do is go out and buy these products off the shelf just as a consumer would, and test them and report on what we find for our members, because that’s what that’s what funds us is people subscribe to Consumer Lab. It’s $47.40 a year and we have over I think now 92k or 93k individuals who subscribe and libraries and hospitals, but it’s very much like you said, the industry has kind of fought off being well regulated.

I’ve testified, as you mentioned before Congress on this, and they’ve had a lot of people on their side trying to keep regulations at a minimum. There are good manufacturing practices that are supposed to be followed by the companies, but those are really loose and what it really means is that you’re supposed to be checking the ingredients that come in your checking your products, but the way that you do that testing and checking is up to you. There are tests that will show that a product that has nothing in it really has one hundred percent and that’s an allowed test. It might be based on the color of the ingredient. Then there are much better tests, the kinds of things that we do at consumer lab like HPLC testing, where you’re really looking for the specific compounds in there.

So, there are companies who do a really good job. I can’t say always, but there are those who more consistently do a good job and then there are others that just kind of kind of fly in and out and don’t do a good job. I would say for your listeners this there’s something new and hot on the market, I’d be very suspect of the quality. That’s when we see the most problems, especially like a weight loss type supplement. There are companies that just rush into that space. They don’t know what they’re doing, and it can take a few years before really the quality improves. So that’s really what created the need for what we do. Then I hired someone out of the FDA who had be doing more firefighting work, Dr. William Obermeyer, who is a pharmacognosist. He’s a specialist in herbal products. So, he was doing work at the FDA. I was fortunate to get him to start Consuming Lab with me. Then after about a dozen years, he retired.

We now have Dr. Mark Anderson, who’s a pharmacologist and toxicologist. I’m an M.D. and then we have other people on staff really focusing on not just what these products contain, but we also want to know, do they work? What’s the right dosage? What time of day do you take them with? Do they interact with drugs because our readers want to know when all these answers, they don’t just want to know which product is the best and real and the least expensive?

DR. MIKE MORENO: So, you brought this up and I’m glad you did, because it was one of the questions I was dying to ask, because that’s what I use is the whole GMP, right? I’ve always kind of gone by that as thinking this is a pretty solid product, whatever it may be, and you mentioned all kinds of herbs and there are so many things. We’re going to talk about CBD, and I guarantee you that’s a big thing out there, but listen, I agree with you, the latest and greatest is not always true. It drives me nuts sometimes when you know and I’ll tell you, I’ve been practicing 25 years, since late 90s and we didn’t used to see commercials for drugs on TV.

You remember that like short term drug commercials. You know nowadays I watch 60 Minutes, one of my favorite shows to watch, top three, and every commercial is about a drug. We’ve been overwhelmed as consumers and those are just prescriptions. So, I tell my patients, listen, the newest is not necessarily the best. I want things to have a track record and in my opinion, if something’s around and it’s been around, that’s the best thing you could ask for. Just because something is new does not necessarily mean it’s better and things that have been around and are still around and still used that to me, that speaks volumes in terms of a track record more than anything else.

DR. TOD COOPERMAN: Sure, and even the companies that mean to do well when they get into a new type of supplement, they don’t realize it’s not stable when you mix it with some other ingredient or you can’t just send it out from your factory and expect that it’s going to be maintained at the proper temperature. For example, we tested a very well-known probiotic a few years ago and found that it only had half the organisms that it claimed, and the company protested and then when they looked into it, they found it was being stored in warehouses that weren’t air conditioned. We’ve tested vitamin C. Very simple kind of single ingredient products that had all the vitamin C, but we could only find out with a hammer to break this product apart because they packed it too tightly or they use the wrong shellac on it. So, there are all these issues that companies may not be aware of. Even though they intend to do the right thing they just don’t they don’t know or they’re not applying the right expertise to make a good product.

DR. MIKE MORENO: I think that’s important. I think that’s a great point because, you know we tend to be cynical these days and always think you know we’re not so sure about this and I think it’s great. Listen, I’m still I have faith in this community, in this world. I still think that people intend to do the right thing, but things happen like you said. I mean, that’s really interesting what you say about the shellac on the pill, which I don’t think I’ve ever used that term or heard that term used in terms of a pill. So, I’m assuming this is a pill that you would take, and it would never really get broken down and you would probably excrete it and never absorb it. Is that what was going on?

