A South African consumers' guide to scams, pseudoscience and voodoo science, OR, a critical thinker's guide to the ins and outs of Complementary and Alternative Medicine
People are more likely to reach for what’s ‘natural’ when treating a psychological condition, a study found – because they don’t want to affect their ‘true self’
Let’s say that one day, you wake up incredibly itchy. A doctor recommends two drugs – one natural and one synthetic – to help with the scratching. Or, you start having intense mood swings, and you go to your doctor, who presents you with the option of taking a natural or a synthetic drug.
Which do you pick in each situation, and does the answer change if you’re treating your body as opposed to your mind?
We are bombarded with the word “natural” anytime we buy groceries, supplements, beauty products, household items, wine or cigarettes. People believe that “natural” products, foods and medicines are safer, healthier – and just … Read the rest
Thomas J. Wheeler, PhD, a retired associate professor from the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the University of Louisville School of Medicine, has published a 60-page revision of his Overview of Complementary and Alternative Medicine on the website of the Kentucky Council Against Health Fraud. The material was originally developed as the first in a series of handouts for an elective course that offered medical students a scientific look at alternative medicine. The topics addressed include:
general aspects
the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health and its predecessors
common themes in alternative medicine
adverse effects
integrative medicine
functional medicine
regulatory agencies involved in health claims
organizations and websites promoting critical examination of alternative claims
legal and ethical issues
fraud and quackery
antivaccination efforts
antifluoridation efforts
critical thinking in evaluation of medical claims: philosophical issues
Turmeric has been used as a spice and medicine for thousands of years. And in recent decades, it’s become popular as a dietary supplement, often sold as curcumin — a chemical compound found in dried turmeric — with claims that it can soothe joint pain, reduce inflammation and improve mobility.
In Thailand, turmeric is also often consumed in its spice or supplement form to quell gastrointestinal symptoms like bloating and indigestion, said Dr. Krit Pongpirul, an associate professor of preventive and social medicine at Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok. But only a few small studies have evaluated such benefits.
If you’ve spent time exploring the skin care side of TikTok, you know that dermatologists love to tout the benefits of vitamin C serums and creams. They claim the vitamin can brighten and firm the skin, protect it from sun and environmental damage, diminish dark spots and even reduce the signs of aging.
“All of its various benefits make it a top recommendation for most dermatologists,” said Dr. Fatima Fahs, a dermatologist in Michigan.
Yet if you dig into the research on how vitamin C actually affects the skin, a different picture emerges. In one 2021 review published in The Journal of Cosmetic Dermatology, for instance, Dr. Fahs and her colleagues evaluated how effective various vitamin C formulations were at improving skin health. They
Nattokinase is an enzyme secreted by bacteria when fermenting soybeans during the making of the traditional Japanese food known as natto.
Nattokinase dietary supplements are claimed to help prevent and treat cardiovascular disease, although the studies done so far are not rigorous enough to support this claim.
It is not known for certain what happens to nattokinase in the human body when taken by mouth.
Anti-vaccine influencers are selling nattokinase supplements as a way to “detox” from the spike protein contained in the COVID-19 vaccines, an idea that is not based on good science.
Here are some key excerpts from the review published in Cell (abstract below):
“Complementary and alternate medicines (CAMs) for menopausal symptoms have been frequently touted, are widely advertised, and have an overall dismal track record of efficacy when subjected to rigorous scientific study. The best studied of these are phyto (plant) estrogen supplements and black cohosh (Cimicifuga racemosa). Systematic reviews of phytoestrogens do not support benefits in the relief of VMS.122,123 In numerous trials, black cohosh, not to be confused with blue cohosh, which has known liver toxicity, has been shown to be safe with limited efficacy in some single-site clinical trials. However, the HALT study, which was the most rigorous and comprehensive clinical trial to date, consisting of 351 participants, demonstrated no improvement with black cohosh over placebo among perimenopausal women experiencing VMS.124 The dilemma that black cohosh poses to the clinician is a common … Read the rest
Researchers analyzed 57 dietary supplements sold online and labeled as containing: R vomitoria, methylliberine, turkesterone, halostachine, or octopamine.
The researchers found:
no detectable amount of the labeled ingredient in 23 of the products
the actual quantity of the labeled ingredient ranged from 0.02% to 334% of the labeled quantity in 34 of the products
only six accurately labeled products that contained a quantity of the ingredient within 10% of the labeled quantity
seven products that contained at least one ingredient prohibited by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration
A total of 5,686 reports (19.9% of all adverse reaction reports) involved 8,588 skin-related reactions. Out of those reports, 3,523 involving 5,761 suspected skin-related reactions had sufficient information to be considered in the final analysis. The analysis revealed:
the most common skin reactions were itching (29.6%), rash (20.3%), and hives (18.9%)
the most common traditional medicines implicated in skin reactions were: (a) Artemisia argyi Lév. and Vaniot. with 856 reports, (14.9% of reactions), (b)
The jury found all four defendants guilty of conspiring to defraud the U.S. government and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) by distributing MMS, an unapproved and misbranded drug. It also found Jonathan and Gordon guilty of two counts of violating federal court orders requiring them to stop selling MMS in 2020. Contempt charges against Mark and Joseph were dropped as a condition of their extradition from … Read the rest
“You get what you pay for” isn’t an adage we can always rely upon. A US study has found more than one-third of a selection of sports supplements bought online don’t contain key ingredients the label says they should.
Pieter Cohen, a clinician-researcher at Cambridge Health Alliance and Harvard Medical School in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and colleagues ordered 57 sports supplements to analyze their contents.
Each product’s label claimed the supplement contained one of five botanical compounds with purported performance-enhancing properties. The substances have been included in supplements since a stimulant called ephedra was banned in 2004.
“The FDA does not preapprove these ingredients, or any supplement ingredient, for either efficacy or safety before their introduction,” Cohen and colleagues write in their paper.
“But FDA inspections have found that supplement manufacturers often fail to comply with basic manufacturing standards, … Read the rest