Men’s Health on Acai: “Pulp Fiction”
We haven’t visited Ye Olde Superfruit controversies in a while, so I thought I’d link to this recent Men’s Health article on acai by Bryan Smith. The upshot, say experts, is that no one fruit or berry, no matter what its ORAC score, fires an antioxidant silver bullet. “What I tell people is that you need to eat all these types of compounds, in all different colors,” says Navindra P. Seeram, Ph. D., who...
The Healthy Skeptic on Diet Patch Claims
As noted before, Chris Woolston’s “Healthy Skeptic” column in the LA Times is pretty good. Here he is on the subject of diet patches… Some day, scientists might develop an effective weight-loss patch, says Dr. Howard Eisenson, executive director of the Duke Diet and Fitness Center in Durham, N.C. But, to his mind, that day is probably still far off. The patches on the market today “are beyond...
Connecticut AG to Scrutinize “Smart Choices” Program
Remember this? Looks like the so-called “Smart Choices” labelling system is drawing critics with teeth. Raising the stakes in the battle over nutritional claims for packaged foods, the Connecticut attorney general said on Wednesday that he was investigating a national labeling campaign that promotes products like Froot Loops and mayonnaise as nutritionally smart choices. In letters to Kellogg’s, General Mills and PepsiCo,...
FTC Publishes Guide on Ad Testimonials/Endorsements
Evidently it’s “truth or consequences”… Under the revised Guides, advertisements that feature a consumer and convey his or her experience with a product or service as typical when that is not the case will be required to clearly disclose the results that consumers can generally expect. In contrast to the 1980 version of the Guides – which allowed advertisers to describe unusual results in a testimonial as long...
If it Sounds Too Good to be True…
It probably is. Although this lawsuit was filed back in May, it just made it across my radar screen… and it’s too good an illustration of this principle to pass up. Claim to boost testosterone meets class-action lawsuit Posted by Hugo Ottolenghi The company says that its product will boost testosterone levels by 10,000%. The plaintiffs says the product is snake oil marked up to $70 a package. So begins a class-action...
Baloney Detection Kit
Paul sent me a link to this YouTube vid from skeptic, author and professor Michael Shermer. No, it has nothing to do with supps, diet, exercise or health per se… but it IS relevant to those subjects. Basically, the vid is about the kinds of questions people need to ask themselves when confronted by claims… so the mental steps Dr. Shermer discusses are quite applicable to the claims made in supp ads and other...
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