The latest iteration of Gwyneth Paltrow's controversial lifestyle brand has landed on Netflix, and hoo boy there is a lot to unpack.

Like anyone with a penchant for evidence-based medicine, I went into the series, The Goop Lab, with a sceptical eye (but an open mind).

Goop has a reputation for making unfounded health claims, and ahead of the show's release, health professionals expressed concern that it could spread pseudoscientific information and encourage a distrust in medical experts.

While Goop is careful to start each episode with a disclaimer that the show is designed to "entertain and inform not provide medical advice", it goes on to present alternative therapies (some with very limited evidence) as a treatment for various ailments, often without much-needed context.

Each episode of the six-part series generally follows the same formula: Paltrow and Goop executive Elise Loehnen sit down with a couple of experts (genuine or otherwise), discuss a health-related intervention, and send off Goop employees (or sometimes themselves) to test said intervention.

Despite being described as a "lab", the series is fairly light on science where it does have it, it tends to exaggerate and instead relies heavily on testimonials and anecdotes.

There is, however, one episode that really gets it right. So let's start there.

Goop's record on women's health is not strong (I'm looking at you, vagina steaming), so I was naturally apprehensive going into the episode on female sexuality and pleasure.

You can imagine my surprise (and utter delight) to find 35 minutes of vulva anatomy, body positivity and frank discussions about women's sexual health and autonomy.

The success of this episode is, in large part, thanks to Betty Dodson, a 90-year-old feminist sex educator and her colleague, Carlin Ross, who run workshops that aim to empower women with knowledge about their bodies.

Dodson notes that many women feel shame or embarrassment when it comes to sex, and most of the episode is spent trying to counter this.

Sex educators Carlin Ross and Betty Dodson are a highlight of The Goop Lab.

(Netflix)

Sex educators Carlin Ross and Betty Dodson are a highlight of The Goop Lab.

We get a rare and welcome glimpse of diverse, naked female bodies of all ages, and, more radically, a montage of vulvas, to demonstrate the diversity of female genitalia.

There are discussions about how porn has created unrealistic expectations about sexuality, and how women are increasingly turning to cosmetic surgery to change the appearance of their genitals.

The episode culminates in Dodson coaching Ross to achieve an on-camera orgasm, in a way that is educational, realistic, and not fetishised.

The whole approach is unabashed, yet sensitive, and feels genuinely refreshing. It left me wishing Goop would do this all the time: promote the message that vaginas and vulvas are great just as they are.

The only down-side to the episode was discovering Paltrow didn't know the difference between a vulva and vagina. To be fair, this is not uncommon.

But for someone selling products to put inside the vagina, I'd say that's a fairly major anatomical oversight.

There are a handful of episodes in the series which attempt to explore topics of genuine scientific interest, but struggle to execute them with much credibility.

Let's take the first episode, which focuses on psychedelic medicine, as an example.

In recent years, there has been a renaissance of research into the possible therapeutic effects of drugs like MDMA and psybicilin (magic mushrooms), and there are currently studies underway in Europe, the US and Australia investigating their potential to treat depression, trauma, and anxiety at the end of life.

While psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy is a genuinely promising area of research, what drug researcher Mark Haden makes clear in the episode is that the use of psychedelics in research is "completely different" to recreational use and "at no point are [researchers] advocating that people start taking MDMA or LSD or anything else".

In 2018, Gwyneth Paltrow's wellness company was estimated to be worth $250 million.

(Netflix)

In 2018, Gwyneth Paltrow's wellness company was estimated to be worth $250 million.

But Goop ignores this advice and sends four employees to Jamaica to trip on magic mushrooms under the guidance of "psychedelic elders" anyway.

A good portion of the episode is dedicated to watching the four Goopers (technical term for Goop staff) drink mushroom tea, hallucinate at the sight of the sky, and cry to themselves.

In typical Goop fashion, we hear very positive reviews: "I feel like I went through five years of therapy in about five hours".

What we don't hear is any of the side effects or risks associated with drug taking. Or how participants in clinical trials are heavily screened, and there are some mental health disorders for which psychedelic drugs are advised against.

