The True Story Behind Fasciablaster: Ashley Black's $175 Million Anti-Cellulite Scam

For the last decade a potentially dangerous anti-cellulite device called the Fasciablaster convinced women that they can rub away cellulite (and just about every other medical ailment) with a $95 plastic wand. Restoring youthful vigor is as easy as scraping hard plastic prongs over problematic areas until you are covered with bruises. The self-flagellating cure all has been surprisingly profitable  The Fasciablaster’s charismatic wellness guru –a former personal trainer named Ashley Black--promises that the wand is “backed by science,” even as she bragged that she went to market long before she ever considered running a clinical trial. 

Since 2014 Black’s wellness empire has brought in between $175-$100 million in revenue–meaning that millions of women have bought into her health explanations. 5-star reviews and testimonials fill her website and private facebook group and her various social media profiles boasts millions of followers. The improbable results come along with a glaring dark side. Tens of thousands of women joined facebook groups [here and here] that highlight how blasting their fascia doesn’t live up to the hype. Included in their posts are testimonials from women who claim that the device has actively hurt them. 

Read More
Scott CarneyComment
The Best Books on Sleep

Is your sleep life stuck in a snooze cycle? Do you wake up feeling like you wrestled a thousand sheep all night, only to stumble through the day fueled by lukewarm coffee and blurry-eyed determination? Fear not, weary warriors of the night! I have a literary bounty of sleep-saving wisdom, ready to guide you from restless nights to restorative slumber.

This is the list of sleep books that you’ve been waiting for offering innovative approaches to navigating the often-mysterious world of dreams, REM cycles, and circadian rhythms. Forget counting sheep – we're talking cutting-edge science, practical tips, and even a dash of philosophy to help you reclaim your nights and rediscover the joy of a truly energized sunrise.

So, ditch the melatonin and grab a book instead. Whether you're a sleep-deprived student yearning for focus, a stressed-out parent chasing elusive quiet time, or simply a curious soul fascinated by the hidden world of slumber.  This curated list of sleep-centric gems has something for everyone. 

Read More
An Abandoned Nobel Prize Winning Treatment for Syphilis started with Infecting Patients with Malaria

A nobel prize winning treatment for syphilis might have a modern day use for treating lyme disease, too. But research stalled in the 1980s when the CDC updated its ethics protocols. Nonetheless, this fascinating deep dive into the history of “pyrotherapy” might give clues about what directions medicine could take should antibiotics stop working.

Read More
Will my cat eat me when I die?

As a cat owner I've always heard the urban legend that felines are likely to eat their owners when they die, but how true are the stories? Well, it turns out that feline (and canine) depredation--the scientific word for scavenging human bodies--is much more common than you might think. This week I delved into the scientific journals to understand how long you have before your pets take matters into their own hands.

Read More
Scott Carney
Wim Hof's Court Case Takes a Turn

There have been two major updates about the 18 deaths related to the Wim Hof method in the last week. They first: the court in Long Beach, CA took issue with Wim Hof’s apparent perjury and denied his request to dismiss the case. Second: one of the largest newspapers in Holland just ran an important investigative story about Innerfire. Reporter Anneke Stoffelen found startling new information.

Read More
Scott Carney Comment
Shocking Stories from The Emergency Room

The one question that Emergency Room Doctors get more than any other is "what sorts of objects have you pulled out of people's rectums." I've known Dr. Rob Orman for several years now and he has stories galore: from the proper technique to remove rectal foreign bodies without damaging his patients, to how to keep up his bedside manner when operating on a known criminal with a horrible record. You don't want to miss this show.

Read More
Scott CarneyComment
EXCLUSIVE: Did This Expert On Truth Get Caught Lying?

Dan Ariely is the most famous cognitive behavioral scientist on the topic of lying and misbelief. Over the summer an organization named Data Colada accused him of making up some of the data that made his career. Soon The New Yorker, NPR, The Atlantic, New York Times and a dozen other publications picked up the story about how he, and Francesca Gino (a researcher at Harvard) were lying about their research on lying. Ariely never gave a recorded interview on the topic, instead submitting his answers to reporters over email.

Read More
Scott Carney
How to Start a Cult

In 2004 I got invited to a spiritual orgy at the Osho compound in Pune. We were all wearing red or white robes and just about everyone was gorgeous. A few days earlier I saw hundreds of people speak in tongues together as they accessed their own spiritual truths. This was my first, but hardly my last, experience from the inside of cultic thinking and practices. 

Read More
Scott Carneycult, OshoComment
Is the Wim Hof Method a Cult?

I wanted to clarify my position on this subject lest anyone get the wrong idea.

