Results for: "dr. oz"

Biotin: Haircuts Plus Health Advice?

A friend asked me, “What do you know about biotin?” I said, “Not much. Why do you ask?” She explained that the woman who cuts her hair at the hair salon recommended she take biotin to strengthen her nails and improve hair growth. She tried it, and within a couple of months, her nails looked better than they ever had in her...

/ October 8, 2013

Answering Our Critics, Part 1 of 2

Some people don’t like what we have to say on Science-Based Medicine. Some attack specific points while others attack our whole approach. Every mention of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) elicits protests in the Comments section from “true believer” users and practitioners of CAM. Every mention of a treatment that has been disproven or has not been properly tested elicits testimonials from...

/ September 24, 2013

Naturopathic Medicine Week 2013, or: Quackery Week 2013

[Ed. Note: This is an extra “bonus” post from Dr. Gorski’s not-so-super-secret other blog. He thought the topic would be of interest to SBM readers as well. Fear not. There will be a post on Monday, as usual.] The vast majority of ideas and treatments that make up the “complementary and alternative medicine” (CAM) specialty known as naturopathy are quackery. There, I...

/ September 14, 2013

Does Everybody Have Chronic Lyme Disease? Does Anyone?

A deplorable article by Suzy Cohen on Huffington Post is titled “Feel Bad? It Could Be Lyme Unless Proven Otherwise.” It consists of irresponsible fear-mongering about a nonexistent disease. A science-based article would be titled “Feel Bad? It Couldn’t Be Chronic Lyme Disease Because CLD Is Nonexistent Until Proven Otherwise.” Cohen says: People often attribute uncomfortable symptoms to aging, stress, or the...

/ September 3, 2013

The facts of the alternative medicine industry

People have been living on earth for about 250,000 years. For the past 5,000 healers have been trying to heal the sick. For all but the past 200, they haven’t been very good at it. – Dr. Paul Offit Twenty years is a long time in medicine. I celebrated my 20th pharmacy class reunion last weekend. Of course reunions are time to...

/ August 15, 2013

Doing Eric Merola a favor…

Believe it or not, I’m going to do Eric Merola (who doesn’t particularly like me, to the point of thinking, apparently, that I’m a white supremacist who doesn’t like evidence but does like to eat puppies) a favor. Having been away at TAM and otherwise occupied hanging out with fellow skeptics and, more stressfully, getting ready to give a talk in front...

/ July 17, 2013

Kombucha: A symbiotic mix of yeast, bacteria and the naturalistic fallacy

If you grew up in the seventies, you may remember the same food fads as I do. There was the oat bran buzz that was replaced by the wheat germ movement, the family fondue set and the homemade yogurt maker. And for a while I remember my father making what I called “aquarium water” – a foul-looking jug sitting on the kitchen...

/ June 6, 2013

Coconut Oil

Is coconut oil a miracle food, or a health hazard? Likely neither.

/ May 28, 2013

A closer look at vitamin injections

Vitamins are magic. Especially when they’re injected. Roll up the sleeve, find a vein, insert a needle and watch that colourful concoction flow directly into the bloodstream. It may sound somewhat illicit, but that person infusing it is wearing a white coat, and you’re sitting in a chic clinic. There must be something to it, right? Intravenous vitamin injections are popular with...

/ May 24, 2013

Burzynski: Cancer Is A Serious Business, Part 2: Like the first Burzynski movie, only more so?

Film producer Eric Merola seems to think that there is a conspiracy of skeptics (whom he calls The Skeptics) who are fanatically hell-bent on harassing his hero, Brave Maverick Doctor Stanislaw Burzynski. According to his latest film Burzynski: Cancer Is A Serious Business, Part 2 (henceforth referred to as Burzynski II, to distinguish it from part 1, to which I will refer...

/ March 14, 2013