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:
- They have money
- They are likely to be diagnosed with serious diseases or know others who have these diseases.
- They are easily reached by advertising – particularly TV and internet ads.
- 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.
√ Well-known “quacks” like Joseph Mercola, Mehmet Oz (Dr. Oz), Mike Adams, Vani Hari (“The Food Babe”). Check out Quackwatch for a list of known quacks.
√ Alerting buzzwords: Breakthrough Product, Secret formula, Miracle cure
√ Words and phrases that sound scientific, but really aren’t: Detox or detoxification, cleansing, oxygen therapy, naturaopathy, homeopathy, body or blood pH, etc…
√ Claims that are just too good to be true: Any claims to cure diseases with no known cure, like Alzhiemers, any claim to stop or reverse the aging process
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!
We have talked about the lack of scientific support for detox diets in the past, but one practice we have not addressed is the kinda-sorta-logical-if-you-squint extension of detoxing – cleansing, or more specifically cleansing the bowels. Look, we totally agree that this is gross, and honestly, we’d rather be talking about non-gross cool things like narwhals, pluto, or platypuses. However, cleansing is a potentially dangerous form of “Alternative Medicine” with no basis in scientific fact, which makes it exactly the kind of thing a science advocacy site like UYBFS should be writing about. So we’ll try to make this as fun and as non-gross as possible, ok? Right, here it goes…
WHY ON EARTH WOULD ANYONE PUSH A BUNCH OF LIQUID INTO THEIR COLON ON PURPOSE?
Medical Use. Despite the indignity of the act, there are actually a few valid medical reasons for doing so. When performed as part of (or in preparation for) a medical procedure, this is called an enema. You may have seen enemas in your local pharmacy, and it might have made you giggle (grow up, dude), but these have a real place in medicine. The two most common medical uses for enemas are emptying the lower bowel in preparation for a colonoscopy (a procedure in which a camera is inserted into the colon in order to visualize ulcerations, polyps, or colon cancer) and when a contrast agent (barium sulfate) is introduced into the colon in order to image it more effectively using X-rays.
There several other less common reasons for enema use, including the treatment of severe constipation or impaction (super gross), and the administration of certain drugs. These are treatments all people should aim to avoid.
Recreational Use. There are some people out there who use enemas in a non-medical, recreational way. If that’s your thing, that’s cool – just be safe about it, and make sure your doctor knows what you’re up to. That’s all we are gonna say about that.
Believing – against all evidence – that it’s somehow good for you. This is where “Alternative Medicine” comes in. There are some who believe that over time “toxins,” undigested food, and accumulated feces build up in the colon and cause health problems. These could really be any health problems – from GI issues to a general lack of well-being, low energy or short attention spans, to serious heath conditions like cancer and infertility. The idea is that you can wash out all of these bad things with periodic cleanings and make everything ok.
There was a time, hundreds to thousands of years ago, when some scientists and doctors believed that colon cleansing might offer benefits. This was based on the long-since disproved theory of auto-intoxication, which hypothesized that toxins entered the body with your food and hung out in the intestines slowly poisoning you. Today we know better.
THAT SOUNDS LOGICAL, WHY WOULDN’T IT WORK?
It doesn’t work because that are no toxins, undigested food and accumulated feces built up in our colon. Your intestines are really good at digesting food and extracting all the bioavailable nutrients (and non-nutrients). It does this because is has a very high surface area due to trillions of projections call villi on the surface of the lining of your gut. If, hypothetically, these tiny projections were somehow encased in an impenetrable sludge of undigested food and feces, you would die and die quickly. This is because you wouldn’t be able to extract the nutrients from your food. You would lose weight no matter how much you ate. You’d become deficient in pretty much every essential vitamin or mineral. Worst of all you would become dehydrated, since you wouldn’t be able to absorb the water you drink effectively. This sounds like a horrible way to die, right? It would be – but luckily it never happens, because your intestines are good at their job. They don’t need your help. Just leave them alone, dude…
Cleansing aficionados (and people trying to sell you cleanses) will give you a long list of supposed benefits of cleansing. They are all false. To keep this article from getting too long, while “shining some light” on the issue, here is a list of supposed benefits of cleansing, each answered by our UYBFS staff in 20 words or less.
Claim: It pulls harmful toxins out of your colon!
UYBFS: There are no toxins. If there were and they were trapped in your colon, how would they make you sick?
