Harriet Hall
Put down the baby aspirin: Risks might outweigh heart health benefits
For years, we have been told that most adults should take a baby aspirin every day to help prevent heart ...
Viewpoint: DNA diets—Can knowing your genes help you nutritionally optimize your meal choices?
Recently several companies have been offering to examine your genome and figure out what you should eat based on your ...
Viewpoint: How organic proponents hijacked the term ‘organic’ and why confused consumers are the victims
I recently learned that Costco is selling “organic protein.” My first reaction was to laugh, because all protein is organic ...
Living with uncertainty: Understanding science as an ongoing method of inquiry rather than an affirmation of inalterable facts
Science can be very certain and precise. It tells us exactly when to expect the next total solar eclipse and ...
Viewpoint: Neuriva Plus nonsense — The Big Bang Theory star Mayim Bialik doubles down on ‘snake oil’ brain supplements
I wrote about the brain supplement Neuriva over a year ago. I thought their claim to have proof from clinical ...
Mark Twain’s misguided obsession with alternative medicine
[Mark] Twain was raised with alternative medicine. His mother, Jane Clemens, dabbled in everything from homeopathy to spiritualism to patent ...
Don’t be a ‘covidiot’: Navigating the world of coronavirus misinformation and ignorance
A pandemic was declared. Italy is on lockdown, with more cases than China. Other countries are following suit. Governments everywhere ...
Debunking anti-aging myths and why no ‘single intervention’ is going to help us live forever
Today there are countless modern versions of the Fountain of Youth. Dietary supplements and other treatments are claimed to reverse ...
Viewpoint: Coronavirus fears spark claims of ‘bogus remedies’ from alternative medicine peddlers
The news is full of alarming reports about the new coronavirus that originated in China and is spreading throughout the ...
Aging as a preventable disease: Why living to 100 should be easy
Science is investigating some intriguing clues suggesting that aging and death may not be as inevitable as we thought. David ...
‘Wholly unethical’: Gay conversion therapy does not work
The World Psychiatric Association has declared that conversion therapy is “wholly unethical.” Yet despite the legal bans, the retractions, the ...
Dr. Harriet Hall: National Geographic natural foods book ‘unscientific, and even dangerous’
The National Geographic store proclaims, “This authoritative guide to the foods, herbs, spices, essential oils, and other natural substances that ...
Is there any evidence to support ‘leaky brain’ theories?
Three years ago Mark Crislip wrote about leaky gut syndrome for SBM. He said, “because of an almost complete lack of supporting basic ...
Alternative medicine a scam? New book exposes the lack of scientific rigor of ‘complementary’ treatments
As the world’s first professor of complementary medicine, Dr. Edzard Ernst set out to apply rigorous scientific standards of evidence ...
Preventing Alzheimer’s: Is Lisa Mosconi’s ‘brain food’ diet anything more than pseudoscience?
Lisa Mosconi has a web and media presence and a book Brain Food: The Surprising Science of Eating for Cognitive Power ...
Viewpoint: Peggy Sarlin’s ‘Awakening from Alzheimer’s’ offers ‘false claims, false hope’
[S]cientists are diligently working to understand [Alzheimer’s] disease and find an effective treatment. Others apparently think they needn’t bother. A ...
Fact or fiction: Testosterone supplements offer youthful boost for aging men
Lots of men are taking testosterone supplements, some of them for good reasons and some for not-so-good reasons. There are ...
Getting Risk Right: Geoffrey Kabat’s book asks, “are we afraid of the wrong things?”
[Editor's note: Geoffrey Kabat is a cancer researcher and an epidemiologist at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine.] Why do things that ...