Entries from November 2007
Well, it would do if the paper was any good, anyway… So, here’s a short break from our usual Patrick Holford coverage to note that Dore have put out a new research paper (PDF) by David Reynolds, Roy Rutherford and Wenjuan Zhang. The Jackson Wells PR company are presenting this as having found that Dore “greatly improves motor and cognitive functions in people presenting with dyslexia”. However, Table 1 in the paper (p. 7) actually shows that Dore did not bring a statistically significant improvement in Dyslexia Screening Test (DST) scores for clients presenting with a mild/borderline risk of dyslexia. This means that a lot of potential Dore clients risk spending a lot of money - and a lot of time doing Dore exercises - despite the fact that Dore’s own research does not show their treatment significant improvement in DST test scores, let alone a ‘cure’.
Now, as suggested above, I don’t think this research paper was any good. The new brainduck blog has done an excellent job of taking apart the Dore paper: among a number of serious flaws, there was no control group, the paper denies that the attention given during Dore treatment constitutes ’special attention’ for children, and the paper does not give an adequate review of the academic literature on dyslexia. However, if you live by crap research, you die by crap research: if Dore believe that the research paper is credible, why don’t they act on what it finds and tell clients with a mild/borderline DST score that Dore is unsuitable for them?
Dore shouldn’t be able to have it both ways. If you promote poor quality research when it appears to show benefits from your treatment, you shouldn’t just ignore the research when it shows no benefit for some potential clients.
Categories: Dore · dyslexia · dyspraxia
In the Irish Independent, Holford is quoted as stating that “The UK’s National Institute of Clinical Excellence [NICE] recommends that all doctors prescribe one gram of fish oil to patients who have had a heart attack. The trouble is, most of us don’t eat nearly enough omega 3 and 6 fats.” However, NICE actually recommend [PDF, p.5] that patients “Eat two to four portions of oily fish a week, such as herring, sardines,mackerel, salmon, trout and tuna.,,,If you have had a heart attack in the last 3 months and do not eat enough oily fish, your doctor may offer a medicine to supplement your diet.”
In other words: eat oily fish, it’s tasty and healthy. If eating enough fish is a problem, then your doctor may suggest supplements (and, obviously, do not stop taking a prescribed supplement due to a blog post). One more thing - most people eating a ‘Western diet’ will consume too high a ratio of omega 6 fats to omega 3 fats. However, if you do feel that you are deficient in omega 6 fats, these can easily be topped up with things like sunflower seeds and oil.
Categories: fish · omega 3 · patrick holford
According a terrible article by Ann Coogan - where Prof Holford of Teesside University describes “5 steps to perfect health” - Holford eats oily fish three times per day, and seeds, but still feels the need to take omega 3 and 6 supplements. All I can say is - why? That type of diet will provide plenty of omega 3 and 6 fats, without the need to resort to pills… But, still, Holford says he takes supplements. (more…)
Categories: omega 3 · patrick holford
CLARIFICATION: following an e-mail from Patrick Holford , we are pleased to note that he does not advise eating fish three times per day; it appears that this was an error in the newspaper article (now corrected in the online version).
The Independent appears to have responded to Private Eye’s criticism of their describing Holford as “one of the world’s leading authorities on new approaches to health and nutrition” by, um, giving Holford the opportunity to share his wisdom on Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD). I’ve got a number of problems with this article. What jumped out at me first, though, was that - while Holford is normally willing (too willing, in my opinion) to warn about the dangers of mercury - in the Independent he advises that those concerned about SAD “eat tuna, mackerel, herring or salmon three times a week”. Because some tuna is relatively highly contaminated with mercury, someone who ate it thrice-weekly could well be above the FDA’s recommended maximum mercury consumption.
FDA recommendations for safe dietary mercury levels suggest that adults don’t eat more than 14oz/week of fish with an average of 0.5 ppm mercury (which includes some types of tuna). Children, and women who are or may become pregnant, are recommended to eat significantly lower levels of mercury. Now, these recommendations are precautionary - they have been criticised as over-cautious, and I sometimes eat more than this myself - but Holford could at least be consistent.
