We Did a Deep Dive on All the Health Advice From Kourtney Kardashian’s Poosh
You already know: The Kardashian-Jenners are hustlers. Makeup lines, shapewear, activewear, and denim brands, even men’s socks—they do all of the things. And this summer, the Healthy Spice of the fam, Kourtney Kardashian, blessed the people with her lifestyle website, Poosh. “I get endless questions about food, kids, beauty, and fashion, so I decided to create Poosh, a curated experience and a destination for modern living,” she explained on the site.
The Most Interesting to Look At promises to deliver advice for living your best healthy life without judging you for eating gluten or wearing leather, which, cool! But because Kourt isn’t an MD—yet—and has partaken in some *clears throat* questionable fads in the name of wellness (like that, um, flat tummy tea moment), we’re curious how legit her fitness and nutrition tips are. And turns out, they’re not all bad.
Here, the Kourt-approved health content at Poosh.com ranked from most legit to most sketch. Take this journey with us.
1. Cardio won’t help you build muscle.
In a piece about snacks that help you get swole, a Poosh writer explains that the secret to gaining metabolism-boosting muscle is to keep your heart rate low when you work out. And they’re not wrong, according to Jessie Haggerty, registered dietician nutritionist and certified personal trainer.
A high-intensity workout, like running or a Spin class, won’t help you put on muscle. But slowing down tooo much won’t help you score sexy biceps or a bubblier booty either. To score those gains, you’ll have to do weight-bearing exercises like barbell squats, bicep curls, and weighted lunges to stimulate muscle growth.
2. Artificial sweeteners might make you want actual sugar.
Diet Coke fans, I’m sorry! One of Poosh’s contributors writes that studies show artificial sweeteners can cause people to crave the real stuff. And this is, sadly, true-ish. We need more research before we can definitively say that artificial sweeteners trigger a hankering for delicious things made with sugar, but a study published in the Yale Journal of Biology and Medicine *did* suggest that fake sugar makes us want more of the real deal.
“Animals seek food to satisfy the inherent craving for sweetness,” the study’s authors write. “Lack of complete satisfaction, likely because of the failure to activate the post-ingestive component, further fuels the food-seeking behavior.” So if you were looking for a reason to just eat the OG (not that you need one, guys), here you go.
3. Being stressed can make you bloated.
Quick human bio lesson for ya: Feeling anxious can trigger your adrenal glands to release the stress hormone cortisol (along with a bunch of others), according to the Mayo Clinic. This fight-or-flight hormone increases your blood sugar and suppresses your digestive system along with other bodily functions that aren’t helpful if you’re running for your life.
The experts at Poosh write that this whole process leads to bloating. While it’s unclear whether a rough day at work can instantly trigger puffy feels, research published in the journal Vitamins and Hormones suggests that anxiety can contribute to symptoms of irritable bowel syndrome, which include bloating.
Even though there isn’t a super-strong correlation between bloating and freaking the fack out, reducing stress by working out, getting more sleep, or even getting a massage lowers your cortisol levels and maybe even solves your bloat struggle. Worth a shot?
4. You can lift your boobs with strength training.
Let’s get one thing straight: Your boobs are amazing just the way they are. High, low, high and low, they’re all just freaking wonderful. But because Google exists, the internet is here to suggest ways you can transform your set without surgery. What a time to be alive.
Per Poosh, chest-strengthening exercises like incline push-ups, chest presses, chest flys, and pullovers can “firm up” your boobs. And, yes, this could actually work. That’s because as the muscles become stronger and larger, they can slightly lift the overlying breast tissue. But if you prefer different chest-focused moves, like plain old push-ups, those will work too, says Haggerty.
5. Garlic can clear your skin.
The experts at Poosh write that garlic (mmmmm, garlic) contains a chemical called allicin, which can interact with your blood to kill off harmful bacteria and viruses, like the kind that trigger acne. Cool!
Charlotte Noorollah, MD, New York City–based dermatologist at The Dermatology Specialists, says there’s little evidence that eating more garlic improves acne. If you’re not allergic, garlic will not make your skin worse, but going out of your way to eat it might not do much more than be delicious.
6. Peppermint tea squashes bloating.
According to the “Poosh Guide to Different Tea Types,” “peppermint is the best to relieve bloating, help with digestion, and soothe an upset stomach.” And there is some scientific evidence that the minty brew relaxes stomach muscles in animals, says Deborah Proctor, MD, medical director for the Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD) Program at Yale University. As for humans, the research is inconclusive, she adds. Although it might ease stomach cramps, nausea, and bloating, a controlled study (in which everyone consumed the same amount of peppermint tea in the same way, in the same setting, at the same time) is needed to confirm the theory, explains Dr. Proctor.
