Does Personality Drive Supplement Choices?

"The personality already has interest in the choice before one chooses, and if one postpones the choice the personality makes the choice unconsciously…" – Soren Kieregaard (Either/Or: A Fragment of Life, 1843)

There are a many ways to decide how we feel about something. We can weigh the pros and cons. We can rely on someone's opinion we respect. We can "go with our gut." Or, we can talk it through with others (just to name a few).

When we consider whether to use a dietary supplement or functional food, we all go through our own personal process of deliberation. What may influence us the most is not always the amount of advertising or the appeal of the packaging, but our own personality type.

On temporary hiatus

I am quite pleased to be working through several consulting contracts, but they have taken up most of my time for the last few months.  I have so many ideas in the hopper, and I look forward to sharing them with you soon.  Thank you for your patience!

Humor: What the Hell, Body?

"Superpowers, don't always make you a superhero.  Duck." — Michael Grant (Hunger)

How do you wrap obesity, high blood pressure and vitamin megadoses into one funny observation?  See for yourself.  This comes to us courtesy of Dr. Dante J.T. Shepherd who posted this lesson as part of his daily webcomic - Surviving the World.  Click on the picture to go to his website and see the full sized version.

Watchdogs with a Well-Practiced Bark

"Your dog gets some kind of reward when he barks. Otherwise, he wouldn't do it." - The Humane Society of the United States

Consumerlab.com (CL) has just released testing data on 60 multivitamin-mineral supplements and found that most supplements live up to their label claims (my words, not theirs). But, some supplements have excessively high amounts of some nutrients, and one pet supplement tested positive for lead. These are unacceptable defects. Companies add extra nutrients (overages) to products to make sure that you get the amount of nutrients listed on the label at the expiration date (because nutrients break down inside the container over time depending on temperature, oxygen, and other factors). Overages that exceed the recommended upper limit of intake for a nutrient are irresponsible and represent a failure of the FDA-mandated Dietary Supplement Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP) that should catch bad batches of product. And, no nutritional product should fail a lead test unless there is some serious breakdown in quality assurance/quality control (QA/QC). Bottom line, there are nutritional products on the market that are not properly formulated, but most of them are.

Will We Have to Eat Our Own?

"Every kind of peaceful cooperation among men is primarily based on mutual trust and only secondarily on institutions such as courts of justice and police" – Albert Einstein

The most qualified people in this country to spot irresponsible nutritional product companies and false/misleading claims are the responsible members of the nutritional product community. Activists are the most focused on irresponsible activities, but they can fall into the trap of drawing and redrawing the line between responsible and irresponsible (so as to make more and more industry activities appear irresponsible – it keeps the activists in business). And it is certainly true that the FDA and FTC regulators definitely know the law and know when companies meet or do not meet legal standards. But, it is the responsible industry scientist who can look at a claim and a list of ingredients and immediately go, "Waaaait a minute. I know exactly what you are trying to pull here." We compete with these irresponsible players, and we know the pseudoscientific word games they play to try and outsell responsible products.

Illustrated Claims and the Science Behind Them: Part I

"A picture shows me at a glance what it takes dozens of pages of a book to expound." – Ivan Turgenev (Fathers and Sons 1862)

Structure-function claims are confusing to the consumer and difficult to substantiate due to all the ways a few simple words can be misconstrued. I have often been tasked with reading a competitor's structure-function claim and researching what data they have to support the claim. Sometimes, I find strong studies supporting very carefully worded claims. Other times, I find no relationship between the claim and the available data to support it. In those cases, it seems like these industry scientists and I do not have a common understanding of what a claim means. I have been toying with a method of visually illustrating health-related claims for use in discussions, lectures, and seeking common ground. I'll start off with two claims and a key (scroll down to the bottom) in this post, and I will follow up with more illustrations and discussions of methods for scientific substantiation.

Adverse Events: Drugs vs. Nutritional Products

"If you can not measure it, you can not improve it." – Lord Kelvin

Why do some proponents claim that dietary supplements are safer that drugs? I would like to share an insight I recently had thanks to a medical student with the username nybgrus who posts on the Science Based Medicine blog.