UAlberta Law Professor and renowned celebrity health fad debunker Timothy Caulfield is no stranger to the television camera, having appeared as an expert commentator on health trends on innumerable TV talk shows. This fall he further bolstered his TV cred with the launch of his own program, A User's Guide to Cheating Death, which debuted on Monday, September 18, 2017 on Vision TV.
The six-episode, hour-long documentary series produced by the Toronto-based production company Peacock Alley Entertainment aims to do precisely what Caulfield has been doing for years - separate fact from fiction in the jungle of alternative health fads, trendy diets and celebrity snake oil cures that seem to promise everything short of actual immortality. In the spirit of primetime skeptics like Penn and Teller and the MythBusters gang, the health law researcher and acclaimed author of Is Gwyneth Paltrow Wrong About Everything? takes on one trendy cure at a time (often trying it himself) and assesses each on its own terms.
While Caulfield's telegenic style makes this shift to the TV documentary world a natural career move, his emphasis remains on public education rather than simply a desire to knock celebrities off their pedestals and pooh-pooh their fans for their gullibility. A User's Guide to Cheating Death dives deep into increasingly controversial (and lucrative) procedures, diets and revived ancient therapies that promise to dramatically alter people's bodies or radically improve their health, most of which range from high-priced placebos at best to injurious undertakings at worst.
"We're all inundated with crazy diet, exercise and beauty advice, and nobody is immune to it. This show is my attempt to help consumers take a rational, skeptical look at the science behind these trends so as to make educated decisions."