Subject: More pied pipers and health gurus

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More pied pipers and health gurus

Fri, 14 May 2004 11:49:04 -0700

 

Apricot pits, coral calcium, colloidal minerals, coconut oil, soil

organisms,

just what will the next health guru bring to America? Health

reporter Bill Sardi

investigates......at www.askbillsardi.com.

 

 

 

More Health Gurus and Pied Pipers

So many millions of Americans want to distance themselves from

problematic and

costly prescription medicines and invasive treatments that may

produce life-long

side effects. But in their search for more natural alternatives, the

public is

bedazzled with claims of instant cures and " fountains of youth " that

they can

hardly sort fact from fiction.

 

The natural health arena is bereft with gurus and a culture of

pseudoscience.

These marginal health providers exist solely on the desperation and

ignorance of

the infirm.

 

It's easy to see how something that has a ring of truth to it soon

becomes the

next whirlwind money maker. In fact, a whole army of multi-level

troops await

the next elixir they can peddle to gullible consumers.

One of the problems in deciphering health claims for various

nostrums is poor

logic. For example, let's say that kids are known to come down with

recurrent

ear infections. In studying these kids we find out that most of them

wear tennis

shoes. Does that mean that tennis shoes cause ear infections? No,

the tennis

shoes are associated with, but are not a cause of, ear infections.

The tennis

shoes are just bystanders. It is this type of illogical thinking

that permeates

natural medicine today. People in far off lands may live long and

healthy and

may eat certain foods or drink water from a special spring. But

these factors

may in fact play no role at all in promoting health or longevity.

Similar

examples abound – see below.

Pied pipers continue to lead the natural medicine movement astray.

In recent

times a number come to mind.

The colloidal mineral guru

One pied piper, a chiropractor, whose audio tape entitled " Dead

Doctors Don't

Lie " sold millions of copies, maintained that a shortage of minerals

is

responsible for many maladies and colloidal minerals were the answer

to all

these ills. The problem is that many colloidal mineral products

contain

undesirable heavy metals. Furthermore, aging itself can be explained

in part by

the accumulation of minerals such as iron and copper in the liver,

brain and

blood and calcium in the arteries, kidneys and heart valves. It was

later

revealed that doctors don't die at an earlier age than the public at

large as

alleged in the audio tape. While this tape was entertaining and

informative, it

led the public in the wrong direction. They weren't any healthier

for taking

colloidal minerals. Furthermore, the consumption of colloidal

minerals is a

contradiction to the widespread idea among natural medicine

practitioners that

mineral chelation (removal) needs to be performed periodically.

First load up

on minerals, then remove them. Sounds silly, doesn't it? It's good

business for

alternative medicine practitioners, but again, the public is not

healthier.

The coral calcium guru

No more infamous is Robert Barefoot among health gurus, who led

millions of

Americans on the wrong road to health and longevity. He had an army

of believers

behind him who never once examined the validity of his claims

because they were

fanatically involved in the selling of coral calcium. Barefoot

claimed that

coral calcium from Okinawa had magical powers, that it alone was

responsible for

the longevity observed among people on the Japanese island of

Okinawa. But the

super longevity observed among Okinawans emanates from their calorie

restriction, not their consumption of coral calcium, which is

obtained from

drinking water and is only a trivial part of their diet. [J

Nutrition Science

Vitaminology (Tokyo) 42:241-8, 1996] The Federal Trade Commission

pulled Dr.

Barefoot's commercials off of TV and radio. Still, hardliners

continue to extol

the benefits of coral calcium.

The protein diet guru

Another pied piper was Robert Atkins MD. Not to say that Dr. Atkins

hasn't made

a significant positive contribution to countering the carbohydrate-

craving

American culture. The switch to a protein-based diet certainly

removes the

sugars, rids the body of yeast which feeds on sugar, reduces the

risk of

diabetes and trims the waistline. But long term the Atkins diet will

promote

gout, raise cholesterol and the consumption of meat will result in

iron

overload. Dieters get away with the Atkins diet for a time and look

slimmer, but

in the long run their liver and other tissues will pay a price. Meat

provides

iron that is absorbed whether the body needs it or not. Plant foods

provide a

form of iron that is absorbed only on an as-needed basis. The Atkins

diet is

safe for short-term dieters who need to slim down and get in shape.

Beyond that,

beware.

The coconut oil guru

The most recent pied piper, a naturopathic physician, has a widely-

promoted

book, The Maker's Diet. With God's authority behind it, who can

argue with the

book's content. But what does it really say? Frankly, it's a lot of

mumbo jumbo.

The author, Jordan S. Rubin, a naturopathic physician, says he is on

a " mission

from God to change the health of this nation. " His qualifications? --

his

testimony of how he overcame debilitating Crohn's disease with soil

organisms.

