Some of the nutritional advice that flashes across my computer screen every day is outright nonsense, much of it is speckled with smidgens of science that have no practical relevance, and in a few rare instances, there may be some points of interest that merit a further look. Let me illustrate with a few examples that cropped up on a single morning.
A Facebook post replete with a video entitled “This is the recipe that is ending terminal cancer” caught my attention. I didn’t really have to view it before dumping it in the trash bin because there is no “recipe” that will end cancer. If there were such a thing, it would not be revealed by some uneducated blogger, but would be trumpeted in the pages of a medical journal. Of course, cancer is not one disease, and breast cancer is not treated the same way as leukemia. Any suggestion of a universal cure is pure folly.
So, what is the folly in this case? The supposed magical cure is a smoothie made from limes, ginger, cloves and aloe vera. How does someone even come up with such a concoction? The usual sequence is to find some cell culture or animal study that shows some sort of antioxidant or cytotoxic (cell-killing) effect that can be traced to some plant component and then extrapolate this to humans in a meaningless fashion. Just about any plant extract will show some such effect in some study. The only conclusion that can be drawn is that a plant-based diet is likely to have health benefits. A smoothie made with limes, ginger, cloves and aloe vera is indeed plant-based, but any claim that it can cure cancer is poppycock.
Next came a TikTok video suggesting that eating sea moss is the key to good health. There was talk of healing the gut, clearing the skin, causing weight loss, and strengthening the immune system. None of these contentions is backed by evidence. But at least there was no claim of curing cancer. Sea moss, also known as “Irish moss,” is a type of seaweed that can be dried and packaged, or formulated into pills, powders or gels. It is actually quite rich in potassium, iodine, zinc, B vitamins and prebiotic fiber that nourishes beneficial gut microbes, but all of these are readily available in leafy green vegetables like kale, arugula or Swiss chard for a fraction of the cost.
Curiously, while many bloggers promote sea moss, some warn against eating it because of its content of carrageenan, a complex carbohydrate with gelling properties. Since such gelling properties are commercially useful, carrageenan is commonly extracted from sea moss for use in ice cream, yogurt, chocolate milk and cottage cheese. Alarmists claim that carrageenan can cause inflammation, digestive problems, irritable bowel disease and even colon cancer, for which there is no evidence. In any case, the amount of carrageenan added to foods is less than 0.03% by weight, a toxicologically insignificant amount. While sea moss is not “the key to good health,” it is harmless enough.
Now we come to numerous media reports of a Chinese study with a title that asks “Does chili pepper consumption affect body mass index (BMI) and obesity risk?” It concludes that “chili pepper consumption has a potential negative effect on weight management.” This curious study has more holes than Swiss cheese. Why curious? Because the paper’s Chinese authors did not actually carry out any study. They just mined some data, readily available online from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) carried out in the U.S. between 2003 and 2006. In this survey some 6000 adults filled out food frequency questionnaires and reported their health status including their BMI and body weight. After dredging the data for something that was publishable, the Chinese scientists found that people who consumed chili peppers at least once a week had a BMI about 0.7 units higher than people who never ate chili peppers. This is hardly significant, especially given that the average BMI for all participants was in the 28.3 to 29.0 range.
Food frequency questionnaires are notoriously unreliable. How many of us could accurately report the number of times we consumed chili peppers during the last 12 months, which was the question asked? Furthermore, subjects were not asked about the amount of chili peppers consumed. People were categorized as “frequent consumers” if they ate chili peppers at least once a week. There was no distinction between ones who ate peppers once or seven times.
Neither was it possible to determine the fashion in which the peppers were consumed. A high calorie pasta with spicy arrabiata sauce is not the same as a chicken taco with chili peppers. As a further complication, studies of isolated capsaicin, the component responsible for the “heat” of hot peppers, have actually been linked with an increase in metabolism and weight loss. Basically, this Chinese study has no practical relevance and should not scare anyone away from eating spicy food. As an aside, the country that consumes the most chili peppers is India, hardly a country with an overweight problem.
Finally, a study by scientists at the University of East Anglia in England appeared with the possibility of a touch of practical relevance. It was triggered by some previous mouse studies that had shown that glucoraphanin, a compound found in broccoli, as well as its metabolite sulforaphane, may reduce the severity of osteoarthritis. Twenty-four subjects with osteoarthritic knee pain were recruited and were randomized into experimental and control groups. Over twelve weeks, all participants consumed a daily serving of vegetable soup with the experimental group’s soup being fortified with broccoli extract, equivalent to about half a pound of broccoli. Seventeen patients completed the study, a rather small number on which to base statistics, but the researchers report that using a common osteoarthritis pain index, the experimental group’s pain was reduced by 3.17 points while the placebo group’s increased by 0.61 points. Not a spectacular finding, and in any case, hard to imagine anyone eating broccoli soup every day to ease their knee pain. But there certainly is no harm in including more broccoli in the diet.
Tomorrow will undoubtedly bring another slew of health advice touted by social media posts as being a “breakthrough,” “cutting edge,” “ground-breaking,” “quantum leap” or “revolutionary” that on scrutiny will more likely merit the terms “piffle,” “humbug” or “drivel.”
