KIN-1601-001 Nutrition for Health and Wellness (Sep 11, 2019 ) PDF

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KIN-1601-001 Nutrition for Health and Wellness (Sep 11, 2019 )...

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Nutrition, Health, and Wellness September 11, 2019 TOPIC: Recognizing Credible Sources of Nutrition Information ________________________________________ I’m going to start. So with today I want to finish lecture that we ended off at on Monday and then I want to talk about assignment one. If we run out of time for that, I’ll pick up where I leave off on friday. No matter what, by the end of this week we will have gone over what you need to do for assignment one. With today’s notes, we’re going to talk about how to evaluate nutritional information. This is interesting and important for you because we are constantly bombarded with new products/supplements that claim to be important for our health. As higher education students/professionals, we are the mediator between regular consumers and the products on the market to help evaluate whether they’re credible or quackery. How can you tell the difference between valid and false nutritional information? We will talk about what is quackery when look at this information. Quackery can be used in different contexts - it’s dishonest practices and claims where a product or person claims to have special knowledge or information but that’s not true. It’s almost synonymous with fraud. In the context of nutritional information, it’s often making exaggerated claims about function/efficacy of product with financial gain. These can be, we can see quackery with devices, treatments, diet plans, and also with how the human condition can be altered; so whether or not a disease can be affected can be a source of quackery. And essentially there will be no proof of safety or effectiveness with this product. These are some examples of products on the market that, there is financial gain to be had from purchasing them. They are essentially products quackery. We have a lot of weightloss supplements, muscle gainers, breath slim apparatus is supposed to help you lose weight just by breathing sources of quackery. Doesn’t always have to be purchased products - could be diets/dietary habits. The key to quackery is that there is no scientific evidence. These are

common on pinterest, or if you google how to have a detox/cleanse, etc. These items pop up and they look convincing, but the science isn’t there. “Lost 20 pounds in a week!” - this won’t actually happen, ok? So now we’re gonna discuss some attributes to look at when evaluating nutritional information. This information is in your textbook. These will evaluate the attributes you’ll use for assignment one. The first is: does the claim that the product is making make sense, or is it too good to be true? Is it an outrageous claim? Is it realistic? Losing 20 lbs in 6 days - that won’t happen. Weight loss takes time. If a product advertises such a quick fix, that likely won’t happen at all, or it won’t be fat mass lost, it’ll be something more transient like water loss. There’s no longevity to this weight loss program - it’ll fluctuate daily or weekly. Another great example of claims that are too good to be true: if a product claims to increase muscle without exercise. If a product says you don’t have to do anything, you’ll change your body just by consuming - too good to be true. Credible information will have well-design scientific studies to back up their claims. Like we talked about last week and designing research studies. Can you access these studies? Lots of journals are making it so you don’t have to pay to read articles that they’re publishing. Researchers will pay journals to publish open access so that anyone can look at it so that everybody has equal access to scientific information so you can be as informed as possible. When looking at these research studies, is all the important information there? We talked about somethings to look at when looking at researcher studies. Are they stating that their study is effective in humans when they used animals? Are they using a representative population? Are they saying it’s beneficial for genetic pop when they only looked at men or only women? You can also look at what’s called an impact factor for a journal - information that the journal offers on their website - tells you how often their journal is cited in other lit. A high impact factor number = more well-recognized journal in the field. So if it has an impact factor of 0.5, it’s probably a new journal and there’s not much awareness of it so be cautious about type of

literature you’re reading from those journals. You need to be mindful of who is providing the information of this product. If it’s a person/company, what are their credentials, are they real/legit? It’s easy to create a website, a fake product, and a PayPal account. These websites should have contact information on them and an editorial board (who’s actually creating website content). And when looking at people who are endorsing a product or who are, you know, being the ones that are saying “this is the proper diet to be following” - are they educated? Do they have a nutrition background? Are they a registred dietitian? There are differences between dietitians, nutritionists, and nutrition scientists. Dietitians have gone through extensive education to talk to patients and consumers about individualized and personalized diet plans. Just a personal anecdote: I’ve been studying nutrition for half my life and I still don’t call myself an expert. Things are always changing - there is always more to learn. I have a friend from high school who got her BA and likes to exercise. She contacted me asking for some nutrition advice, I told her I couldn’t give any personal recommendations but gave her resources. Later I saw on social media I saw she had done online training and gives people nutrition advice and makes diet plans for people. Bothers me when that happens. Other reliable sources are government bodies producing recommendations, so Health Canada, the US Food and Drug Administration, Diabetes Canada, the Heart & Stroke foundation. These foundations that have a panel of experts that are creating recommendations and guidelines for you. If you have to purchase the product, it is likely a product of quackery. There are also credible products you can purchase, but the fact that a company is making financial gain from it will influence how they make money off of you. They don’t care if it works, they just want you to buy it. Products should be acknowledging that there are potential risks. If there are no risks, it has been approved by a regulatory body, it should be called GRAS or Generally Recognized as Safe. You should be looking if there are disclaimers of the product. If it has been validated and approved by Health Canada or the FDA or other regulations.

