Results for: dietary supplements
FDA Zicam Warning
On June 16th the FDA issued a warning advising consumers not to use Zicam Nasal Gel or Nasal Swabs because of reports that it can damage the sense of smell, a condition called anosmia. This event highlights some problems with current regulations of health products. There have been 130 cases reported to the FDA of decreased sense of smell following the use...
How do scientists become cranks and doctors quacks?
What are the characteristics of physicians and scientists that lead them to go down the dark paths of quackery and pseudoscience?
The case of chemotherapy refusenik Daniel Hauser
I’ve written before about clinical trials as one place where “the rubber hits the road,” so to speak regarding the interface between science-based medicine and actual medical practice. Another critical place where an equal amount of rubber hits an equal amount of road is how the medical system and the law deal with the medical care of minors. In the vast majority...
How I would run the CAM club
During the past academic year, I have written about CAM on campus for my student newspaper and fancy myself now somewhat notorious among the students who care about the issue. My article in the fall issue was a review of a homeopathy lecture that I described in detail for my first SBM post. In the winter issue I discussed two dueling WSJ opinions and...
Modern shamanism—naturopathy for hypertension
I’m a primary care physician. What I, other internists, pediatricians, and family medicine docs do is prevent and treat common diseases. When we get to diseases that require more specialized care, we refer to our specialist colleagues. There is a movement afoot to broaden the role of naturopaths to make them primary care doctors. The big difference between naturopaths and real primary...
CAM on campus: Naturopathy
The latest event sponsored by “integrative medicine” proponents on my medical school campus featured the naturopath “Dr.” PB, a 2003 graduate and valedictorian from Bastyr University. Advertisements all over campus billed the lecture as “Stress, nutrition, and the GI tract,” which seemed innocuous enough. However, the lecture title as written on PB’s slide show was “Naturopathic apologetics for treating the gut.” He explained “treating the gut” to mean that...
The China Study
One of our readers asked that we evaluate a book I had not previously heard of: The China Study: Startling Implications for Diet, Weight Loss and Long-Term Health, by nutrition researcher T. Colin Campbell, PhD, with his non-scientist son Thomas M. Campbell II. The China Study was an epidemiologic survey of diet and health conducted in villages throughout China and is touted...
Live Blood Analysis: The Modern Auguries
I saw a patient last week who was self referred. He had been seeing a DC/ND for a variety of symptoms that turned out to be asthma. Not that the DC/ND made that diagnosis. His DC/ND diagnosed him with an infection, based on live blood analysis, and offered the patient a colonic detox as a cure. My patient thought he should get...
Chopra and Weil and Roy, oh my! Or: The Wall Street Journal, coopted.
When the unholy Trinity of Woo attacks! Deepak Chopra, Andrew Weil, and Rustum Roy join forces to fool the Wall Street Journal.