Holford Watch: Patrick Holford, nutritionism and bad science

The second part of the BBC Radio 4 show The Rise of the Lifestyle Nutritionists (listen again here, later tonight) starts by noting that “Everybody wants to be healthy, but how do you know who to trust?” Ben Goldacre then spends a considerable amount of time speaking to a number of eminent professors, in order to demonstrate that one cannot trust Holford’s science: Holford’s science fails in numerous ways.

The interviewees are extremely critical about the quality of Holford’s work, and Holford has predictably claimed that the programme was unfair. However, this programme is actually an accurate and balanced assessment of Holford’s work. If Holford finds such assessments harsh, we would argue that he should look to improve the quality of his own work and offer a meaningful response to some of the criticisms raised, along with correcting his numerous errors. His current (non)responses to the serious questions raised are woefully inadequate. (more…)

Having just posted about Professor Patrick Holford of Teesside University’s curious relationship with the mainstream media, we were fascinated to see Patrick Holford responding to the Radio 4 programme: The Rise of the Lifestyle Nutritionists. From what he writes, it sounds like he does feature in Part 2 of the series. I haven’t heard Part 2 yet - it’s scheduled to be broadcast on March 31 at 8pm - but it’s already clear that Holford fails to offer an adequate response to the questions raised. His responses range from dodging the questions asked, to answering while giving a clearly incorrect answer, and so gobsmackingly wrong that they even fail to qualify as wrong. Now I’m really looking forward to the radio programme: Holford digs himself in deep enough without having heard the programme, but I’m sure that the BBC’s research skills will allow them to provide a JCB or two to join Holford in his hole. (more…)

Holford Myths has asked an interesting question: Why Do Mainstream Media Promote Patrick Holford? We, too, are stumped by this. Of course, many journalists who have profiled Professor Holford of Teesside University have all but stated that he has fragrance, charm and charisma. They wax lyrical about the healthy breakfasts he prepares for them, the mood-enhancing pills he chummily shares, and rhapsodise about his knicknacks.

They should write about his research sometime and check his sums, they might experience a very different side to him. (more…)

In a fine example of convergent evolution, some information posted on HolfordWatch, the digging by Letting off Steam and Ben Goldacre’s tenacity have a welcome airing as the Durham fish oil zombie once again swims through the nutrient-rich waters of the Bad Science blog. This week, Ben Goldacre returns again to the Durham fish oil (non)trial:

And so an epic saga comes to a close. You will remember the Durham Fish Oil tale - don’t switch off now, the punchline’s funny. The county council said it was doing a “trial” of fish oil pills in children, but the trial was designed so that it couldn’t possibly give useful information - not least because it had no placebo group - and was very likely to give a false positive result.

However, we don’t feel that the story is over quite yet. There is still plenty of information to come out: although any hopes of meaningful results from this trial are long dead, the Durham fish oil zombie still swims this morning and will return to swim another day. For starters, we would like to tell you the story of the fabulous mutating press release to come out (more…)

We’ve seen a couple of interesting posts this week about Holford, nutritionism and the mainstream media. HolfordMyths argue that in the mainstream media

Professor Patrick Holford is a popular media pundit who is celebrated for his scientific approach to nutrition. Pundit brand equity may partially explain why the mainstream media do not seem to care that Holford’s work is riddled with errors that substantially undercut some of the scientific claims that he makes: that is irritating but understandable, given the economics of advertising. Mainstream media may also find it difficult to admit that they were duped or indifferent to the accuracy of what they were offering.

(more…)

In a 17/3/08 e-mail to his mailing list, Prof Patrick Holford of Teesside University discusses Wakefield’s work and the possible role of the gut in autism.

Wakefield’s hypothesis can be summarised as follows:
[A] subset of children…develop[e] a particular form of developmental regression following previously normal development, in combination with a novel form of inflammatory bowel disease…Exposure [to the MMR vaccine] leads to long-term infection with measles virus within key sites, including the intestine, where it is associated with lymphoid hyperplasia and acute and chronic mucosal inflammation.