DR. TOD COOPERMAN: Exactly. Exactly what was going on and so every tablet, every tablet that we test, we’ve tested thousands of them, we test them all for what’s called disintegration, making sure that product’s going to break apart so that the ingredients can be absorbed in your body.

DR. MIKE MORENO: Okay, so I want you to take us through this now. I can’t imagine you go strolling into the local Duane Reade or CVS or whatever. We don’t have Duane Reade on the West Coast, but I know you guys do out there on the East Coast, so I can’t imagine you or someone in your company just go strolling in and looks. I mean, take they take us through this because I’m so curious as to how you figured this out. I don’t know if you want to take the last one that you’ve done or, I’m just curious, how does this process work?

DR. TOD COOPERMAN: Sure. So first, so about over two hundred thousand people get our newsletter. About less than half are paying subscribers, but we poll them every year. We ask them, what are you using, what brands do use? We find out what what’s popular. We also look elsewhere, other information sources. We find out within the categories such as CBD or whether it’s multivitamins. We want to figure out what products are popular, what products are our readers interested in and then we do go stroll out if we have to, to a store. We certainly are getting a lot of things online, just like consumers do.

We will go and get them through multilevel marketing companies, through doctors’ offices, through every channel through which these are sold and buy them. They cannot be ever sent to us by a manufacturer. We do have a program where manufacturers can ask us to test a product, if they know that we’re going to be testing CBD and they make a CBD product, they want to make sure that we take a look at it. They can pay a fee and we still have to go out and buy it off the shelf. They can’t send it to us, and they have nothing to do with the testing.

DR. MIKE MORENO: Wow, that’s great. I mean, that’s a legit, that’s totally legit. Now, I got to ask you this. So, CBD has to be one of the most requested in terms of people reaching out. Or is it? I’m guessing.

DR. TOD COOPERMAN: Yeah, it was, it was. Its died down a bit I must say. Two or three years ago, probably two years ago, it was super-hot. Everyone wanted to know about CBD. I get the sense that even though the market’s still growing a bit, it’s not like it was. I think people have tried it. Some may have found it somewhat helpful. It’s typically used for pain, for anxiety. The interesting thing about CBD is most of the studies that have been done have been done with hundreds and hundreds of milligrams. It’s approved, as you know, for use in rare types of epilepsy. That’s at these very high doses. The products that you buy on the market are not at that dosage. It’s the same CBD, but its five, ten, fifteen, twenty-five milligrams, not five hundred milligrams. So, most of the good clinical information is done with products that really don’t resemble products that people are buying just because a dose is ten times higher or more. At these lower doses, it’s really more anecdotal information, case reports, uncontrolled kind of studies that do show that people feel that they’re getting a benefit in terms of pain and anxiety. It may be true; it’s just no one is putting the money into big trials. These supplement companies really can’t afford that because it’s a commodity product. It’s not a drug that they own exclusively. So that’s always a challenge with supplements, is getting good clinical studies done. It typically requires the government or some academic groups to really be interested to do good clinical studies with supplements.

DR. MIKE MORENO: Yeah, you know, with CBD, I’ve actually used it myself and it’s one of those things where it sometimes work and sometimes doesn’t. What I’ve always told my patients is when it comes to supplements, first of all, I need to know about them no matter how benign or no matter how innocent you think it may be, I need to know you’re taking it. I think drug interaction is another big reason. A lot of people don’t recognize that. Just because you can buy something off the shelf, you may be interacting with your blood or your blood pressure medication or whatever it may be, but I’ve always said as long as your whatever supplement you’re taking, one, does it work? Does it do what it’s supposed to do? Do you feel better or you achieving whatever it is you want to achieve from taking it and two, that it does no harm, obviously, and three, that of course that I know about it.

