The other week I was at Tyrone Square Mall when I came upon a kiosk selling “AIR Sports Watches.” The material at the kiosk made vague claims about “improving your game,” and claimed that the watches were “infused with Tourmaline and Germanium.” I wasn’t quite sure if this was an actual health claim, or just a ludicrously overblown description of the watch itself, because germanium is one substance that can be “doped” to make the semiconductors used in so many electronics today.

It turns out the AIR Sports Watches people are claiming all kinds of health benefits from wearing the watches. The company is located in Largo, and they do have a website. In particular, check out the “Features” page, which includes claims that the watches use tourmaline and germanium to “emit Negative Ions & Far Infrared (FIR), improve circulation & mental alertness, strengthen immune system while reducing stress, speed up post-recovery time.” I guess that it’s the “Negative Ions” and “Far Infrared” that supposed to be causing all those miraculous effects, and there’s even a barely sourced PDF explaining the alleged science behind them. What is completely missing is any explanation of how a silly little silicone band is supposed to be producing negative ions or infrared radiation! Even if all the claims about the health benefits of negative ions and infrared radiation were true (and a quick look at the aforementioned PDF should raise numerous red flags*), there is no credible explanation for how the watch creates either in significant quantities. Neither tourmaline (basically, a pretty rock) or germanium  (primarily used in electronics) have a history of being used for the creation of negative ions or infrared radiation.

I have no objection to these watches as sports watches, though at $20 each I’d say they are overpriced by about $19. They’re pretty simple watches, and the silicone bands looked low quality to my admittedly untrained eye. The makers of these watches should be ashamed of the quackery they’ve been using to sell these things.

*For example, the only American source given is a study that was published in 1996 on the “Certified Medinex Website.” Medinex was a website that was pushing its own “medical ethical code” for Internet sites. It is defunct now and it was never a scientific journal, so the citation is meaningless.

A quick follow up on my post a couple weeks ago about a Hepatitis C outbreak linked to a “holistic medicine” clinic in Brandon.

From the St. Petersburg Times:

For 11 years, Dr. Carol Roberts has dissected everything from homeopathic remedies to nutrition therapies on her twice-monthly alternative medicine show for Tampa community radio station WMNF-FM 88.5.

But the station on Monday placed Roberts’ show on hiatus because of a controversy over how WMNF officials and listeners learned that eight patients in her Brandon holistic medical clinic tested positive for hepatitis C last year. The incident is now under investigation by the state Health Department.

The radio station seems to be more worried about the doctor promoting her clinic, however indirectly by talking about the whole situation, rather than the efficacy of her cures. I do wish someone would find out if the patients Dr. Roberts was giving chelation therapy to were actually suffering from heavy metal poisoning, or whether Dr. Roberts was using the therapy for the more new-agey (and medically useless) purpose of cleaning unspecified and probably imaginary toxins from suckers’ patients’ bodies. Unless the patients come forward, though, we’ll never know for sure.

From the St. Petersburg Times:

A hepatitis C outbreak at a holistic medical clinic in Brandon was likely caused by the reuse of syringes on patients undergoing intravenous therapies, a state health official said Friday.

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Eight patients of Wellness Works, at 1209 Lakeside Dr., tested positive last year for hepatitis C, a contagious liver disease that can last from a few weeks to a lifetime and can cause serious damage.

The disease was passed around, it seems, among patients being given chelation therapy. That’s disturbing, because chelation therapy has a very specific use, but it’s become a favorite of quack doctors of all stripes, usually in the name of “cleansing toxins.” I guess the quacks can get away with most of the time because it doesn’t hurt. It doesn’t help either, but that’s usually not an issue for something to be something in the field of “holistic healing.” And I think this case just underscores the dangers of unscientific medicine. If your quack doctors are making up therapies that don’t work they’re probably not getting the fundamentals, like using clean needles, right either.

This label can be found in the Fiction section of your local library.

CNN recently reported on a November article from Health.com on a recent study of ginkgo biloba’s effectiveness in preventing cognitive decline. The result: it’s about as preventive against dementia as throwing salt over your shoulder is at preventing The Dark Ones from screwing with your luck (to stop Them from doing That, you have to at least slaughter a goat by the light of a harvest moon, duhhh).

This is not the first study to show ginkgo biloba’s ineffectiveness in the prevention of neurological diseases, nor, I suspect, will it be the last. Kudos go to CNN and Health.com for reporting accurately on this one. CNN, in particular, does not have a good track record on reports of CAM (complementary and alternative medicine). It was good to see them get this one right, even if they were just reprinting someone else’s article.

There were two things that struck me in the articles.  The first was this quote by the principle researcher, Steven T. DeKosky, M.D.:

Even so, DeKosky says he and his colleagues were surprised to find that ginkgo failed to produce any benefit, given how long the herb has been used and how many people swear by it. “We figured that if [ginkgo] was still in use and still endorsed by people — even if it’s only your grandmother — it probably does have some basis to it,” he says.

I’m this close to starting a global campaign to include “Logical Fallacies 101″ in every science degree program.  Who can name the logical fallacies that Dr. DeKosky blatantly fell into?  I count three of them.

The other was this:

In the new study, people taking ginkgo were more likely than placebo users to have a bleeding-related stroke (16 events with ginkgo versus 8 with placebo). However, the results were not statistically significant and may have been due to chance.

If something isn’t statistically significant and may be due to chance then, to put it in scientific terms, shut the hell up about it!  If some future study shows statistical significance, then, by all means, shout about it from the rooftops, but if it doesn’t, then there’s no place for it in a report.  That may sound like I’m taking the side of the ginkgo group, but I’m not.  I’m taking the side of good science and good reporting.  I’m no more convinced that ginkgo causes strokes than I am that it cures memory loss. All indications are that it’s an innocuous, ineffectual herb. It doesn’t cause arteries to explode, nor is it a magic brain cure.

Want to prevent Alzheimer’s? Socialize a lot, play some sudoku, and try to figure out just what in the name of all that’s good and holy “The Phantom Menace” was actually about. The last may drive you to homicidal insanity, but you will not develop Alzheimer’s.