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Nutrition misinformation creates opportunities for health fraud, quackery, and food faddism. Unreasonable or exaggerated beliefs that foods or supplements or their components may cure disease, convey special health benefits, or offer quick weight loss are just a few among the health and nutrition claims with which the public has to contend. More often than not, the public is at a loss how to distinguish nutrition facts from nutrition misinformation.
Consumers opting for self-care continue to rely heavily on these claims, unaware of their possible harmful consequences. Failure to or delay in seeking legitimate medical care, undesirable drug-nutrient reactions and the effect of nutrient toxicities or toxic components of the products are among the many health risks of nutrition misinformation. When promised cures and effects fail to work and when products are purchased unnecessarily, the consequences extend to unnecessary expenses of consumers.
The federal government, through the recommendations of policy-making and regulatory bodies, has in recent years begun acknowledging the link between nutrition and health. The U.S. Surgeon General’s Report on Nutrition and Health defining food quackery as the promotion of special foods or products with false or misleading health or therapeutic claims for commercial purposes has likewise supported the link. Despite these positive developments, misinformation about the role of nutrition in health still abounds, allowing nutrition misinformation, health fraud and quackery to flourish.
The public receives all kinds of unsolicited health information from a variety of sources. Recent surveys of the American Dietetic Association (ADA) cited television, magazines and newspapers as the top resources for consumers continuously in quest for health and nutrition information. The Internet has also become an indispensable source that none of the leading sources cited could contend with.
Consumer interest in health and nutrition information is high regardless of their validity or the sources. However, one in five consumers admits to being confused by dietary advice. The sheer volume and varying quality of information received as well as conflicting perceptions fuels consumers’ confusion about who or what to believe.
Four categories of evidence that could assess the validity of a nutrition information or a health claim are suggested. These are: 1) testimonials; 2) arguments; 3) correlations; and 4) experiments.
Testimonials or anecdotal evidence are the bases of much of today’s nutrition information or health claims. Sometimes highly unreliable, these do not report people who took the nutritional product and did not benefit, as well as those who did not take the product but did improve. Testimonials are not necessarily fraudulent but they could hardly be validated.
Arguments consists of organizing known facts or experimental results and justifying them as valid. Until the argument is supported by studies, it remains just another claim waiting to be confirmed or disproved.
The only kind of evidence acceptable as genuine proof to support a health claim or nutrition information is that of a repeatable experiment, usually accompanied by control data. Different researchers in different laboratories in different parts of the world have to be able to repeat the experiment and obtain results that do not disprove the nutrition information or health claim.
Repeatable experiments or scientific progress, however, do not prevent or eliminate nutrition misinformation. The popular media tend to capitalize on preliminary research data in an effort to enhance audience and readership ratings. Promoters as a result quickly turn to legitimate research findings in sales pitches, products and services.
As the ultimate end-users, consumers must learn how to recognized an evidence-based scientific health and nutrition information to distinguish fact from fiction. Knowing how to access credible inforation is a helpful skill. The Food and Nutrition Science Alliance has summed-up 10 indicators in spotting health and nutrition misinformation:
1. Recommendations that promise a quick fix;
2. Dire warnings of danger from a single product or regiment;
3. Claims that sound too good to be true;
4. Simplistic conclusions drawn from a study;
5. Recommendations based on a single study;
6. Dramatic statements that are refuted by reputable scientific organizations;
7. Lists of "good" and "bad" foods;
8. Recommendations made to sell a product;
9. Recommendations based on studies published without peer review;
10. Recommendations from studies that ignore differences among individuals and groups.