Then number four, that it’s not breaking the bank and spending your kid’s college fund. I think, you know, you talk about finances and how expensive some of these things are, which is why I $47 dollars. That’s an annual membership, is that right, for consumers Lab? Yes. That’s I mean, that’s like, what, 10, 12 cents a day for this amount of information? I mean, that’s beyond worth it. It’s such a great service that you offer for that amount of money. I’m not sure how you’re able to do that. Let me ask you about this. So, I’ve seen a lot of supplements, a lot of things that have barcodes, and you can sort of scan these barcodes and it can download a link and give you information. What do you what are your thoughts on those? Are I’m sure you’ve seen them? I mean, again, is it’s your kind of just held to whatever these people say is in the bottle. Is that how they work?

DR. TOD COOPERMAN: You know, we haven’t done a lot of research on the barcodes, but I assume sometimes they may put up a certificate of analysis or see if they call it showing how a product has been, the actual test results, but I would be suspect of even that information. Sometimes it’s provided when so companies can come to us any time and say, hey, if you find a problem with our product, give us the details and for free, we’ll send them the details. In fact, we keep an unopened sample of every product we test, and we say, hey, you want to see it tested again. If you’ll publish the results, we will as well and nine out of ten times they will back away at that point, but they often will send us these “C’s of A” showing that the product has one hundred percent of what it claims. That’s really based typically on the ingredient that was supplied to them. Not that not. The finished product, so I would be suspect of what kind of information people are able to pull up from these companies, because we’ve seen all kinds of things and many companies write in their bottles, will say they’re GMP, as you mentioned earlier, good manufacturing practices. That’s typically a self-proclaimed thing. There are GMPS, but whether or not they abide by them is not clear. There are groups like NSF, USP, as I mentioned before, that do check on companies to see if they’re doing that and they have their own their own programs.

Again, it’s paid for by the companies. It’s not that they’re just going independently or on their own. So, yeah, I haven’t checked on all the information that’s available with those links, but I could guess what kind of information would be provided.

DR. MIKE MORENO: So, let me ask you quick, just for my own clarity purposes. It’s “C of A”? What was the term?

DR. TOD COOPERMAN: Certificate of analysis, a “C of A”.

DR. MIKE MORENO: Gotcha. OK, I want to make sure I’m clear on all of this stuff. You know, what I love too is that you know, you’re a website of information. I love that you post good, bad, and indifferent. It’s just about the facts and that’s what I love. I’m sure you must get wined and dined by people saying, hey, check this out. That must happen. Right? I mean, I’m sure companies are coming to you trying to get you to talk about their stuff or how does that work?

DR. TOD COOPERMAN: You know, not so much frankly. It’s more really we hear much more from consumers saying, what do you think of this? What do you think that? Maybe we’ve been along around long enough where companies kind of know what we’re about and what we’re going to do, we’re not going to do so? You know what we what initially happened, as you’d suspect, with a business like this, is that we were attacked by industry initially. They didn’t want anyone looking over their shoulder and we had to go to court to stop all kinds of shenanigans that were going on, but fortunately, that ended about 15 years ago. They know who we are. They know it’s very straight. It’s very transparent what we do, and we and we stick to our guns. So that’s it’s worked for us. Most of the people who subscribe, they tell me they’ve been subscribing since day one, a long time ago now.

DR. MIKE MORENO: I think, you know, you look at the FDA, you got to assume the FDA is so overwhelmed. Right? I mean, they they’re probably just like, thank you, Dr. Cooperman, for taking this off our hands because, I mean, they can’t even keep up with what they’re supposed to keep up with. Quite honestly, there’s a lot of stuff that and I get it, it’s a big industry. It’s booming. It’s growing. You’re talking hundreds of billions of dollars in this. So, I totally get it and I’m fascinated.

I was thinking this morning when I go through in my head, people, you hear that term, oh, just Google it. Yeah, you just want something. Just go on Amazon and get it. My thing is, like, I’m just going to Dr. Tod Cooperman and seriously, this is the best thing to be able to get this. I mean, it’s just amazing that you can get this information.

So, we’ve talked a little bit about CBD, which is, again, huge. That’s a conversation itself. Multiple shows. You guys have branched out into other products and other things. Tell us a little bit about that and what are some of the newer things that you’ve done that you’re that are interesting that you like that our listeners want to know about?