In the broader culture, "Cult"" carries some pejorative, or even sinister, connotations--for instance, Jim Jones's People's Church and Heaven's Gate which both ended in a mass-suicides, or the Manson Family which committed mass murder. Other cults in this vein would be David Koresh's movement in Waco, or the sex-scandal beset group NVIXM. As I mentioned in my video "The Rise and Fall of the Wim Hof Empire" as well as in the story I posted here, I do NOT believe that The Wim Hof Method or Innerfire are anywhere near as extreme.

Read More
The Rise and Fall of the Wim Hof Empire

On Labor Day in 2019, Andrew Encinas, a 27-year old social media entrepreneur shuttled back and forth between his new office to set up his desk with a fleet of new computer monitors and the party at his brother’s house in Anaheim Hills, California. Like his business idol Gary Vaynerchuck, Encinas thrived on the challenge of starting a new business and constantly looked for ways to optimize his performance. His favorite technique for dealing with stress was a breathwork and ice immersion protocol called “The Wim Hof Method.” Around 6:30 in the evening, Encinas made his last trip back from the office. His brother Adam invited him in for ice cream and a football game on TV.

“Sure,” he said, “But first I want to do my Wim Hof in the pool.” He asked to borrow a pair of swim trunks. This wasn’t unusual. Over the years Encinas had learned that the Wim Hof method had an almost miraculous calming effect on his nervous system. He watched videos of Hof swimming under Arctic sea ice and teaching influential social media stars to hyperventilate to the point of passing out. Encinas preferred to practice alone and often did four or five rounds of breathing in a single day. Video of Andrew doing the breathwork in the water a few months earlier focused on the peaceful expression on his face. He texted his friends that the method “works really well in the cold.”

A few minutes after Andrew went into the pool, Adam started to wonder when he would finish up and rejoin the family. Then, according to the coroner’s report filed in Los Angeles County, children at the party noticed Andrew appeared to be sleeping in the shallow end of the pool.  Adam ran outside to find his brother in a “meditative position” underwater with his hands clasped in front of his chest and unresponsive. Adam dragged Andrew out of the water and performed CPR to get his heart beating again. “But when we got to the hospital there was no brain activity. He was already a goner," says Adam Encinas. 

The circumstances around Encinas’s death are far from unique in the world of the Wim Hof Method and stem from a common conflation of two of its pillars: submersion in icy water and Hof’s characteristic hyperventilation breathwork. When practiced separately, those pillars can confer the benefits Encinas was seeking. When practiced together, they add up to an incredibly efficient method to drown. 

Read More
The Power of Lightly Held Beliefs

Humans believe a lot of strange things.  For example, I maintain the silly idea that sickness creeps into the body through the ears, and that wearing a hat can sometimes stop illness in its tracks. I also have some pretty unique ideas about the nature of human consciousness and the power of the placebo effect.  Many of my books start with a basis in science before pushing past what we can verify through experimentation and into more speculative terrain.

Read More
Scott Carney
Did Wim really invent the Wim Hof Method?

Depending who you ask, the Wim Hof method either originated out of Hof's mind after he first jumped into ice water, or it's part of an ancient tradition of breathwork and ice bathing that goes back to human pre-history. I've decided to dig into the question to compare Wim's practices to existing Yogic practices as well as listening to Wim's own accounts of where this all started for him. The truth is not quite what you might expect.

Read More
Scott Carney
Doomed Health Fads and The Law of Speedy Gains

Remember the height of the barefoot running craze when just about everyone bought a pair of glove-shaped shoes called the "Vibram 5 Fingers" so they could get in touch with their ancestral roots during a trail run?  Those pretty much died out once people realized that 1) they looked ridiculous and 2) other types of footwear did the job just as well. Every year new health fads capture the world's consciousness and take off before the science has a chance to catch up. Inevitably most of those fads die out.

Read More
Scott Carney
Blue Sky Social is designed to kill Twitter

In case you missed it, last week I put out a video about how a new social media platform founded by Jack Dorsey (the guy who originally founded Twitter) stands a good chance at changing the nature of social media altogether.  One common problem with social media since the inception of Facebook is that once you build up a community, the platform owns your social connections. If you stop liking the platforms there's no way for you to take all of your friends with you somewhere else. This leads to what Cory Doctorow calls the "enshittification" of the internet--where after an initial honeymoon phase, social media platforms get worse every subsequent month. 

Read More
Scott Carney
All Medicine is Mindful Medicine

For the past few months I've been thinking a lot about why people seek out the medical treatments that they do. Today the average would-be patient has at least a dozen (if not hundreds) of potential avenues of medical care to address their ills--from the scientific medicine at hospitals, to specialty doctors, functional and integrative medical practitioners, urgent care, chiropractic, osteopathy, and seemingly endless iterations of alternative medical traditions.

Read More