Holford Watch: Patrick Holford, nutritionism and bad science

Dr Crippen of NHS Blog Doc is the host of this week’s Grand Rounds. There is a good, eclectic set of posts and a good sprinkling of ones from the UK.

HolfordWatch was intrigued by some sleight-of-accountancy that has been revealed about the funding of a controversial CT scanning for lung cancer study and the sponsors behind an awareness campaign for CT screening for lung cancer. Dr Nick Genes has the story: Early detection of an invasive mass-marketing campaign and Metastasis. (more…)

A short break from Patrick Holford coverage, to report that the Quackometer’s host has been sent a wonderfully entertaining e-mail on behalf of ‘Professor Dr’ Joseph Chikelue Obi: demanding that Netcetera

immediately shut down the website and delete all of the defamatory material relating to the Royal College of Alternative Medicine, Professor Dr Obi and our clients` lawfully registered Trademarks.

It’s impossible to read this e-mail without picturing someone sticking their little finger in their mouth and stroking a fluffy cat.

Worryingly, though, both the Quackometer’s hosts and Google appear to have taken this nonsense seriously (more…)

T1he charity ‘Food for the Brain’ has laudable stated aims: helping educate parents and teachers about how children’s nutrition can be improved and how this may help them at school. Food for the Brain has achieved a high profile, through appearances of its founder and CEO, Patrick Holford, on programmes such as GMTV and Tonight with Trevor McDonald. However, we fear that the charity’s unscientific approach and practices, their associations with very controversial sources of medical opinion, and the links between Food for the Brain and supplement businesses may subvert these aims and even do children harm.

Specifically, we have the following concerns: (more…)

11I really don’t like to ask for money - information on the Internet should be free for all - but the expenses for this blog have been rising lately. In particular, costs have been rising because Holford Watch has recently had to pay to access some of the content behind a paywall on Holford’s website; access to some other texts (journal articles etc.) has also been adding to our costs. Because we don’t receive any funding from the pharmaceutical or the supplement industry, we’re having to pay these costs out of our own pockets (all Holford Watch contributors work for free on this site - and we plan to continue working for free in the future).

So, to be blunt, please give us money. As you’ll see, we’ve now added a ‘donate’ paypal button to the site - that’s the easiest way to give (though you can contact me through my blogger profile if you’d like to offer something else). We plan to keep expenses low on this site and - if donors are so generous that we end up with more money than we can spend - this surplus will be donated to the wonderful Treatment Action Campaign*.

Given that responses to criticisms of nutritionism often come down to ‘how much is big pharma paying you’, Holford Watch will not be accepting any donations from those with competing interests in the pharmaceutical industry. Unlike many others working in and writing about the field of human nutrition, Holford Watch will also not accept any money from the supplement industry - we feel that it’s important to maintain our independence.

* In the unlikely event that this is not possible or inappropriate, any spare cash will be donated to another good cause.

Related Reading

Patrick Holford v. Dr. Sarah Jarvis in the Arena of Diabetes Management
Patrick Holford v. Dr. Sarah Jarvis in the Arena of Diabetes Management Part 2

Hi, this is my first post for this new blog and it fills me with some trepidation. One thing that Patrick does very well is supply lots of references for what he says and its a bit of a nightmare to check them all. But checking them is well worthwhile as his interpretation of these studies can be highly selective . I guess that 99.9% of the people on his web sites like just take his word for it and never check anything.

Well, some of us are a bit sad and have too much time on our hands and do check.

I want to delve off track from the normal nutrition nonsense and look at Patrick’s forays into the world of physics. What standards of evidence, understanding and accuracy apply here? Let’s look at an article by Patrick (Are you being Electrified?) on the ‘dangers’ of the ’smog’ of electromagnetic radiation (EMR) around us.

Now before we start, it is worth noting that Patrick sells stuff on his site to help protect us against the ‘dangers’ of EMR. We might then not be surprised at his conclusions. For-warned is for-armed.

So, Patrick starts off by telling us about one of the machines you can buy to ‘detect’ EMR. It apparently makes a whining sound when it detects the offending waves. Probably very loud.