When you’re doing the research for your assignment you may find a lot of the products you’re evaluating you may see “this product has not been approved by the FDA”. This means the US Food & Drug Administration will give its approval if there are studies to back it if the product is sure to do what it says. Products like these nutritional products are not as well regulated in the States. You can sell an unevaluated product. In Canada we’re more stringent with that. It’s harder to find products that are fraudulent on our market. It’s still possible though. Scare tactics are often used to motivate you to purchase a product. Commonly used in advertising and marketing. Fear is a persuasive emotion. It’s not nutrition related but when watching car commercials and you’re the person in the vehicle, you’re with the family in the car and there’s a crash but the family walks away because that company manufactures a safe car. That’s a scare tactic, you don’t want to be in that vehicle and not walk away. With nutrition products, scare tactics would be along the lines of ‘this will save your life / heart’, ‘keep your brain young for a long time’. Has the product stood the test of time? One single study that shows something’s beneficial, that’s not enough. There should be numerous researchers showing the product is, in fact, effective. If the secret to weight loss has been found, it will be investigated multiple times. There won’t just be one person saying “this extract promotes weight loss”. Sure they can be the first person to discover it but other people will look into it also. So, when we’re thinking about how the product has stood the test of time we’re talking about reproducibility - if other studies show the same thing; if it’s been around for a while. If it came out yesterday, it hasn’t been investigated and validated by other researchers and studies. Some other tactics for advertising are attacks on conventional scientists and healthcare professionals. These products want to make it seem like researchers, scientists, are hiding information from you. They don’t get anything from that. They just want you to know something is effective. When we can prove something can help you, we want you to know about it. Statements that natural remedies are better than conventional therapies.

Again, I have no problem with natural remedies if there’s the science to back it up. Stuff like ‘breathing the air in Colorado and it’ll change your life’. If there’s multiple studies that’s great. If it’s one person’s anecdote there’s not a lot to that. Products will often use pseudoscientific terms. This is an example of an advertisement. All of the words in red are pseudoscientific terms. They’re exaggerations. They’re being used to sound important. Some of them are true terms. They’re not needed in the context they’re given. “Cellular memory bank” isn’t a thing. Using “time and space constraints.” It sounds really important but wasn’t necessary information to say to get the point across. These are often invented terms that sound science-y or they’re real terms that are used inappropriately or in an exaggerated manner. They do this to make themselves and their product sound important. They want you to believe their products have scientific status. You’ll often see a lot of pseudoscientific terms because people are promoting ingredients. This has “medium chain triglycerides” or “guar bark gum.” Those are real terms but it doesn’t make the product credible just because they have these scientific ingredients. Credible sources don’t need big science terms to get you to use their product. They’ll have scientific evidence that speaks for itself. And, in fact, when we’re trying to formulate or create products for consumers, we’re told to give plain language that will not confuse anyone because you want to be as direct as possible with the consumers so there’s no misinformation and that nobody’s taking it by mistake. Here’s another example of a product that you have to buy. “Attention MEN and Women” - there’s a claim. “Enjoy the benefits of the most talked about breakthrough EVER in weight loss.” They emphasis this as a brand new product you should be paying attention to. “Easy-to-swallow capsules bring rich benefits of weight loss fast” - too good to be true. They’re trying to target you specifically. They’re just saying they’ll bring benefits fast. Of course you have to pay for the product and what you don’t see on the actual face of the product is all of the information about what’s in it, the safety issues with the product. In fact, in really small

letters on the back of this bottle it says “unsafe for everyone” (laughs). There’s another example of what these product ads can look like. “Order now,” “free bottles offer,” “customer support,” “discreet packaging” - lots of other ads on this website or advertisement. It’s not really showing any scientific evidence. It’s mostly trying to capture your attention, make it look really flashy. “According to Doctor Oz” - that’s my favourite guy (chuckles). He’s not the most credible source of information out there. You can also look at websites to determine whether th information is credible. Credible websites are government websites or university websites. So if they are .gov, .edu, it’s more likely that they’re credible. Anyone can buy a .com domain and put fake news out here. The websites should have contact information on them for who’s running the website, who’s responsible for the content (i.e., editorial information). If someone is writing blog for that website with lots of information, there should be author information so you can look up their credentials. Do they have links to other reliable information sites? Are they referencing articles? Can you look at those references? Are they updating regularly? At the bottom of that website there should be a copyright date. So, if it’s 2019 then it has been updated regularly. Sometimes they’ll say in the bottom of the feed the last date that it was updated. So there’s a cv(?) physiology website that I evaluated for its credibility and it’ll say the last time it updated its information; it gives you the doctor that’s writing the information, then it has a link to the textbook that the information comes from. Is the site selling a product/service - again are they trying to promote financial gain? Or are they a not-for-profit just trying to get you information? Those are some considerations for credibility. PubMed is a good source for looking at scientific reference articles. And even if you can’t read the whole article you can at least access the abstract. Again, nutrition experts in Canada or registered dietitians have done the education for their degree. Anyone can be a nutritionist - my “friend” (not a friend). You can pay for a 1-day degree. Just because they say they’re certified - look up their certifications. Where did they get their education from? Again, some other nutrition experts. People with advanced degrees. Physicians. Not all doctors have nutrition information - it’s not required in

