Combating the Religion of Alternative Wellness

The New York Times recently published an article discussing the differences between the concepts of medicine and wellness, and it is full of wonderful points to consider.  In an effort to not simply re-hash the article in my own words, I will focus on one point in particular, that of the relationship between medicine and religion.  As the author, Dr. Gunter notes, "Medicine and religion have long been deeply intertwined, and it’s only relatively recently that they have separated. The wellness-industrial complex seeks to resurrect that connection."

In the context of this article, the 'wellness-industrial complex' seems to be limited only to the vitamin and supplement industry, with it's many products claiming to 'cleanse' and 'purify' our supposed self-destructive habits of everyday life.  However, I would contend that much of the arguments made in the article could logically be applied to the alternative medicine community at large.  Indeed, many alternative therapies require suspending our understandings of realty and accepting religious or otherwise mystical beliefs.  From the 'memory' of water that homeopathy purports, to the 'meridians' expounded by traditional Chinese healers, there is no shortage of unscientific nonsense within alternative medicine.

The Times article also discusses how conspiratorial thinking shapes support for the wellness-industrial complex, which I believe could also be extended to the whole range of alternative medicine.  This should be no surprise as both religious thinking and conspiracy theories have a common bond of providing a sense of order and control, in an otherwise chaotic world.  As Dr. Gunter writes:

"Belief in medical conspiracy theories, such as the idea that the pharmaceutical industry is suppressing 'natural' cures, increases the likelihood that a person will take dietary supplements. So to keep selling supplements and earthing mats and coffee enema kits and the other revenue generating merchandise, you can’t just spark fear. You must constantly stoke its flames.

There can be no modern wellness industry without medical conspiracy theories."

Indeed, 99% of the entire alternative medicine market relies on fear or distrust of patients who are often times already in a very vulnerable state.  In fact, this kind of misinformation and conspiratorial theorizing are at the heart of the anti-GMO, anti-vaccination, and pro-organic movements as well.  My argument is that the cult-like following of these alternatives is precisely what makes it so hard to convince their practitioners and followers that there is simply no science (or at most, very little science) to back up their claims.  

Additionally, it is also this cult-like adherence that causes so many consumers of alternative treatments to get overly emotional and even offended when they are told that they have been duped.  In my opinion, this is the major propagator of all anti-science movements.  It is a vicious cycle of leaders and followers, where once a follower has 'bought in', they then become leaders in their own right, constantly expounded the evils of big pharma, medical associations, corporations and anyone else who encourages conventional treatments.  Unfortunately, this means that in order to combat such pious thinking, those in favor of encouraging evidence-based wellness are going to have to ruffle quite a few feathers in doing so.

More Added Sugar Confusion

The last post I made here back in 2016 (just before my 2 year hiatus to finish grad school) was titled "Added Sugar, or Added Confusion?", and was an argument against the FDA's newly imposed changes to the 'Nutrition Facts' labels on foods in the United States.  The two major changes that have been made include increasing the overall size of the calories per serving, and the inclusion of a new line item disclosing the amount of 'added sugars' underneath the 'total sugars' listing.  As stated in the aforementioned post, there's nothing inherently bad about providing more information.  My concerns stemmed from the politics of the decision and the ambiguity of terms such as "added sugar".

Little to my surprise, those concerns have surfaced in my news feed in the form of an article over at The New Food Economy entitled, "The FDA's Great Maple Syrup Fiasco".  According to the article, the FDA recently made a decision to require that maple syrup products contain the 'added sugar' label, despite the fact that adding sugar to maple syrup is actually prohibited by federal law.  Clearly, this would not merely be confusing for consumers, but would actually be misleading (or not - depending on how you look at it - read the full article, and decide for yourself).

The confusion around how to properly label maple syrup stems from the FDA's lack of a clear definition of what exactly constitutes 'added sugar'.  From the article:

"Basically, FDA is trying to define added sugar as both sugar that has been added to your food and sugar that you might add to your food later—though at the moment you buy it, it hasn’t been added. When you look at a package of Rice Krispies Treats and read on the nutritional facts panel that a bar has 8 grams of total sugar including 8 grams of added sugar, you will conclude that 8 grams of sugar has been added to the product, and you will be correct. When you read that your maple syrup has 54 grams of sugar per 60 milliliters of syrup, including 54 grams of added sugar, you might reasonably conclude that 54 grams of sugar has been added to the syrup. And, of course, you’d be wrong."

