Blood’s a bad science magnet

May 27th, 2004 by Ben Goldacre in bad science, dna, magnets, mail | 3 Comments »

Blood’s a bad science magnet

Ben Goldacre
Thursday May 27, 2004
The Guardian

Talk about bad science here

· No bad science this week: the world has changed. Only kidding. David Pack sends me a fabulous leaflet he picked up in a Cambridge library recently on Energy Interference Patterning of DNA. “If you find yourself in situations that cause irritated or defensive reactions…” That’s me. “Research confirms that emotions, feelings and belief systems alter DNA… the EIP technique unlocks the mystery of healing quickly and easily … access cellular DNA memory and create a new regenerated and rejuvenated DNA… remove old belief systems permanently.”

· Luckily there was a voice of sanity in the wilderness: Carole Caplin in the Mail on Sunday. “Adidas shoe designer Christian DiBendetto has come up with a computerised running shoe, complete with buttons, magnet and electric motor.” For £170. Sounds right up her street. But no. “Can you imagine anything worse? The foot contains important energy meridians that a magnet and electric motor could seriously interfere with. “Gosh. How dangerous is that, Carole? “DiBendetto says that a shoe that changes shape to suit a hard or soft surface was a fantasy until now. Soon, it will be a nightmare.”

· Meanwhile reader David Bradbury sends us in The Eye Zone Massager, another classic piece of pseudoscience from those folks at the Science Museum gift shop. “At the end of a stressful day, use this special mask for a few minutes. It massages the temples and eye area, reducing stress and energising muscles. Very refreshing, it helps prevent bags and dark rings. Gentle magnets also enhance circulation. Battery included.” No. Again, no. Gentle magnets do not enhance circulation. Blood is not magnetic: and why not try these fun demonstrations at home to prove it. Bleed yourself on to a dish and wave a magnet over it: observe your blood not moving. Hold a magnet over your skin, and watch it not go red. Put yourself in an MRI scanner with a massive magnetic field, and carefully note that you are not hovering, in a dramatic living demonstration of the non-magneticness of your blood. Get a job on a scrapyard, hang out under that big electromagnet they use to pick up the cars, and notice that you do not fly up into the sky, and do not smash your skull into lots of tiny pieces. Regardless of what the Science Museum’s merchandise tells you, kids, blood is not magnetic. Unless, of course, the shop is aware of this and an interactive demonstration of the more cynical commercial applications of science.

Letters

May 27th, 2004 by Ben Goldacre in bad science | 1 Comment »

Alternative body

Thursday May 27, 2004
The Guardian

I was interested to read that Richard Brook, chief executive of Mind, thinks St John’s Wort is a homeopathic remedy, and that it is, according to Ben Goldacre, “pretty close to pure water” (Bad Science, May 20). It is, in fact, a very old herbal remedy, which has long been used for the treatment of depressive conditions.

It is true that there does not seem to be a reliable source of information regarding the interaction of conventional drugs with alternative treatments. Most doctors scoff when asked and claim to know nothing outside the world of “real medicine”. Herbalists and homeopaths are more helpful but cannot possibly keep abreast of current drug development.

Would it not be possible to form some kind of official body to set out guidelines for the more popular alternative remedies that we use?
Lyn Faulkner
Bartlow, Cambridge

Note:

I didn’t say that blood SJW was a homeopathic remedy, I was writing about somebody else who did and pointing out that they were purveying bad science:

www.badscience.net/?p=87

The chaps at the Guardian themselves were apparently unable to understand this, and so published this rather odd letter.

Blood’s a bad science magnet

May 27th, 2004 by Ben Goldacre in adverts, bad science, dna, magnets, mail | 2 Comments »

Ben Goldacre
Thursday May 27, 2004
The Guardian

· No bad science this week: the world has changed. Only kidding. David Pack sends me a fabulous leaflet he picked up in a Cambridge library recently on Energy Interference Patterning of DNA. “If you find yourself in situations that cause irritated or defensive reactions…” That’s me. “Research confirms that emotions, feelings and belief systems alter DNA… the EIP technique unlocks the mystery of healing quickly and easily … access cellular DNA memory and create a new regenerated and rejuvenated DNA… remove old belief systems permanently.”

