Gonna have a rash of entries coming here folks. Get ready to scroll.
From the New York Times, in yesterday's edition, comes Seeking to Shed Fat, She Lost Her Liver. The story is about a woman who bought a bottle of 90 capsules of usnic acid over the internet. Usnic acid is a dietary supplement, a category of items that is almost completely unregulated. As long as the makers do not make any claims to cure disease, the FDA can do little about them. Usnic acid is supposed to help with weight loss. Anyway, here's the paragraphs that really piqued my interest:
In fact, the product she took was not regulated by anybody. Mr. Parker, who produced the capsules, does not have a college degree or any training in pharmacology. He sells promotional T-shirts for a living. He said usnic acid was
just a little sideline.Mr. Parker said that bodybuilding was a hobby of his, and that taking usnic acid for weight loss had been "a buzz in the health and fitness community for years."
About a year ago, he said, he found a supplier in China via the Internet, ordered the usnic acid in 11-pound lots, had it tested for purity and then sent it to a local company to have it put in capsules and bottled.
He wrote the dosage instructions himself, he said, based on Internet research and feedback from people who used the compound. He then sold it, mostly via the Internet but also through a few health food stores.
What piqued my interest about it? That a guy without a college degree can make the stuff? No. What piques my interest is that someone would buy the crap from him.
When Jennifer Rosenthal took usnic acid, she said, it never occurred to her to wonder whether or not the product had been tested, studied or approved by the F.D.A.
I didn't think about that kind of stuff,she said.Not very smart.
This is the kind of health advice you are going to get if you don't check into things. It's why I harp on such things as water intake myths on the crack bored health forum. Too much bad advice getting passed around from person to person. Call me callous, but this woman deserved what she got for not checking into a drug she was putting into her body. Even if it was called a dietary supplement.
It's why I don't advocate alternative medicine. Basically, if there is some health claim to it, I wanna see studies before I'm willing to take it. Sure, I don't check into everything. For instance, if my doctor prescribes something, I probably won't make sure it is as effective as he claims. I consider the source.
Seriously though, the amount of health advice I see/hear passed around by non-health professionals without any iota of evidence to support it is astonishing.