Month: October 2011

CAM practitioners react to Andrew Weil’s proposal for a board certification for integrative medicine. It isn’t (all) pretty.

About a month ago, I discussed a rather disturbing development, namely the initiative by Dr. Andrew Weil to set up something he was going to call the American Board of Integrative Medicine, all for the purpose of creating a system of board certification for physicians practicing “integrative medicine” (IM), or, as I prefer to call them, physicians who like to integrate pseudoscience...

/ October 31, 2011
Steve Jobs

“And one more thing” about Steve Jobs’ battle with cancer

Did Steve Jobs' delay in undergoing surgery for his cancer cost him his life? The new Walter Isaacson biography provides more information, but does not resolve the question.

/ October 31, 2011

Milk Thistle and Mushroom Poisoning

If you’ve been fortunate to live in the parts of the US that were soggier than usually as of late – or unfortunate enough to have had flooding from hurricanes and tropical storms – then you’ve be noticing a tremendous burst of mushrooms. For mycologists – mushroom enthusiasts – there are two classic chestnuts: “There are old mushroom collectors and bold mushrooms...

/ October 28, 2011

Please Don’t Define “Complementary and Alternative Health Practices”!

Since I have a master’s and doctoral degree in health education and since I’m a professor in a department of public health with an undergraduate curriculum that includes substantial attention to health education, I participate in the email discussion group of HEDIR, the Health Education Directory. On August 16th, I received a message to the discussion group from the American Association for...

/ October 28, 2011

Constipation Myths and Facts

When it comes to health issues, bowels are big business. Bowel movements are part of everyday life, and we notice immediately when our routine changes. Constipation, from the Latin word constipare (“to crowd together”) is something almost everyone has some experience with. In most cases, it’s an occasional annoyance that resolves quickly. For others, particularly the elderly, constipation can be a chronic...

/ October 27, 2011

Alpha Brain – What’s Wrong with the Supplement Industry

There is an endless stream of supplement products on the market that are of questionable value. They tend to follow a similar pattern: put an essentially random assortment of vitamins, minerals, perhaps herbs and nutritional elements into a pill and then make whatever pseudo-health claims you want. Usually the claim is implied in the name of the product itself – sleepwell, or...

/ October 26, 2011

KA at U Minnesota and Michigan State

I’ll be giving a talk, “Homeopathy and Skepticism,” to skeptical students this Thursday, Oct 27, at the University of Minnesota (7:00 PM at MCB 3-120) and this Friday, Oct. 28, at Michigan State University (7:00 PM at Holmes Hall 106). Here is the abstract: Homeopathy is an extraordinary popular delusion that has persisted for more than 200 years. It is now a...

/ October 25, 2011

Steven Fowkes (Part 1 of 2): How to Cure Alzheimer’s and Herpes

A correspondent asked me to review a video presentation by Steven Fowkes, “Nutrients for Better Mental Performance,” one segment of a 9-part series on preventing and curing Alzheimer’s that was mentioned recently by an SBM commenter. Fowkes is an organic chemist without a PhD; he says this means: I am not institutionalized [This begs for a joke, but I will refrain.] and...

/ October 25, 2011

More Breast Cancer Awareness Month pseudoscience from (who else?) Joe Mercola

I have mixed emotions regarding Breast Cancer Awareness Month. On the one hand, I look forward to it because it provides us with a pretext to get out science-based messages about breast cancer and to highlight a lot of the cool science that we do at our cancer center. On the other hand, the quacks see an opportunity in Breast Cancer Awareness...

/ October 24, 2011

Steve Jobs’ medical reality distortion field

As I pointed out in my previous post about Steve Jobs, I’m a bit of an Apple fan boy. A housemate of mine got the very first Mac way back in 1984, and ever since I bought my first computer that was mine and mine alone back in 1991 (a Mac LC), I’ve used nothing but Macintosh computers, except when compelled to...

/ October 21, 2011