Comments on: Patrick Holford and Contriving a Controversy: the Cochrane review of antioxidant supplements

By: Down for Everyone or Just Me: Use It People, Use It Before Generating Conspiracy Theories « Holford Watch: Patrick Holford, nutritionism and bad science

Sat, 22 Nov 2008 15:06:04 +0000

[...] Wayback and learn about URL validation. If you could throw in the ability to interpret blobbograms, systematic reviews etc., that would be a bonus. But, baby [...]

By: Anti-oxidants and Supplementation: Not As Straightforward As It Is Made Out To Be « Holford Watch: Patrick Holford, nutritionism and bad science

Thu, 12 Jun 2008 12:53:21 +0000

[...] Well, the coup against anti-oxidant supplements hasn’t happened but there is a definite groundswell of grumblings and scientific evidence that indicates that anti-oxidant supplementation is not delivering the promised benefits. Lisa Melton gave a good overview of the gulf between the hype and reality of anti-oxidants: The antioxidant myth: a medical fairy tale. More recently, Professor Tom Sanders gave the Burke Lecture (pdf) in which he briefly summarised the state of play for the outcomes of trials that tested the antioxidant hypothesis.[1] The Cochrane Review of anti-oxidant supplements (pdf) reported that there was no reduction in mortality associated with them (there was some manufactured controversy around these findings). [...]

By: Patrick Holford and the Bikini Diet « Holford Watch: Patrick Holford, nutritionism and bad science

Sun, 08 Jun 2008 10:56:04 +0000

[...] Review of diets.[1] I am confused. It seemed to me that very recently he was saying that these Cochrane people produce stitch-ups and I wasn’t to trust [...]

By: My (Paid) Friend Says This Product Is Really Good: FFTB and Cherry-Picking « Holford Watch: Patrick Holford, nutritionism and bad science

Fri, 02 May 2008 19:07:56 +0000

[...] Registered Dietitian will be familiar with such tests although it is Registered Dietitians such as Rhona Hobday who have recently assessed anti-Candida diets and found them to be [...]

By: Dear Terence Kealey, About Natural v. Synthetic Vitamins « Holford Watch: Patrick Holford, nutritionism and bad science

Tue, 29 Apr 2008 00:00:12 +0000

[...] has [given] an absolutely perfect example of why one should be wary of nutritional therapists.” Patrick Holford and Contriving a Controversy: the Cochrane review of antioxidant supplements Irish Association of Nutritional Therapy: Giving the Facts About the Cochrane Review of [...]

By: Claire

Claire — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 19:11:14 +0000

“Yes Diabetes can be prevented and treated without the need for drugs (except for once you are on insulin there is no turning back unfortunately). Have you looked into the potentials of grapefruit for one example? I doubt it…

They have been using it in India for the last thousand years, now theres a trial for you…”

India: the diabetes capital of the world’ -
http://news.monstersandcritics.com/health/news/article_1221737.php/India_-_the_diabetes_capital_of_world

They don’t appear to be having a lot of success with the prevention-by-grapefruit.

By: nplummer

nplummer — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 17:33:22 +0000

am i actually banned from the blog then?

By: draust

draust — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 13:57:20 +0000

Dvnutrix, I am amazed you manage to deadpan these responses…

Koo, your last post gave me a good laugh. Funnily enough I actually worked, for a decent part of the last decade, on the mechanisms by which calcium acts on the parathyroid gland, including publishing several papers on it. …oh dear, appeal to authority, sorry. Anyway, I am glad I can have my unfortunate scientific misapprehensions corrected by someone who has read the real truth in an IoN brochure.

In endocrinology, as Dvn as indicated, there are usually multiple homeostatic mechanisms for most things, some dominant and some minor and / or modulatory.

One of the crucial things we teach scientists and doctors is which of these categories are which. The University of Google sometimes does not provide this useful information, especially if your Googling is to Alt Health sites.

Furthermore, if you automatically assume that people who do know about these things (I don’t mean me, but I might be thinking of, say, consultant endocrinologists) are ignorant or liars – and therefore conclude that what they say is a priori untrue – it will be no surprise if what you end up believing is the opposite of reality.

On the positive side, I would suspect your consultant is feeling as positive (or at least relieved) about not seeing you as you are about not seeing him/her. And doubtless you will have been able to find a sympathetic Nutritionist who is happy to agree with your Google-based self-diagnosis provided you keep paying for the consultations. So a result all round.

By: dvnutrix

dvnutrix — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 13:10:34 +0000

People who are interested in the enthralling intricacies of our metabolic pathways may recall the diagram posted by Gimpy in January. Anyone with a particular interest in the hormonal control of calcium in and out of the blood or extracellular fluid knows that it is a fascinating set of interactions. Those with a passing familiarity with calcitonin will be aware that it is the counter to parathyroid hormone and hypercalcemia. In addition:

Although calcitonin has significant calcium-lowing effects in some species, it appears to have a minimal influence on blood calcium levels in humans.

Crudely, if you are a healthy adult, high calcitonin activity might be suggestive of medullary thyroid cancer among other derangements. However:

In humans, calcitonin has at best a minor role in regulating blood concentrations of calcium. One interesting piece of evidence to support this statement is that humans with chronically increased (medullary thyroid cancer) or decreased (surgical removal of the thyroid gland) levels of calcitonin in blood usually do not show alterations from normal in serum calcium concentration.

The fact that something might participate in a form of metabolism does not mean that it is always clinically significant. The Endocrine Web has some good overviews of thyroid, parathyroid and other endocrine disorders.

By: koo

koo — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 11:53:40 +0000

Teel

Are you up on codex alimentarious

If you are a nutritionalist you need to know whats coming in 2009.