The first month of the New Year is over, but it’s not too late to commit to the best health decision you can ever make. It goes like this: Follow the science, and avoid suspending disbelief when it comes to health claims. This involves doing the same diligence on health claims of marketed products as you would for the most serious life decisions, such as marriage, career, home buying and financial investments. Call this the “anti-Dr. Oz” philosophy.
The media and marketplace are rife with exaggerated and false claims about all manner of health promoting and curative remedies, including for weight loss, brain enhancement, longevity, body building and sculpting, sexual virility, immune system activation, illness prevention, pain management and sleep induction, to name a few. These advertisements persuade millions of people to spend billions of dollars annually on nutritional supplements, neutraceuticals, gastrointestinal hygienics, homeopathic and holistic remedies, and “Rube Goldberg” devices for which no proof of effectiveness exists. Not only is there little-to-no scientific evidence supporting such claims, but the level of quality control of the products’ ingredients or the device’s components is much lower than for Food and Drug Administration-approved pharmaceuticals and devices.
[See: 8 Questions to Ask Your Pharmacist.]
Even looser is the monitoring of false advertising used to promote these products. The bandwidth of the FDA, Federal Trade Commission and Federal Communications Commission are too limited to effectively monitor and clamp down on every offender. It’s only when some products are so egregiously blatant in their falsehoods, have grown so big or complaints are filed by disgruntled consumers that they get nailed. A recent example is a product called Prevagen.
Prevagen is the trade name of an agent for memory enhancement in older adults produced by Quincy Biosciences. The active ingredient is a protein called apoaequorin, supposedly derived from a species of jellyfish. Prevagen’s annual sales last year were $165 million. On Jan. 9, 2017, the FTC and New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman jointly filed a lawsuit in federal court accusing the company of false advertising. According to the complaint, since 2007 Quincy Biosciences relied on a single study to advertise and promote Prevagen as “clinically shown” to support “clearer thinking” and to “improve memory within 90 days.” Despite these claims, the lawsuit alleges that the study Quincy cited as proof of efficacy failed to show a statistically significant improvement in the treatment group over the placebo group on any of the cognitive measures used.
[See: 10 Questions Doctors Wish Their Patients Would Ask.]
This is one example among thousands of similar instances, many of which are never prosecuted due to under-resourced and overwhelmed federal regulatory systems.
Because of the tremendous interest in so-called “naturopathic” therapeutics by the American population, the federal government has instructed the National Institutes of Health to vet their authenticity. Thus, the NIH must allocate some of its scarce funding appropriated by Congress each year to the National Institute of Complementary and Alternative Medicine. As a researcher, I have participated in studies testing these substances (specifically, St. John’s wort and Ginko Biloba). In my experience, these and other commonly used remedies, such as vitamin C, antioxidants, Echinacea and zinc (Cold-EEZE) have all been negative when tested in methodologically rigorous controlled trials. This is not to say that all naturopathics are ineffective. Research on compounds like flavinol (found in chocolate), resveratrol (in red wine), omega-3-fatty acids, various amino acids and nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide, for example, have shown promising results for various conditions. The question is how to administer them in optimal forms and at adequate doses. But the effort is worthwhile, as these compounds have been shown to be genuinely effective.
Why do we do we suspend our usual common sense and skepticism when it comes to this important aspect of our lives? The reason is that we seem to have an irrational part of our being that wants to believe unfettered by reason and evidence, and avoid the hard mental work of analyzing and evaluating. This is why humans were given such an outsized brain — to be creatures of reason, to control emotions and delay action pending informed decisions. There remains a primordial part of us that harbors the capacity for fantasy and desire for magical thinking. However, when we suspend our rational faculties and permit belief in miraculous cures, we are regressing toward our prehistoric ancestors. Clearly, there is a place and may be a need for homo sapiens to engage in magical thinking, but that place is likely reserved for spiritual beliefs and God, not acquisitions in the marketplace.
[See: The 12 Best Heart-Healthy Diets.]
So, starting now, resolve to base your important health decisions on credible scientific evidence, rather than unfounded claims and false advertising. The adage “if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is” applies to health claims, even though it’s tempting to accept the illusory promise. We don’t ignore laws, we ignore science at our own peril.
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A Plea to Follow the Science When it Comes to Health Claims originally appeared on usnews.com
