UnWell, the Netflix documentary series that shares the controversy and dark side of the multi-billion dollar wellness industry.
On August 12, 2020, Netflix released UnWell, a controversial documentary series that analyzes the most controversial trends in the wellness industry and some alternative treatments that hide misleading advertising and shady business models. The series is divided into six chapters and is produced by Ken Druckerman, Banks Tarver, Anneka Jones, and Erica Sashin, from “Left / Right.”
Through first-person testimonials, as well as interviews with health specialists, UnWell reveals the benefits and dangers of each therapy. Explain why certain unconventional treatments have become a fad for many patients. Among them, topics such as apitherapy (use of bee venom to treat various diseases such as rheumatism), essential oils to regulate levels of anxiety or depression, myths, and truths about the consumption of breast milk, tantric sex as a way to release energy and sexual healing, consequences of extreme fasting and use of hallucinogenic drugs (ayahuasca) as an ancestral treatment for post-traumatic stress in war veterans.
UnWell aims to clarify the uncertainty of whether the benefits of these alternative therapies outweigh their risks. For this, the documentary series investigates the frauds of pyramid businesses that take advantage of the needs of their patients to offer them products with pseudoscientific evidence.
Benefits of intermittent feeding.
Fasting is a simple practice that consists of abstaining totally or partially from the intake of food and/or drinks for a certain period. One of the seven best-known forms of fasting is intermittent fasting, the methods of which vary in the number of days and calories consumed. Some studies suggest that intermittent fasting may offer benefits such as weight loss, improved health, and even longevity.
Each person experiences fasting in their own way. This eating plan consists of combining a long period of fasting with a shorter period of food intake. In fact, our body already practices it by itself from dinner to breakfast the next day (12/12 intermittent fasting). But in order to make those long hours more bearable, it is recommended to take compounds that are perfect candidates to include during fasting, precisely because of their amplifying role of autophagy (a biological process that our body produces during fasting), such as tea. green, kombucha, turmeric, and hydrolyzed collagen supplements that help support joint health and cell development.
Nonetheless, UnWell has generated controversy in the wellness food industry, criticizing the benefits and dangers of fasting as a therapeutic method. In addition, another of the episodes deals with real cases of people who survived for weeks on a diet of water and of characters who became obsessed with health.
