Healthcare, health advice, and health products are big business, contributing billions of dollars to the economy and employing millions of people.  The vast majority of people working in healthcare or a healthcare-related field are doing it with the patient/customer’s health and best interest in mind. However, there are some unscrupulous people out there as well – selling dubious supplements, spreading bad advice, or trying to convince you that ketchup is bad for you for reasons we will never understand.

Some of the most vulnerable persons to bad health advice are seniors. They are often targeted by people trying to make a quick buck for the following reasons:

1. They have money
2. They are likely to be diagnosed with serious diseases or know others who have these diseases.
3. They are easily reached by advertising – particularly TV and internet ads.
4. Many seniors are not adept at the advanced internet search strategies required to differentiate fact from fiction in areas outside of their own experience to identify scam artists.

Targeting seniors is wrong. And when one health blog targeted the parents of one of our contributors, well, now it’s personal! Here’s how to avoid being scammed by a snake oil salesmen.

Beware professional quacks

Most doctors and health professionals are on the up and up, but there is a small group of known hucksters out there that you need to watch out for. Unfortunately, some of these less-than-reputable persons are quite popular. Two big names you may have heard of are Dr. Mehmet Oz (“Dr. Oz”) and Vani Hari (“The Food Babe”). These people are considered by many to be reliable professionals, but they are not good sources of scientific information. Both have endorsed dubious products or theories in the past. The more extreme examples, like Joseph Mercola and Alex Jones are more easy to identify as quacks. There is a very useful site called Quackwatch which catalogs people, practices and claims of quackery – we highly recommend visiting this site before you trust any healthcare advice you see online.

Perhaps the easiest way to identify a quack is to find their website and look to see if they promote dubious products or practices. This would include claims to cure or prevent diseases for which there are no known treatment (like Alzheimers, Autism, more), making conspiracy-driven anti-vaccine or pharmaceutical claims, or promoting disproven “alternative medicine” practices like ozone therapy, oxygen therapy, colon hydrotherapy, homeopathy or naturopathy, etc. Persons that promote these types of things should not be trusted for healthcare advice.

If it sounds too good to be true, it is

The most troubling part of these scams is the hope they offer seniors who suffer from serious or incurable diseases. No matter what anyone tells you, the following diseases can not be cured:

Asthma, Alzheimers Disease, ALS (Lou Gehrig’s Disease), Celiac’s Disease, Diabetes, Epilepsy, Multiple Sclerosis, Parkinson’s Disease, Psoriasis, Rhumatoid Arthritis, & Schitzophrenia.

Now, this doesn’t mean there aren’t treatments for these diseases available, and some may work quite well at treating the symptoms of the disease, but anyone who offers you a cure, or uses similar language, like “eliminates” or “prevents” is not to be trusted.

An even bigger red flag is when sites or experts claim to be able to treat or cure cancer using “alternative” or “natural” methods. This is incredibly dangerous – the false hope provided by these unproven, generally ineffective treatments can led some patients to delay or never even seek evidence-based medical treatments. This is how Steve Jobs died. If someone if willing to risk the life of a cancer patient in order to make a buck by selling their dubious products, they are the lowest form of low.

Finally, look out for these types of outrageous claims which are offered with very simple products, treatments, or “tricks”, often requiring little or none of your valuable time.

Alerting words and phrases

Sometimes, it’s easy to identify a dubious source by the way they promote their advice or products. Be on the lookout for overstated buzzwords:

Breakthrough product, secret formula, miracle cure, etc..

Also beware of anyone using pseudoscientific phrases which have no actual scientific meaning:

Detoxification or detox, cleansing, removing, or eliminating toxins form your body, non-qualified use of the word “toxin”, body or blood pH, naturopathy, homeopathy, “natural” cures or using the term “natural” to suggest something is “safe” or good for you.

