It’s a Bird! It’s a Plane! It’s Yogurt!
Posted by DDOCS in Food, tags: Crazy Products, debunking, Food, Genetics, Gimmicks, Health, Marketing, Media, Stupidity
If you’ve watched TV with commercials lately, chances are you’ve had to suffer through a Jamie Lee Curtis yogurt ad. After hearing the claims made in this ad, you might think yogurt is the next super food. Yogurt will help my digestive problems! Yogurt will keep me healthy! Yogurt will paint my house!
Okay, we made up the last one. But, seriously…has yogurt ever gotten so much healthy street cred? The secret ingredients in Activia, and other similar products, are probiotics. According to the New York Times:
Probiotics are live micro-organisms that work by restoring the balance of intestinal bacteria and raising resistance to harmful germs. Taken in sufficient amounts, they can promote digestive health and help shorten the duration of colds. But while there are thousands of different probiotics, only a handful have been proved effective in clinical trials.
The bottom line is this: there are a lot of different strains of probiotics. Not all of them have been proven to work. The claims of most of these products are unsubstantiated, as recent lawsuits and rulings have declared. In fact, a $35-million decision in a class-action lawsuit against Dannon (makers of Activia) is forcing them to list the specific probiotics used in the yogurt, as well as remove the word “immunity” from the package.
Science-based Medicine has a great article that busts the “immune-boosting” myth. The author does a great job of explaining exactly what is your immune system, and why any product claiming it can “boost” it is ludicrous.
What does that mean: boost the immune system? Most people apparently think that the immune system is like a muscle, and by working it, giving it supplements and vitamins, the immune system will become stronger. Bigger. More impressive, bulging like Mr. Universe’s bicep. That’s the body part I am thinking about. What they are boosting is vague, on par with chi/qi or innate intelligence. They never really say what is being boosted.
The other popular phrase is “support”. A product supports prostate health, or breast health or supports the immune system. It sounds like the immune system is sagging against gravity due to age and needs a lift.
The immune system, if you are otherwise healthy, cannot be boosted, and doing those things you learned in Kindergarten health (reasonable diet, exercise and sleep), will provide the immune system all the boosting or support it needs.
Most experts agree that more research is needed into these claims to see what helpful effect probiotics have on the body.
“The evidence for the general immune strengthening is just not there,” said Barry R. Goldin, a Tufts professor who helped discover LGG but no longer receives royalties from the patent.
So, eat yogurt and other probiotic products because you want to. Don’t eat them and think you’ll be protected against all of society’s ills. Instead, go for a walk, eat some broccoli, and watch this Activia parody from Saturday Night Live.
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This is the sort of thing that has been going on in the nutritional supplement business for years. Unfortunately, these businesses are protected by some very powerful people in Congress.
I just tried Activia for the first time. I immediately searched for a secret ingredient. Something in it made my mouth/throat tingle, with the first bite. Kind of like the tingle in my lungs from my first cigarette. Could it be the sucralose? Then I notice “bifidus regularis” TM. Seriously? It’s called bifidobacterium animalis. It’s a bit like packing up someone’s vomit and labelling it healthus foodis. (copyright pm 11/21/2009)
Their most recent claim, in the U.S. at least, is that it helps naturally regulate your digestive system. How does anything regulate your digestive system other than your brain? Then they have a picture of a rubber swimmer’s bracelet stamped “clinically proven,” which makes since, everyone knows that Activia uses a live and active yogurt culture, not fat and lazy one. So that, with the sucralose to keep the calorimeter in the dark, makes this stuff is totally unstoppable.
Well, “if it works it works”, a common thought process, even among engineers, means that any claim, with any sort of following, is enough proof to keep female shoppers out of the canned vegetable aisle and diving right into this sweet tasting pile.
Thanks for weighing in. The cigarette comparison made me laugh!