The Quackometer

You may have noticed on several news sites yesterday that Tangerine peel 'kills cancer' as reported by the BBC, the Sun, Sky News and others. Apparently, the
British Pharmaceutical Conference (BPC) in Manchester has been shown results by a Dr Hoon Tan of the Leicester School of Pharmacy (de Montfort University) that eating fruit peel might kill cancer cells in your body.

The Quackometer was jumpy. We have seen how Leicester researchers have previously been using the media to promote their food supplement products through a privately set up company, Natures Defence. The Quackometer line has been that creating a company producing food supplements where there is no evidence that they will have any effect on people taking the pills is just quackery. And it is quackery apparently supported by the staff of de Montfort University.

So, does this press release contain the long awaited evidence that we should be popping a salvestrol pill? Er, no. The press release just creates a variation on the spin on the salvestrol story. This story has been that salvestrols are vital to stop or kill cancer in your body and you can never eat enough. This press release tells us that tangerine peel contains the right amount, but who in their right mind is going to eat lots of peel? Better pop some pills. There is no announcement of any peer reviewed papers that are to be published. There is no detail whatsoever of where we can find out more about the evidence that Dr Tan supposedly has. However, there is an announcement that:

The researchers have formed a private company, Nature’s Defence Investments, to protect and promote their research, with the potential of designing a natural anti-cancer alternative based on this new technology.

Forgive me for being old fashioned, but I though Universities were there to provide environments for academics to freely research and discover new truths, publish their results and teach the next generation of future researchers and students. Not allow their employees to set up private companies to exploit unpublished hunches by selling quack nutrition pills.

This press release from the BPC is not trying to inform the world about the latest research going on in our Universities, it is a private company advertisement. And the good boys and girls of the press, such as Emma Morton of the Sun, have published this advert for free. Now, all the subsidiary companies of Natures Defense (Fruit Force, Salvestrol), and other nutri-pill stores selling salvestrols, have nice endorsements and news stories from the BBC to say how good their products are.

We should not be too surprised. Universities are dumbing down to get the funding and students in. Leiceter School of Pharmacy was recently investigated for passing MPharm students who did not reach the required standards of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society. Could these events be linked?

Labels: salvestrols

 

In the past I have been critical of the exaggerated claims made by the promoters of salvestrols as the new super-food-supplement. There is no evidence to suggest that these plant-derived chemicals have any positive effect on reducing cancer risk when taken in supplement form or for forming any part of a medical regime for cancer sufferers. Trials are apparently underway, but the best evidence to-date has been in-vitro studies of cells in petri dishes. And yet, the supporters of this new 'wonder vitamin' have set up companies and are heavily promoting it around the world.

Now, Tony Blair's 10 Downing Street office have recently had an initiative to listen to the people and set up a web site that allows us, the good subjects of Her Majesty, to petition the government electronically. This has made the papers this week as a million people have logged in to sign a petition against road pricing. The great thing about this site is you can set up a petition about anything. There are examples of petitions to bring back fox hunting, legalise cannabis, abolish faith-based schools and the teaching of creationism (gets my vote), and ask the Prime Minister to stand on his head and juggle ice-cream.

And now a new use of this system. Advertising Quackery. The Salvestrol supporters have created their own petition:

The Cancer Act 1939 was drawn up to prevent quacks and charlatans feeding on the fear of cancer at a time when there was very little information or wide knowledge of the causation and malignancy of unwanted mitosis that is rapid cell division of useless cells which so often spreads, metastasis, leading to premature death.

At present no organisation can make any statement recommending preventative measures such as taking a 400mg of SALVESTROL a day to strengthen the immune system thus enabling the destruct cycle. We produce over 1000 cancer cells each day and the body normally copes but over 50 years of age then the immune system cannot cope and cancer sets in well and truly and so often undiagnosed until too late.

We petition that HMG repeals or amend the Cancer Act 1939 accordingly enabling information to be available to everyone so that people can choose their preventative steps against cancer cell growth.