And FWIW, peppermint is associated with heartburn, says Dr. Proctor. So if that’s already an issue for you, maybe don’t try this at home. Still, if peppermint tea makes you feel good, go ahead and boil that water. But temper your expectations: There’s no telling if peppermint has the same effect you’d get from GasX or Beano.
7. Eating some ginger paste can prevent bloating.
Bloating can be seriously uncomfy, so it makes sense that Team Poosh has lots of advice for tackling the issue. Besides lowering stress levels, the writers at Kourtney’s site suggest that throwing a little peeled ginger into a blender and eating it (?) can do the trick. Like peppermint tea, however, research supporting this claim is mostly anecdotal, says Dr. Proctor.
However, one study found that ginger can be a safe and effective remedy for preventing nausea and vomiting in pregnant women and cancer patients by “increasing the gastric tone and motility,” which is a fancy way of saying it helps you digest food faster. So if you’re struggling to go to the bathroom, ginger might help.
8. Essential oils can soothe your stuffy nose and stressy vibes.
In a primer on essential oils, or concentrated extracts from plants that smell super intense, Poosh credits the scents with relieving anxiety and nasty cold symptoms like congestion when inhaled, applied to your skin, or added to a bath. The writer explains that breathing in the oil’s scent triggers olfactory receptors in your nose to send signals to your brain, which causes a chemical reaction that can have mental and physical effects.
And it maybe works, says Tania Elliott, MD, an allergist and clinical instructor of medicine at New York University. Peppermint and eucalyptus oils could provide a cooling sensation that aids in decongestion when sniffed, she says. Also, Dr. Elliot adds, some research suggests that lavender oil may alleviate symptoms of anxiety. Unfortch, there’s no study that definitively proves any of these claims.
9. Matcha will detox your bod.
This green shit is everywhere, and the people at Poosh say it’s a great drank if you’re looking for some “detoxification” action.
Sadly, it’s not legit, says Dr. Elliot. Here’s what’s up: Your liver’s main job is to catch and eliminate toxins from medications, drugs, and booze as well as air pollution and rando food additives, says Dr. Elliot. Although one study found that rats who consumed matcha for 15 weeks were less likely to develop kidney and liver damage than rats who didn’t, it’s not clear if their livers were actually better at eliminating toxins when they drank the matcha.
Plus, they’re rats, so ˉ\_(ツ)_/ˉ.
That said, matcha is full of antioxidants, which are said to improve immune and heart health and reduce cancer risk. So if you like it, there’s no harm in drinking it.
10. Drinking anything with your meal messes with digestion.
Erm? McScuse me? In this piece called “Why It’s Not Good to Drink Fluids While Eating,” the writer explains that combining food and drink at a meal makes your body work extra hard to digest food, causing digestive issues.
As it turns out, our bodies are actually pretty awesome at digesting both food and liquids at the same time. Magic! No matter how many drinks we down, the stomach and the rest of the digestive system break down liquids, then digestible solids (aka your food), and indigestible solids (also your food) in order.
This food philosophy is associated with the food combining diet, which has roots in Ayurveda, a system of traditional Hindu medicine. (Note: This is not meant to be a critique of the spiritual practice.) However, the benefits of this plan are largely scientifically unproven.
11. Caffeine spikes your blood sugar and makes you crave sugar.
The people at Poosh claim drinking a caffeinated beverage on an empty belly causes a quick spike in blood sugar followed by a crash, which leaves you desperate for a cupcake.
Buuut if your caffeinated bevvie doesn’t contain any sugar, it can’t increase your blood sugar, says Haggerty. Still, caffeine can make you feel energized (or jittery), which mimics a sugar high. But it’s not the same thing.
12. Drinking chlorophyll water rids your liver of toxins.
Let’s take this back to middle school science, y’all. As you might recall, chlorophyll is the green pigment in plants and algae that makes photosynthesis (how plants turn sunlight into food) possible. That green stuff contains antioxidants like vitamins C and E, which are really good for you. Yay!
Poosh says toxic stuff, including thoughts, feelings, pollution, and toxins like booze, binds to chlorophyll and kindly escorts it out of our bods through waste. And while there are some animal studies that suggest chlorophyll works this way (not the thoughts and feelings part, btw), there aren’t any human studies to solidify that theory.
As for the detox benefits in general, that’s also still unclear. Although a teeny study in the journal Cancer Prevention Research of four people found that ingesting chlorophyll supplements reduced the levels of a toxic fungus in their bods, we need waaay more research to prove that this green goodness is an effective “detoxifier.”
Consuming it in water is one way to incorporate it into your diet, and you can make your own by blending parsley, spinach, wheatgrass, or arugula with water. Yum? Or you can just eat some green veggies. Either way!
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