The article goes on to explain that what the FDA's original intent appears to be was to help consumer identify "sneaky sugars", and in turn make smart decisions that prevent over-consumption.  Unfortunately, it is too subjective to define and label "sneaky sugars" and so the FDA was forced to work with what it had - namely, 'added sugars'.  To further illustrate the absurdities contained within the FDA's arbitrary definition of 'added sugars', the goes on to explain that:

"The federal standards of identity for jelly include added sugar. You can’t call a product jelly if it doesn’t have added sugar. So the sugar added to jelly doesn’t count as added sugar. Savor that for a moment: Jelly has to have added sugar, so it doesn’t have to declare any added sugar; maple syrup isn’t allowed to have added sugar, so it has to declare its entire content as added sugar."

So what's the takeaway here?  Simply put, the FDA's attempt to inform the public of what foods contain sneaky, excessive, added sugars is falling flat on its face.  It seems that money and time might have been better spent on actually educating the public on how to make informed decisions on their overall sugar consumption, rather than targeting a boogeyman buzzword.

Dr. Oz Goes to Washington

For those who remember, a few months back there was a short-lived call from her fans for Oprah to run for President in 2020.  It did not take long for her to downplay any rumors that she might run for office, and since that time there has been little else to mention of it.  But for those who were disappointed in her decision, it seems as though you will still be able to get a little taste of what an Oprah presidency would be like.  That's because according to a number of media outlets, President Trump has appointed a long-time Oprah favorite, Dr. Oz, to sit on the Presidential Council on Sports, Fitness, and Nutrition.

Appointing a well-known quack and peddler of pseudoscience is no surprise from a president who has his own ways with half-truths, lies, and dishonest misdirection.  Nevertheless, such a nomination should be a red flag to anyone in the health or science fields who weren't already dissatisfied with the current administration.  Though the position Oz will hold will be mostly symbolic, to an anthropologist like myself, there is a great deal of appreciation for the importance of such political symbols.

By putting Dr. Oz on an even greater pedestal, the Trump administration is giving credence not only to Oz as an individual, but to the entire movement of anti-science quacks and fear-mongers that he endorses.  From homeopathy to anti-GMO to anti-vaxxers, Dr. Oz has made himself an enabler - if not an outright supporter - of ineffective and sometimes even dangerous ideas.  It is already bad enough that our government gives low-key recognition of homeopathic treatments via the  'Homeopathic Pharmacopeia of the United States', but with the appointment of someone so vocally pro-pseudoscience as Dr. Oz there is a message sent that the government will not just let bad medicine exist passively, but actively endorse it.

Once again, the appointment and the position itself are clearly symbolic forms of political posturing by Trump.  Still, it stands as a useful reminder that dogmatic purveyors of misinformation and pseudoscience are going nowhere, and should be kept in constant check.  Lest we return to the days of snake-oil, leeches and bloodletting.

Added sugar, or added confusion?

Everywhere I turn these days people are discussing food labels.  The FDA recently toyed with the ideas of defining what foods should or shouldn't be labeled as "natural", numerous organizations are still pushing for mandatory GMO labeling, and one poll even showed that 80% of Americans believe that foods containing DNA should be labeled.  In the midst of all of this debate about such arbitrary labels, one labeling change has been made official, and will be hitting our shelves soon.  The change I am writing about here is the revamped nutrition information label required on all food sold in the US.

Overall, the new design is nothing too alarming.  The two major changes are that the 'calories per serving' number will be noticeably larger and bolded, and beneath the 'sugar' line there will be a new line listing the total number of 'added sugars'.  At first glance the second change noted above seems like nothing more than a friendly reminder to keep track of your sugar intake.  However, when viewed in the context of the aforementioned labeling debates, it seems to be more of a win for the fear-mongering 'natural' and 'organic' marketers than a win for the American public.

My two biggest concerns regarding the 'added sugars' line come from the lack of knowledge most people have about sugar, and the misguided demonization of sugar by food-bloggers such as the "Food Babe", Vani Hari.  What's worse is that misinformation is rather abundant online, and more and more people are resorting to the internet to confirm what they already believe (right or wrong) about health and nutrition.