It is odd that Holford is apparently disturbed by the low levels of ethylmercury in vaccines - stating that “Tiny amounts of mercury have been shown to promote abnormal methylation” and recommending that tuna should only be eaten once per month due to its mercury content* - but suggests in the Independent that people consume tuna much more often. This is despite the fact that it can easily be the case that “a tuna sandwich contains…more mercury than a typical vaccine dose“. (more…)
Categories: Independent · fish · mercury · patrick holford
Whole Foods Market (WFM) are a supermarket chain that makes a lot of their ‘ethical’ credentials. In some cases, they go rather further than I would expect (or see as necessary): for example, they have gone into a remarkable amount of detail in considering the ethics of keeping live lobsters. I was thus surprised to see that WFM were, as reported in the Food for the Brain (FFTB) September E-Newsletter, making FFTB their ‘Charity of the Month’ in their Kensington branch: I wasn’t sure whether they knew about the type of interventions advocated by FFTB.
I therefore e-mailed WFM to raise some concerns about this. Among other things, I asked them for their comments on FFTB’s advocacy of unreliable allergy, intolerance and nutritional tests for children, the poor quality of the evidence FFTB offered re. allergies and intolerance, and their links to the anti-psychiatry Safe Harbor organisation (which has connections to a number of prominent Scientologists).
Given the amount of detail in which WFM has considered issues like lobster-keeping, I was expecting a comprehensive response. Instead, WFM’s helpful press office simply told me that WFM have “declined to comment on this occasion.” So - no detailed report of WFM research, no discussion of how supporting FFTB might impact on Britain’s children, just a simple ‘no comment’.
Well, at least WFM have conducted and published relatively detailed research on the ethics of lobster husbandry…
Categories: Food for the brain · Whole Foods Market · patrick holford
‘Ratbiter’ has an excellent piece in Private Eye. In an article headlined May contain nuts, they ask Who is Patrick Holford, the British media’s favourite ‘nutritionist’? (issue 1197, p. 29).
The article begins with a critical look at some of Holford’s statements on vitamin C and HIV/AIDS, and also discusses one of Holford’s disagreement with David Colquhoun.
Ratbiter then points out that
Holford is derided by science bloggers, most notably the authors of the punchy HolfordWatch site, but foreigners trawling the British press cuttings would find him popping up as an expert witness more often than Posh Spice at London Fashion Week. (more…)
Categories: AIDS · David Colquhoun · University of Teesside · institute for optimum nutrition · patrick holford · vitamin c
The Saturday Telegraph has ran a pretty dire article on the “Top 20 health gurus” - outlining the ‘achievements’ of 20 prominent ‘gurus’. Including Patrick Holford, naturally (though I do wonder how those ‘gurus’ excluded from the list feel - what does it do to one’s ego to fail to make this type of list ;) ). Happily, though, this has been promptly debunked by Damian Thompson on his Counterknowledge and Telegraph blogs (and the article itself ends by rating several therapies based on their “Nut content“).
Thompson offers
a gem of a quote from a master of medical counterknowledge. “I’m not sure how much credibility these pointy-heads have,” says Dr Michael Dixon, trustee of The Prince of Wales’s Foundation for Integrated Medicine
Absolutely - why bother to assess the evidence for ‘alternative’ medicine when you can complain about the pointy heads of those who are cautious about the use of unproven therapies. These unproven theories can be extremely problematic: as Thompson points out
Western homeopaths and alternative practitioners are moving into Aids-ravaged Africa. Some of them treat HIV with vitamins. Which brings me to the subject of another of our celebrity health gurus, the nutritionist Patrick Holford…while we’re on the topic of Holford’s theories, let’s just remind ourselves of one of them: “AZT, the first prescribable anti-HIV drug, is potentially harmful and proving less effective than Vitamin C.” Meaning what? You’d better not speculate, or you’ll be hearing from Patrick’s lawyers.
Describing Holford, the article asks “Are men of almost 50 meant to look so youthful and trim?” Thompson offers his own speculation as to why: “I put it down to never having had to go through the stress of acquiring university qualifications in medicine or nutrition.”
Damn, so that’s why academics often look so tired. Never mind, I’ll just have to content myself with polishing my pointy head.
Categories: patrick holford
