Science Advocacy
Science Advocacy
Welcome to Bad Science on the Internet! Here, we highlight some of the crazy and sometime dangerous stuff people post online, and then give you the facts.
The bad science: Oxygen therapies like oxygen bars and oxygen “shots”
What do they claim? There are lots of claims, including improving general health and energy levels, aiding alertness and concentration, detoxifying the body, boosting the immune system, and treating diseases like headaches, hangovers, and even cancer.
Are they trying to sell you something? Yes! Most oxygen bars will charge you about $1 per minute, while oxygen shots typically cost $5-$10 per shot.
Is any of this true? No, no, no, no, no, no, a thousand times no. Look, we all know that we need oxygen to live, but more is not better – with oxygen or really anything.
When you breathe, oxygen goes into your lungs and is picked up by the red blood cells in your blood. Specifically, it binds to the iron-containing hemoglobin within those cells. There is a lot of hemoglobin in your red blood cells, and this is what makes them (and your blood) red. In a “normal”, healthy person (and unless you are very sick, you are normal, despite what your mommy taught you), the hemogloblin in the blood is at 95-100% saturation at all times. Anything below 90% is a problem, and would require medical intervention. Since hemoglobin is what moves oxygen from your lungs to all the tissues of your body, this means that adding more oxygen into your lungs can not, and will not significantly increase the delivery of oxygen to the tissues and organs of your body. That’s right, that oxygen that you are paying money for just goes into your lungs and, finding no room on the hemoglobin express, goes right back out when you exhale. Given this, it’s not surprising that oxygen therapy has no effects.
Welcome to Ask a Scientist, where we answer questions from our readers on a wide range of scientific topics. Got a scientific question? Drop us a line.
I see adds for a supplement called Elysium all over FB, and they seem to have real science behind their product. If it safe? Should I be taking it? – M.B. Boston, MA
Great question. First, some background. Many people know Elysium as a mediocre (58% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes) Matt Damon movie from 2013. Classics scholars will remember Elysium from Greek mythology as a heaven-like place where righteous people go after they die. It is likely that the supplement company (the product is actually called Basis) and the movie where both named after the Greek myth.
The Elysium Basis supplement contains Nicotinamide riboside, which is a precursor for a common and essential enzyme cofactor called nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD+), and pterostilbene, which is a chemical similar to resveratrol. You may have heard of resveratrol as the “active” antioxidant molecule in red wine. You can buy resveratrol supplements in any health food store. Elysium (the company, not the Matt Damon vehicle) has indeed been all over Facebook lately, and their website is impressive. They list 7 (!!) Nobel Price winners as members of their advisory board, plus a number of other accomplished scientists. Their website is really nice, and they highlight research and discovery efforts much like a biotech or pharmaceutical company would. They have even run a clinical trial with the Basis supplement! Honestly, they have done a great job of providing the appearance of scientific gravitas to their product. However, it’s important to note that their Basis product is really not unique. Many other companies sell nicotinamide riboside supplements, and resveratrol supplements have been available for years.
Welcome to “chemicals and society” a new feature at UYBFS where we highlight the current understanding of the biological effects and safety of some of the most common chemicals in today’s society.
What is Mercury? Mercury is an element with an atomic number of 80. While mercury is a metal, it is a liquid at room temperature, which makes it both really cool and really useful. Mercury exists in many different forms, and the form that it’s in makes a big difference: the different forms are used for different things, and their chemistry and toxicity varies greatly. Here are the major forms of mercury and their uses:
How are people exposed to mercury?
Welcome to Bad Science on the Internet! Here, we highlight some of the crazy and sometime dangerous stuff people post online, and then give you the facts.
The bad science: A recent article circulating around Facebook claims that the new flu vaccines don’t work and are actually dangerous because of new additives in the vaccines.
What do they claim? The main claims are that the new flu vaccines are not safe and that it’s less risky to skip the vaccine this year and risk the flu.
Are they trying to sell you something? Just the usual anti-vaccine conspiracy theory madness. This article was distributed on Facebook by a site called “Earth We Are One”, but there is no tag line identifying the author or even giving a date. It’s not clear who wrote this or why.
Is any of this true? It is actually amazing how little of this is true. Let’s go point-by-point!
Welcome to “chemicals and society” a new feature at UYBFS where we highlight the current understanding of the biologic effects and safety of some of the most common chemicals in today’s society.
