Can Vitamin C resolve most viral infections and many other diseases when dosed at many times what could be consumed in food? Can a few molecules of goose organs diluted in water can speed flu recovery? And have we actually been duped for 50 years into thinking that dietary fat and not carbohydrates are at the root of chronic disease and obesity? Despite huge advances in medicine over the past century, these and other issues related to how we can achieve optimum health have placed health claims right up there with politics and religion as hot-button Thanksgiving dinner conversation topics to avoid. To be sure, there are plenty of fads in nutrition and other medical therapies that undoubtedly deserve to fade away when faced with scientific scrutiny. But other times, as I’ll be exploring in upcoming posts on Vitamin C, it’s more complicated. Fundamentally, we are losing faith in our traditional sources of medical authority. One culprit of course is the internet. The instant access to the accumulated knowledge of the ages that exposes the imperfection of our family doctor to know the answer to every medical question. But we can also point to constraints on our current medical system that, while understandable, set a high bar for alternative therapies:
- Because of legal concerns, doctors must adhere to a “standard of care” that makes it risky to try therapies that are not being used by everyone else. There also is a natural resistance to new approaches that goes against their training, which tends to not be strong in nutritional approaches.
- Pharmaceutical companies develop, test and promote solutions that have a profit incentive — even when better solutions are available at much lower cost.
- Ultimately the inertia — and accompanying biases — brought on by all of the above means the hurdles for new treatments are high, It’s not necessarily an overt conspiracy, as some might claim, but a natural consequence of an understandably conservative medical industry.
As primary author and editor of Health Research Report, my hope to shed light on the research behind some of these questions. Often, that means a story behind the data, including the the personal drama that accompanies such high stakes. Or it might be simply to shine light on a promising idea that is years away from widespread use. The goal is to report the facts fairly and letting the experts speak to the science. As a journalist and communicator – and not a scientist — that’s literally all I can do with any credibility. As I begin this journey I suspect some of it might be in blog format, allowing my personal opinions to come through a bit. But I recognize my limitations, and will always be open to feedback/agrument/corrections in the comments. Let me know when I’ve missed something so we can all benefit further. Initially I’ll explore the Vitamin C story in more detail, as I believe it has the most significance relative to the amount of attention it currently receives. But as other topics of interest pop up along the way we might go there. Please join us, following us on our YouTube channel and other outlets.