Nowhere in the Bible are soil organisms promoted, but somehow this

practice got

plugged into the book.

 

Rubin says in personal desperation he consulted the pages of the

Bible. He says

he found that the " longest lived cultures in the world had a few

things in

common—they consumed `living foods' that abounded with nutrients,

enzymes, and

beneficial microorganisms. And they consumed healthy animal foods

that were rich

in nutrients. " Actually, the people who live the longest on the

planet cannot be

described by what they eat. They can be described by what they do

not eat. They

are mostly calorie restrictors, or they drink red wine which

contains a molecule

that mimics the healthy effects of calorie restriction. [J Applied

Physiology

95:1706-16, 2003] Rubin appears to be oblivious to this now widely

known fact.

To be fair, Rubin talks about fasting, but this doesn't jive with

the above

quotation from his book.

Megavitamins a myth?

Another misleading claim made by Rubin is that the benefits of

taking

megavitamins are a myth and synthetic vitamins are to be avoided.

Rubin promotes

food-based vitamin pills which he claims are superior to other

synthetic brands.

But under examination, his claim doesn't hold up. For example, folic

acid from

foods cannot be adequately absorbed by about 35 percent of the

population.

Synthetic folic acid works better than the form found in foods. The

bioavailability of folic acid from supplements is at least double

that of

dietary folic acid. [J Gender Specific Medicine 2: 24-28, 1999]

Meat to eat?

Another startling mistake in Rubin's book is the claim that there

is " nothing in

nutritional science that supports the claim that eating meat causes

cardiovascular problems. " (Maker's Diet, page 102) A quick search of

the

National Library of Medicine can locate many repots on the health

hazards posed

by meat consumption. For example, researchers at the Medical

University of South

Carolina found that meat eating can lead to iron overload which

increases

mortality rate by three times! [Annals Family Medicine 2:139-44,

2004]

Researchers at Loma Linda University recently reported that very low

meat

consumption lowers mortality rates and increases the human lifespan

by about 3.6

years. [Am J Clinical Nutrition 78:526S-532S, 2003] In 1994

researchers reported

that non meat eaters experience about 30 percent less heart disease.

[british

Medical Journal 308: 1667-70, 1994]

 

In fact, Rubin's living multivitamin provides 9 milligrams of iron

per serving

which is inappropriate for full-grown males and non-menstruating

females.

Supplemental iron often leads to iron overload, fatty liver,

elevated

cholesterol and blood sugar, and brain disease.

Coconut trees in Palestine

Coconut trees must have been growing in Palestine in Bible days.

Inexplicably,

coconut oil made it into the Maker's Diet. Rubin claims that coconut

oil, not

olive oil as described in the Bible, is the most nutritious oil in

the world.

Somehow, with a widespread deficiency of omega-3 oils in the

American diet,

Rubin chose to emphasize coconut oil as a dietary staple instead.

Actually, the

most stable cooking oil is rice bran oil that is loaded with twice

the

antioxidants (vitamin e, tocotrienols, oryzanol) compared to the

most virgin

olive oil and has a very high cooking temperature (it does not brown

foods).

[Phytotherapy Research 15: 277-89, 2001] The healthiest oil, though

not suitable

for cooking, is flaxseed oil that is loaded with lignans and omega-3

fatty

acids.

 

It's not that coconut oil is so bad, it's just that one wonders why

it is being

hyped. There is no question that coconut oil may lower certain

circulating fats

(lipoprotein A) which are considered risk factors for cardiovascular

disease. [J

Nutrition 133:3422-7, 2003; Eur J Clin Nutr 52:650-4, 1998] But at

$66 a gallon,

one wonders what magic is touted to be inside this oil to pay such a

steep

price.

Whatever you do, don't forget to pay the pied piper. Be reminded the

legendary

13th-century Pied Piper, who led away the rats from the town of

Hamelin and when

refused payment for his services, lured away 130 children and

disappeared with

them into the mountains.Led astray again?

Is the public being led astray again? It always will.

 

The public knows that medical doctors have little training in

nutritional medicine. The public is also quick to believe non-MDs

who claim hidden secrets of health because they know

the medical industry is self serving. Bogus health claims persist

because the

public believes the medical profession is hiding cheaper

nonprescription cures.

But the public is too eager to accept the next cure-all that comes

along. A few years ago another guru claimed that the Hunza people in

Northern Pakistan are virtually immune from cancer because they eat

apricot pits.

 

Now that all the unsubstantiated health regimens these

pseudoscientists recommend have been discredited and pushed aside,

you need to know about a Himalayan mountain cure that a Tibetan monk

has found. What he says is that this remedy is sure to cure …………….. "

 

Copyright 2004 Bill Sardi, Knowledge of Health, Inc.

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