This is just a simple scare tactic. These machines are the equivalent of vacuum cleaner salesmen pouring soot over your carpets. Or those detox foot baths that produce brown gunk and pretend that it is ‘toxins’ coming out of your feet. What this machine is, is nothing more than a simple radio. Your handy kitchen radio does the same job of turning EMR into loud sounds. It just has a tuner in it to filter out unwanted EMR, or ‘local radio stations’ as we like to call them. Patrick’s device is designed to scare - nothing more. It tells you nothing about whether you are being exposed to anything dangerous.

What of Patrick’s understanding of the Physics? He takes great pains to go into the science of EMR, but unfortunately, it does not get too many marks out of ten. His errors include:

• ‘The higher the frequency, the more energy the signal has’. Er, no. The higher the frequency, the higher the photon energy. Frequency has nothing to do with signal energy.
• ‘The higher the frequency, the more energy the signal has, and the greater the potential to damage you.’ Gamma rays and x-rays are more dangerous because they are ionising. You can have extremely low signal strength gamma-ray sources that are still dangerous. Conversely, non-ionising radiation can be very high signal strength and not necessarily be dangerous. If he meant this, he would be selling geiger counters and not radios. Geiger counters detect penetrating ionising radiation, like gamma-rays.
• ‘The frequencies at the lower end of the spectrum don’t have the potential to ‘cook’ ‘ Damn. I’m sending my microwave oven back to the shop.
• ‘they don’t have the same penetration power’ (talking of radio waves). Well, in that case Patrick, how come I can still hear my radio inside my thick stone-walled house, but I know x-rays would never get through that?
• ‘For example, computers, televisions and other household gadgets give off ELF [Extremely Low Frequencies], all of which can generate heat.’ What do you mean, Patrick? Heat is transfered from these devices as infrared radiation? Are you saying that infrared is bad? Should I throw out my toaster?
• ‘Anything that radiates – from the sun to your radio – has a certain amount of electricity. This travels as a frequency, and from this traveling electricity emanates a magnetic field. ‘ This is just plain gobbledygook. It is not even wrong. And anyway, my radio is passive - it receives radio-waves, not emits them (in any significant quantities).
• ‘While electric radiation is measured in Volts and Watts, magnetic radiation is measured in microTesla (µT).‘ Um, Volts is a measure of electric field strength - not ‘radiation’. Watts is a measure of power. A radio source could be measured in watts. Magnetic fields are measured in Tesla. The point is Patrick, you just don’t get what electromagnetic radiation is. There is no such thing as seperate electric and magnetic radiation. They are a unified phenomenon. My head hurts. Its just difficult to know where to start explaining when you are starting from a base of such nonsense. Just go and buy a physics book!

We might forgive Patrick if this was an attempt to simplify complex physics for a general readership, but it is still possible to simplify an issue without getting things wrong. Patrick’s exposition of the physics of electromagnetic radiation does nothing to make his case stronger or introduce concepts that make things clearer later. Is it just an attempt to pursuade the reader how much he knows?

So, from classical physics to health physics…

Regardless of Patrick’s poor grasp of the underlying physics, it might just be that all this EMR is doing some harm. What does Mr Holford have to say about this?

Right this is where it gets reference heavy. Patrick starts by looking at what the experts say. I’m not going to review every reference. There is some good telly on tonight. But let’s just start with a paper, by Albom et al., on pooling together experiments to see if magnetic fields cause childhood leukemia. The researchers are cautious in drawing conclusions from their study and note the problems of possible selection effects. They cite problems with having very few children at high exposure levels and the inconsistencies when comparing these results with experiments with rats that cannot support the hypothesis. Not too water-tight then.

Holford quotes various government bodies and how they “all agree that magnetic fields are in fact a possible carcinogen for humans”. The key word here is ‘possible’. Let’s look at a few of these, the UK National Radiological Protection Board Advisory Group on Non-Ionizing Radiation (AGNIR) and and the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) , and see what they say,

Laboratory experiments have provided no good evidence that extremely low frequency electromagnetic fields are capable of producing cancer, nor do human epidemiological studies suggest that they cause cancer in general. There is, however, some epidemiological evidence that prolonged exposure to higher levels of power frequency magnetic fields is associated with a small risk of leukaemia in children. In practice, such levels of exposure are seldom encountered by the general public in the UK. In the absence of clear evidence of a carcinogenic effect in adults, or of a plausible explanation from experiments on animals or isolated cells, the epidemiological evidence is currently not strong enough to justify a firm conclusion that such fields cause leukaemia in children. Unless, however, further research indicates that the finding is due to chance or some currently unrecognised artifact, the possibility remains that intense and prolonged exposures to magnetic fields can increase the risk of leukaemia in children.

