Mercola shows a lot of quack tendencies. I would not trust him. Sugar obviously
affects the body, our evolutionary history indicates that high amounts of sugar
were not part of our diet until some 10,000 years ago, at which time, human
stature dropped about 6 inches in height and many modern diseases began to show
up. But that is not necessarily all caused by diet. Agriculture resulted in
larger groups of people living together, and probably not walking and running
as much as previously as humans began to settle in one location rather than
constantly traveling.
Sweet cake knocks me for a loop, but peanut m&ms don't affect me so much.
Research on the effect of food is very difficult to perform, but any physician
or pseudo-physician that starts claiming that there is a single source for
myriads of problems is probably wrong, particularly if it applies to diet. Not
necessarily always, but usually.
Rats (or mice) fed pure fructose show enlarged hearts. But they metabolise
fructose differently than humans. We like sugar. Even so-called natural cereal
vendors now are lacing their products with extra sugar, because without it they
taste like cardboard.
'If we could give every individual the right amount of nourishment and
exercise, not too little and not too much, we would have found the safest way
to health.'
--Hippocrates
'Science is the father of knowledge, but opinion breeds ignorance.'
--Hippocrates
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "authfriend" <authfriend@...> wrote:
>
> --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Share Long <sharelong60@> wrote:
> >
> > Hi Xeno, thanks for this. Well there will always be some 96 year old woman
> > who "smoked every day of her life and wasn't bothered by the harmful
> > effects of cigarettes." Yay for her, you go girl! But I'm gonna go with the
> > statistics on this one, thank you! And with the stats on sugar.
>
> You mean the statistics in Xeno's article, right?
>
> > OTOH, maybe Woody Allen got it right in Sleeper:
> > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1yCeFmn_e2c
> >
> > What sugar MIGHT be doing to your brain:
> > http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2012/09/02/fructose-affects-brain-health.aspx
>
> I believe I told you awhile back that Mercola is
> considered a quack.
>
> From Wikipedia:
>
> Views and controversy
>
> Mercola operates mercola.com, which he has described as the most popular
> alternative-health website on the Internet.[3] The site reportedly brought in
> about $7 million in 2010 through the sale of a variety of alternative
> medicine treatments and dietary supplements. An article in BusinessWeek was
> critical of his website's aggressive direct-marketing tactics and complained
> of Mercola's "lack of respect" for his site's visitors, writing:
>
> Mercola gives the lie to the notion that holistic practitioners tend to be so
> absorbed in treating patients that they aren't effective businesspeople.
> While Mercola on his site seeks to identify with this image by distinguishing
> himself from "all the greed-motivated hype out there in health-care land", he
> is a master promoter, using every trick of traditional and Internet direct
> marketing to grow his business... He is selling health-care products and
> services, and is calling upon an unfortunate tradition made famous by the
> old-time snake oil salesmen of the 1800s.[3]
>
> Phyllis Entis, a microbiologist and food safety expert, highlighted
> Mercola.com as an example of websites "likely to mislead consumers by
> offering one-sided, incomplete, inaccurate, or misleading information."[12]
> The Better Business Bureau, responding to complaints including allegations
> that Mercola did not honor an advertised money-back guarantee, gave the
> website a grade of 'F'.[4]
>
> Mercola has also received three warning letters from the U.S. Food and Drug
> Administration for violations of U.S. marketing laws. The first two letters,
> dated 2005 and 2006,[13][14] charged Mercola with making false and misleading
> claims regarding the marketing of several natural supplemental products,
> which violated the Federal Food Drug and Cosmetic Act.[5] In the most recent
> letter, sent in March 2011,[15] Mercola was accused of violating federal law,
> by making claims about the efficacy of certain uses of a telethermographic
> camera exceeding those approved by the FDA concerning the diagnostic and
> therapeutic potential of the device (regulation of such claims being within
> the purview of the FDA). Dr. Mercola has challenged the FDA's order stating
> that "We believe that the FDA's warning letter is without merit and is an
> attempt to regulate the practice of medicine, which the agency does not have
> the regulatory authority to do. Our use of the thermography device is
> consistent with its 510(k) clearance for use by health care professionals in
> their diagnosis and treatment of patients."[16]
>
> Food consumption
> Mercola advocates a diet consisting mostly of unprocessed foods. He sees
> value in paleolithic diets and advocates metabolic typing, and is a proponent
> of vegetable juicing.[17] Mercola argues fervently against over-consumption
> of sugar, especially high-fructose corn syrup, which is the predominant
> sweetener of many commercial sodas and soft drinks, and processed flour and
> grains, which the body rapidly converts into sugar. He has also been an
> advocate of increasing the consumption of Omega-3 fats and of strategies to
> greatly increase blood levels of Vitamin D3.
