Bad Science

[Moscow Mule]

I've just finished "Bad Science" by Ben Goldacre, I think it should be read by everybody.

He was on Radio 4 this morning lambasting that idiot woman from detoxinabox.com who was also on BBC Breakfast - more power to his elbow.

www.badscience.net

[minestrone]

I heard something on Radio 2 during the news that detox products were a load of tulipe ( which we all knew anyway ) I take it that this was mentioned because of him being on radio 4?

[sasguru]

I've just finished "Bad Science" by Ben Goldacre, I think it should be read by everybody.

He was on Radio 4 this morning lambasting that idiot woman from detoxinabox.com who was also on BBC Breakfast - more power to his elbow.

www.badscience.net

Haven't read it - but does he mention global warming?

[TheFaQQer]

It's a very interesting book - my sister bought it for me for Christmas, and I've nearly finished it now.

His column this week was very good, as well.

[dang65]

I've done a "detox" diet a couple of times and thought it was excellent. It didn't require any special products or anything, just slowly giving up various things like caffeine, sugar, fat and the like - the bleedin' obvious really - and eating good stuff like fruit. You do it in steps over a few weeks, so you're not suddenly deprived of everything you like just because it's the first of January.

It's basically a gentle way of switching to a healthier diet, that's all.

But I suppose these reports are aimed at those schemes that say you just have to drink 5 litres of water a day and rub some of this here cream on your backside twice a week and you'll be thin. Or whatever. The kind of people that take that sort of thing as fact are beyond educating, I would have thought.

[Cheshire Cat]

He has/had a weekly column (in the Guardian i think). If I remember, he has no time for that "Doctor" Jillian McKeith woman (the "poo lady" from "you are what you eat").

[Moscow Mule]

He has/had a weekly column (in the Guardian i think). If I remember, he has no time for that "Doctor" Jillian McKeith woman (the "poo lady" from "you are what you eat").

She gets a whole chapter in the book.

She's not even a real PhD, she got it via some crappy American correspondence course.

[Doggy Styles]

She's not even a real PhD, she got it via some crappy American correspondence course.

Where else do they come from then?

[TheFaQQer]

It's basically a gentle way of switching to a healthier diet, that's all.

If that's all it was, then great - as Goldacre says, there is something to be applauded about getting people to eat better and healthier.

But implying that by eating "½ teaspoon of cinnamon per day helps lower cholesterol!" and "Garlic a great antioxidant, helps protect against damaging free radicals!" without any form of evidence or research, then that's just plain wrong.

Indeed the evidence about antioxidants is pretty damning, and yet we are still being encouraged that we should have more of them, purely on the principle that having the correct number is good (the research shows that having too many antioxidants is actually not healthy, but don't let that get in the way of your garlic diet and your healthy red heart wine from Sainsbury's)

[TheFaQQer]

She gets a whole chapter in the book.

She's not even a real PhD, she got it via some crappy American correspondence course.

"Gilliam McKeith, or to give her her full medical title, Gilliam McKeith"