DR. TOD COOPERMAN: Sure. So actually, I can start with CBD because we just put out our latest report just two days ago on CBD. So that market, as I said, it’s kind of it’s kind of evolving and we didn’t really find quality problems. What we found, actually, is that the products have changed in a way where THC, which is the psychoactive component in cannabis, and there’s going to be a little bit normally and hemp extract, which is what CBD is made from, they pretty much eliminated that from the majority of the products at this point because people were testing positive for on drug screens urine tests so we’re finding much less much lower amounts of THC, higher amounts of CBD, higher dosages, strength of CBD and we’re finding the price has actually fallen significantly on CBD. It used to be fairly expensive. Eighty cents per ten milligram doses, which is kind of a standard dose now. It’s gone down to about twenty-five cents. So, it’s a 70 percent drop. Which is pretty interesting, and I think it’s because some of the bigger supplement companies have moved into this area, even though the FDA says that CBD is not legally a supplement, but companies are selling as a supplement. They’re labeling it as a supplement.

You can tell if something’s something because it’ll a supplement fact on the back rather than nutrition facts, if it’s a food or drug, facts if it’s a drug. So many companies are selling it to supplement FDA saying it’s not a supplement, but it’s not stopping anyone from selling it. They’re just stopping them from making outrageous claims about it. So, yes, so we just finished testing that category and change is going on.

Something we’ve been doing totally new for us, but the whole world has changed in the last few months is we’ve been looking at face shields just to see if they meet the specs of a face shield and face masks as well. For example, face shield, when people are within a few feet of another person who is infected, obviously, you know, your physician, a face shield can protect you and protect them. You should still wear it with a mask, but many people don’t like the top, should not be open. Or can get in and out of it that way in their products that are sold, that have opened talks which extend back to your ears, it should go at least an inch below your chin. So, we have a review now of Face Shields. We’ve been doing a lot of work on face masks, which should have, you know, these two or three layers and their specific materials that should be used there.

Even though our members are interested in supplements primarily, and some of the foods that we test like olive oils and things like that, as you’d imagine, what’s really driving interest right now is anything COVID related and so we’ve also written about supplements and how they relate to COVID. Which ones are important and which ones are probably just a lot of hype at this point? It’s really, really what that boils down to from our perspective is really vitamin D is probably the most important vitamin that you should be taking if you are deficient, if you’re not getting enough already, because they’re just there’s so many studies now showing an association or even a benefit with vitamin D and COVID, but really, it’s more from a preventative perspective because it is an immune regulatory hormone, really vitamin D and so that’s what that boils down to.

People are excited about elderberry and all kinds of things. I think really vitamin D is safe and as long as people don’t overdo it, but since your program is about industry, I think people should also be aware that, say, with vitamins, the blood tests that they take some of the results, this has been kind of shocking when you get a result back saying up from a vitamin D blood test and you see the range there that shows, it’ll show normal is three hundred to one hundred nomograms per ml and that’s crazy. Like no one has one hundred nomograms per ml and so I think the lab industry has really been scaring people into like pushing your vitamin D levels higher and higher and getting tested for it. I could go on and on about vitamin D, but from a consumer lab perspective, in addition to the clinical side, we do certainly test vitamin supplements and it’s one of the least expensive, probably most beneficial supplements out there where for a penny a day, you can get the amount that you need.

DR. MIKE MORENO: Yeah. I’m glad to hear you say this vitamin D thing and confirm it, because I’ve been a big vitamin D guy from the get-go and quite honestly, ten, fifteen years ago, it wasn’t something that you would typically test a level in a patient. What people think of like their annual tests? I got to check my blood sugar and my kidney and my liver and my thyroid and my iron levels. Vitamin D wasn’t a huge player, but, you know, 10, 12, 15 years ago, it really became a big player and you brought it up for the biggest reason, I think, in immunity and it’s such a huge thing.

There’s also been a lot of just a lot of people dietary restrictions or obviously being cautious from the sun because you need some amount of sunlight to convert vitamin D to the useful type of vitamin D. So, I think there’s a lot of speculation as to why suddenly be people’s vitamin D low?

I’m thinking to myself; I think because we haven’t really been testing them way back in the day and it’s on my panel. It’s a big thing for me. As you said, it’s more about wellness and when I look at covid, I think to myself this is just about staying healthy.

