In this video, -- who goes by "Doctor Mike" on social media -- reacts to some of the most extreme diets.
Following is a partial transcript (note that errors are possible):
Varshavski: I am about to watch and react to Freaky Eaters. I hate the name of the show, but let's check out if there's any nutritional value in it. PeeWoop.
Narrator: 20-year-old Amy is addicted to cola. She drinks on average 30 cans of cola all day, every single day.
Varshavski: Wow! 30 cans. What is it? 12 ounces per can. 30 times 12 is 360 ounces. The 2-liter is 64 ounces. That's basically 5 of those. She drinks five 2-liters a day. Holy moly!
The first problem right off the bat, a tremendous amount of added sugars in each one of these cans. If I was to show you before I pop up the image here how much actual sugar is added to each one of these cans, it will blow your mind. Take a look.
Amy: The most I had probably in a day is 50 cans. I'm always drinking cola.
Varshavski: Also, not good for your teeth and not good for a lot of body parts. Also, what else is in cola? Caffeine. That's a ton of caffeine, especially if you're taking it at night. There is no way you're getting restful sleep on that much caffeine.
Amy: I do get tired a lot. I don't have that much energy.
Varshavski: Because you're not sleeping well. We said that right off the bat, you're having too much caffeine too close to bedtime. Then on top of it, every time you drink this sugar... it's sugar basically. Every time you drink a cola, your sugar spikes, your insulin spikes, and you get a little crash.
Narrator: Recently, Amy had a serious health scare when she discovered a lump in her chest, which her doctor suggested might be due to excess caffeine.
Amy: I think that you drink too much caffeine and that is why you have the tumor.
Varshavski: Hold up. None of that makes sense to me. I think specifically with caffeine we have seen studies that show both a protective effect on breast cancer. Small rare studies show that there is no change in breast density for premenopausal women like herself. I don't buy that that tumor or mass was caused by caffeine itself. I have just never heard of a case like that. Could have contributed due to an unhealthy lifestyle? Yes. But due to, due to, no.
Wow, that's a lot of cola. That's a lot of sugar.
Amy: Wow!
J. J. Virgin: 950 pounds of sugar is what you get in your cola each year.
Varshavski: I don't think that's understandable to the human mind. But they love it for the dramatic effects so they could stand in the backyard and be like, "Wow."
J.J Virgin: What we see right here is you're already a pre-diabetic.
Varshavski: If this is a fasting, blood sugar, the glucose range puts her in a pre-diabetic range at being at 115. Also, I'm very, very surprised that her triglycerides are so low. Triglycerides is what you would expect to be high in a person who has uncontrolled or poorly-controlled sugar, or a high intake of sugar, because the body stores sugar through triglycerides in the blood. But the pre-diabetic thing should scare her because while pre-diabetes doesn't mean diabetes, it is curable at that stage. Once you become a diabetic, you're diabetic for life. Your risk factors change.
Narrator: 24-year-old Michael lives on meat. He averages up to 150 pounds monthly. That's equivalent to an astounding 1,800 pounds a year.
Varshavski: The real problem with overeating meat is your overexposure to saturated fats. If you're eating a hot dog, you're also consuming a lot of carbs. Not only are you overeating carbohydrates that have been bleached, therefore rapidly converted to glucose and then rapidly stored as fat if you don't eat it, you're also consuming saturated fats. All of that ends up raising your bad cholesterol numbers, your triglycerides puts you at increased risk for heart disease, stroke, and anything with cardiovascular conditions.
Narrator: In one day, Michael can put away as much as five quarter pound hot dogs, a rack of ribs, two steaks, and up to 30 chickens wings.
Varshavski: Red meat is a maybe carcinogen. Like it's still not all the way there. It's like suspected. But the ones that are suspected are the processed meats like the hot dogs and the chicken wings. You want to avoid those and eat those... like almost get rid of them totally. But occasionally if you're going to a football game and you have a wing, to me I think that's a reasonable balance.
Dr. Dow: I am a licensed psychotherapist, specializing in eating disorders and addictive behaviors.
J.J. Virgin: J.J. Virgin, I'm a certified nutrition specialist and a certified health and fitness specialist. This is a ridiculous amount of chicken wings.
Varshavski: I don't like the confrontational nature right away. You can't come in to a healthcare encounter with that kind of attitude and hope for good outcomes. You're setting up the encounter for failure right from the start when you come in judgmental like that.
Female: This would be dinner.
J.J. Virgin: Two and a half pounds of meat right here.
Varshavski: Two and a half pounds of meat is a lot of meat. When we are talking about a portion of meat, it should be around 6 ounces really like a fist amount.
Dr. Dow: That is one-month worth of your meat consumption.
Varshavski: Where is this? Where is this being filmed that they just jammed all of this meat in there? Outside of being a cool visual for TV, I don't know how this helps change his mind. Like if I'm him, I see it and go, "Okay, and?"
Michael: It looks good.
J.J. Virgin: You think this looks good?
Varshavski: Yeah. That's what I was going to say. Like, how do they think this would turn him off?
J.J. Virgin: We see this AA:EPA ratio, which tells you the risk of heart disease.
Varshavski: What is this that they're looking at? This is an anti-gliadin immunology blood test that tells you whether or not you have antibodies to gluten. What does this tell him about his meat consumption? These are not the lab tests that I would show. The test I would show him is his LDL, his triglycerides are going to be quite high. Having really elevated triglycerides puts you at a risk for pancreatitis, which can be a life-threatening condition requiring an ICU stay.
J.J. Virgin: You're 24 with high risk of heart disease.
Varshavski: Yeah. What she was saying and what they were showing all make no sense. Her actual statement is fine. He is at higher risk, but not for the reasons that they just showed.
is a board-certified family physician and social media influencer with more than 8.7 million subscribers.