what we talk about when we talk about andrew huberman

making sense of all the allegations

Since Monday, I’ve spent at least seven hours thinking about Andrew Huberman. You know, the guy who hosts Huberman Lab, the health podcast that has achieved the perfect alchemy of science and self-help.¹ Its audience is in the millions.² I’ve always appreciated Dr. Huberman’s willingness to descend the ivory tower of Stanford Med, especially when I have friends in academia who have little interest in communicating research to the general public.

“Who is podcast guest turned star Andrew Huberman, really?” asks Kerry Howley. (Image from New York Magazine)

I was just as shocked as anyone else, then, to read the New York Magazine cover feature detailing the “private and public seductions of the world’s biggest neuroscientist.” The public seductions, of course, are the parasocial relationships with listeners and viewers, many of which are men (dubbed Huberman Husbands by the wife of one, as an analogue to Almond Moms). Dr. Huberman enraptured us with his “protocols” for self-optimization: cold plunges and showers; sunlight directly into the retinas upon waking; “stacks” of supplements.

Dr. Huberman also allegedly enraptured several paramours in parallel—at least six, according to the article. These private seductions weren’t your run-of-the-mill cheating, though. Rather, they involved complicated juggling of names, texting, and dates. On March 21, 2021 alone, Dr. Huberman allegedly had one girlfriend staying over at his house, went to coffee with girlfriend #2 to talk about their relationship, and texted girlfriend #3, “Sleep well beautiful.” If this were ethical non-monogamy, I’d simply applaud Dr. Huberman’s superhuman energy and incredible coordination. Unfortunately, each girlfriend believed their relationship was exclusive. Girlfriend #3 and Dr. Huberman even underwent several rounds of IVF together.³

There’s already been plenty of discourse online about the feature and Dr. Huberman, but I wanted to share three lenses of analysis on the debacle that I haven’t yet seen elsewhere:

1. Because Dr. Huberman’s protocols impact his listeners’ daily routines, listeners are more likely to perceive attacks on him as attacks on their own lives.

2. Dr. Huberman’s credibility hinges on your subjective expectations of (a) the level of expertise required before someone can speak authoritatively on a topic and (b) how much one can permissibly extrapolate non-human studies to humans.

3. The relevance of Dr. Huberman’s philandering ways to his podcast depends on how much you believe the personal sphere affects professional/public activity.

an attack on dr. huberman is an attack on protocols is an attack on our very lives!!!!

There is something undoubtedly soothing about being told exactly what to do. What Dr. Huberman calls “protocols,” which sounds scientific and disciplined and oh-so masc, are simply routines. (Except he doesn’t call them routines because routines have been feminized by social media—think of all the glossy, aesthetic “6am morning routine” and “bedtime routine” videos on YouTube. Sharing one’s “routine” reeks of aspirations to become an influencer, while sharing one’s “protocol” suggests a militant commitment to self-betterment. But it really is just a routine.)

The Huberman Lab website even has a button with Andrew’s Daily Routine on it, which prompts you to sign up for his newsletter:

He also calls it the “Daily Blueprint.” You, too, can become your favorite architectural work! (Mine is the Chrysler Building). (Screenshot from hubermanlab.com; red boxes from me)

The way Dr. Huberman prescribes these protocols to his audience reminds me of the way my grandmother in China took charge of my body and health whenever I visited—preparing pungent herbal remedies for me to choke down, using her comb to violently gua sha my neck, directing me to swim (lean muscles) instead of run (thick muscles).

Let’s face it: being in a human body is hard. Most of us aren’t taught how to take care of it, body or mind or spirit. Which makes us particularly susceptible to anything that allows us to abdicate responsibility for our bodies, escape the horror of having a corporeal form. We crave nutritional and exercise regimens that promise us health, because we’re too busy/tired/overwhelmed/etc. to experiment and come up with our own health plans.

One reason for why listeners have been so fiercely divided about Dr. Huberman is because he has ingrained himself into the daily routines of his audience. Routines are what we do, sure—but routines are also deeply personal. People love watching, and also snarking on, “what I eat in a day” videos, workout routines, skincare routines. We feel deeply attached to our routines (even if they aren’t our ideal routines), and we are likely to feel attacked by others’ routines—particularly when they aren’t feasible for ourselves.

For those who have adopted many of Dr. Huberman’s protocols and have benefited from them—even swear by them, like cold plunges—any critique of Dr. Huberman undermines not just Dr. Huberman, but themselves, their routine that they have so painstaking adopted. And for those who found many of Dr. Huberman’s protocols unrealistic or unwieldy—now they are more justified in not pursuing the protocols, because Dr. Huberman is allegedly shady. In both cases, everyone just wants to validate their routine, gain assurance that they are doing the right thing.⁴ This moment gives everyone the opportunity to loudly seek validation and assurance of their daily routines, whether it includes Dr. Huberman’s protocols or not.

authority to speak: experts vs. expert-experts and laboratory scientists vs. evidence-based scientists

The article casts doubts on Dr. Huberman’s credibility to speak on the topics he covers in his podcast. Setting aside the accusation of financial interest in Dr. Huberman’s promotion of AG1 (formerly known as Athletic Greens)—a sponsor of the podcast—other scientists have questioned Dr. Huberman’s credentials to opine on health matters outside of neuroscience, side-eyeing his in-depth discussions on topics like fertility and his penchant for extrapolating research on animals to effects on humans.

