Holford Watch: Patrick Holford, nutritionism and bad science

Professor Patrick Holford has a remarkably agile PR team with helpful lacunae in their collective memories. 27.02.2007, Holford’s email subscribers received an email, What’s the alternative to ineffective anti-depressants? (more…)

Another break from Patrick Holford, to look some more at Life’s 4 Living (L4L). They are offering a “unique opportunity” for young people with Multiple Sclerosis (MS) to participate in a documentary on an ‘alternative’ MS treatment. Participants are asked to spend 3 months in China, for a documentary by Creation Film and TV (apparently they would like to broadcast this on Channel 4, although we hope that Channel 4 will be forewarned and will avoid this documentary). We’ll look over their PDF document on this ‘opportunity’, and find that L4L combine a highly stereotyped attitude to Chinese people with an unfounded denigration of evidence-based medicine, unjustified claims to cure MS, and demands for young people with MS and their families to commit a lot of time and money. However, we will also consider how - despite the serious problems with L4L’s treatment plans - they are still likely to be able to produce a TV documentary showing MS to be ‘cured’.

Firstly, it’s a fascinating coincidence that L4L chose to do a documentary on MS: a condition that can naturally go into remission. (more…)

Who can forget the SA columnist who described Patrick Holford as a bowel-whisperer and skittish polecat? Since then we have enjoyed several forthright descriptions of Holford and his recommendations. The SA Sunday Times offers a delightful juxtaposition of dietary advice: Grill Hills and Deep-Fried Ice-Cream Balls Recipe. (more…)

Holfordwatch was initially concerned that Life’s 4 Living was unaware of the chequered history of The Barefoot Doctor Stephen Russell in his dealings with his clients. However, it now looks as if some vulnerable young people and their families are invited to accept treatment and support from an organisation that is staffed by people who believe that their energy therapy can treat and mitigate cancer, Aids, Cerebral Palsy and a variety of chronic or terminal illnesses as well as disabilities. And who are willing to work with people such as Barefoot Russell who manifest a shaky sense of appropriate sexual boundaries with clients and vulnerable people. (more…)

There is no connection between the Barefoot Doctor Stephen Russell and Patrick Holford unless you are playing a New Age version of Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon.^[1]

However, looking into the Barefoot Doctor, who would have been well-advised to stick to games of footsie or standing on one leg while looking tranquil, Holfordwatch came across a series of associations that suggest the need for a version that should be entitled Six Degrees of Sleaze. (more…)

We’ve been given some very interesting documents resulting from a Freedom of Information Act request: it seems like Teesside University were unhappy about their Professor Patrick Holford associating himself with the University’s (excellent) research on nutrition. (See Improbable Science for the FOIA documents.)

Tony Chapman (Teesside’s Assistant Dean for Enterprise) wrote to Holford on 24/8/07, to ask him to desist from referring to himself as “Visiting Professor in mental health and/or nutrition”. Chapman also asks Holford to make clear that he is in the School of Social Sciences and Law: Chapman informs Holford that

It would be helpful if you could refer to yourself as Visiting Professor in the School of Social Sciences and Law at the University of Teesside , rather than Visiting Professor, University of Teesside.

Going into more detail in a 6/9/07 memo, Chapman states that he and Holford “had a discussion about areas of expertise” (see Patrick Holford’s CV to get a sense of his level of nutritional expertise). As a result of this discussion,

Patrick has agreed not to refer to his position using the terms ‘mental health’ or ‘nutrition’. But will say that he is working with our ‘psychologists’. (more…)

We’ve blogged before about ‘Professor Dr’ Joseph Chikelue Obi’s rather silly legal threats against the Quackometer’s hosting company Netcetera. Amazingly, Netcetera have taken these claims seriously - and now taken down the Quackometer as a results. The blog should be up again soon - with Netcetera’s cowardice having hasn’t the decision to move it to a host with some guts - but Netcetera have behaved horrendously here. (more…)

Two members of the Food for the Brain (FFTB) Scientific Advisory Board were asked about the FFTB child survey we’ve been analysing here, and they gave a very interesting response. The SAB Chair - Prof David Smith - replied that “the report is more hypothesis-generating for future research than a rigorous scientific study….Find us some money and we will do a proper job.” Here at HolfordWatch, we’re pleased that Prof Smith acknowledges that this report was neither “rigorous scientific study” nor “a proper job”: this entirely concurs with our own analyses of this work. We also agree with SAB-member Prof Cowen’s statement that the Survey is “not informative about causality”. However, we’re disappointed that - if the Scientific Advisory Board (SAB) knew that this report was not done properly, and does not provide useful information about policy - they allowed it to be represented as something on which dietary and policy decisions could be based. We would also note that - even as an exercise in hypothesis-generation - the Survey is quite woefully inadequate. (more…)

In the countdown to Valentine’s Day, the newspapers are awash with advice on how to make the day go with a swing. If there is an opening for advice that can’t be taken too seriously, the skate-boarding duck of TV news, as it were, can Professor Patrick Holford not be persuaded to fill it? (more…)

Professor Patrick Holford of Teesside University (and also Head of Science and Education at Biocare) and Drew Fobbester are joint researchers and authors of the Food for the Brain Child Survey, September 2007 (pdf). We have previously examined the overview of the literature in this report and found that it was misleading and irrelevant. Unfortunately, the reporting and analysis of the survey data look to be even worse: there are frequent errors in the graphs and even more frequent misinterpretations. Because of these mistakes, it looks as if few of the claims are accurate.

For Part 8 of this review we looked at the alleged benefits of eating dark green leafy vegetables. For this post, we look at the claims for fried/and or takeaway food (FTF): however, Holford Watch can not find evidence to support any of the important claims. (more…)