Claim: It aids in digestion!
UYBFS: It literally does the opposite.
Claim: It reduces constipation!
UYBFS: Just take laxative, dude. Or stop eating all that cheese?
Claim: It gives you more energy, helps with concentration or “well-being”, reduces anxiety, etc…
UYBFS: No it doesn’t.
Claim: It aids in weight loss!
UYBFS: No it doesn’t.
Claim: It supports/improves colon health!
UYBFS: It literally does the exact opposite.
Claim: It helps the whole body detox!
UYBFS: That is not a thing, and if it were, this is not the way.
Claim: It improves fertility!
UYBFS: That is sheer insanity. You don’t even believe that, do you?
Claim: It makes the digestive system more efficient!
UYBFS: You understand that food is already digested and the nutrients absorbed before it gets to your colon, right?
Claim: It increases the body’s absorption of vitamins and minerals!
UYBFS: No even a little bit. See above.
Claim: It reduces the risk of colon cancer!
UYBFS: No it doesn’t.
Claim: It maintains the proper pH balance in your body/blood
UYBFS: Cleansing can not and will not change your blood pH. Body pH is not a thing.
YEAH BUT THEN WHY DO SO MANY PEOPLE DO IT?
First of all, we’re not sure that many people do this. Maybe among celebrities (or people who want to be like them) this might be a thing, but how many people do you know who have ever cleansed, much less do it regularly? Sure, Gwyneth Paltrow thinks it’s a good idea and will even sell you a $135 dollar glass jar to help you squirt coffee up your butt, however, Gwyneth Paltrow should NEVER be trusted with health advice. Going to a professional for “colon hydrotherapy” will cost $80 to $100 per visit, and your health insurance isn’t going help out with the bill. Or you could buy an enema and do it yourself, which is… gross.
There is most certainly a small subset of people who “like” cleanses, enough that there is a name for it: “klismaphilia”. There are a lot of nerve endings in there, and there is little doubt that some people find it pleasurable. UYBFS doesn’t judge – if it floats your boat no worries, but let’s not pretend that it’s somehow improving your health. It is not.
I SUPPOSE ITS DANGEROUS? UYBFS IS ALWAYS TELLING US THINGS ARE DANGEROUS
Come on, man, that’s not true!
With that said, yes this is totally dangerous. The main risks are perforating your colon (it sounds bad, and it really is), bloating, nausea, vomiting, dehydration, infections, and serious electrolyte imbalances. People have died from coffee enemas. These are not safe and provide no health benefits.
OK, SO HOW ABOUT CLEANSING WITH LAXITIVES AND TEAS?
Also not a good idea – excessive laxitive use can cause many of the same negative health effects listed above, and some of those teas can be toxic too. Also, weren’t you paying attention a few paragraphs ago when we told you there are no toxins cleverly hiding out in your colon? There are no health benefits of cleansing.
SO… YOU’RE SAYING SKIP THE CLEANSE?
I think we’ve made our recommendation pretty clear. The idea of treating auto-intoxication with cleanses is as outdated as using leeches to treat disease. We know that there are no toxins hanging out in your gut causing disease or preventing you from concentrating at work, and we know cleansing can be dangerous. The risk/benefit profile here is terrible – all risk and no known benefit. Also, it’s gross. Leave your colon alone and skip the cleanse.
Welcome to “chemicals and society”, where we highlight the current understanding of the biological effects and safety of some of the most common chemicals in today’s society.
Today’s Chemical: Glyphosate
What is glyphosate? Glyphosate is the active ingredient in Roundup, a herbicide which happens to be one of the most widely used in the world. There are several reasons why Roundup is so popular. It’s a very good herbicide, killing actively growing plants quickly with a single application. It also is relatively safe, because it targets an enzyme that plants have but animals do not (5-enolpyruvylshikimate-3-phosphate synthase, say that ten times fast!), and it doesn’t accumulate in the environment like many earlier generation herbicides. Another reason it’s popular is that many GMO crops are engineered to resists it’s effects, rendering it an ideal herbicide for control of weeds when growing these crops.
Glyphosate and Cancer. If you have heard of glyphosate recently, it probably because of reports that it causes cancer. So let’s start with this. Here’s the story:
When it was first approved for use, the data suggested that glyphosate posed no carcinogenic (cancer-causing) risk. As is always the case, scientists kept an eye on the data as the use of this chemical increased dramatically over the years. Some data seemed to indicate some cancer risk, while most did not. Health authorities in the United States, Japan, Canada, most of Europe, and many other countries do not consider glyphosate to be linked to cancer.