People say to me, how can I protect myself from it? I just say, do what you’re supposed to do anyway, right? Which is exercise. Stay hydrated, manage your stress, eat healthy, and maintain a healthy weight. All these basic things and vitamin D for me right there is very, very important. I’ve used it, you know, sometimes when I feel a cold coming on or something like that, I will do high dose vitamin D for a few days and again, it’s one of these things where people say, well, you know, it’s anecdotal or who knows? Listen, it’s worked for me and it’s helped me in my opinion. I think it shortens the time frame for an acute upper respiratory virus or whatever it may be. So, I’m glad to hear you say that you’re a vitamin D fan. I knew I liked you. I knew it.

DR. TOD COOPERMAN: I’m a fan with limitations, though, because people will overdo it just like they will with every supplement. Right. So, you don’t you definitely want to have a level at least 20 minimums, which is really the level of efficiency. There’s debate about that. We don’t want to get into all that, but and people’s levels will dip down in the in the in the winter and the spring following the winter and that’s really the only time that I’m going to really be taking some vitamin D and not a lot really. I stick to what the RDA is for vitamin D. 600/800 IU. I’m not a fan of mega dosing with vitamins.

DR. MIKE MORENO: So, every lab has different standards, what’s considered their standard. Our lab, we use 30 as sort of the low norm. Now, if you find somebody who’s say ten or 15, well, ten or the lower end of spectrum, you’ll see a lot of physicians using high dose. So, it’s like the fifty thousand milligram dose weekly for twelve weeks. Sort of like to fill the tank. What are your thoughts on that? Then again, maintaining a standard reasonable daily dose beyond that.

DR. TOD COOPERMAN: Right. If someone’s really down in the ten or sub ten nomogram per ml level, I could see that. Really to be more physiologic, more like the body, unless someone really can’t remember to take vitamin D every day or every other day. Studies have shown that monthly, even higher doses monthly is a bad thing. There are actually enzymes that kick in that are breaking down vitamin D. When you go too high with vitamin D, there actually increases in fractures and falls. So, you can certainly get too much vitamin D. I follow every vitamin D study that comes out there and there are so many times where the study will show that it didn’t work, but really the people didn’t need it. They already had a level probably about twenty-five. So, there were certainly not deficient in vitamin D and it’s not going to do you any good and it pains me to see probably the millions of dollars that are spent on these huge studies where they show no benefit while. Well, meanwhile, if you gave it to someone who had a level of 15, 10, 12, whatever it would, it could make a huge difference for them in many ways. So that’s my spiel on Vitamin D.

DR. MIKE MORENO: So, I think it’s great and again, it brings us to what your website does, which is educates. You know, medicine is, as they say, it’s a practice and, yeah, it’s just that things are constantly evolving. You know, let’s just take the current times, right. Covid, you know, from one week to the next, things change. I remember when this thing first came out and people were saying, yeah, we’ll hang out on surfaces for days and days and days. Now, as we’ve moved forward into this four or five, six, nine, seven, eight months, whatever. I’m now lost in the covid fog now. You know, we’re learning that this is very clearly droplet spread and we see the benefits through masking and social distancing and it’s not magic that we’ve been able to really impact the growth and the spread of this virus through those things. Medicine is constantly evolving and changing and we as consumers and this is not just the consumer, I’m a consumer. I’m a doctor, but I will tell you, hospitals, doctors, nutritionists must love this thing. I mean, I would imagine that’s got to be a big hit.

DR. TOD COOPERMAN: Yeah. The only time I feel like a celebrity, I know you must get it a lot, but I feel like this is what I’m speaking to a group of nutritionists. That is, those are my people. They are probably the most loyal readers of Consumer Lab because they’re advising their patients as to they say you need you need to take more of this or that or even if it’s a fish oil or we’re even testing canned tuna and sardines now for omega three levels and contaminants like mercury. So, they are very appreciative of this kind of information.

DR. MIKE MORENO: I have so many questions for you, but what are some of the shocking or really what the big things are where you like, Aha moments where you found these out after running things through your testing. There’s got to be some that stand out in your head.