Similarly, in episode two, the personal experience of Goop staff is favoured over scientific analysis, when we're introduced to Wim Hof, a Dutch athlete known for his ability to withstand freezing temperatures.

In the middle of winter, Hof takes a group of Goopers out to Lake Tahoe to learn his eponymous controlled breathing and cold-therapy method, which he claims can make the human body more resilient to physical and psychological stress.

Dutch athlete Wim Hof teaches Goop employees yoga in the snow at Lake Tahoe.

(Netflix)

Dutch athlete Wim Hof teaches Goop employees yoga in the snow at Lake Tahoe.

After learning to hyperventilate, meditate, and plunge into extremely cold water, one woman with a panic disorder claims to not have panic attacks any more.

Another man, not on the Goop bootcamp, says the Wim Hof method helped cure him of his auto-immune disorder.

As noted in the episode, a small 2014 study found the combination of meditation, breathing techniques and exposure to cold resulted in a temporary anti-inflammatory immune response.

However, the episode fails to include another 2014 study which suggests Hof's ability to tolerate extreme cold may come down to his genetics and high brown-fat levels.

There's interesting science to be explored around the mind-body connection and biofeedback, but we don't get much of it here.

In the fourth episode, the Goop team sets out to explore anti-ageing regimens, and this is where we really start to veer off the scientific road, so to speak.

Elise Loehnen gets facial acupuncture in The Goop Lab.

(Netflix)

Elise Loehnen gets facial acupuncture in The Goop Lab.

In a bid to reverse their "biological ages", Paltrow, Loehnen and fellow Goop executive Wendy Lauria adopt one of three diets: vegan, pescatarian or the "fast mimicking" diet (an alternative to fasting).

At the end of the episode, we learn Paltrow, who undertook the latter for five days reduces her so-called biological age the most: by 1.7 years.

While there is legitimate research investigating the connection between fasting and longevity, and evidence that calorie restriction can improve the biomarkers of ageing in animals, there is limited evidence so far that it can influence the biology of ageing in humans.

We also see in this episode Paltrow, Loehnen and Lauria undergo various cosmetic facial procedures.

The treatments which include injecting blood into the face, acupuncture needles, and inserting metal threads through cheeks (in what is ostensibly a face lift) are described by Loehnen as "a little bit more natural".

More natural than what? It's not clear.

You know how I said that at episode four, we start to veer off the scientific road? Well, in the final two episodes of The Goop Lab, the road seems to completely disappear underneath us; we are now freefalling in the Goop universe.

Episode five, titled The Energy Experience, is centred on the idea of "energy healing".

We meet John Amaral, a chiropractor and "body worker" to the stars, who claims to influence how energy moves through the body.

John Amaral supposedly works with people's energy fields moving his hands through the air as their bodies squirm below.

(Netflix)

John Amaral supposedly works with people's energy fields moving his hands through the air as their bodies squirm below.

As Julia Belluz notes in Vox, "energy" is presented uncritically as "an amorphous catch-all cause, and treatment for, so many our ailments", from psychological distress to physical pain.

At one point, Amaral invokes quantum physics, specifically the double-slit experiment which suggests the act of observing a particle has an effect on its behaviour to effectively prove that what he's doing is real.

I was *very* sceptical about the veracity of this claim, but I called Ben Buchler, a professor of quantum physics at the Australian National University, just to be sure. His response?

"It's unequivocal crackpottery."

(For context, Professor Buchler says the double-slit experiment does raise interesting questions about the nature of reality, but that it doesn't provide any scientific basis for "energy healing".)

A better way to assess the evidence for Amaral's work would be to look at studies on reiki, which are largely inconclusive.

A randomised control trial suggests the effects of energy therapy are likely to be a placebo which, should be noted, can be very powerful.

In the final episode of The Goop Lab, we meet psychic medium Laura Lynne Jackson, who, according to Goop, "gives a powerful, unexpected reading and invites the Goop gang to open up energetically".

My energetic response to this episode was mostly laughter, but that may have been because I was not wearing Goop's "psychic vampire repellent" spray.

As Goop reminds us each episode, "you should always consult your doctor when it comes to your personal health". I'd say that's sage advice.

Read more:
The Goop Lab exaggerates science and speculates, but shines on women's health - ABC News

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