>
> Mercola's dietary recommendations often put him at odds with mainstream
> dietary advice.[12] Mercola encourages the ingestion of unprocessed saturated
> fats, including unrefined coconut oil in place of polyunsaturated fats such
> as vegetable, corn, soy, safflower, sunflower and canola oils.[18]
>
> Food preparation
> Mercola's website has called microwave ovens dangerous, claiming both that
> they emit dangerous radiation and that microwaving food alters its
> chemistry.[19][20] In contrast, academic reviews have concluded that "no
> significant nutritional differences exist between foods prepared by
> conventional and microwave methods."[21] Other studies have suggested that
> food cooked in microwave ovens can be more nutritious than conventionally
> cooked food.[22][23] The Harvard Medical School Family Health Guide states
> that "as a general proposition, cooking with a microwave probably does a
> better job of preserving the nutrient content of foods because the cooking
> times are shorter."[24]
>
> Mercola is also against homogenization,[25] claiming that it leads to
> xanthine oxidase absorption and oxidative stress.[26] This idea has been
> described as "tenuous and implausible" in the Journal of the American Medical
> Association.[27] A review published in the American Journal of Clinical
> Nutrition concluded that "Experimental evidence has failed to substantiate,
> and in many cases has refuted, the xanthine oxidase/plasmalogen depletion
> hypothesis".[28]
>
> HIV and AIDS
> Mercola has questioned whether HIV is the cause of AIDS. He has argued
> instead that the manifestations of AIDS (including opportunistic infections
> and death) may be the result of "psychological stress" brought on by the
> belief that HIV is harmful.[29] Mercola.com has featured positive
> presentations of the claims of AIDS denialists, a fringe group which denies
> the existence of AIDS and/or the role of HIV in causing it.[29][30][4]
>
> The scientific community considers the evidence that HIV causes AIDS to be
> conclusive[31][32] and rejects AIDS-denialist claims as pseudoscience based
> on conspiracy theories,[33] faulty reasoning, cherry picking, and
> misrepresentation of mainly outdated scientific data.[31][32][34]
>
> Drugs and supplements
> Mercola opposes the use of most prescription drugs and immunizations,
> favoring better food choices, especially unprocessed, organic produce and
> elimination of most sugar and grains from our diet, lifestyle modifications,
> especially regular exercise, better sleep, and removing household toxins from
> cleaning supplies and cosmetics, and energy psychology tools to address
> emotional challenges.[35] He promotes and sells numerous dietary supplements,
> including krill oil, vitamin K, probiotics, and anti-oxidant supplements.
>
> Mercola is especially critical of new drugs, as well as of the U.S. Food and
> Drug Administration.[36]
>
> Sunscreen
> Mercola has also claimed that the use of many commercial brands of sunscreen
> increases, not decreases, the likelihood of contracting skin cancer with high
> UV exposure. He advocates the use of "natural" sunscreens, some of which he
> markets on his website.[37] This view is not held by mainstream medical
> science; in 2011, the National Toxicology Program stated that "Protection
> against photodamage by use of broad-spectrum sunscreens is well-documented as
> an effective means of reducing total lifetime UV dose and, thereby,
> preventing or ameliorating the effects of UV radiation on both the appearance
> and biomechanical properties of the skin".[38]
>
> Vaccinations
> Mercola has been highly critical of vaccines and vaccination policy, claiming
> that too many vaccines are used too soon during infancy.[39] He hosts vaccine
> critics on his website, advocates preventive measures rather than vaccination
> in many cases, and strongly criticizes influenza vaccines.
>
> Mercola argues that thimerosal, previously widely used as a vaccine
> preservative, is harmful.[40][41] Thimerosal is no longer present in most
> vaccines given to young children in the USA, though it is still present in
> some vaccines approved for adults.[42] Extensive evidence has accumulated
> since 1999 showing that this preservative is safe,[43] with the World Health
> Organization stating in 2006 that "there is no evidence of toxicity in
> infants, children or adults exposed to thiomersal in vaccines".[44][43]
>
> In his book The Great Bird Flu Hoax,[45] Mercola appears to take a stronger
> anti-pharmaceutical industry stance by accusing them of a fear-mongering
> marketing campaign against the public. In supporting this stance, Mercola
> often has wholly critical views of those working in governmental health care,
> as well as towards international health organizations. He argues at length
> that concern over swine flu and the resulting immunizations were actually
> false alarms put forth to terrify the public.[46] The World Health
> Organization reports that by August 1, 2010, about 18,500 deaths have been
> caused by the H1N1 pandemic influenza.[47]
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Mercola
>
> (See the page above for links to the references.)
>
> Also see:
>
> http://www.quackwatch.org/11Ind/mercola.html
>
> http://www.chicagomag.com/Chicago-Magazine/February-2012/Dr-Joseph-Mercola-Visionary-or-Quack/index.php?cparticle=1&siarticle=0#artanc
> http://tinyurl.com/mxqt6dg
>
> http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/9-reasons-to-completely-ignore-joseph-mercola-and-natural-news/
> http://tinyurl.com/kz3yyqb
>
