Are you looking for love but don鈥檛 want to explain why you鈥檝e eliminated seed oils from your diet? The dating app听听might be right for you. Made for MAHA followers, biohackers, and people who equate 鈥渃hemical鈥� with 鈥渢oxic,鈥� Primal Match is the latest commercial offering from Mikhaila Peterson, currently signing up interested parties for early access. (There鈥檚 a free tier but only the premium membership unlocks all features.)
Peterson rose to fame shortly after her father, the Canadian psychologist and reactionary public intellectual Jordan Peterson, who thought听听for misgendering someone. (This was听.) While her dad鈥檚 prominence came from his crusade against progressivism and his desire to teach young men to clean their room, Mikhaila鈥檚 was focused on food.听
She had suffered from juvenile arthritis (and a slew of symptoms) and had allegedly cured herself by eliminating everything but steak and salt from her dietary regimen. Her carnivore diet, later renamed the Lion Diet, was the secret cure-all for chronic conditions that doctors were too incompetent or corrupt to heal. Even her dad鈥檚 refractory depression was supposedly obliterated by getting rid of pesky fruits, vegetables, and grains.
Taking a snapshot of what Mikhaila Peterson claims on her popular podcast at any point in time makes her look like a champion for the medically disaffected: she has figured out what ails them, and which expert can be trusted, and even sells you the solution.
But when we zoom out and watch her claims over time, it becomes obvious that what she is doing is attaching herself to a fringe theory, making money off of it, then moving on to the next one when her cure-all turns out not to have cured her after all.
The culprit is food
It started with the carnivore diet. All beef, all the time. Because the name sounded 鈥渟ocially weird,鈥� she听听as the Lion Diet. See, you need the strength of a lion to combat chronic disease听补苍诲听to do it without the medical establishment, she explained.
I wrote about it听nearly a decade ago. Mikhaila claimed 鈥渢he beef thing鈥� treated her juvenile arthritis, but it turns out that听听who receive the diagnosis go into remission within ten years. Very few of them, if any, cut out everything but red meat.
What about her dad鈥檚 鈥渃rippling, life-ruining depression鈥� which he apparently has had听? Beef cured it! In a 2018 appearance on听The Joe Rogan Experience, this is how Jordan Peterson himself rattled off the miracles of his family鈥檚 restrictive diet. When he first switched to eating 鈥渃ucumbers, lettuce, broccoli, chicken, and beef,鈥� he听听he lost fifty pounds, stopped snoring, started waking up with a clear mind, lost the floaters in his eyes, and needed less sleep to function鈥攁nd he was able to say goodbye to his psoriasis, the numbness in his legs, and his decades-long gum disease. When he finally only ate steak and salt, his anxiety also decreased dramatically and he no longer needed his antidepressants. 鈥淒epression is gone,鈥� he told Rogan.
The Joe Rogan Experience听only gets parts of its views on YouTube. On that video platform, this听听currently has over 24.6 million views.听
I understand, from personal experience, trying to figure out a weird affliction by experimenting and throwing spaghetti at the wall. To do so in the privacy of one鈥檚 own life is reasonable, sometimes fortuitous, but possibly misguided鈥攖he siren song of dangerous quack treatments can be hard to resist. But to do it publicly and to profit from one鈥檚 mistaken discoveries is much more harmful.
In 2018, the all-beef diet had cured Jordan鈥檚 depression, tens of millions of people learned. But in 2026, Mikhaila听听that her dad鈥檚 mental woes had not vanished: 鈥渋t鈥檚 not the kind of depression you can normally diet and exercise away.鈥� The carnivore diet had helped, she now claimed, but the much-vaunted magic bullet had been an exaggeration. It hadn鈥檛 even worked for her: in 2020, she thought beef was making her sick, so she听stopped eating beef听补苍诲听. Why? She hypothesized鈥攁nd so much of what she does is hypothesizing and marketing her unproven conjectures鈥攖hat North American beef was听aged听more and the ageing of the beef somehow made her sick. Croatian beef, eaten while on a trip, apparently wasn鈥檛 aged and she could digest it fine, but since she didn鈥檛 live in Croatia, she had to make changes. So, her exceptional diet was in like a lion, out like a lamb.
It didn鈥檛 stop Mikhaila from making money from the Lion Diet. Her podcast has sponsors, like Brooklyn Biltong, a jerky alternative consisting in tender steak slices in colourful pouches perfect for snacking, and Ancestral Supplements, the beef organ supplement company started by the Liver King, whose听听补苍诲听听against Joe Rogan have been well documented.