Thank you

Now, the Cancer Act was introduced to stop quackery at a time when just about any suggested cure was dubious or dangerous. It says,

No person shall take any part in the publication of any advertisement—
(a) containing an offer to treat any person for cancer, or to prescribe any remedy therefor, or to give any advice in connection with the treatment thereof.

It is pretty broad sweeping and times have moved on. Many cancers have high remission rates due to a much greater understanding of the disease and medical science. In that respect, the petitioners are right. Maybe the law does need refreshing, but not without adequate protection from the hoard of quacks that are still out there. And suggesting that salvestrols can cure cancer is quackery.

Are the petitioners guilty of an offence merely by starting and signing this petition? It looks like an advert to me. Could three months of Ginger Ale* await you for signing this petition? Tony - you have their names and addresses...

However, nothing would surprise me about Mr Blair. He has recently told scientists to back of homeopaths. Imagine if homeopaths could advertise that they could cure cancer? That would be a terrible step. Would they? Maybe the sane ones wouldn't. But there are plenty out there that would offer sugar pills to prevent malaria.


Now, the petition was started by a Michael Cleary. The quackometer reliably informs me that there is a homeopath in Australia by that name. But Aussie citizens are not allowed to start a petition, they are not colonials anymore - so that can't be him, can it? However, at least one genuine homeopath has added her name to the list, an Anne Macalpine RSHom, nicely leaving her professional qualifications on the register.

Why would she be so interested in repealing this law?

I wonder who started this petition? Anyone know?

(Thanks to an anonymous commenter for pointing this story out. )

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Oh, and while we are on the subject of the e-petitions web site, a favourite quack of this site, the distinguished Provost of the Royal College of Alternative Medicine, Professor Joseph Chikelue Obi is also using the service for his own ends. He is of course, petitioning the Prime Minister to abolish the General Medical Council - the body that stopped him practising as a Doctor.

If there is nothing on telly, you might be interested in going though the list to see who has signed. The first signatory is a Sushant Varma who looks like he too has had a run-in with the GMC. Oooh, there is also a Prof Reggie von Zugbach who appears on both these petitions. Who is he? I'm not sure how the Prof von Zugbach spends his time, but a little research shows that he may have signed over 160 of these e-petitions!

I'm sure there are hours to waste here...

* For my non-cockney and American readers, Ginger Ale - Jimmy Nail - Gaol - er. Jail.

Labels: homeopathy, salvestrols

 

Happy new year to you all. I've been off for my Christmas break and I am now attending to my post bag and I thought I would share a few gems with the world.

First, I am always up for a challenge and so when writer Geoff Freed starts off his email "You pure miserable person", I know I am in for a treat! When Geoff adds "I bet you would not have the guts to print this" I really have no alternative!

This is really my point. Sounds like nice science about how some plants may defend themselves from fungus, but now we have a long string of what-ifs and maybes to get to the mass supplementation of the public with a pill. Whatever trials are currently being done, the results are not in and yet and in the meantime these companies are marketing products as if it is a done deal. As with my first correspondent, there are many good ideas out there and loads of laudable intentions. However, not all those ideas are good - in fact the majority end up on the dustbin of discarded science, no matter how much we wish them to be true.

As Guy correctly states, the best evidence for salvestrols as a cancer/cure prevention is largely anecdotal - a few doctors with case histories. Guy says,

It is not true that all anecdotes are nearly worthless. Some are; some are not. It depends on the source of the evidence.

Labels: dax moy, diets, nutritionist, salvestrols

 

I have written before about my assertion that if you find someone saying that you cannot get all the nutrients you need through food, then you have also found someone selling food supplements. This is the basic scam behind so many nutritionists - they make the process of eating a healthy diet look so formidable and fraught that you had better hedge your bets and scoff a lot of pills - that they can provide for you for a small(ish) fee.