DR. TOD COOPERMAN: So recently, again, with covid people staying home, eating more canned goods. So, we started testing canned tuna, canned salmon, as they said, sardines and it was interesting because there they can be very good sources of omega three fatty acids, which is why people think of fish oil. You know, obviously it’s in these products, but the range in terms of the omega three levels across these products is huge and you’re not going to get much from, say, a can of white tuna. You’re going to get a ton from a can of red salmon. You’re going to get even more from sardines, but then when you look at the mercury, which is a real issue. You can see how a lot of these very common white tuna, probably the most popular albacore tuna, really should not be consumed more than once a week when you look at the amount of mercury that we found and even with the sardines, even though they are really like powerhouses in terms of omega 3s. They have very high levels of arsenic, which I didn’t even know until we tested them for various heavy metals. So, you’re not going to get sick from having sardines occasionally, but I didn’t even realize the level of arsenic that was in sardines. So that was kind of a surprising thing recently.

Again, I wouldn’t stay away from them, but I would just, it’s like everything else, you know, it’s you have to you have to do things in moderation.

DR. MIKE MORENO: Right. Moderation, moderation, moderation. I think I tell people, look, if you do something daily frequently, really often or you ingest something, you know, you got to take a step back and say, hey, wait, maybe because you’re right. I don’t think a lot of people do things without complete knowledge, like when you talked earlier about these companies, they were unaware of these things. I’m still stuck on the fact of that shellacking on the pill. I mean, that’s amazing to me, but you’re right. You know, people don’t people are just unaware. I think when you talk about business like this, it’s a business to manufacture. Get something out there.

Why? Because, like you said, there’s a window, right, and you take CBD, for example. Things come out; you get it while the iron’s hot. Right, but so I think there’s a lot of steps that are missed. That’s what makes your website so valuable to everybody. I mean, everybody at some point or another, you’re talking vitamins and supplements and all of these things. The list goes on and on and on. I’m thinking in my head right now, in my bathroom on my little ledge, I’m thinking all of these things that I have, I’m going to be utilizing your services for sure. I think it’s great. So, what’s coming? What any new stuff can you tell us with some new stuff in your field that’s on the way?

DR. TOD COOPERMAN: You know, we were asked about micro plastic, which is pervasive now in the water from the years and years of plastic breaking down. So, there’s this growing interest in that. So, we thought, do the current water filters filter for micro plastics? We purchased three or four popular brands of just the picture type water filters that you have on it, keeping your refrigerator. We follow their instructions and we found that with some of them, the amount of plastic that we put in multiplied in terms of what came out. So that was there is discouraging. We actually ran them several more times, even though that wasn’t required by the manufacturer and the instructions and those levels did fall, which was good, but we were just blown away. We we’re like, what is going on here?

DR. MIKE MORENO: Wait a minute, so I want to get this right. So, you’re telling me what the device was supposed to do when you used it actually made an increase in the plastic levels.

DR. TOD COOPERMAN: Many fold.

DR. MIKE MORENO: Wow. I would say that goes in the shocking column. I mean, again, it goes to show you that, you know, you always hope people have the best intentions when they’re doing things, but things slip by, but that’s a big a big thing to slip by. I mean, considering that’s what the thing is supposed to do then we realize that you end up with plastic. Wow.

DR. TOD COOPERMAN: So that’ll be out in a few weeks.

DR. MIKE MORENO: You must be evolving this website constantly because you’re always chasing something. I mean, there’s something new. You turn around and it’s just how it is these days. I mean, there’s always something going on. Where do we find you? Tell us socially we want to know everything. I want to make sure the word gets out.

DR. TOD COOPERMAN: Thank you. So, we’re on the web at www.ConsumerLab.com, where we’ve been for a long time and there’s a lot of good free information. Also, we have a very good free RDA daily value kind of calculator that people can use for free. Find out what is the right amount of each vitamin and mineral based on your age or gender. All of our reviews.

We’ve covered thousands of products. We have answered people’s questions. We have hundreds of answers to popular questions. We’re answering new questions every day and it’s all on www.consumerlab.com. Then we put out recalls and warnings. So, we’re constantly following the FDA and other groups and industry in terms of products that that are problematic, particularly supplements is what we cover there. So that information is there that’s free as well. So, it’s all at www.consumerlab.com, but again, to get the full access does require membership. As we mentioned, it’s about $47 dollars a year.