A听听of the carnivore diet by Practice-based Evidence in Nutrition (PEN) lists the lack of adequate studies, the overreliance on testimonials and self-reports, and its low levels of magnesium, calcium, vitamin C, and thiamin (and occasionally iron, iodine, potassium, and folate as well), with fibre intake being considerably lower than what is recommended and sodium well above. The carnivore diet will never be in the top 10 eating plans recommended by dietitians, and its claim to help people with weird symptoms is based on anecdotes. Even Mikhaila Peterson herself has had to reevaluate her appreciation of it.
If food wasn鈥檛 solely responsible for her ill health, and a restricted diet hadn鈥檛 cured her, what exactly was the bugaboo?
The culprit is mould
听The answer, at first, was her breast implants, which听. Then, it was the听she experienced while living in Tennessee, giving her brain fog. Subsequently, she moved to Miami in 2022, but the ill health did not abate. It turns out there was mould in her Florida house, which forced her to completely renovate it, sell it, and move to Arizona to undergo 鈥渕ould treatment.鈥� (I will be using the Canadian/British spelling; it is written 鈥渕old鈥� in the United States.)
And so she took to her microphone to denounce mould as an invisible cause of illness. She created the website biotoxin.com to share papers linking mould to every conceivable disease and condition鈥攁utism, migraine, pain, even Parkinson鈥檚 disease. Sure, you can find individual studies showing preliminary evidence that there might possibly be some kind of link between mould exposure and, let鈥檚 say, dementia; but this should not be understood as 鈥渕ould causes dementia.鈥�
Despite this, in听, she plugs a US$ 300 kit that analyzes household dust for mould and a US$ 342 kit that tests for toxic molecules produced by mould. Its maker鈥檚听听reminds anxious consumers that mould can be 鈥渁ssociated with鈥� cancer, infertility, and multiple sclerosis. A different kit was subsequently endorsed by Mikhaila听: instead of paying once, this one is, of course, a听. And it comes with supplements and a peptide to rescue your body from mould exposure.
If we pull ourselves out of this paranoid morass, however, we will realize that mould is not The One True Cause of All Diseases, just like the carnivore diet was not a panacea. 鈥淢ould鈥� and 鈥渕ildew鈥� are colloquial terms that refer to visible fungus growing on indoor surfaces. In humid conditions, mould will easily reproduce and release acids and enzymes that will break down decaying material. They play a key role in ecosystems, and some of the molecules they produce have been beneficial to us, like penicillin.
The mere presence of mould in a house听, and any symptom felt while living in this house should not, willy-nilly, be attributed to the mould. The idea that 鈥渄ampness means mould and mould explains all of my symptoms鈥� is ill-judged. Dampness fosters mildew, yes, but it also attracts bacteria and other microorganisms, 补苍诲听they听could be the culprit behind an illness鈥攐r something else entirely.
The vast majority of species of mould, meanwhile, do not make us sick; the few that do are able to cause illness听. They can infect us directly; they can cause or aggravate allergies and asthma; they can act as an irritant; and in rare cases can create toxic reactions. But because of media coverage in the 1990s of听, people began to associate any vague symptom鈥攂rain fog, fatigue, dizziness鈥攖o hidden, toxic mould.
Meanwhile, testing to see if mould is responsible for a specific health symptom is a lot听听than direct-to-consumer companies would have you believe. Sampling dust for fungi will not be representative of what is breathed in, and sampling the air only once is meaningless. In fact, you can detect fungus spores in the air of almost any house. Blood tests that rely on immunoglobulin G (IgG) to prove exposure to mould are abused: given that mould and its byproducts are everywhere (including in cheese, soy sauce, and many other ingredients), we have all been exposed, and most of us will test positive on one of these tests. While mildew is a problem in buildings, its impact on human health is a case of people making a mountain out of, well, a mould hill.
But mould was still not the end of the line for Mikhaila Peterson. Now, it鈥檚 mitochondria.
The culprit is mitochondrial dysfunction
Mitochondria are real: they are the little factories inside of our cells charged with turning our food into energy. Some people have actual mitochondrial听diseases听because a key component inside their mitochondria is mutated. A much vaguer phenomenon known as mitochondrial听dysfunction听is also real, but it has been听grossly exaggerated听and serves as one of many boogeymen听du jour听for the Make America Healthy Again movement. Mikhaila Peterson had to jump on the bandwagon, and her first mention of it on her podcast appears to be from early 2023. So, now, this is her main culprit.
