Posts Tagged ‘ vitamins ’

The First Annual Quackometer Awards and Year Review

December 8, 2006
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The First Annual Quackometer Awards and Year Review

The Quackometer has been up and running for just about a year and has seen some serious traffic increases over the past six months. Starting off with just a few hits per day, the daily unique visits now stand in the many hundreds, with a peak recently of several thousand. Cripes! What started off as a bit of a bored joke has now grown into a proper web site. So, a quick, tearful thanks to all the people who keep coming back. Thanks for all the correspondence, both encouraging and threatening. I hope 2007 will throw up richer, funnier and more useful functionality and content. Plus a few more innevitable threats. So, to the main business. The quackometer scans various news sites twice a day on the look out...

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Quack Word #16: ‘Nutritionist’

November 21, 2006
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Quack Word #16: ‘Nutritionist’

A regular comment to me is to ask “why have I got it in for Nutritionists?” Surely, these are dedicated health professionals who do wonders for peoples’ health by improving their diets and making sure people take the right supplements, if required. Well maybe. The problem is that so many nutritionists are not doing this and often resort to pseudoscience and quackery. This week’s Quack Word blog entry will argue that the Quackometer is quite right (most of the time) in scoring highly a web page with the word ‘nutritionist’ in it. So, a quick definition of ‘nutritionist’. Whilst one should always take wikipedea articles with a sceptical eye, their definition of nutritionist is a good starting point: A nutritionist is a person who advises people on dietary matters...

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Trademarked Science Trade-Offs

July 10, 2006
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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...

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The Mineral-Depleted Food Scandal

April 20, 2006
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The Mineral-Depleted Food Scandal

The news (1, 2, 3, 4, 5) has been full of reports about how our food in Britain is becoming less nutritious and that it is becoming increasingly difficult to obtain a full set of minerals and vitamins through the food we buy in supermarkets. I have been told by several people that this is the reason why it is so important to take supplements. Can this be true? If so then it is truly shocking! We can no longer feed ourselves! What is going on here? I’ve always thought that the best way to get your minerals and vitamins was to eat a varied and balanced diet, rather than take dietary supplements. I further believe that the major source of information about the need to take supplements comes...

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Events and Talks

Does Integrated Medicine Make Sense?
Great Hall, Dartington, Devon
I will be debating the role of Integrated Medicine with Simon Mills from the College of Medicine, Sarah Wollaston MP for Totnes, and Becky Simpson who used CAM when being treated for cancer.

Saturday 26 May, 2012. 6.00pm

A History of West Country Quacks & Rise of Evidence Based Medicine
Plymouth Skeptics in the Pub
The West Country, particularly in Bath, saw some the greatest quacks and also the greatest advances in evidence-based medicine. I will talk about how the two approaches fought each other in the 18th and 19th Century.

Tuesday, June 19 2012 at 7:00PM

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