Category: Herbs & Supplements
POM: Not So Wonderful
“POM Wonderful” is a brand of pomegranate juice. It is manufactured by a company owned by Linda and Stewart Resnick, California billionaires who pretty much single-handedly created a multi-million dollar market for pomegranate juice where none existed before. Or, as LA Times columnist Michael Hilzik wrote, It has long been clear that the most wonderful thing about Pom Wonderful pomegranate juice is...
Reporting Preliminary Findings
While scanning through recent science press releases I came across an interesting study looking at the use of a pharmaceutical grade antioxidant, N-Acetylcysteine (NAC), in the treatment of certain symptoms of autism. This is a small pilot study, but it did have a double-blind placebo controlled design. The press release reports: During the 12-week trial, NAC treatment decreased irritability scores from 13.1...
Bee Pollen Supplements – Not Safe or Effective
Among the myriad of supplements being offered to the public are various bee products, including bee pollen. The claims made for bee pollen supplements are typically over-hyped and evidence-free, as is typical of this poorly regulated industry. The claims from bee-pollen-supplements.com are representative: The benefits are enormous and the substance has been proven by many health experts. This particular substance is known...
Bach Flower Remedies
May is the month associated with flowers, so I thought it would be timely to look at flower remedies. You may have heard of “rescue remedy” or other Bach flower remedies. (The preferred pronunciation is “Batch,” but it’s also acceptable to pronounce it like the composer.) They contain a very small amount of flower material in a 50:50 solution of brandy and...
Cannibalism?
For all the goofiness that is SCAM, I never thought I would have a post with Cannibalism in the title. The ability for humans to find imaginary healing properties in everything from duck liver and heart diluted 1:100 200 times, rhinoceros horns, and waving hands over people to adjust energy fields that do not exist is remarkable. Somehow I never thought Jeffrey...
The drug expiry date: A necessary safety measure, or yet another Big Pharma conspiracy?
Consider this scenario: You’re in good health and take no prescription drugs. You use the following remedies occasionally: Excedrin for the rare migraine Arnica 30CH for bumps and bruises Echinacea capsules, when you feel a cold coming on Today you look in your cupboard, and notice all three products expired last year. Would you still consider taking any of them? Why or...
Funding CAM Research
Paul Offit has published a thoughtful essay in the most recent Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) in which he argues against funding research into complementary and alternative therapies (CAM). Offit is a leading critic of the anti-vaccine movement and has written popular books discrediting many of their claims, such as disproved claim for a connection between some vaccines or ingredients...
Supplements and cancer prevention
The bloggers here have been very critical of a law passed nearly 20 years ago, commonly referred to as the DSHEA of 1994. The abbreviation DSHEA stands for about as Orwellian a name for a law as I can imagine: the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act. Of course, as we’ve pointed out time and time again, the DSHEA is not about...
Consumer Reports and Alternative Therapies
Consumer Reports (CR) and its Health Newsletter provide sound advice about nutrition and medicine, with one exception: their recommendations concerning alternative therapies, especially dietary supplements. With regard to dietary supplements, part of the problem is the failure of CR to make a distinction between authentic dietary supplements, such as multivitamins and minerals, and non-vitamin, non-mineral medicinal products. For example, the September 2010...
Spring Update on Prior Posts
Although I write the definitive entries on topics in this blog, new information trickles in after publication. The new studies are often not worth an entire entry, recapitulating prior essays, but the new information is still worth a mention. What follows are updates on topics covered in prior SBM posts. Raw Milk In Oregon we are having a small outbreak of infections...