#618: How Wellness & Optimisation Culture Can Commodify Science – Nick Tiller, PhD

**Danny Lennon** (0:00)
Hello, and welcome to another episode of Sigma Nutrition Radio. This is episode 618 of the podcast. You are very welcome. My name is Danny Lennon. And today, we're gonna be talking all about how wellness culture, optimization culture, other pseudo-scientific messaging that comes from health and wellness more broadly can use tactics that seem to be scientific, but when you look at them, are actually just a complete misrepresentation in order to sell us things, or to grab our attention, or to build followings, etc.
And so to go through some of this, I'm gonna be talking with Dr. Nick Tiller, who is an exercise science researcher and also has a deep interest in concepts around scientific skepticism and then also how we communicate science more broadly to the public and how we can try and make people aware of some of the practices that would fall under health and wellness, pseudoscience or misinformation. He also looks at a number of the problems that happen upstream within science and research itself. So this can be where we have people publishing studies and misinterpreting them either intentionally or unintentionally. So studies that maybe have too low of a statistical power to actually make a certain claim problems of pee hacking or publication bias or a variety of other questionable research practices that we should be aware of because otherwise we're starting from basis of generating research that is already set on the wrong foot, that isn't being able to make accurate conclusions from and therefore lend itself well to being used by grifters and other pseudo scientific people within the wellness industry. And so we're going to go through a number of these concepts today with Dr. Tiller. If you go to the description box of this episode, you can click through to the episode page, which will include some of the resources that relate to what we discuss, including a couple of Dr. Tiller's publications. So one that notably we'll get into is one titled, How skepticism not cynicism can raise scientific standards and reform the health and wellness industry. And I'll also link to his other publications, which you can freely read. Remember our Sigma Nutrition premium members will get detailed study notes to accompany this episode, as well as hearing a key ideas round up after the episode plays as well. So if you are listening on the public feed of the podcast and are interested in getting more of these resources to help you learn more from these episodes, to retain more of the information and to be able to go and revise it really efficiently, then check out our offering of a Sigma Nutrition premium membership. It is the direct way that you can support the podcast. We don't run ads or sell supplements, et cetera. And so your support is literally what keeps this podcast going. So a big thank you to all our premium members. So with that, let's get into this conversation between myself and Dr. Nick Tiller.
And here we are, Dr. Nick Tiller. Thank you so much for taking the time to come and join me on the podcast today.

**Nick Tiller** (3:18)
Great to be here. Thanks for the invitation.

**Danny Lennon** (3:20)
Yeah, I think as I've mentioned to you in some of our communication, I'm very much looking forward to this, having read a number of your publications previously and also see the types of topics that you are bringing now to a broader population as well. But before we get into any of my questions, can you maybe let people know a bit about your work, your academic background, your research interests and anything else you think might be relevant for them to know?

**Nick Tiller** (3:43)
Yeah, of course. My career has taken this very weird winding, meandering path from when I started to where I am now. But basically, I come from a sports science background. So in the US, it's more broadly kinesiology. Did my undergraduate in sports science, my master's in exercise physiology with some nutrition aspects. And at the time, as most master's students typically do, I wanted to work in elite sport. I was obsessed with working with elite athletes. That's all I wanted to do. And I was one of the very few people that actually succeeded in doing it. I worked at the English Institute of Sport for a couple of years, starting off as an intern there. And which for people who are not in the UK, it's essentially the service provider of choice for the Olympic performance programs.
I worked with UK athletics, GP rowing, the flat water kayak squad, and a few others. I realized then that I was more in love with the science than the sport. So I went off to become a more robust scientist, I guess. I did my PhD in West London and had a couple of positions as an assistant and associate professor in the UK. And then in 2019, I moved to the US to continue my research, did a postdoc and then became a research fellow.