Being good scientists, they admit the possibility that there is a problem, but, actually, there is scant evidence that this possibility is realised. Big difference. It is a possibility I will win the lottery tonight too. So, not enough evidence yet to rush out and buy any of Patrick’s protection goodies. The UK National Radiological Board, as a result of the evidence, see no reason to reset exposure levels. Patrick sees this as scandalous, obviously. He mentions that Bristol academic, Dennis Henshaw who believes the safe limit must be much, much lower. That would be the same Professor Henshaw behind the 1980’s radon scares (remember them) and the theory that Foot and Mouth disease was spread by electricity pylons.

What Holford is doing is being highly selective. Cherry picking ‘experts’ and studies that might just help him with what look like preconceived opinions. Most scientists consider that the evidence that magnetic fields cause cancer is weak to non-existent.

Next up is the issue of mobile phone safety. Actually, let’s leave that to another time. For now, let us just say that we are not all about to drop dead from mobile phones.

Patrick in the past has also tried to sell QLink pendants, a very ridiculous product. These trinkets are supposed to help protect people from the alleged harmful effects of EM radiation. If Patrick is so worried about EM, then why not still sell them, or does even he shy away from such an obviously suspect device?

What is strange here is that Patrick is selling products related to protection from potential problems that have nothing to do with nutrition. Then again, Patrick has just as many Physics degrees as he has Nutrition degrees so it ought not to surprise us. Oh, to be fair, he does have an honorary DipION in nutrition, awarded by the institution he set up. Are we to see an Institute of Optimum Physics too?

South Africa’s wonderful Treatment Action Campaign has published a statement by the Coalition Against Fraudulent Claims about Medicine on its website. I’ll quote this at length - they respond to Holford better than I could:

HIV/AIDS
Mr Holford has written that “AZT, the first prescribable
anti-HIV drug, is potentially harmful and proving less effective than vitamin
C”. This is false. A trial on HIV-positive pregnant women showed that vitamin C
combined with other nutrients helped slow progression to AIDS, although only
marginally. Numerous trials have shown that combination antiretroviral
treatment, including AZT, restores the health of people with HIV.
Antiretrovirals have side effects but so too do the large doses of vitamin C
recommended by Holford.

AVIAN INFLUENZA (BIRD FLU)
No recorded human cases of Bird Flu have
occurred to date in South Africa. Nevertheless, an outbreak of this disease
would probably cause many deaths. Mr Holford states that it is highly likely
that vitamin C would be effective against bird flu if the dose is high enough.
The World Health Organisation recommends oseltamivir phosphate (Tamiflu) as the
most likely effective treatment for Burd Flu. There is no evidence that Vitamin
C will be effective.

CANCER
Mr Holford claims that Vitamin C supplementation can prolong the lives of
cancer patients four-fold. There is no credible evidence to support this
claim.

Mr Holford appears to base the above claims on in vitro (laboratory
tests outside the human body) or disreputable research. We respectfully ask Mr
Holford to stop making these claims which have the potential to cause people
with life-threatening illnesses to make medically unsound decisions.

One other thing worth noting is Holford’s attempts to qualify his statements re. vitamin C vs AZT. He argues that, while he is claimed to have argued that “vitamin C was more effective in treating Aids than the ARV medication, AZT…This is not true…I have never made this claim…What I have said in the latest edition of my book, the New Optimum Nutrition Bible… is that ‘AZT, the first prescribable anti-HIV drug, is potentially harmful and proving less effective than vitamin C’.”

So Holford does not say that vitamin C is a better treatment than AZT; instead, he says that AZT is proving less effective than vitamin C. This could easily be interpreted as meaning the same thing. If Holford means something different, he really should clarify what he’s saying - this is a very sensitive area of debate in South Africa, and people are currently dying unneccesarily from HIV/AIDs because they do not have access to effective treatment.