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Andrew Weil Sent Warning Letter By FDA For Selling Snake Oil Flu Remedies

Dr. Weil is often seen as the smiling “mainstream” of alternative medicine. He’s a real doctor (unlike, say, Gary Null), and much of what he advocates is standard and uncontroversial nutritional advice. But Weil illustrates the two biggest problems with so-called alternative medicne: once you’ve decided science is dispensible, the door is open to anything, no matter how insane; and no matter how altruistic you may start, sooner or later you start selling snake oil. Most doctors out there are working hard to help their patients prevent and overcome disease use the available evidence.  Others decide that science is too constraining and start practicing at the periphery of knowledge, throwing plausibility and ethics to the wind.

The fact that Weil claims to donate to charity all of his ill-gotten gains does not mitigate the harm he causes. Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at Science-Based Medicine*

Get Your Fruit On


Get Your Fruit On! I love this new tagline from Tropicana. Statistics show that 7 out of 10 Americans are not getting enough fruit in their daily diets. The Dietary Guidelines encourage us to get 2 cups of fruit per day. For those who do get their fruit, many are getting it from 100% orange juice.

Children are especially susceptible to not getting enough fruit. An 8 ounce glass of 100% orange juice has:

  • 2 servings of fruit
  • 120% of Vitamin C
  • 13% of Potassium
  • 15% of Folic Acid
  • No Sugar Added
  • 110 Calories

Tropicana is actually donating up to a quarter of a million fruit servings in the form of Tropicana Pure Premium 100% orange juice to the USDA Summer Food Service Program and the School Breakfast Program. Both programs offer free or reduced price nutritious meals to children in low- income areas. Tropicana did this by getting 5,000 Americans to pledge to increase their fruit intake.

Other tips to Get Your Fruit On (courtesy of Elizabeth Ward, RD):

  • Add in-season fruit to your morning bowl of oats or cereal.
  • Blend a smoothie using your favorite fresh or frozen fruit and a cup of OJ
  • Create a breakfast trail mix by combining dried fruit, nuts, and cereal. You can also use this as a snack.
  • Assemble breakfast fruit kabobs using pineapple chunks, bananas, grapes, and berries.
  • Drink a glass of 100% fruit juice at breakfast.

This post, Get Your Fruit On, was originally published on Healthine.com by Brian Westphal.

How Much Vitamin D Does Your Child Need?

Tanya Altmann, MD

It’s been a little while since I had a “blonde moment” during an expert interview, but this one was pretty funny. I was in the middle of a podcast with Dr. Tanya Altmann, media personality and spokesperson for the American Academy of Pediatrics, about vitamin D – when I thought I heard her say that there were now special formulas of vitamin D for incense.

I knew that Dr. Altmann practiced medicine in Southern California, so I wasn’t terribly surprised about this new method of vitamin delivery. However, I hadn’t heard about vitamin D inhalation previously, so I asked her to explain how this new incense formula worked.

She paused to gather her thoughts and then corrected me: “No, I was saying that there’s a new formula for INFANTS…”

Oh. My bad.

So here’s the rest of our delightful interview. You may want to listen to the podcast, though I did edit out the awkward “incense” section so as not to start a new cult. One doesn’t want to give others too many ideas on the Internet! I hope that Dr. Tanya won’t think less of me for that misunderstanding.

Dr. Val: What is vitamin D, and why do we need it?

Dr. Tanya: Vitamin D is an essential nutrient for your entire body. Although it’s called a vitamin it actually functions as more of a hormone, playing an important role in the immune system. Vitamin D can help to protect people against illness, diabetes, and even cancer, though its role in helping to build strong bones (and protect infants from rickets) is probably its best known attribute.

Dr. Val: Tell me about the new AAP guidelines for infants, children and adolescents. Why did they change?

Dr. Tanya: Based on data collected in several recent research studies, the American Academy of Pediatrics issued new guidelines last month which essentially doubled the recommended daily amount of vitamin D (from 200 to 400 IUs) for infants, children, and adolescents. Historically people were able to get sufficient amounts of vitamin D through sun exposure (the body can create vitamin D when the skin is exposed to sunlight), but now that we need to protect kids from sun’s harmful rays due to future skin cancer risk, vitamin D levels have dropped significantly. Sunscreen, of course, blocks the sun from stimulating the creation of vitamin D in the skin. Read more »

Latest Interviews

IDEA Labs: Medical Students Take The Lead In Healthcare Innovation

It’s no secret that doctors are disappointed with the way that the U.S. healthcare system is evolving. Most feel helpless about improving their work conditions or solving technical problems in patient care. Fortunately one young medical student was undeterred by the mountain of disappointment carried by his senior clinician mentors…

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How To Be A Successful Patient: Young Doctors Offer Some Advice

I am proud to be a part of the American Resident Project an initiative that promotes the writing of medical students residents and new physicians as they explore ideas for transforming American health care delivery. I recently had the opportunity to interview three of the writing fellows about how to…

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Latest Book Reviews

Book Review: Is Empathy Learned By Faking It Till It’s Real?

I m often asked to do book reviews on my blog and I rarely agree to them. This is because it takes me a long time to read a book and then if I don t enjoy it I figure the author would rather me remain silent than publish my…

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The Spirit Of The Place: Samuel Shem’s New Book May Depress You

When I was in medical school I read Samuel Shem s House Of God as a right of passage. At the time I found it to be a cynical yet eerily accurate portrayal of the underbelly of academic medicine. I gained comfort from its gallows humor and it made me…

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Eat To Save Your Life: Another Half-True Diet Book

I am hesitant to review diet books because they are so often a tangled mess of fact and fiction. Teasing out their truth from falsehood is about as exhausting as delousing a long-haired elementary school student. However after being approached by the authors’ PR agency with the promise of a…

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