Comments on: Patrick Holford and Berthelot’s Food Dispensary

By: dvnutrix

dvnutrix — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 12:38:34 +0000

Ah - David Thomas, chiropractor and supplements entrepreneur. Yes, some interesting material, not least for the difficulty of effectively conducting longitudinal cross-sections for substances where so much changes. It is an interesting area for so many reasons - not least because of the recent observations where it seems that, for many measures, people who took no supplements fared substantially better than those who took a multivitamin. It would be good if we understood more about how we use the nutrients from food. Piously, of course, it would be good to think that in the UK, everyone had access to an appropriately nutritious diet. If UKdietitian drops by, she might comment on the nutritional status of various groups in the UK.

By: gaius

gaius — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 06:20:48 +0000

Yes, the McCance and Widdowson study I’m referring to was the one done by David Thomas, which as far as I know has only been published in a couple of CAM journals (not peer-reviewed). I don’t think he is a doctor of anything, and I’m not bothered that his scientific training was as a geologist. The figures are all there in McC and W, so in this case I find LCN’s comments on the work irrelevant (not something I would normally say about his observations). The real scandal is surely that the nutritional quality of our food is declining.

One of the other reports that is routinely quoted in supplement marketing blurbs is the “Earth Summit Report”. Again, this refers to official figures released at the UN Conference on Environment and Development in 1992 which apparently estimated that US soil now contained only 85% of the mineral content it had 100 years ago, with Europe at 72%. Umpteen websites quote this information; none of them give a reference and I have given a good hour of trying to track it down on the Net through various UN sites with no success.

I absolutely agree that we should try to get nutrients from food rather than supplements; my concern is that soil depletion means that the minerals we need may be going missing from fruit and veg and so on. A (for a change) documented example of this is selenium – see, for example, “Dietary selenium: time to act” (Editorial) BMJ 1997;314:387..
http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/314/7078/387

By: dvnutrix

dvnutrix — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 20:14:32 +0000

Gaius – I would be interested in some details of the review, if you have them. I’m aware of this one on fruit but it would be good to know about others. In addition, whether people are best advised to obtain their nutrients from food rather than supplements because of various phytonutrients.

I haven’t read through all the links but Le Canard Noir has an interesting post on The Mineral-Depleted Food Scandal. He has some thought-provoking observations.

It would appear to be case closed, but the story gets a lot better.

Why did the Food Commission publish this report? Who did the original research?

It is stated that the research was done by a Dr David Thomas. Now Dr Thomas was originally a geologist (alarm bells) and has “retrained as a chiropractor and nutritionist” (very loud sirens). Dr Thomas does not work at any academic institution doing research, as you might have thought given the seriousness of this report, but rather has been running a company that sells (drum roll) mineral supplements.

http://www.mineralresourcesint.co.uk/about.html (have a look what the quackometer has to say about this site.)

So, could it be that this report was originally just a piece of puff marketing released by a company that would directly profit from people believing it? I don’t know. If it is just marketing then it is a scandal. Obviously many people are worried about their health enough to invest lots of money in unnecessary supplements.

By: gaius

gaius — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 19:51:31 +0000

I remember reading an article in New Scientist trumpeting the benefits of some new, genetically-engineered tomatoes.
The feature mainly focused on the superior taste, but the tomatoes had also been improved to withstand transport and storage better than “ordinary” tomatoes.
In the whole two-page (or so) piece there was no mention of the nutritional content.
I like food, but the main reason I eat it is to get the nutrients I need. But it appears that modern agriculture and food technology is ignoring that aspect of what we eat.
More than one investigator has drawn attention to the declining levels of micro-nutrients in food. One study, for example, compared the mineral contents of foods as analysed and published in consecutive editions of McCance and Widdowson’s the Composition of Foods, the “official” UK food composition tables. These tables show an alarming decline in minerals/trace elements such as zinc and magnesium.
It is ridiculous to think we can live by pills alone; however, relying on food alone may no longer be a sensible approach either.