“Have fun with your jaw melting off:” Influencer promotes radioactive water on Instagram
It’s 2026, but the urge to drink radioactive water is still here.
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- Matt Roeske promoted drinking and bathing in radioactive water to more than 500,000 Instagram followers.
- He said he had drunk water from a vintage radium jug for 250 days.
- Radithor, a radium-laced drink, was stopped after Eben Byers died of jaw cancer after drinking 1,400 bottles.
An influencer goes back in time by drinking from a radioactive water jug from 1920, saying it’s good for your health.
Matt Roeske, a health influencer who runs the Instagram account @cultivateelevate with more than 500,000 followers, has been promoting radioactive water as good for one’s health.
In a video that has more than 11,000 likes at the time of publishing, the man shows himself holding “a radium water bottle” and drinking what appears to be radioactive water.
“I’ve been drinking it for 250 days now,” he says in the video.
Roeske claimed that drinking or bathing in radioactive water is actually beneficial, while holding a water tank from the 1920s, the time when such water was considered a cure for a number of illnesses.
Bringing back the old claims
The jug or a radioactive crock pot seen in the influencer’s video is a product that was once sold. It had a radium and uranium lining to “remove cellular poisons,” according to the US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).
Roeske claims he uses this vintage pot, calling it “perfectly harmless,” despite himself shoving what seems to be a radioactivity meter inside the pot, attesting to radioactivity.
The man blamed the “Rothschild medical system” for this “cure” being taken down, simply because it didn’t want people to have this “solution” to many of their health problems.
The account from which Roeske shares his beliefs, Cultivate Elevate, belongs to a wellness brand that sells holistic supplements and superfoods.
When contacted, the brand’s representative didn’t comment on these health claims, but shared Roeske’s 2 videos on radium water, NewsGuard reported.
Radiation poisoning from the past
During the period from 1920 to 1930, many would drink Radithor, a laced water containing radium isotopes, believing it would provide an energy boost and help combat pain, high blood pressure, digestive issues, headaches, and more.
It was believed that Radithor could help with more than 150 conditions.
That was until the 1930s, when Eben Byers, an American socialite and industrialist, died of jaw cancer after drinking 1,400 bottles of Radithor.
During that time, the FTC ordered the company that produced the medicine to stop production.
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Users react to influencer’s claims
The video sparked an online discussion, with some agreeing on the benefits of radium.
Some of them suggested that people might be less susceptible to radiation if they were exposed to it more often, while others used radiation-based cancer treatment as proof that it actually helps.
“How do I get one of these!?” asked another user.
“Who’s been to Radium Hot Springs in BC? I always feel so good after a soak there!” wrote one user.
Some users criticized the man’s choice, sharing examples from history when radium was once again deemed unsafe.
“Have fun with your jaw melting off,” added one user.
“[...] We can also ask Alexander Litvinenko, who was poisoned with polonium-210, how much fun did he have dying from radiation poisoning? Or Marie Curie,” shared another netizen.
