Dubious health products debunked
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Sense about Science is a London-based independent charitable trust whose goal is to promote truth in science, medicine and technology. This month they released a pamphlet, “There Goes the Science Bit…” debunking ‘false health claims’ made by 11 companies, including Pret a Manger, Sainsbury’s, and Nestle.
Biologist, Harriet Ball, on Nestle’s ‘Active8′:
I am increasingly annoyed by the way companies use scientific-sounding language to make the unproven benefits of their products sound credible. Nestlé’s Ski yoghurts were recently rebranded with the claim that they contain “activ8”, a “unique blend of eight b vitamins and minerals, each proven to optimise the release of energy from our diet”. I was initially confused by what these claims meant but on further investigation it seemed areas of accepted science had become confused with claims to improve customer’s lifestyles. I found this irritating, especially because the lazy use of scientific-sounding language can only add to the confusion surrounding healthy lifestyle advice.
The pamphlet is an interesting read and available for download in pdf.
Link (via NewScientist)
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October 19th, 2007 at 2:40 pm
What a great blog you have here, and a great tip about the Sense about Science organization. It’s getting so hard to sort out where health news information is coming from these days, and even some of the wire services are getting sloppy about their sources. Great info about peer review; thanks for posting this!