Food quackery has been defined by the U.S. Surgeon General as “the promotion for profit of special foods, products, processes, or appliances with false or mis-leading health or therapeutic claims.” Have you ever seen advertisements for supple-ments that are guaranteed to help you lose weight or herbal remedies to prevent seri-ous disease? If a product’s claim seems just too good to be true, it probably is too good to be true. The problem with quackery is not just loss of money—you can be harmed as well. Unproven reme-dies sometimes give patients false hope while important medical care is delayed.
Nutrition is brimming with quackery, in part because nutrition is such a young sci-ence. Questions on many fundamental nu-trition issues, such as the relationship be-tween sugar and obesity, are far from being resolved, yet the media publicize the re-sults of research studies long before those results can be said to really prove a scien-tific theory. Unfortunately, because much research is only in its early stages, the pub-lic has been bombarded with confpub-licting ideas about issues that relate directly to two very important parts of their lives: peo-ple’s health and their eating habits. This conflict leaves the public confused about the truth and vulnerable to dubious health products (most often nutrition products) and practices—on which people spend
$10 billion to $30 billion annually.
Much misinformation proliferates also because in some states anyone can call himself or herself a dietitian or nutritionist.
In addition, one may even buy mail-order B.S., M.S., or Ph.D. degrees in nutrition from “schools” in the United States. In all states, nutrition books that are entirely bogus can be published and sold in book-stores, dressed up to look like legitimate health books.
A quack is someone who makes ex-cessive promises and guarantees for a nu-trition product or practice that is said to enhance your physical and mental health by, for example, preventing or curing a disease, extending your life, or improving some facet of performance. Health schemes and misinformation proliferate because they thrive on wishful thinking.
Many people want easy answers to their medical concerns, such as a quick and easy way to lose weight. Often, claims ap-pear to be grounded in science. Here’s how to recognize quacks.
1. Their products make claims such as:
• Quick, painless, and/or effortless
• Contains special, secret, foreign, ancient, or natural ingredients
• Effective cure-all for a wide vari-ety of conditions
• Exclusive product not available through any other source 2. They use dubious diagnostic tests,
such as hair analysis, to detect sup-posed nutritional deficiencies and illnesses. Then they offer you a vari-ety of nutritional supplements, such as bee pollen or coenzymes, as remedies against deficiencies and disease.
3. They rely on personal stories of suc-cess (testimonials) rather than on sci-entific data for proof of effectiveness.
4. They use food essentially as medicine.
5. They often lack any valid medical or health-care credentials.
6. They come across more as salespeo-ple than as medical professionals.
7. They offer simple answers to com-plex problems.
8. They claim that the medical commu-nity or government agencies refuse
to acknowledge the effectiveness of their products or treatments.
9. They make dramatic statements that are refuted by reputable scientific organizations.
10. Their theories and promises are not written in medical journals using a peer-review process but appear in books written only for the lay public.
Keep in mind that there are few, if any, sudden scientific breakthroughs. Science is evolutionary—even downright slow—not revolutionary.
So, where can you find accurate nutri-tional information? In the United States, over 50,000 registered dietitians (R.D.s) represent the largest and most visible group of professionals in the nutrition field. Registered dietitians are recognized by the medical profession as legitimate providers of nutrition care. They have specialized education in human anatomy and physiology, chemistry, medical nutri-tion therapy, foods and food science, the behavioral sciences, and foodservice man-agement. Registered dietitians must com-plete at least a bachelor’s degree from an accredited college or university, a pro-gram of college-level dietetics courses, a supervised practice experience, and a qualifying examination. Continuing educa-tion is required to maintain R.D. status.
Registered dietitians work in private prac-tice, hospitals, nursing homes, wellness centers, business and industry, and many other settings. Most are members of the American Dietetic Association, and most are licensed or certified by the state in which they live. Over 40 states have li-censure or certification laws that regulate dietitians/nutritionists.
In addition to using the expertise of an R.D., you can ask some simple questions
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that will help you judge the validity of nutrition information seen in the media or heard from friends.
1. What are the credentials of the source? Does the person have academic degrees in a scientific or nutrition-related field?
2. Does the source rely on emotions rather than scientific evidence or use sensationalism to get a message across?
3. Are the promises of results for a certain dietary program reasonable or exaggerated? Is the program based on hard scientific information?
4. Is the nutrition information pre-sented in a reliable magazine or newspaper, or is it published in an advertisement or a publication of questionable reputation?
5. Is the information someone’s opin-ion or the result of years of valid scientific studies with possible prac-tical nutrition implications?
