rcurl
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Quackery?
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Sep 12 19:14 UTC 1996 |
Is it quackery or real? It's often hard to tell, but sometimes excessive
claims give a clue. It is hard to understand why quacks get carried away with
claims for their nostrums, but it must sell the products. To intelligent
people, though, it is somewhere between amusing and appalling.
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rcurl
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response 1 of 4:
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Sep 12 21:51 UTC 1996 |
Bio/tech News is a newsletter promoting the merits of various dietary
supplements. One such is an enzyme supplement, Sustenase, from LifePlus.
Here is a description of one of the effects of enzyme (unspecified)
dietary deficiency:
"3. High Urinary Indican - Rotting organic substances in the colon produce
a potent toxin called indican. According to Dr. Lee, 'Indican is extremely
toxic and causes many symptoms including inflammation in the digestive
tract, body odor, halitosis, foul odor of stool/urine, gastritis,
ileocecal valve incompetence, bloating, heartburn, diarrhea, constipation,
mal-assimilation of nutrients, tachycardia, fever, allergies, asthma,
arthritis, cardiac arrhythmias, ear/nose/throat and eye problems,
epilepsy, schizophrenia, memory loss, phobias, depression, delusions,
nightmares, premature senility, low back pain, sciatica, dermatitis and
even cancer.'"
[Indican - indol-3-yl sulfate - is a normal constituent of urine and blood
plasma in all mammals. I have not yet found any toxicity information, but
the Merck Index does not suggest it is particuarly toxic. Sigma Chemimcal
sells it "off the shelf".]
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rcurl
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response 3 of 4:
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Sep 16 02:12 UTC 1996 |
Well, thats the point. Each of those diseases have their own causes and
while some toxins will cause a variety of *symptoms*, few cause specific
diseases, and certainly not that grab-bag of everything one might fear
getting. Low back pain and schizophrenia, indeed. That sort of thing is
what used to be printed on bottles of "Snake Oil", etc.
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