Alternative treatments for the common cold: good business, bad evidence

The common cold is a perfect condition for providers of alternative medicine:

• it is prevalent (good money to be earned), 
• it is not normally dangerous, 
• it nevertheless reduces quality of life and thus patients look for a treatment, 
• there probably is not a single alternative therapy that does not claim to be effective for it, […]

Read the rest here: Alternative treatments for the common cold: good business, bad evidence

Is Colleen Huber a cancer quack? And more legal thuggery - Naturopathic Diaries

A couple weeks ago, I got a second cease and desist letter. Bastyr University sent the first, but the latest was sent by a naturopath in Tempe, Arizona by the name of Colleen Huber. Just so you know right away the type of person I’m dealing with, she’s been claiming that “her clinic, Nature Works Best Cancer Clinic, has had the most successful results of any clinic in the world.”...

Read on: Is Colleen Huber a cancer quack? And more legal thuggery - Naturopathic Diaries

Alex Jones: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)

Alex Jones is known for pushing conspiracy theories, but he also spends a lot of time promoting his own products. John Oliver and a “doctor” “from” M.I.T. test out his marketing strategy.





(for my money, the best line is "only found in comets... and trace amounts in blueberries" - AT)

What The Fuck Is Goop? - A Scarlet Investigation - scarlet brigade

Goop is a lifestyle brand, created by Paltrow in 2008 that aims to empower and enlighten women. It does so by selling women jade eggs to shove up their vagina and promoting, “death detoxes,” which slowly starve you to death on a diet of privilege and room temperature water.

These are actual instructions from the detox section on the website...

Read the rest of this NFSW dissection: What The Fuck Is Goop? - A Scarlet Investigation - scarlet brigade

Dlisted | Gwyneth Paltrow Isn’t Bothered By The Hate From Stupid, Close-Minded Peasants!

Goopy did an interview with Women’s Health to pimp out her new packs of vitamins, and she was asked about people judging her for trying to get them into vag steaming and snatch eggs. Goopy doesn’t care if people are too simple in the mind to understand her so-forward methods...

Dlisted | Gwyneth Paltrow Isn’t Bothered By The Hate From Stupid, Close-Minded Peasants!

Shilling for Big Herba

All drugs are bad, in any amount. All vitamins, supplements and other SCAM products are good, and the more the better.

That’s the message of WDDTY, brought to you by the advertising budgets of people selling vitamins, supplements and SCAM products. Sunshine News #1: You’re only getting a tenth of what you need No, you really aren’t. Unless …

Read on: Continue reading Shilling for Big Herba →

What do multivitamins do? They render your urine more expensive! | Edzard Ernst

Multivitamins are widely used, mainly for disease prevention, and particularly cardiovascular disease (CVD). But there are only few prospective studies investigating their association with both long- and short-term risk. In view of these facts, new evidence is more than welcome.

The objective of this study was to investigate how multivitamin use is associated with the long- and short-term risk of CVD. A prospective cohort study was conducted of 37,193 women from the Women’s Health Study aged ≥45 y and free of CVD and cancer at baseline who were followed for an average of 16.2 y. At baseline, women self-reported a wide range of lifestyle, clinical, and dietary factors. Women were categorized into 1) no current use and 2) current use of multivitamins. Duration and updated measures over the course of the follow-up to address short-term effects were also considered. Women were followed for major CVD events, including myocardial infarction (MI), stroke, and CVD death...

What do multivitamins do? They render your urine more expensive!

Banning B12

WDDTY has a bit of a downer on the medical establishment, especially since they struck off Andrew Wakefield on the ridiculously flimsy basis that he conducted unapproved invasive tests on vulnerable children, concealed conflicts of influence and published fraudulent research.

So it’s not a surprise to find them championing the cause of Dr. Joseph Chandy …

Continue reading: Banning B12 by wwddtydty appeared first on WWDDTYDTY.

A vindication of Linus Pauling’s bizarre theory that vitamin C prevents cancer? | Edzard Ernst

Linus Carl Pauling (1901 – 1994), the American scientist, peace activist, author, and educator who won two Nobel prizes, was one of the most influential chemists in history and ranks among the most important scientists of the 20th century. Linus Pauling’s work on vitamin C, however, generated considerable controversy. Pauling wrote many papers and a popular book, Cancer and Vitamin C. Vitamin C, we know today, protects cells from oxidative DNA damage and might thereby block carcinogenesis. Pauling popularised the regular intake of vitamin C; eventually he published two studies of end-stage cancer patients; their results apparently showed that vitamin C quadrupled survival times. A re-evaluation, however, found that the vitamin C groups were less sick on entry to the study. Later clinical trials concluded that there was no benefit to high-dose vitamin C. Since then, the established opinion is that the best evidence does not support a role for high dose vitamin C in the treatment of cancer. Despite all this, high dose IV vitamin C is in unexpectedly wide use by CAM practitioners.

Yesterday, new evidence has been published in the highly respected journal ‘Nature’; does it vindicate Pauling and his followers?

Read on: A vindication of Linus Pauling’s bizarre theory that vitamin C prevents cancer?

The Vitamin B scam. Don’t trust Boots

(First posted 21 Nov, 2007)

This advertisement has to be one of the sneakiest bits of spin that I’ve seen in a while. It appeared in today’s Guardian. And a lot more people will see it than will look at the homeopathic nonsense on the Boots ‘education’ site.

What on earth does it mean? One interpretation could be this. We can’t make false claims for Vitamin(s) B in print, but your Boots Pharmacy Team will be happy to do so in private. OK gang, let’s find out. Get out there and ask them. I’ll be happy to post the answers you get (one of those little mp3 recorders is useful).

The Boots web site isn’t much better. Their Vitality Overview says...


Read the rest here: The Vitamin B scam. Don’t trust Boots (DC's Improbable Science)

Another ‘natural’ medicine hits the dust | Edzard Ernst

Niacin – also known as vitamin B₃ or nicotinic acid -is a natural compound C₆H₅NO₂) and an essential nutrient for humans. It is water-soluble, which means it is not stored in the body. Excess amounts of the vitamin leave the body through the urine. That means we need a continuous supply of niacin in your diet.

Niacin is found in variety of foods, including liver, chicken, beef, fish, cereal, peanuts and legumes. It can also be synthesized from tryptophan, an essential amino acid found in protein. Niacin has long been an accepted treatment for high cholesterol. It is well-documented to increase the levels of high-density cholesterol (HDL or “good cholesterol”) and to decrease the levels of low-density cholesterol (LDL or “bad cholesterol”).

But what do these effects really mean? Do they translate into true health benefits? A brand-new study casts doubt on the value of niacin therapy:

After a pre-randomization run-in phase to standardize the background statin-based LDL cholesterol-lowering therapy and to establish participants’ ability to take extended-release niacin without clinically significant adverse effects, the researchers randomly assigned 25,673 adults with vascular disease to receive 2 g of extended-release niacin and 40 mg of laropiprant or a matching placebo daily. The primary outcome was the first major vascular event (non-fatal myocardial infarction, death from coronary causes, stroke, or arterial revascularization).

Read it all here: Another ‘natural’ medicine hits the dust