Don’t trust sources making vague claims of health improvements when using their products, things that would be impossible or difficult to quantify in a scientific study like:

Improving well-being, boosting energy, putting you in a better mood, improving sex drive, sharper focus, stopping or reversing aging, bringing back youthful qualities or feelings you may have lost, improving memory, etc…

Finally, beware any sites or sources that support or even lend validation to fringe conspiracy theories involving healthcare, such as anti-vaccine views, anti-“big Phama” views, chemtrails, suggestions that corporations or the government are purposely poisoning the population or covering up for those that do. Also watch out for claims that everyday foods, diets, or practices are responsible for serious diseases, like macaroni and cheese suddenly being toxic. Such views are completely unfounded and those that seek to promote or validate them should not be trusted with healthcare advice.

Here’s an example!

A parent of one of our contributors recently received an e mail with the subject line of “Welcome to House Calls”. The e mail offered to sign them up to a news letter for free. Here are a few choice excerpts from the e mail promoting this news letter. I’ve taken the liberty of highlighting the “red flags” as described above in red.

“You’ll discover safe and proven solutions you can use to fight arthritis, diabetes, cancer, heart disease and much more. Plus, you’ll get my honest take on the latest research and health headlines.”

“Over the next few days, you’ll be receiving news about my most exciting breakthroughs and formulas, the exact same ones I use in my clinic and recommend to my patients every day, like:

If You Eat THIS, You’re Growing Deadly Tumors: Are you literally FEEDING cancer cells by putting this one food on your dinner plate?

This is important. You must stop eating this common food today or you could be growing cancer cells. And here’s the weird part… as soon as you STOP eating it, the opposite happens: cancer cells STARVE to death — and die out by the thousands.
Skeptical? I was too… until I saw the proof here.

Strange “instant pain relief” secret caught on video — Have you seen the weird “little brown bottle” video? In the short video, you can see how more than 535,311 people have discovered an underground sensation in pain relief…”

“Don’t think the only way to get through the day is by practically overdosing on caffeine… New research shows doing this ’15 second trick’ daily could be your answer to tiredness and fatigue. Simply taking 15 seconds every morning to do THIS can help you: Surge with youthful energy…Banish brain fog and day time sleepiness…Brighten your mood and happiness. So put the coffee down and learn how to start this ’15 second trick’ right here.”

“With so much conflicting health information out there today… with so many people looking to make a buck… it can be hard to know who to trust. I believe it’s my responsibility as a doctor and a Christian to be the one voice in medicine you can always rely on.”

You can see how this could be a very attractive offer to an older person who may be suffering from typical age-related diseases, but there are a lot of red flags if you know what to look for. The authors have practically offered a cure for arthritis and diabetes, and have literally offered one for cancer. These are outrageous claims and should immediately make the reader suspicious. They also allude to common foods causing cancer and make the claim that many people are overdosing on caffeine. They make vague health claims, use alerting buzzwords like “breakthrough formula” and “underground sensation,” and claim they can provide their benefits with “simple tricks” in only “seconds.” Finally, the authors appeal to Christian beliefs, which they know will highly represented in their target audience.

This e mail was signed by Dr. Mark Stengler. He is not currently on the Quackwatch list, but googling his name turned up his website for the Strengler Center for Integrative Medicine. Despite calling himself “America’s Natural Doctor®,” Mark Strengler is not a medical doctor – he holds a degree in naturopathy (NMD), which does not require rigorous, evidence-based medical training. Besides his newsletter, the site offers an article on the benefits of ozone therapy (there are none), and sells books authored by “Dr” Strengler detailing the benefits of natural alternatives to prescription drugs (red flag), proven natural remedies that medical doctors don’t know about (another red flag), the benefits of medicinal mushrooms (huge red flag, do not take mushrooms obtained from unreliable sources, many are very poisonous), “Natural Cures” (huge red flag) and “outside the box cancer therapies.” This last one is the biggest of red flags – cancer should never be treated with alternative medicine. People die this way.

This e mail is clearly a scam, intended to prey on the senior citizens worried about their health and willing to do whatever they can to maintain their well-being. There is no doubt that Mark Strengler is a quack, endorsing disproven psuedomedicine for his own benefit. Luckily, these types of scams are easy to spot if you know what you are looking for. If individuals or companies offer you healthcare advice, use the techniques described above to determine if the source is trustworthy, and send a link to this article to seniors you know to help them make informed choices about who to trust and how to spend their money. You can report obvious scams to the better business bureau as well. Don’t be fooled by these scams!