'Added sugar' has become a buzzword for the all-natural crowd.  Arguments against added sugar hinge on the premise that added sugar is somehow absorbed differently by the body, and this difference in absorption is directly related to increased incidences of obesity and type II diabetes.  Though no evidence has been found directly tying added sugar specifically to either one of these diseases, an overall increase of sugar consumption in general is widely understood as a contributing factor to both (this link is abundantly clear in the case of type II diabetes, and although sugar may not be the only contributing factor to obesity, it certainly is a component).

Too much sugar - either naturally occurring or added by a manufacturer - is not good, and the CDC has recommended that Americans keep their percentage of calories from sugar at or below 10%.  Unfortunately, the problem I've run in to numerous times online is that this 10% limit is often cited as pertaining only to added sugars, leaving the limit for sugar in general up to interpretation by readers.  By singling out added sugars on nutrition labels, shoppers may be inclined to ignore the total sugar content of any given product, and over-consume foods loaded with still unhealthy amounts of natural sugar, all because they feel good about the fact that at least they're not taking in those evil 'added sugars'.

This problem could easily be exacerbated when manufacturers look for loopholes, such as simply replacing added sugars with other ingredients high in naturally occurring sugars, and thus are able to continue producing sweet tasting foods with little change to the overall sugar and calorie content.  By making virtually no change to the end product, manufacturers will still find a way to slap a "no added sugars" label on their package and entice consumers to choose their seemingly 'healthier' option over their competitors.

But the biggest problem here is that by including the 'added sugars' on the nutrition information label, you are implying to consumers that the added sugar is somehow different than the naturally occurring sugars.  This is right in line with the arguments for labeling foods containing GMOs, where there is no real difference to the consumer, but the labeling acts as a way to stigmatize certain products.  Yet, in the end, sugar is sugar.  One gram of sugar (or any carb) is four calories, regardless of its source.  All sugars are processed in the body much quicker than other complex carbs, and excess consumption coupled with lack of exercise can lead to weight gain and diabetes.  But sugar is also a necessary nutrient for healthy brain and nervous system funtion.  It would be much more beneficial to stick to the original labels, and focus efforts on better nutrition education in general to combat the plethora of misinformation available through popular media.

Everything is Toxic!

I'm never surprised when I read an alarmist headline reporting that some new dangerous chemical has been found in our food supply.  Most of the time these headlines are purely click-bait, with the article itself actually playing down the cause for alarm.  Nevertheless, these headlines are enough to fuel chemophobes and orthorexics alike, so I thought it might be nice to write a quick post on the so-called poisons in our food.

My attention was recently brought to this subject from an article posted at Reason.com.  The gist of the story was that a recent study found trace amounts of glyphosate - the herbicide better known as RoundUp - in some popular cereals and other foods.  From the article:

So a new set of environmentalist pit bulls calling themselves the Alliance for Natural Health USA is reporting that they tested a bunch of commercial brands of cereals, some eggs, bagels, and coffee creamers. What horrors did they uncover? Take corn flakes, for example. AHA-USA reports that the glyphosate was detected at less 75 ppb which even they acknowledge is 66 times lower than the EPA's safety threshold of 5,000 ppb. Their highest detection was for an instant oat meal which was 22 times lower than the EPA's safety threshold for oats 30,000 ppb. The AHA-USA did manage to find organic cage free eggs in which glyphosate residues were double to triple the EPA's very low threshold of 50 ppb.

This particular article reminded me of another unwarranted scare I had to deal with a few years ago when I still worked at GNC.  One day I started receiving a large influx of customers wanting to return their protein powders because a recently published consumer report wrote that they contained 'potentially dangerous' levels of heavy metals.  I was fortunate enough to have a customer bring me a printed copy of the actual article in question.  As usual, the headlines totally outweighed the actual cause for concern.  In most of the cases, the actual levels of heavy metal contamination were below the threshold of the FDAs allowable amount.  In fact, all of the protein powders in question were within safe limits when used properly.  I find it necessary to emphasize 'when used properly', because the levels of heavy metals listed throughout the consumer report were all based on 3 servings of protein powder.  Their only justification for using such a high dose was that, "Nutritionists and trainers say they commonly see people who consume three servings a day."

