When I discuss published articles on this blog, I usually focus on recent papers. Not so today! Today I write about a small study we published 17 years ago. It was conducted in Canada by researchers whom I merely assisted in designing the protocol and interpreting the findings.
They trained 8 helpers to pretend being customers of health food stores. They entered individually into assigned stores; the helpers had been informed to browse in the store until approached by an employee. At this time they would declare that their mother has breast cancer. They disclosed information on their mother’s condition, use of chemotherapy (Tamoxifen) and physician visits, only if asked. The helpers would then ask what the employee recommend for this condition. They followed a structured, memorized, pretested questionnaire that asked about product usage, dosage, cost, employee education and product safety or potential for drug interactions.
The helpers recorded which products were recommended by the health food store employees, along with the recommended dose and price per product as well as price per month. Additionally, they inquired about where the employee had obtained information on the recommended products. They also noted whether the employees referred them on to SCAM practitioners or recommended that they consult a physician. Full notes on the encounters were written immediately after leaving the store.
The findings were impressive. Of the 34 stores that met our inclusion criteria, 27 recommended SCAMs; a total of 33 different products were recommended. Here are some further findings:
- Essiac was recommended most frequently.
- The mean cost of the recommended products per month was $58.09 (CAD) (minimum $5.28, median $32.99, maximum $600).
- Twenty-three employees (68%) did not ask whether the patient took prescription medications.
- Fifteen (44%) employees recommended visiting a healthcare professional; these included: naturopaths (9), physicians (5) and nutritionists (1).
- Health food store employees relied on a variety of sources of information. Twelve employees (35%) said they had received their information from books, 5 (15%) from a supplier, 3 (9%) had formal education in SCAM, 2 (6%) had in-store training, and 12 (35%) did not disclose their sources of information.
Since our paper has been published, several other investigations have addressed similar issues. Here are a few excerpts:
- Pharmacies and HFS in Greater Wellington provided potentially hazardous advice, recommending products, often branded for pregnancy, which contradicted NZ MOH guidelines. Regulatory reform of CAM products and those who sell them is called for in New Zealand.
- …only about one-quarter [of health food stores (HFSs)] gave appropriate advice regarding possible interactions with warfarin and management of anticoagulation compared with two-thirds of pharmacies.
- HFS promoting herbal products for medical conditions should be regulated in a similar fashion to shops that dispense pharmaceutical products.
- Staff in 25 out of 26 health food stores did not refer the researcher to a medical practitioner; instead they recommended and sold a wide variety of compounds of unproven efficacy
- Store personnel readily provided information and product recommendations, with shark cartilage being the most frequent.
But why do I mention all this today?
The answer is that firstly, I think it is important to warn consumers of the often dangerous advice they might receive in HFSs. Secondly, I feel it would worthwhile to do further research, check whether the situation has changed and repeat a similar study today. Ideally, a new investigation should be conducted in different locations comparing several countries. If you have the possibility to plan and conduct such an experiment, please drop me a line.
10 Responses to Beware of health food stores!
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What a great piece of research!
I occasionally look at the magazine produced by Germany’s Al Natura health food stores, and that is always full of the most extraordinarily dangerous hysterical anti-scientific babbling, often aimed at parents. The rage against “modern technology” is palpable — scientists are trying to poison your children, so buy my book and avoid “chemicals”, etc etc.
thank you
I recall being in the local branch of a national chain of ‘health food’ stores some years ago – about 17 years actually – just to buy some mundane item like a packet of nuts. I overheard the assistant at the checkout advising a lady who was holding various bottles of pills. “This will do x, and that one will improve y” she was advising.
I recall reflecting at the time “Well, those are powerful physiological effects she is promising. If those pills really do those things, the assistant should be a Doctor with a prescription pad”.
caveat emptor
Indeed yes. But it should really be caveat vendor.
Venditor. Sorry, I never took Latin. I don’t got me no book larnin’.
This has nothing to do with SCAM but I was once told by the owner of a health-food store in New York City that people should not eat many different foods at the same time because doing so would “confuse the digestive system”. I am neither a physician nor a dietitian and cannot say with any assurance that this claim is untrue. However I can say that I thought the guy was completely nuts.
he was nuts!
I think those ideas are based on The Hay Diet (named after Mr Hay, not based on eating dried grass) and the book “Food Combining for Health”. All assertion, no facts, as far as I know (which isn’t very far). https://www.hay-diet.com/
I do rather like the idea of a Confused Digestive System…. An intestine in tears, perhaps, at its wits’ end…..
We need to avoid so-called “health food stores” as much as possible. They only exist to make money and many of the supplements they carry are manufactured by pharmaceutical companies and most of those products are synthetics and not derived from natural, whole foods.
The employees are there to make sales and they are not health care professionals. Giving people advise on what they should be using is very dangerous.
Our Creator, YHWH, has given us all we need to be healthy. We should be growing our own food grown with our own compost and we should get our nutrients not from bottles of pills, but from real food.