Welcome to Bad Science on the Internet! Here, we highlight some of the crazy and sometime dangerous stuff people post online, and then we give you the facts.
The bad science:
There are a lot of dubious supplements being sold online, and we could spend years discussing them one by one. However, Truehope deserves to be highlighted because of their over-the-top claims and the sad story behind it.
What do they claim?
Truehope is a supplement company that markets supplements specifically for the treatment of mental illnesses. The specificity of their claims is alarming. On their website, they don’t even bother to change the wording of their claims, just substituting one condition (like autism or bipolar disorder) for another:
“If you or your child suffer from [mental illness, mood disorder, or autism] and you want to address the cause effectively rather than “cover up” the symptoms with medication, Truehope EMPowerplus Advanced can help.”
“Extensive independent research shows that when the body and brain are provided with the essential nutrients found in EMPowerplus Advanced, they are able to function properly—often negating the signs and symptoms of [ADD-ADHD, autism, bipolar disorder, or depression].“
Are they trying to sell you something?
Of course. It will cost you about $80 per month for the EMpowerplus supplements.
Is any of this true?
No. There are some limited studies that suggest a small benefit for some of the listed disorders, however, if you actually look at the reports themselves (click on “Research”), you’ll note that all the reports they list call for larger, more thorough follow-up studies to be run to confirm the preliminary findings. Such studies have either not been run or been negative.
On top of that, their claims are wildly overstated – no one, not even the experts they quote on their website can reasonably expect that these supplements can “negate” that signs of autism, bipolar disorder, ADD-ADHD, or depression. This is a dangerous assertion, since you’ll notice that right on every bottle of EMpowerplus is a warning not use use this supplement with pychotropic (mood-altering) drugs without consulting a physician. No reasonable doctor (MD or DO) is going to treat these serious diseases with supplements only. That would literally be malpractice.
Supplements don’t “cure” diseases, and treating any illness with a nutritional supplement like this would only make sense if the disease was caused by a vitamin or mineral deficiency. It is extremely uncommon for persons in developed nations to suffer from serious nutritional deficiencies, and the mental illnesses that Truehope claims to treat are not known to be linked to vitamin or mineral deficiencies of any kind. For most of these diseases (autism and bipolar disorder included), modern medicine cannot offer a “cure” either. It is sufficiently difficult to treat the symptoms of the diseases listed above with the advanced pharmaceuticals of our day. The best you could hope for out of a nutritional supplement is a slight improvement on top of standard medical care. However….
Is any of this dangerous?
It could be. Most of the ingredients in this supplement are just standard essential vitamins and minerals with some amino acids (protein building blocks) and anti-oxidants thrown in. These are things you’ll get in most multivitamins. However, it contains a few other potentially dangerous ingredients. We can’t say for sure these are dangerous, because they don’t say how much is in there (it’s proprietary). However, it contains:
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.
My coworker said that microwaves are bad for you and you should avoid using them. As evidence she stated that if you microwave dirt nothing will grow in the dirt, so microwaved food is similarly hazardous to your health. Is this true?- JK, Burlington, VT
Let’s ignore that fact that our coworker is microwaving dirt for some reason and talk about microwaves and microwave ovens!
Let’s start with the waves themselves. Microwaves are a form of electromagnetic radiation. While the term “radiation” scares some people, this is context it describes everything from radio waves to visible light to gamma rays. All electromagnetic waves have energy, but the amount of energy they posses depends on their wavelength. Gamma and X rays have the shortest wavelength and therefore the most energy, and these can hurt you. They can cause cancer at low levels and at very high levels (or doses), they can be fatal in just a few days.
Luckily, our atmosphere filters out most of the gamma and x ray wavelengths coming from space. However, lower wavelength light from the sun does make it to the surface of the earth in the form of ultraviolet (UV) and visible light. UV light, which has a shorter wavelength than visible light (and hence more energy) can be dangerous – it causes cancer over time as well, though all animals have adapted a system for repairing the damage it causes to our DNA that takes care of most of the damage. If the “dose” of UV light is high enough, it will burn you – something most of us have experienced as a sunburn.
&media=https://www.useyourbrainforscience.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/Glyphosate-Lead.png){kind=link}