Shoddy research methods aside, articles like these are not hard to produce, as there is an abundance of potentially toxic contaminants in all of our food supply.  In fact, the very food itself can sometimes be toxic as well.  The reason is simple: Toxicity is based on dosage.  All chemicals have a level at which consumption can be harmful or even life-threatening.  This includes all the conventionally accepted 'healthy' foods, from organics to all-naturals to non-GMO to conventional.  Over-consumption of anything can have negative consequences, and moderation and variety should always be a staple of a balanced diet.

The good news is that all chemicals also have a safe level for consumption - even scary sounding ones like cyanide, arsenic, and yes, even glyphosate.  Running any kind of headline claiming that certain scary sounding chemicals may be in our food, only to eventually admit that the chemicals in question pose no risk to the average consumer is absolutely irresponsible. It only continues to feed in to the culture of misinformation and pseudoscience that is already far too prevalent in the areas of health and nutrition.  One can only cry wolf so many times before the general population stops listening, and may even eventuslly ignore a real cause for alarm.

A General Argument Against Veganism/Vegetarianism

I came across this image in my Instagram feed months ago, and I hesitated to comment for good reason.  First, let's assume that the creator of this image probably meant to say "waiting for a sound argument", rather than "waiting for a valid argument".  Anyone can make a valid argument against veganism, given that the premises need not be true to create a valid argument (e.g. 'Vegan diets have been proven to cause cancer.  Cancer is bad.  Therefore, vegan diets should be avoided' is a valid argument).  Making a sound argument against Veganism is much harder.  It is easy to create a personal argument against veganism, such as "I enjoy eating meat too much to give it up", or "Plant based diets make me sick", but in the context of who is actually sharing this image, it is more likely that the poster is waiting for a sound argument against veganism in general.

This is a nearly impossible task, simply because veganism (and vegetarianism for that matter) is a very broad topic, and the arguments in favor of it stem from multiple, diverse premises.  For some it is simply a dietary decision, but for others, it is an ethical ideology.  To argue against something, you have to know at least a little bit about the arguments in favor of that particular position.  Since most people choose vegetarian and vegan diets for personal reasons, it would only be reasonable to argue against such diets on a case by case basis.

So is there any real general argument against veganism?  I can think of at least one: Veganism/vegetarianism is generally unnecessary, and when adopted without proper education and planning can result in negative health consequences.

Just a few weeks ago I was forwarded an article from Science Daily which indicated that a recent study by the Mayo Clinic found that some vegans risk being deficient in B-12, iron, calcium, vitamin D, protein, and Omega-3 fatty acids.  This article is what got me thinking about this subject lately.  While this information does not suggest that veganism is inherently unhealthy (the article points to poor planning and lack of education in nutrition), it does go against many of the arguments and implications that meatless diets are somehow essentially healthier.

In closing their article Vegetarianism: Healthful but Unnecessary, Susan Dingott and Johanna Dwyer (both Registered Dieticians) write:

Vegetarianism based on sound nutrition principles can be a healthful choice, but neither vegetarians nor omnivores have a monopoly on healthful eating. Vegetarians are just as diverse in their health status as are nonvegetarians. Similar health benefits can be gained from both well-selected omnivorous and vegetarian diets.

I couldn't have said it better myself.

Why Food?

Eating is necessary for survival.  This is obvious.  What is not so obvious these days is what we, as humans, should be eating.  Book stores have entire sections devoted to diet, physicians and dieticians have conflicting recommendations on how we should eat, and popular memes that spread quickly across the internet inundate us with mixed (and often false) messages regarding food and health.

As an anthropologist, I have a particular interest in the cultural constructs of food and nutrition.  More specifically, I am intrigued by the apparent lack of critical thinking that exists regarding these topics.  Having worked in the health, wellness, and medical fields for the past 10 years, I have witnessed the consequences of this lack of critical thinking first hand.  I have encountered so many people who held so many differing beliefs about what they should and shouldn't put in their bodies.  Everything from eating exclusively raw food diets, to purposely avoiding anything that contains even one ingredient that's hard to pronounce.

Many of these beliefs are pure nonsense, and are not based on any scientific or evidence-based research.  My reason for starting this blog is to review some of these beliefs, and other misconceptions regarding diet, supplements, food science, health, and anything else related to these topics.  My hope is to provide a rational response to some of the more irrational claims being made about the things we consume.