The issue here—and why I think there was no mass debunking of Dr. Huberman’s claims pre-New York Magazine—is our differences when it comes to the level of expertise we expect our experts to have on a topic. When I was still a law firm associate and received requests via social media to talk about Britney Spears’ conservatorship, I asked one of the partners what she thought of that request. She immediately replied, “Why would you do that? You’re not a trusts and estates lawyer. What if you got something wrong?”

I was a little surprised by her stance. I wasn’t a trusts and estates lawyer, but I was confident in my ability to read through court documents and summarize them—that’s what a junior litigation associate does en masse, after all—and certain that I would be a more accurate legal communicator than the average commentator on the conservatorship. I’d been inundated with commentary videos during Britney’s conservatorship proceedings and the Depp/Heard trial—many from non-lawyers or lawyers who don’t practice in the relevant area of law—so I came to believe one did not have to be an expert-expert to opine on the happenings. The partner I spoke with, on the other hand, expects only expert-experts to publicly opine.

Who is wrong? It depends on what you think the goal of the communication is. If the goal is to be 100% accurate and give nuanced insights on conservatorships, then the partner was right. If the goal is to convey general information about a legal proceeding and give context to the litigation process, then I was right.

We run into the same dilemma with Huberman Lab. If we think the podcast’s goal should be 100% accuracy and a substitute for taking a Stanford class, then the podcast naturally falls short of that goal—the cadence of podcasting and wide range of topics ensures that it is virtually impossible to receive expert-expert information and interpretations, week after week. But if we think the podcast’s goal should be to introduce us to some general scientific research and concepts, then the podcast hits its marks. (One could argue that Dr. Huberman, by repeating his credentials as a Stanford professor and a neuroscientist, primes listeners to expect the former—but it’s also a little silly to expect a neuroscientist to be an expert-expert on everything, including nutrition and fertility. To what extent is Dr. Huberman responsible for listeners placing a halo on him?)

The other critique of Dr. Huberman’s credibility—that he is too cavalier with extrapolating petri dish and animal studies onto humans—highlights a live debate in science and medicine. Among scientists and doctors, there are two schools of thinking when it comes to extrapolation: evidence-based medicine looks at clinical data, exercising extreme caution when extrapolating non-clinical (e.g., petri dish, animal) data to humans, and evidence-based laboratory medicine is more comfortable making such extrapolations.

Huberman Lab embraces evidence-based laboratory science. Why not evidence-based science? The medium of podcasting at the frequency of Huberman Lab demands it. When limited to evidence-based science only, there is a smaller pool of data and studies to draw from. Evidence-based laboratory medicine, in contrast, widens the pool of data and studies for discussion, and due to its pre-clinical nature, feels more like biohacking—getting ahead of the curve when it comes to health practices. On balance, Dr. Huberman on Huberman Lab is more like a health pundit than an expert-expert—which isn’t a bad thing, as long as listeners are reasonably aware.⁵

blurring the personal/professional divide

Finally, the salacious—which unsurprisingly is the portion of the article that has generated the most visceral defenses (if anything, the fact he had the energy to date six women at once validates his protocols!) and disappointments (I can’t trust anything he says now). The conflicting responses illustrate the broader inquiry: to what extent does our personal life affect our professional/public life?

This is a tough one. Do you judge dates for how they treat waiters? Do you see it as a red flag if your boss is estranged from their children? We all contain multitudes, but at what points do we demand cohesiveness from others—and ourselves? Answers will vary. You must think this through for yourself.

To be clear: I am sickened by the amount of lies and manipulation necessary to maintain the charade that Dr. Huberman allegedly maintained. I have an extremely low tolerance for lying when it comes to acquaintances, friends, and others I know in real life. If I find out someone has lied to me in order to mislead me or just because they could, I won’t cut them out of my life, per se—but I also won’t put more effort into deepening the relationship sans a conversation to clear the air (which must be initiated by them). If I interact with them in a business context, I will deprioritize them as business partners.

Could I be throwing the baby out with the bathwater? Possibly. And I recognize that everyone, including me, does not have a unitary personality that is always honest all of the time. I get that. But we must decide for ourselves when the personal implicates the professional—because it does, after a certain point—and respond accordingly when colleagues, friends, family cross that threshold. Even if it pains us. ◆

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1. I’ve cited his podcast episodes in previous newsletters—specifically, Dr. Huberman’s actionable strategies (he calls them “protocols”) for managing stress and anxiety and interview with Dr. Lisa Feldman Barrett on how our mental schemas affect our emotions.

2. His Instagram has 6.2 million followers, and his YouTube channel has 5.25 million subscribers.

3. IVF (and egg freezing) can take a strenuous toll on the body. The process includes needles, hormone changes, and surgery—nothing to be taken lightly.

4. That validation and assurance doesn’t exist, btw—at least not externally.

5. Except for whenever he talks about his particular area of research. I asked a medical professor about the Huberman Lab’s frequency of publication, and they commented that the output was low in the past few years but would be okay if the lab consisted only of two people (which appears to be the case). For comparison, they pointed me to Dr. Alice Ting, whose publication output they considered to be moderate (but high quality).