· Luckily there was a voice of sanity in the wilderness: Carole Caplin in the Mail on Sunday. “Adidas shoe designer Christian DiBendetto has come up with a computerised running shoe, complete with buttons, magnet and electric motor.” For £170. Sounds right up her street. But no. “Can you imagine anything worse? The foot contains important energy meridians that a magnet and electric motor could seriously interfere with. “Gosh. How dangerous is that, Carole? “DiBendetto says that a shoe that changes shape to suit a hard or soft surface was a fantasy until now. Soon, it will be a nightmare.”

· Meanwhile reader David Bradbury sends us in The Eye Zone Massager, another classic piece of pseudoscience from those folks at the Science Museum gift shop. “At the end of a stressful day, use this special mask for a few minutes. It massages the temples and eye area, reducing stress and energising muscles. Very refreshing, it helps prevent bags and dark rings. Gentle magnets also enhance circulation. Battery included.” No. Again, no. Gentle magnets do not enhance circulation. Blood is not magnetic: and why not try these fun demonstrations at home to prove it. Bleed yourself on to a dish and wave a magnet over it: observe your blood not moving. Hold a magnet over your skin, and watch it not go red. Put yourself in an MRI scanner with a massive magnetic field, and carefully note that you are not hovering, in a dramatic living demonstration of the non-magneticness of your blood. Get a job on a scrapyard, hang out under that big electromagnet they use to pick up the cars, and notice that you do not fly up into the sky, and do not smash your skull into lots of tiny pieces. Regardless of what the Science Museum’s merchandise tells you, kids, blood is not magnetic. Unless, of course, the shop is aware of this and an interactive demonstration of the more cynical commercial applications of science.

Wort warning

May 20th, 2004 by Ben Goldacre in bad science, dangers, herbal remedies | 2 Comments »

Wort warning

Ben Goldacre
Thursday May 20, 2004
The Guardian

Talk about bad science here

· People often ask why I get so grumpy about the lack of intellectual rigour in alternative medicine. “What’s so bad,” they say, “about people believing whatever they want, if it makes them feel better?” What’s so bad is that sometimes, when people mix and match ideas, and believe that “natural” means “safe”, they can concoct some pretty dangerous suggestions.

Over to Richard Brook, chief executive of mental health charity Mind. “Prozac or cognitive behavioural therapy?” the Independent asked him last week. “CBT every time,” he replied, and fair enough. “I’m a strong supporter of non-medicated approaches, which also include exercise, improving social contacts, diet” he said. Excellent advice so far. “And possibly homeopathic remedies such as St John’s Wort.”

Now, homeopathic remedies are pretty close to pure water, and that’s not going to do you any good or any harm. But St John’s Wort contains a drug that is very similar to Prozac, which can interact dangerously with many antidepressants and numerous other medications. And unfortunately, as they say, not a lot of people know that. Researchers at King’s College London questioned 929 people, visiting four pharmacies in London, and found that when they asked people which medicines they were taking, 41% did not mention herbal remedies, because they did not think of them as medicines. Seven per cent were taking potentially dangerous combinations of herbal remedies and prescription medicines, and the most common was taking St John’s Wort at the same time as SSRIs, the class of antidepressants that includes Prozac. What’s more, taking St John’s Wort with the oral contraceptive pill can cause side effects and stop the pill working. Even pharmacists can believe the hype. In 21 visits to buy St John’s Wort, five Which? researchers were given unsatisfactory advice, twice they didn’t need to see a pharmacist, and one pharmacist said it was “fine to take with the pill”.

· About a quarter of prescription drugs are derived from plant sources and just because something comes from a plant doesn’t mean it’s safe. Aspirin comes from willow bark, but it will still make your haemorrhoids bleed. Diamorphine was made from opium poppy extract, in the same lab as aspirin, by the same bloke, two weeks later, using the same process (acetylation), 107 years ago this summer, since you ask. Diamorphine is also known as heroin, and although it’s undoubtedly effective, it has a few side effects that might worry you.

This slightly odd letter was printed the following week.

Wort warning

May 20th, 2004 by Ben Goldacre in alternative medicine, bad science, dangers, herbal remedies, homeopathy | 2 Comments »

Ben Goldacre
Thursday May 20, 2004
The Guardian

· People often ask why I get so grumpy about the lack of intellectual rigour in alternative medicine. “What’s so bad,” they say, “about people believing whatever they want, if it makes them feel better?” What’s so bad is that sometimes, when people mix and match ideas, and believe that “natural” means “safe”, they can concoct some pretty dangerous suggestions.