In trying to figure out why she is sick, she has jumped from one fringe theory to the next, and recently she has had guests on that have attempted to cobble them together into some sort of comprehensive health model that would raise the eyebrows of most doctors and scientists.听
Last April, Chris Masterjohn, who holds a doctorate in nutritional sciences,听听on Mikhaila鈥檚 show. Juvenile arthritis, which Mikhaila had, can be treated by medication that blocks an inflammatory mediator, TNF-alpha, but this apparently causes mitochondrial dysfunction because TNF-alpha is both bad听补苍诲听good. With regards to the carnivore diet helping, eating red meat means consuming a lot of carnitine, a molecule that allegedly rescues your faulty mitochondria. And mould produces toxins, and these toxins actually target the mitochondria. It鈥檚 all connected... if you force these connections without proving them scientifically.
This type of explanation will be appealing to chronically sick patients who have never done biomedical research. It strings technical terms they are unfamiliar with into a story that sounds plausible. It鈥檚 like a Rube Goldberg machine, or one of those messages spelled out on a fridge with word magnets: first this, then that, then that, and finally this.
I want to show how easy it is to construct these stories. I opened my old molecular biology textbook (Molecular Cell Biology, 4th听edition, by Lodish and others) at a random page (769, if you鈥檙e playing at home) and imagined a theory I could promote on Mikhaila鈥檚 podcast based on the information that was on that page. My textbook reminded me that myosin is a molecular motor inside our cells and that it moves, like a train, on actin filaments. And funnily enough, you can break myosin down using an enzyme called papain. In what is papain found? The papaya fruit.
I could now use this knowledge to go on her podcast and, with adequate confidence and calm in my voice, promote my papain-free diet, sure to cure brain fog and chronic fatigue and likely to help you build muscles. Myosin, after all, is crucial to cell function. You don鈥檛 want it to break down, now do you? I might also be able to find a molecule that blocks the action of papain and sell it as a supplement so that people could continue enjoying papaya without feeling sluggish. And if the papaya-eating masses are not a big enough consumer base, I could add that other fruits contain similar enzymes that break down鈥攔ead 鈥渄amage!鈥濃�攖he essential proteins we need: pineapples, figs, kiwis, mangoes. All the more reason to platform me and my theory.
This is how you take molecular research, grossly misinterpret it, and turn it into a profitable health crusade.
You don鈥檛 need to be a scammer鈥攕omeone who lies for money鈥攖o do this. You simply need to fail to understand how scientific research works and have enough distrust of mainstream medicine to latch onto seductive alternatives. Armed with this new, secret knowledge, you monetize it because you have bills to pay and you think you are genuinely helping people.
The sickest influencers around
Mikhaila Peterson鈥檚 podcast is a fascinating intersection between personal health and pseudoscience communication. Her approach is to bypass actual consults; she just invites whichever 鈥渆xpert鈥濃�攁 chiropractor, a martial arts champ who healed himself from parasites, the CEO of a for-profit company鈥攕he wants to talk to about her health onto her podcast, and the episode becomes a free appointment. When she was looking for an expert on mould, she听, 鈥渋nstead of waiting three months to talk to someone, I can just say, do you want to come on the podcast?鈥� A couple of years ago, she听听to her guest鈥攁 stem cell doctor to the stars鈥攖hat she didn鈥檛 sweat properly in a sauna. Could this be due to mould? Her guest said yes, emphatically, and recommended she buy a sweatsuit online. She is filming her appointments with questionable health coaches and spreading the pseudoscience to anyone watching.
Her podcast sows doubt in medicine, in vaccines, in conventional science. The multiple times she has been pregnant have been fertile ground for her to discuss what her babies will and will not be having. The vitamin K shot to prevent bleeding in a newborn? Mikhaila听, especially since听maybe听vitamin K levels are听supposed听to be low in a baby鈥攁n argument that hints at 鈥淢other Nature knows best鈥� or 鈥淕od doesn鈥檛 make mistakes.鈥� I spoke to an actual pediatrician, Dr. Clay Jones, who finds himself trying to convince young parents not to skip the vitamin K shot, discussions which he says are morally fatiguing. 鈥淚n the history of modern public health measures,鈥� he wrote to me, 鈥渢here are very few that outmatch the safety and potential for preventing loss of life and lifelong disability than intramuscular vitamin K for newborns.鈥� Mikhaila hums and haws over preservatives in the shot, even though vitamin K shots exist without them. Her alternative is doses given by mouth, but Dr. Jones tells me that breakthrough bleeding can still occur with those. A听听of over 2,000,000 births in Sweden shows that refusal of the vitamin K shot is on the rise, and with it comes a higher risk of bleeding episodes, including bleeding inside the skull.
