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Quackery and nutrition fraud

What is quackery and nutrition fraud?

The late U.S. Representative Claude Pepper defined a quack as "anyone who promotes medical schemes or remedies known to be false, or which are unproven, for a profit." Fraud is defined as any scheme involving the intentional perversion of truth to induce or persuade another person to part with something of value.

Each year, Americans spend more than $25 billion on various forms of health fraud. About half of this sum goes for various forms of nutrition quackery.

The offerings of nutrition quackery are sold openly, usually in health-food stores or through mail-order catalogues. Most victims of nutrition quackery and fraud are willing, even eager, dupes who truly believe that the products they buy are more healthful than foods sold at supermarkets.

How, then, can an ordinary consumer avoid nutrition quackery and fraud? Dr. Victor Herbert, a physician and leading nutrition scientist who has devoted much of his medical career to exposing nutrition quackery, has compiled a list of common characteristics of quackery, all of which are false. These include:

• Claims that "natural" or "organic" foods and vitamins are more nutritious than synthetic or commercially produced products. In fact, a common theme of nutrition quackery holds that our food supply has been "polluted" by additives and preservatives.
• Offers of diet schemes or products that produce fast, painless weight loss.
• Promises of quick, dramatic, or miraculous cures, often for chronic, incurable diseases such as arthritis and cancer.
• Claims that commercially grown or prepared foods are nutritionally deficient, and that most diseases have a dietary cause.
• Promotion of "natural" products or regimens that do the impossible such as improve eyesight, increase sexual

potency, build muscles, and curb hair loss.
• Claims that the medical establishment deliberately withholds or denounces health-giving products.
• Anecdotal claims of efficacy rather than scientific data.

When should I use quackery and nutrition fraud?
Obviously, no one should willingly rely on quackery or fraud, but it is often difficult to separate facts from fallacies. People with chronic or life-threatening diseases such as cancer, AIDS, and arthritis are favored targets of nutrition fraud. So are young parents and the elderly.

Who provides quackery and nutrition fraud?
Most people envision perpetrators of fraud as shady characters or flimflam men who operate outside the law. Unfortunately, this characterization does not apply to modern nutrition quackery and fraud. In fact, unsuspecting consumers often find it difficult to separate legitimate health professionals from quacks, who typically appear as charismatic practitioners or nutrition counselors with impressive-sounding degrees and credentials. Their claims are sprinkled with medical terms and jargon, and their products are often endorsed by popular athletes or celebrities. They write best-selling books and appear on respectable TV talk shows. Common characteristics that should arouse your suspicion include:

• The use of unfamiliar credentials and degrees such as D.M. (doctor of metaphysics). Remember, too, that the use of M.D. or Ph.D. does not automatically confer legitimacy.
• Accreditation or certification from unfamiliar (often nonexistent) or mail-order institutions.
• Discovery of a revolutionary cure that is shunned by the medical establishment, but that can be obtained from the practitioner.

• The use of discredited tests such as hair analysis or computerized questionnaires to diagnose nutritional deficiencies.
• Promotion of books or pamphlets tied to exclusive products available only from the author or self-styled nutritionist.

What should I expect of quackery and nutrition fraud?

You should expect little in the way of legitimate advice or products. Indeed, many products or practices promoted by nutrition quacks are actually dangerous. For example, many quack regimens call for detoxifying the body with high colonic enemas — a practice that can produce life-threatening electrolyte disturbances. Bee pollen can provoke a fatal anaphylactic reaction in a person hypersensitive to insect stings. High doses of amino acids, which are falsely promoted as muscle builders, can result in nutritional imbalances and kidney disease.

You can expect to pay inflated prices for foods or vitamins that are often identical to supermarket products.

Above all, do not expect that a nutrition quack can effectively treat a serious disorder with a remedy that is not recognized by established medicine.

What should be expected of me?

Exercise healthy skepticism when it comes to relying on nutritional products and treatments that are not recommended by a registered dietitian or a physician trained in nutrition science. If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is!

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