Great visualization of a review of popular supplements and their efficacy

[semillama]

http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/2010/snakeoil-scientific-evidence-for-health-supplements/

"We only considered large, human, randomized placebo-controlled trials in our data scrape – wherever possible. No animal trials. No cell studies. Many of the health claims made by the $23 billion supplements industry are based on non-human trials. We wanted to cut through that.

This piece was doggedly researched by myself, and researchers Pearl Doughty-White and Alexia Wdowski. We looked at the abstracts of over 1500 studies on PubMed (run by US National Library Of Medicine) and Cochrane.org (which hosts meta-studies of scientific research). It took us several months to seek out the evidence – or lack of. "

Still image of the bubbles (the version at the site is interactive):

[niyad]

1. very interesting--of course, the "snake oil" part seems to indicate some bias

Pearl Doughty-White:
. . . .

"The number of children developing diabetes is going up and it's increasing most rapidly in children under five," said Dr Polly Bingley, senior lecturer in diabetes at Bristol.

Symptoms in children include dramatic weight loss, extreme thirst and frequent trips to the toilet, possible bedwetting, tiredness and irritability.

People are born with a genetic weakness to developing diabetes but doctors do not know what triggers it.

"The increase is probably due to the trigger, whatever this is, having an effect at an earlier age, said Dr Bingley.

"It is happening too fast to be due to more children having the genetic make-up associated with diabetes."

Among the younger victims is Pearl Doughty-White, who was just four years old when diabetes was diagnosed.

Her mother Linzi guessed what was wrong when she noticed that she was always thirsty.

Now 11, Pearl has been injecting herself with insulin twice a day from the age of eight.
, , , ,

CHILDREN GET DIABETES AT YOUNGER AGE; It falls from 11 to eight
0 Comments | Sunday Mirror, Oct 1, 2000 | by SHARON COLLIN8

[niyad]

2. can't get the "information is beautiful" home page to load

[Kali]

3. hmm I was under the impression st john's wort had been de-bunked

and vitamin c is so cheap, if your diet doesn't have adequate fresh fruit, vegs, and other sources I would still take it

[trotsky]

4. Interesting, quite a few that are hawked here in the Health forum regularly...

that clearly don't pan out too well. Won't matter to the disciples, though. They desperately crave validation by science, but even if they don't get it, they keep on believin'. The really odd dot on that graphic is for beta glucan. Orange dot is supposed to mean "low evidence, promising results" yet it appears at the very top of the evidence scale. It is also suspicious to see the conditions for which it might be helpful listed as "everything." Really? It will help with ingrown toenails, cancer, heart disease, and the heartbreak of psoriasis? Everything?

[Sanity Claws]

5. Note caveat: assumes adult with a healthy diet

and apparently good absorption of said healthy diet.

I started looking over caveats when I saw B12 listed with conflicting evidence.
B12 is a necessary nutrient that many people do not get in their diet, particularly if they are vegan or vegetarian. Also, some people have absorption issues.
Anyway, this caveat makes me wonder what they have considered a healthy diet and whether they have considered the absorption issues that older people have.

[RedEarth]

6. Red yeast rice can work for cholesterol, but never heard it's

effective for hight blood pressure.

[Celebration]

7. +1

[LeftishBrit]

8. Interesting article; thanks for posting!

[ROTATING_VILLAIN]

9. none of them are worth it

as far as I can tell