It's Not Just Your Local Pharmacy

"Amazon’s websites are hawking a universe of dangerous, pseudoscience health products — from electronic "zappers" that promise to cure HIV to bleach enemas for autism."

Amazon is a giant purveyor of medical quackery

Joe Mercola: The World's Most Dangerous Person?

"Mercola, who is arguably the worst of the worst in the supplement sales space, has really outdone himself this time. His attention-grabbing headline, as well as the nonsense hyperbole masquerading as science that follows it, are both false and dangerous. Shame on him. Especially now."

Joe Mercola Hits a New Low Saying Zika Is Caused By Vitamin A Deficiency

Debunking Pseudoscience In The Olympics

"Unfortunately, an investigation by the BBC and the British Medical Journal discovered that many of products and training practices that gain popularity via the Olympics are not supported by sound science.  So, in preparation for the upcoming Rio Games, here is a quick debunk of some popular evidence-less sports trends."  (Note: this was written before the Olympics and the revelations concerning cupping, which also is an evidence-less sports trend.)

Olympic Debunk

Supplements Instead Of Medication?

"Naturopaths claim that they can effectively manage medical conditions with “natural” approaches, but the evidence supporting these recommendations has been consistently shown to be absent or weak."

Should you try a “natural alternative” before medication?

Supplement Regulation: Politics Run Amok

"You might argue that the public gets the regulations they want, but the public is largely unaware of how lax these regulations are. They assume that claims and products are reasonably regulated, and they are simply wrong."

Former FDA Directors Criticize Supplement Regulation

Vitamin D Supplementation

"At present, they stated that the evidence supports Vitamin D to prevent fractures (especially accompanied by calcium), and maybe to prevent falls in older patients. But, they say: 'No other effects are proven. For many other conditions, the evidence for vitamin D supplementation is plagued by the use of small, poor-quality trials.'”

At Last, Some Sense About Vitamin D Supplementation

Dietary Supplement Regulation

Republican anti-science, again.

DSHEA is still a terrible law that harms consumers

Scientific Take On Supplements

"A supplement worth taking is backed by good evidence, and is unlikely to cause harm. Most supplements fail this test – usually because they lack good evidence to show they work. But even where the evidence is promising (and the risks appear acceptable), there’s an additional consideration with dietary supplements – supplement quality is unclear."

Where science meets supplements

Probiotics

"Right now there is lots of hope and speculation that manipulating the microbiome will have potential benefits. The research is largely preliminary, which tends to be false positive. This situation is ripe for exploitation by companies to sell supplements with claimed or suggested benefit, before the research definitively shows that such products have little or no benefit, or that the situation is more complex than we thought."

Review of Probiotics

Supplement Safety

Much has been written recently about not needing dietary supplements if one does not have a deficiency of the substances.  This article focuses on the safety issues involved with supplements.

The consumer lab rat: More questions about supplement safety

Antioxidants

"Antioxidants are now an iconic example of premature hype making its way into marketing and the public consciousness long before the science is adequately understood. There are multiple lessons to be learned in this story, and a new study just emphasizes those lessons further."

More trouble for antioxidants