Because vitamin K is typically administered with a syringe, it has erroneously been lumped under the category 鈥渧accines鈥� by people who have fallen for or are themselves promoting harmful misinformation on immunizations. This kind of anti-medicine streak, combined with the Petersons鈥� complicated history dealing with mental illness and psychiatric medication, has turned Mikhaila into a campaigner against psychiatric drugs, like antidepressants. This crusade is echoed in the proclamations made by Robert F. Kennedy Jr, the anti-vaxxer who is in charge of healthcare in the United States.
I asked Dr. Tyler Black, a clinical assistant professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of British Columbia, about many of the allegations Mikhaila Peterson made against psychiatric drugs. While affluent, white, suburban patients听can听be overtreated with them, there are many who are undertreated for mental health issues: rural, non-white, and immigrant people, as well as those living in urban centres. There is no current evidence that SSRIs, used to treat depression and anxiety, cause mitochondrial damage. Meanwhile, psychiatrists have realized in the last 25 years that some drugs can increase suicidality in youth; that sexual side effects are real and need to be considered; and that stopping such drugs should not be done cold turkey, and family doctors are catching on. But Black personally feels鈥攁nd I agree鈥攖hat what we are witnessing here is run-of-the-mill anti-psychiatry being laundered in mainstream conversations.
I need to make one thing clear: Mikhaila Peterson听should听try to figure out what is making her sick. I am not advocating for her to snuff out her inquisitiveness. Dealing with strange symptoms for which no cause is identified is immensely frustrating. The problem arises when you don鈥檛 understand the all-too-important winnowing process that early, exciting scientific findings must go through before new therapies are approved. What looks good in mice rarely pans out in humans. 鈥淓ureka!鈥� is most often followed by a disappointed 鈥�... oh.鈥� When you do not understand this crucial fact about scientific research and you have a large platform, you end up misinforming your audience.
And with the Petersons, we are far from influencers who sell us health products听because听they look like the picture of health and we want to buy their secret. Mikhaila Peterson speaks of听听she experienced as a teenager and again after moving into a mould-infested house as an adult. The example she gives is of looking at a knife and her mind going 鈥淜NIFE!鈥� She has become her dad鈥檚 fiercest health advocate and influencer, and yet an enumeration of Jordan鈥檚 woes in the last decade alone is stupefying and is always framed as the worst possible version of the condition. Anxiety, depression, benzodiazepine withdrawal syndrome (for which Russian doctors put him in an eight-day coma followed by a month-long stay in an ICU), bilateral pneumonia, sepsis, temporary loss of motor skills, COVID-19 infection, chronic inflammatory response syndrome (which is听), polyneuropathy, myopathy, akathisia, pulmonary hypertension, severe reactions to most medications, an 鈥渙verwhelming sense of impending doom鈥� and complete sleeplessness for a month due to drinking apple cider and, according to Mikhaila, spiritual attacks. It seems like the all-beef diet was not exactly the bee鈥檚 knees.
So, when you see Mikhaila Peterson standing behind a new health product, a thick coating of credulity is needed to swallow that pill. One of those pills is听, a supplement 鈥渕ade鈥� by Mikhaila herself. It is alleged to prevent hangovers鈥攊ts website reads 鈥渢he gold standard for post-celebration replenishment,鈥� borrowing a misused expression from the Kennedy health department. Its main ingredient is dihydromyricetin, same as in Thrive+, an after-alcohol aid听I wrote about in 2018. There is听听it helps prevent hangovers.
Maybe we should just listen to Mikhaila鈥檚 own words. In 2021, she听听that she used to be very much into hard scientific evidence, looking for peer-reviewed papers. 鈥淎nd now, I have no idea what鈥檚 true anymore,鈥� she concluded before chuckling.
Take-home message:
- In trying to figure out what is making her sick, Mikhaila Peterson has publicly promoted misguided notions regarding the carnivore diet, mould, mitochondria, and psychiatric drugs.
- Her podcast is a way for her to get free appointments with people she mistakenly regards as health experts, and she monetizes it by receiving sponsorships from companies selling beef organ supplements and mould detection kits.
- She regularly promotes doubt in medical doctors, vaccines, and a number of safe and effective interventions like the vitamin K shot given to newborns.