DR. MIKE MORENO: You do the math and that is a small investment in your health and there are likely things that we use or take every single day, but I love that it’s not just supplements. It’s protein powders. It’s water filters that’s still blowing me away. The water filters, protein powders, ideal lot with protein powders. A lot of people are asking me about this and that.

You know, I’m pretty liberal, but there are certain things. I tend to look more at the carbohydrate and the protein, actual protein levels and making sure people aren’t getting too much sugar carbs in these protein powders, but you’ve really extended what you’re dealing with and we talked about CBD and supplements. All of these things are so important I can’t field all these questions. A lot of patients, you ask them, you say, are you taking anything? And their assumption is if it didn’t come from a prescription, it doesn’t count.

I think the service you guys offer is so beneficial for everybody. I mean, you’re talking doctors, nutritionists, and the general public. Nutritionists. I can’t imagine it’s got to be just an amazing thing. You’re doing great work. I love this, and I will tell you, a lot of people you know, I was talking to my friends and they’re always asking, who are you going to be talking with next? They were like, I love that website because it is a lot of information and it is done in such a way that it’s you can trust it. It’s valuable stuff that we all need to know. So, I will say personally, Dr. Cooperman, thank you so much for this research.

DR. TOD COOPERMAN: Well, thank you. I really appreciate it.

DR. MIKE MORENO: Yeah, we appreciate you spending time. This is just its great and I will continue to use it because there’s a lot of. Listen, you’re going to be a busy man, I got to tell you, because it seems like every time you turn around, there’s like something new around the corner. This is a great service, an amazing thing, and I really appreciate you spending some time.

DR. TOD COOPERMAN: Thank you. I appreciate you having me on.

DR. MIKE MORENO: So that’s it. I want to remind everybody, subscribe, download, and listen to Wellness, Inc. With me, Dr. Mike Moreno. My guests inform listeners about the growing influence of wellness in our lives. Stay in the know, don’t miss Wellness, Inc. The Wellness, Inc. with Dr. Mike Moreno podcast is for informational and entertainment purposes only and is not intended as a replacement or substitution for any professional, medical, financial, legal, or other advice, diagnosis, or treatment. This podcast does not constitute the practice of medicine or any other professional service. The use of any information provided during this podcast is at the listeners own risk for medical or other advice appropriate to your specific situation, please consult a physician or other trained professional. Thank you.

About This Episode:
Dr. Mike Moreno’s launches his exciting new podcast, Wellness, Inc., with breaking news about everyday household products and how they could negatively impact your health.

In this shocking episode, Dr. Mike welcomes Dr. Tod Cooperman, a revered physician and founder of ConsumerLab.com, an Internet publisher of unbiased research on health and wellness products. The two discuss surprising findings about every day household items that are marketed as healthy, but can be toxic.

ConsumerLab recently published their finding that some water filters inserted in pitchers actually increase micro-particles of plastic in drinking water! That pitcher with a filter you bought to keep dangerous particles out of drinking water may actually add danger in.

We were blown away says, Dr. Cooperman. And, that’s just one of the scary recent results. Dr. Mike asks about a recent red flag that was raised in ConsumerLabs: because of Covid-19 consumers are increasingly buying canned fish. Dr. Mike says there are dangers if mercury and arsenic levels are high in these products, particularly to pregnant women. The research found that there can be a range of these toxins in brands.

Watch out, says Dr. Cooperman.

About ConsumerLab:

Founded 21 years ago ConsumerLab is an independent review platform with ratings for thousands of wellness products.

In 2000, ConsumerLab.com generated media attention when its’ testing of ginseng products revealed substantial pesticide contamination in many products.

Dr. Mike says it’s a Godsend for anyone who has ever looked at a supplement pill or a bottle of oil – even CBD — and wondered if the claims on the label were true.

Dr. Cooperman and ConsumerLab is an impeccable source for doctors, nutritionists, and consumers, as well as journalists and public officials. He has spoken in front of numerous government committees and is regularly interviewed on the subject.

In this episode, you can learn more about ConsumerLab. Dr. Mike thinks a year’s subscription to the service for under $50 is a deal but points out there is plenty of free information too.

Connect with ConsumerLab:

https://www.facebook.com/ConsumerLabcom/
https://twitter.com/consumerlab
https://www.facebook.com/PharmacyChecker/