Over to Richard Brook, chief executive of mental health charity Mind. “Prozac or cognitive behavioural therapy?” the Independent asked him last week. “CBT every time,” he replied, and fair enough. “I’m a strong supporter of non-medicated approaches, which also include exercise, improving social contacts, diet” he said. Excellent advice so far. “And possibly homeopathic remedies such as St John’s Wort.”

Now, homeopathic remedies are pretty close to pure water, and that’s not going to do you any good or any harm. But St John’s Wort contains a drug that is very similar to Prozac, which can interact dangerously with many antidepressants and numerous other medications. And unfortunately, as they say, not a lot of people know that. Researchers at King’s College London questioned 929 people, visiting four pharmacies in London, and found that when they asked people which medicines they were taking, 41% did not mention herbal remedies, because they did not think of them as medicines. Seven per cent were taking potentially dangerous combinations of herbal remedies and prescription medicines, and the most common was taking St John’s Wort at the same time as SSRIs, the class of antidepressants that includes Prozac. What’s more, taking St John’s Wort with the oral contraceptive pill can cause side effects and stop the pill working. Even pharmacists can believe the hype. In 21 visits to buy St John’s Wort, five Which? researchers were given unsatisfactory advice, twice they didn’t need to see a pharmacist, and one pharmacist said it was “fine to take with the pill”.

· About a quarter of prescription drugs are derived from plant sources and just because something comes from a plant doesn’t mean it’s safe. Aspirin comes from willow bark, but it will still make your haemorrhoids bleed. Diamorphine was made from opium poppy extract, in the same lab as aspirin, by the same bloke, two weeks later, using the same process (acetylation), 107 years ago this summer, since you ask. Diamorphine is also known as heroin, and although it’s undoubtedly effective, it has a few side effects that might worry you.

Publish or perish

May 13th, 2004 by Ben Goldacre in bad science, mail, MMR, references | 1 Comment »

Publish or perish

Ben Goldacre
Thursday May 13, 2004
The Guardian

Talk about Bad science here

· If you visit the Royal Society – even women are allowed in, contrary to what you may have been told – you’ll see their motto proudly on display: “Nullius in verba” or on the word of no one. And what I like to imagine they’re referring to, in my geeky way, is the importance of publishing proper scientific papers, if you want to be trusted. This obviously comes as a surprise to most journalists and alternative therapists, so I’ll explain exactly why. Let’s say that you’ve decided to accept satan’s shilling and write for the Daily Mail. You want to write an article on MMR and how bad it is. Luckily, Dr Arthur Krigsman has been claiming for years now that he has found evidence linking MMR to autism and bowel disease, so you write about that. He may well have done so. But since he didn’t publish his findings, he can claim them until he’s blue in the face, because until we can see exactly what he did, we can’t see what flaws there may be in his methods. Maybe he didn’t select the subjects properly. Maybe he measured the wrong things. If he doesn’t write it up formally, we can never know.

· This is what scientists do: write papers, and pull them apart to make sure the findings are robust. We look for flaws in the experimental methods that may cause flaws in the results, that may cause flaws in the conclusions. Science is not about absolute facts from authority figures: you describe exactly what you did in the methods section, what your results were, and how wide the error margin was: then you describe your theory, contingently built on this fragile, contentious data. Without all that information, the findings and the figures are worthless.

Two weeks ago, you will remember, the biggest science story in the UK was Kevin Warwick’s study, showing that watching Richard and Judy improved IQ performance in 200 subjects. Four years ago the same result was reported, but with a study sample of 120 people, implying that this ridiculous finding was robust enough to be replicated. The study has never been properly published in a peer-reviewed academic journal, and Warwick says he doesn’t want to do so. But the study was misreported this time round: a press release incorrectly stated that there were 200 subjects, when in fact there was just one study, of 120. Which just goes to show that press releases on unpublished data are a rubbish basis for a report on a scientific experiment. If the experiment was properly published, and if journalists knew enough to trust only properly published data, stories like this would never run.

Bin the pills, eat your greens

May 6th, 2004 by Ben Goldacre in bad science, express, nutritionists, references | 5 Comments »

Bin the pills, eat your greens

Talk about Bad science here

Ben Goldacre
Thursday May 6, 2004
The Guardian

· It’s a simple universe for nutritionists, with a small number of fundamental laws from which all other facts derive. Antioxidants are good; stimulants are bad; laboratory studies on rat metabolism are proof of the need to spend £50 a week on pills. The only problem is, there’s practically nothing in the huge body of contradictory research on nutrition to recommend anything other than “eat your greens”, and you don’t need a journalist, or a scientist, or an expensive nutritionist to tell you that. Meanwhile, John Triggs in the Daily Express was riffing off this week, telling children to “boost their brain” for exams, using iron: “premium brain fuel”.