I wish I could automate this rule in the quackometer. It is proving to be a sure rule in identifying quackery. Let's look at a recent health story in the Daily Mail:

You're eating the WRONG fruit and veg!
We've known for some time that eating five portions of fruit and vegetables a day can help protect you against cancer, but now research suggests that if we're not eating the right sort, it could be a waste of time and money. British researchers believe that most of the produce we eat is low in important cancer-fighting compounds called salvestrols. A typical five-a-day diet would give you only 10 per cent of the beneficial compounds you need to keep cancer at bay.

In research published in the British Naturopathic Journal, Gerry Potter, Professor of Medicinal Chemistry [de Montfort], and Dan Burke, Emeritus Professor of Pharmaceutical Metabolism, explain how salvestrols work.

Have a look to see what the Quakometer makes of this article.

A couple of alarm bells ring here, such as the statement that you are unable to get enough of this through a normal diet, but also the words "naturopathic" and "emeritus". (More of that later.)

Later in the article, advice is given:

To boost your salvestrol intake you could take a supplement (available from health food stores). Or, simply increase your intake of the following foods...

... and then goes on to give a long list of foods that are hard to remember. But the seed has now been planted. Salvestrols, cancer-fighting, you are never going to get enough, supplements available.

But surely, we have the names of the researchers, they are associated with a UK University (de Montfort) and they are publishing papers. Surely, there must be something in this?

Well, one doesn't need to dig a lot further to find a few worrying things.

Now 'salvestrol' turns up on the UK patents register as a registered trade mark. What would a chemical name be doing there? Well, the registrant is a company called Nature's Defence Investments Ltd and they are based in Leicester. Now isn't de Monotfort University based in Leicester?

Let's have a look at Nature's Defence. Searching reveals a lot of related web sites, all using the Nature's Defence, or a fruitforce name, but operating in different countries. All promote the health benefits of salvestrols. All the sites appear to extol the benefits of salvestrols, and may offer training for health care professionals, and offer to sell supplements containing this 'super-vitamin'. Funnily enough, all the sites appear to involve our Profs Burke and Potter and point back to an address in Leicester.

Now what is the harm in trying to raise money from research you are doing, even to make a lot of money and become rich? Nothing in principle. But in doing so, we the consumer then have the right to question if there is a likely conflict of interest. Scientists have a duty to present all their evidence, good and bad, to give their best unbiased opinions on the nature of their work and to be seen as being objective as possible.

My worry is now that Profs Burke and Potter, having done some interesting work on some unusual chemicals, are heading down the path to the dark side of quackery.

Worrying is the lack of evidence that Salvestrols have any effect on reduction of cancer in humans. Most of the work so far has been done in vitro. That is, some cancer cells have been squirted with the stuff in a dish and, lo and behold, the cells don't do too well afterwards. Lots of chemicals have this effect on cells, it does not mean that we are looking at the next big cancer cure. The work done in humans has been looking at how salvestrols may be absorbed by digestion and what the metabolism pathways may be like. Results to date suggest there are concerns over how much would actual end up usefully in the body. At this stage, the selling of food supplements as a way of reducing cancer risk looks like it could be overpromotion - quackery.

To be fair, the jury is out. We do not know enough to give clear answers. But as for Burke and Potter, they have acted as if the firing gun has gone and the marketing campaign to the public has begun in earnest. Expect to see Salvestrols^TM in your health food shop before too long.

For me the most worrying aspect is where the latest research on this has been published. We see the latest paper is published in the British Naturopathic Journal. Now naturopathy is something that really get's the black duck's quackometer going. Naturopathy appears to be a mish-mash of philosophies of alternative medicine and pseudo-religious beliefs. Not somewhere you would expect the latest best thing in cancer prevention to get serious attention - apart from the health food adicts, the gullible and the desperate.

The publishing of this paper looks more like marketing than science then. Has science lost out here?

Labels: daily mail, salvestrols, vitamins