What is vitamin A and how are people exposed to it?
“Vitamin A” is technically a group of very similar chemicals. The main forms in the body are retinal, retinol, retinyl esters, and retinoic acid. Vitamin A is required for normal development and function in all vertebrates (animals with a backbone) and some non-vertebrates (like worms and bugs). Since animals can’t make vitamin A from scratch, they require dietary sources – either from plants containing carotenes (you’ve probably heard of beta-carotene, but did you know there were alpha and gamma forms too?) or by eating other animals who had already produced vitamin A from a plant source. several forms of vitamin A (tretinoin, isotretinoin, and alitretinoin) are also FDA-approved drugs, used to treat severe acne and some rare skin cancers.
Welcome to “chemicals and society” a new feature at UYBFS where we highlight the current understanding of the biologic effects and safety of some of the most common chemicals in today’s society.
What is Nicotine and how are people exposed to it?
Nicotine is an alkaloid produced naturally by a number of plants in the night shade family, most notably the tobacco plant. People are mainly exposed to nicotine by smoking (cigarettes, cigars, pipes, smokeless tobacco), but also via vaping or e-cigarettes. Some people may be exposed to nicotine or related chemicals when using them as insecticides on crops.
What does Nicotine do?
Plants produce nicotine as an insecticide to keep insects from eating their leaves. Nicotine binds to nicotinic acetylcholine receptors (nAChRs) in the central nervous systems of insects, causing paralysis and death. In mammals, the nAChR receptor subtypes are different, and as a consequence, nicotine binds more weakly and stimulates the nervous system, causing the characteristic addictive “high” that people seek out by smoking.
Nicotine itself (sold as nicotine sulfate) can be used as a pesticide, though it is not currently sold in the U.S. Nicotine derivatives (known as neonicotinoids) are widely used as insecticides across the world. They have come under quite a bit of scrutiny lately because these insecticides are very good at killing bees – and could be one of the contributors to colony collapse disorder.
Over a year ago, I attended a seminar on the current treatments of opioid addiction. The talk was given by a physician at University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) in Little Rock, who has been treating opioid addicts for over 25 years at the methadone clinic. Paradoxically, opioid addiction is treated with other opioids such as naltrexone, methadone, and buprenorphine. The speaker mentioned that throughout his entire career, he has never had a patient who fully recovered from opioid addiction; however, he has had many patients who lead a fulfilling and successful life on methadone.
In 2015, prescription drugs killed more than 33,000 Americans, and half of those deaths involved a prescription opioid,1 and early August of this year, our president of the United States proclaimed that he considered the opioid epidemic a “national crisis.” (Although, as of this writing the opioid epidemic has not been formally declared a national crisis.) So, how did the problem of opioid addiction become an epidemic?Continue reading…
Welcome to Ask a Scientist, where we answer questions from our readers on a wide range of scientific topics. Got a scientific question? Drop us a line.
Is pink slime dangerous and how can I avoid it? – K.B. Chico, CA
Great question! Here’s the skinny:
“Pink slime” is a pejorative term for “lean finely textured beef” (LFTB), “finely textured beef” (FTB), or boneless lean beef trimmings (BLBT). It’s added into ground beef as a filler and to reduce the fat content of the final product. To make pink slime, boneless beef trimmings (small leftover pieces of beef) are heated, centrifuged (spun around really fast to remove the fat), frozen and crushed into a paste. To disinfect it, ammonia or citric acid treatment is often used.
The term was coined by a USDA scientist by the name of Gerald Zirnstein. He didn’t like the look of the pink slime (to be fair, almost no one does), and he objected to it being classified as meat (he was overruled by his USDA superiors). Zirnstein may have had a point – this is probably stretching the definition of meat that most of us would accept. Basically, they took some fatty pieces of meat, removed most of the fat and turned what was left into a paste in the process – I guess that’s sorta meat? More like a meat puree? Whatever you call it, there is little doubt that it is made from meat, so we’ll just call it meat and move on.
Using ammonia to disinfect the LFTB has received much of the media attention, partly because it is specifically banned from use in Canada and the European Union (EU). However, Canada and the EU allow similar products which could be described as pink slime. The citric-acid treated LFTB is used in Canada and the EU allows something called “de-sinewed meat” or “red meat paste.” These all sound gross.