Much nutrition information that we see or read is based on scientific research. It is helpful to understand how research studies are designed, as well as the pitfalls in each design, so that you can evaluate a study’s results. The following three types of stud-ies are used commonly in research.
Laboratory studies use animals such as mice or guinea pigs or tissue samples in test tubes to find out more about a process that occurs in people to deter-mine if a substance might be beneficial or hazardous in humans or to test the ef-fect of a treatment. A major advantage of using laboratory animals is that re-searchers can control many factors that they can’t control in human studies. For instance, researchers can make sure that comparison groups are genetically identi-cal and that the conditions to which they are exposed are the same. However,
mice and other animals are not the same as humans, and so the results from these studies can’t automatically be generalized to humans. For example, laboratory stud-ies have indicated that the artificial sweetener saccharin causes cancer in mice, but this has never been proved for humans.
Another type of research, called epidemiological research, looks at how disease rates vary among different popu-lations and also examines factors associ-ated with disease. Epidemiological stud-ies rely on observational data from human populations, and so they can only sug-gest a relationship between two factors;
they cannot establish that a particular fac-tor causes a disease. This type of obser-vational study may compare factors found among people with a disease, such as cancer, with factors among a comparable group without that disease or may try to identify factors associated with diseases that develop over time within a popula-tion group. Researchers may find, for ex-ample, fewer cases of osteoporosis in women who take estrogen after menopause.
A third type of research goes beyond using animals or observational data and uses humans as subjects. Clinical trials are studies that assign similar participants ran-domly to two groups. One group re-ceives the experimental treatment; the other does not. Neither the researchers nor the participants know who is in which group. For example, a clinical trial to test the effects of estrogen after menopause would randomly assign each participant to one of two groups. Both groups would take a pill, but for one group this would be a dummy pill, called a placebo. Clinical studies are used to assess the effects of nutrition-education programs and medical nutrition therapy.
Unlike epidemiological studies, clinical studies can observe cause-and-effect relationships.
When reading or listening to a news account of a particular study, it is helpful to have a few key questions in the back of your mind not only to help evaluate the merits of the study but also to deter-mine whether it is applicable to you.
Look to news reports to address the following:
1. How does this work fit with the body of existing research on the subject? Even the most well-written article does not have enough space to discuss all relevant research on an issue. Yet it is extremely impor-tant for the article to address whether a study is confirming previ-ous research and therefore adding more weight to scientific beliefs or whether the study’s results and con-clusions take a wild departure from current thinking on the subject.
2. Could the study be interpreted to say something else? Scientists of-ten reach different conclusions when commenting on the same or similar data. Look for varying con-clusions from experts, because cer-tain issues they address may be important in putting the findings into context.
3. Are there any flaws in how the study was undertaken that should be considered when making con-clusions? The more experts are quoted or provide background in a news story, the more likely that potential flaws will be described.
4. Are the study’s results generalizable to other groups? Not all research incorporates all types of people:
men, women, older adults, and people of various ethnicities. Also, a study may have been conducted on animals and not humans. If study results are applicable only to a nar-row group of people, that should be reported as such.
78 Chapter 2 Using Dietary Recommendations, Food Guides, and Food Labels to Plan Menus
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Hot Topic 79 Here are some websites that will help
you separate fact from fiction:
www.quackwatch.com (Quack Watch) www.ncahf.org (National Council Against Health Fraud)
Figure 2-29 lists websites with reliable nutrition information.
Source: With permission, this Hot Topic used sections of “If It Sounds Too Good
to Be True . . . It Probably Needs a Second Look” from Food Insight, published by the International Food Information Council Foundation, March/April 1999.
F I G U R E 2 - 2 9 :
Websites with Reliable Nutrition Information
www.healthfinder.govThis is a gateway to reliable consumer health and human services information developed by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
www.eatright.org
This is the website for the American Dietetic Association. It contains information on many nutrition topics and issues.
http://vm.cfsan.fda.gov
The Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition contains much information on food safety issues, nutrition labels, and other topics.
www.usda.gov/cnpp
The Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion of the USDA has the Dietary Guidelines for Americans and lots more nutrition information.
www.nal.usda.gov/fnic
FNIC’s (Food and Nutrition Information Center) website provides a directory to credible, accurate, and practical resources.
FNIC is part of the USDA.
www.foodandhealth.com
Food and Health Communications provides reliable nutrition information, as well as clip art, in many areas.
www.mayoclinic.com
This is the website of the Mayo Clinic, which has much information on many health topics.
http://nccam.nih.gov
This is the website for the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine.
www.acsm.org
This is the website for the American College of Sports Medicine.
www.nutrition.gov
This government website has many links and much information.
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