· I doff my hat to anyone who can make out that iron-deficiency anaemia is a greater cause of poor concentration in young people than lack of exercise and too much TV; and I’m delighted to be receiving nutritional advice from a man who tells us that thiamine – otherwise known as vitamin B1 – is a “mineral”. Perhaps it’s a special alternative thiamine mineral, mined from the viscous thiamine mountains in south India. Either way, it “helps build concentration” so get chewing. Or try “Marmite, peas, bread, oranges, eggs and pasta.” Thanks John; it never occurred to me to eat any of that stuff until you mentioned the thiamine.

· If you want to pass some exams, forget the Marmite and have a cup of evidence-based coffee. I realise any nutritionist would look at me like I’d just suggested injecting cocaine and PCP into the veins on my penis, but hey, if you want to play selective paper quoting, a recent Norwegian study found that coffee contributed 11 millimoles (mmol) of their subjects’ 17mmol daily intake of antioxidants: 1.8 mmol came from fruit and 0.4 mmol from vegetables. And a paper this week showed that antioxidant vitamin supplements (taken by 10m Britons) interfere with liver function and might cause heart attacks. Bin the pills and eat your greens.

· Don’t believe anyone who tells you caffeine is bad. Just makes you a bit bad tempered. Better than those ridiculous pills anyway. Decadence, I tell you. Lazy fat westerners, who know deep down that their lifestyles are predicated on the exploitation of people in countries where there really are nutritional deficiencies, bleating on about how they too are deficient, in, “umm, selenium and thiamine”, and stuffing their faces with pills when they should be ordering a salad. I’ll say it again: eat your greens. Er, and maybe avoid too much coffee.

Bin the pills, eat your greens

May 6th, 2004 by Ben Goldacre in bad science, express, nutritionists | 2 Comments »

Bin the pills, eat your greens

Talk about Bad science here

Ben Goldacre
Thursday May 6, 2004
The Guardian

· It’s a simple universe for nutritionists, with a small number of fundamental laws from which all other facts derive. Antioxidants are good; stimulants are bad; laboratory studies on rat metabolism are proof of the need to spend £50 a week on pills. The only problem is, there’s practically nothing in the huge body of contradictory research on nutrition to recommend anything other than “eat your greens”, and you don’t need a journalist, or a scientist, or an expensive nutritionist to tell you that. Meanwhile, John Triggs in the Daily Express was riffing off this week, telling children to “boost their brain” for exams, using iron: “premium brain fuel”.

· I doff my hat to anyone who can make out that iron-deficiency anaemia is a greater cause of poor concentration in young people than lack of exercise and too much TV; and I’m delighted to be receiving nutritional advice from a man who tells us that thiamine – otherwise known as vitamin B1 – is a “mineral”. Perhaps it’s a special alternative thiamine mineral, mined from the viscous thiamine mountains in south India. Either way, it “helps build concentration” so get chewing. Or try “Marmite, peas, bread, oranges, eggs and pasta.” Thanks John; it never occurred to me to eat any of that stuff until you mentioned the thiamine.

· If you want to pass some exams, forget the Marmite and have a cup of evidence-based coffee. I realise any nutritionist would look at me like I’d just suggested injecting cocaine and PCP into the veins on my penis, but hey, if you want to play selective paper quoting, a recent Norwegian study found that coffee contributed 11 millimoles (mmol) of their subjects’ 17mmol daily intake of antioxidants: 1.8 mmol came from fruit and 0.4 mmol from vegetables. And a paper this week showed that antioxidant vitamin supplements (taken by 10m Britons) interfere with liver function and might cause heart attacks. Bin the pills and eat your greens.

· Don’t believe anyone who tells you caffeine is bad. Just makes you a bit bad tempered. Better than those ridiculous pills anyway. Decadence, I tell you. Lazy fat westerners, who know deep down that their lifestyles are predicated on the exploitation of people in countries where there really are nutritional deficiencies, bleating on about how they too are deficient, in, “umm, selenium and thiamine”, and stuffing their faces with pills when they should be ordering a salad. I’ll say it again: eat your greens. Er, and maybe avoid too much coffee.