It sounds like a plausible hypothesis, but it’s wrong. One would expect a professor carrying out research in this field to know this - but we will recap the evidence, in case Prof Holford might have missed some of it. This idea of a ‘novel form of inflammatory bowel disease’ is - as a scientist writing on Left Brain Right Brain argues - an example of how one can manufacture a disease (which then creates a market for treatments) (more…)

In the first part of this two-parter, Ben Goldacre does an excellent job of reminding us that of how “food has become a modern obsession”. We’re taken through the colourful history of nutritionism in the US - and, in a sense, this is a rather sad story. If you missed it the first time round, you can listen again here.

In the early days of nutritionism, medicine wasn’t able to do that much - so there was a certain rationale for focusing on lifestyle change or, even, using a relatively harmless snake oil (although not all nostrums were harmless, it had not been that long since many prescription medications contained remarkably toxic or addictive substances). If the choice appeared to be palliation or heroic surgery, it is understandable that people were interested in the promise of elixirs and potions from alternative health practitioners. While early nutritionists (Kellogg, McFadden etc.) may have had an unhealthy obsession with pumping various fluids into the behinds of their patients - in Kellogg’s case, an eye-watering 15 gallons in a matter of seconds - and spouted nonsense about the insanity-inducing properties of mustard and so forth, a lot of the advice was basically sensible (more…)

Ben Goldacre’s presenting an interesting-looking 2 part programme on BBC Radio 4 - starting at 8pm on Monday March 24. The first part analyses the history of lifestyle nutritionists - everything from the quack cure-all Hadacol to the (mis)appropriation of bona fide nutritional research in order to sell various pills and potions. Sounds well worth a listen - and, tantalisingly, the second part of the programme is going to discuss nutritionists and nutritionism in the present day.

There’s a (rather minimalist) programme website available - where I presume you’ll be able to listen again to the programme if you miss it first time round. After all, it is the bank holiday - and I guess that fermented and distilled whole foods may have a real lure on Monday…

Answering - or trying to answer - some of our criticisms of Life’s 4 Living, Lynton Guest gave what might seem like a clear explanation of Stephen Russell’s role in the charity:

The Barefoot Doctor [Stephen Russell] helped with fundraising events. He has now resigned. He did not work with clients.

Explaining why there was a PDF on Life’s 4 Living’s website implying that Russell did work with clients, Lynton stated that

Over many months discussions took place and documents were worked up and updated until by December 2007 the final version was ready to post on the website. Unfortunately, the wrong document was posted. It was not the final version as approved by the directors and trustees of Life’s 4 Living Trust but a much earlier draft. This early draft was posted in error.

As soon as this mistake was discovered, early in 2008, the posting was removed from the website and replaced by the correct version. However, until the last few days it appears that the old posting was still available, if only on the server.

Of course, we all make mistakes. However, we thought it might be worth checking some of the details around Russell’s role in Life’s 4 Living. Some of what we found raises additional questions:

• Claire Sutton is Director of Life’s 4 Living. Claire’s ecademy page state’s that

Creation Film & TV will create a powerful 3 part documentary called Life’s 4 Living. Accompanied by our Patron - Barefoot Doctor (AKA Stephen Russell) the film follows a group of five children (ages 5 - 12 years old) and five young adults (ages 16 - 24 years old) on a journey of healing and discovery - which will take them all the way to China where they will experience the ancient healing arts of World-Leading Masters.

To me, that implies that Russell will be accompanying the children and young people on their journey to China (more…)

Co-enzyme Q10 (CoQ10) has been getting some attention lately, off the back of a Boots marketing campaign. David Colquhoun has described Boots’ marketing of these pills as “as bad a bit of nutribollocks as I’ve ever seen”, while Ben Goldacre has also criticised the way in which CoQ10 is marketed as a solution to low energy levels.  Interestingly, though, Holford was ahead of the curve here: in 1988 his book The Energy Equation proudly proclaimed on the cover that it was “INTRODUCING CO-ENZYME Q”.

Holford is still involved in marketing CoQ10: one can now buy CoQ10 (and Carnitine) Biocare pills with Holford’s face on the bottle (see Coracle’s blog for a critical assessment of Holford’s CoQ10 recommendations).  Neutrahealth PLC (who own Biocare) have stated that “CoQ10 expected to perform well in 2008 with year to date sales growth of 35%”.

Patrick Holford’s CV [PDF] states that he “is a pioneer in new approaches to health and nutrition”. Here at HolfordWatch, we would have to agree. However, whether those approaches work or not is another question.