your medical degree. Last time I talked to a medical student, there was one elective nutrition class. But they do have other information, they do have other resources to connect you with registered dietitians. That one-day diploma I was talking about - be aware of fake credentials. I’m going to go more quickly through remaining slides because I want to go through assignment one with you. You should have all this information already. An example of a fake expert. Should have put Jenny (my friend) up there (chuckles). Ms. Sassafras Herbert, turns out she’s a dog, not an actual expert. You would...the Official Directory of Association of Nutrition and Dietary Consultants. Plug that in and see what comes up. Official Directory of Nutrition and Dietary Consultant - never heard of it. Doesn’t even make sense. If it doesn’t make sense or you can’t find their credentials, it’s likely not true. Some government sources - Health Canada, which includes nutritional health products, information, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency and the Public Health Agency of Canada. All sources that can give you expert advice. They have expert panels generating information that’s out there for you. Now, I want to talk about assignment one. All information I’m telling you is in assignment one instructions; I just want to highlight and highlight clarify some points. This will be a printed assignment. No handwriting. It states that in assignment specifications. If there’s one piece of advice I can give you for any class - read the instructions thoroughly. Don’t skim; don’t just read summary at the top. If you read everything and go through the assignment and you’re double checking you’re answering all the points, you’ll do fine. Those that don’t do fine are those that didn’t really read the question so they’re not answering properly. I had a teacher who put summary at the top of the page but then if you read through the assignment, half way through he said only answer every other question. I won’t do that to you but that could potentially happen.

You’re required to provide a title page with your name and student number on it. Without your student number, I can’t give you a grade. That’s your identification, I need to be able to link up who you are with your grade. Lots of names & students. Lots of duplicate names too. There are different course sections for this class, so write down your course number on your page. You are course 001/002, so that information needs to be on there. If you don’t provide that information and your assignment gets mixed up with section 050, you may not get the grade right away. Because the grader markers are looking through students registered in 050 and you’re not coming up, okay? The date the assignment is due should be on the tile page along with my name. And if you’re missing information - student name, student number, course number. That’s absolutely required. If that information is not on there, you may lose marks. I talked briefly about citations and references on our very 1st introduction. You’ll need to do that for this assignment - but only for part 1. For part 2 you don’t have to cite and reference. You can if you want to practice your citation and reference skills. The textbook and any websites or any magazines, whoever you’re getting your information from. They require in the body of part 1 a citation, and in the reference list, a reference. The course notes are considered personal communication. You only need to provide an in-text citation for course notes. That would look something like this. With your discussing one of the attributes. It’s too good to be true - bam, personal communication. You wouldn’t know the information if I didn’t tell you or if it wasn’t in the textbook. You need to be citing the source you got it from. And as per APA requirements, personal communication is a citation, it does not need a reference. As long as you’re providing my name because that’s who you have the course notes from, and the date you got that information. So if it’s from today’s class, you cite September 11th, 2019. If that information is in your citation, you’ll be fine. When you’re selecting the advertisement you’re evaluating, you’ll be

selecting a function based claim. You’re not choosing a health claim. Health claim has already been evaluated by Health Canada. You don’t need to evaluate it. Health claims would be… beta glucan reduces cholesterol. That’s a health claim. You’ll see that on Cheerios or oatmeal. Not applicable to this assignment. Content claims are not applicable for this assignment. “This milk contains calcium”. That doesn’t tell me a function, you won’t get marks for that claim. You need to include a copy of the ad you’re evaluating. If it’s found online, print it out, attach it with your assignment. If it’s from a magazine or other hard copy source, you can make a copy or just include the physical ad. These printouts or copies are not a reference, you still have to properly reference those items. When you are writing this assignment, use formal language. Proper sentences, proper pronoun use. If you are talking about the name of a company, the name of a product, it should be capitalized. We are not having an informal conversation in the assignment so if you are writing in the assignment “the notes that you mentioned in class”, that’s not the type of language I’m looking for. I’m looking for formal language, scientific, more objective train of thought. With that said, I do specify I want this in paragraph format. You can still number or organize part 1 according to question A, Question B, question C. You just have to answer it in sentence format. So Part 1B asks where was the article published and when did you access it. An example would be writing- the article being evaluated was published at this website and it was accessed on September 12th, 2019. The URL of this website is (pauses and gestures) and include that link. If you’re evaluating a magazine, list the magazine. And the date you accessed it - but also the date it was published. August 2019, etc. There are 2 components for parts 1 and C. The component is that you’ll be discussing it in the written body of part 1. And you’ll be highlighting that information in the physical printout you’re attaching with the information in the assignment. If your claim- the claim the product is making that it promotes weight loss, you’ll say in sentence format in your written body that

that’s the claim. You’ll cite the information where it came from. But then in that print...