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This week I thought you all might enjoy a reprint of a humorous post from Better Health. Dr. Rob Lamberts explores the curious obsession that some Hollywood celebrities have with “toxins.” Sometimes laughter is the best medicine:

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Somehow the medical community has missed a very important news Item.  In her website goop.com (dang, I was going to go for that domain), movie star Gwyneth Paltrow weighed in on a very frightening medical subject.

Shampoo.

“A couple of years ago, I was asked to give a quote for a book concerning environmental toxins and their effects on our children.

“While I was reading up on the subject, I was seized with fear about what the research said. Foetuses, infants and toddlers are basically unable to metabolise toxins the way that adults are and we are constantly filling our environments with chemicals that may or may not be safe.

“The research is troubling; the incidence of diseases in children such as asthma, cancer and autism have shot up exponentially and many children we all know and love have been diagnosed with developmental issues like ADHD [Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder].”

Apparently, she went on to point the finger at shampoo as a potential major problem in our society and raised a possible link between shampoo and childhood cancers.  Now, I am not sure how one can use shampoo on the head of a foetus (or a fetus, for that matter), but we have to tip our hat to celebrities for bringing such associations to the forefront.

So I did a bit of science myself to assess the voracity of her claims.  I too was seized with fear when I noted the following:

  • All of the kids in my practice who have ADHD have used shampoo.
  • All of the kids with cancer have also used shampoo.
  • I used shampoo as a kid (but not as a fetus), and I have ADHD.
  • The projection is that 100% of the people now using shampoo will die.

Whoa.

This really backs up my misgivings about shampoo.  I have always wondered at the claims these so-called hair-care products make so boldly.  Here are some examples of lies spread by the shampoo industry:

Clarifying shampoo – What are they claiming with this?  Is there such thing as unclear hair?  Do some people look as though they have a giant blob of hair-like substance on their head instead of many separate hairs?  Does  clarifying shampoo make each individual hair once again visible on these people?

pH Balanced – What is pH imbalance?  Is it when the pH sometimes is so acidic that it burns your hair off?  That would be terrifying if true.

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Volumizing shampoo – I was not aware volumizing was a word (nor was my spell-check).  This means that the shampoo volumes things.  How can you volume something?  Does each hair get a separate volume, or does the hair suddenly get very loud.  Personally, I am afraid to open the bottles of these shampoos for fear of going deaf.

bad-hair-day-indeed

Shampoo for stressed hair – I have never thought about the emotional state of my hair.  I was not aware that it worries about things.  Perhaps it worries about being volumized or burned by non-pH balanced shampoos.  Perhaps it worries about being put on a foetus.  Does this type of shampoo contain a hair version of valium?
Vitalizing shampoo – At least vitalizing is actually a word, but would you really want vitalized hair?  My dictionary defines this as “giving life and energy to.”  Hair is dead, as we all know.  Does this “hair resurrection” cause your hair to scream every time it is brushed or cut?  Does it move about on your head independently?  What if it decides it wants to become a mullet?? Thank you, but I prefer my hair dead.

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Self-adjusting shampoo – Instead of the hair having independent action, this type of shampoo seems to have an intelligence of its own.  How would it self-adjust?  Does it have a computer chip embedded in it or does it somehow have sentience?  How do we know if it will adjust in a way we want?  It could adjust to pH imbalance or de-volumization, couldn’t it?  What if this self-adjusting shampoo, which clearly has some degree of autonomy, gets ideas and causes other shampoos to break the shackles we humans put on it and forms a shampoo revolution?  An even scarier thought is if a self-adjusting shampoo comes in contact with vitalized hair!  What will happen then?  Will they fight, or will they conspire against the shampooee?

Baby shampoo – What is the life-cycle of a shampoo?  How do they find these baby shampoos and why would they steal them from their parents?  This is probably what is causing the shampoos to become self-adjusting.  I will say, shampoos do seem to multiply in our bathroom.  We probably have 16 bottles of different kinds of shampoo in our shower right now.  I just recently noticed some baby shampoo, but I thought my wife had just bought it.  I see now that we should not let the bottles touch each other if we want to have room in our shower to bathe.

So you see, while Miss Paltrow’s fears about shampoo are clearly far short of the whole story, at least they bring attention to this frightening situation.  Shampoo manufacturers are clearly in cahoots and have eyes on world domination.  The condemnation of this celebrity’s claims by “scientists” are clearly a smoke-screen to keep us from noticing the obvious plans for the destruction of humanity.

No more shampoo for me!

Gotta go now.  It’s time for my colon cleanse.

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  • Val Jones , M.D., is the President and CEO of Better Health, PLLC, a health education company devoted to providing scientifically accurate health information to consumers. Most recently she was the Senior Medical Director of Revolution Health, a consumer health portal with over 120 million page views per month in its network. Prior to her work with Revolution Health, Dr. Jones served as the founding editor of Clinical Nutrition & Obesity, a peer-reviewed e-section of the online Medscape medical journal. Dr. Jones is also a consultant for Elsevier Science, ensuring the medical accuracy of First Consult, a decision support tool for physicians. Dr. Jones was the principal investigator of several clinical trials relating to sleep, diabetes and metabolism, and she won first place in the Peter Cyrus Rizzo III research competition. Dr. Jones is the author of the popular blog, “Dr. Val and the Voice of Reason,” which won The Best New Medical Blog award in 2007. Her cartoons have been featured at Medscape, the P&S Journal, and the Placebo Journal. She was inducted as a member of the National Press Club in Washington , DC in July, 2008. Dr. Jones has been quoted by various major media outlets, including USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, and the LA Times. She has been a guest on over 20 different radio shows, and was featured on CBS News.

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Posted by Val Jones

Val Jones , M.D., is the President and CEO of Better Health, PLLC, a health education company devoted to providing scientifically accurate health information to consumers. Most recently she was the Senior Medical Director of Revolution Health, a consumer health portal with over 120 million page views per month in its network. Prior to her work with Revolution Health, Dr. Jones served as the founding editor of Clinical Nutrition & Obesity, a peer-reviewed e-section of the online Medscape medical journal. Dr. Jones is also a consultant for Elsevier Science, ensuring the medical accuracy of First Consult, a decision support tool for physicians. Dr. Jones was the principal investigator of several clinical trials relating to sleep, diabetes and metabolism, and she won first place in the Peter Cyrus Rizzo III research competition. Dr. Jones is the author of the popular blog, “Dr. Val and the Voice of Reason,” which won The Best New Medical Blog award in 2007. Her cartoons have been featured at Medscape, the P&S Journal, and the Placebo Journal. She was inducted as a member of the National Press Club in Washington , DC in July, 2008. Dr. Jones has been quoted by various major media outlets, including USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, and the LA Times. She has been a guest on over 20 different radio shows, and was featured on CBS News.