I guess I've been doing drugs all my life and I'll bet you have too. My thanks to the FDA for letting us all know. Take Oats for example, there's evidence that eating oat cereal helps keep your bad cholesterol low and that's something the health howlers everywhere have been telling us to do 24 hours a day for decades. Cheerios are, of course, made with oats and General Mills is happy to tell you they provide a good way to eat those oats that seem to be good for you. Our friends at the FDA however, you know those guys who always seem to have been looking the other way when the e-coli, melamine and rat turds got into our food supply aren't about to tolerate promoting a healthy diet without their permission.
Cheerios are drugs because they can help treat a medical condition according to the Food and Drug Administration. Of course if nobody told you that broccoli or spinach or exercise or a good night's sleep -- or oats -- were good for you, that would be all right with the Feds. Health benefits, no matter how credible can only be talked about with their approval it seems. So never mind what your mother or Sanjay Gupta or the Surgeon General tells you about a healthy diet and lifestyle, don't listen to those damned drug pushers, listen to the FDA.
Of course you can apparently sell almost any placebo or stimulant as a weight loss drug that has been proven not to work or in some cases to kill you. We can't go half an hour without some machine or pill or diet plan being shoved in our faces on TV, but fruits, grains and vegetables as part of a heart-healthy diet? DRUGS!!!!
Hey, last thing I want to do is be a druggie - so I'll have a double bacon cheeseburger with extra mayonnaise and a big Bucket O Super Sized Fries and a milk shake too of course -- it's all FDA approved!
The FDA is so broken it's beyond ridiculous. I mean Cheerios?! You might think they have more important things to be focusing on.
ReplyDeleteI don't believe a word they say about anything anymore.
Don't forget the fundamental food groups ... munchies, chocolate, ice cream, bourbon, and scotch.
ReplyDeleteForgot ... one more ... crustaceans!
ReplyDeleteWell, at least this explains why my 4-year-old keeps crushing and snorting his Cheerios.
ReplyDeletePatrick - Is that why they do that? And all these years I thought my kids were just trying to gross me out!
ReplyDeleteI think you are being a little unfair here. As I understand it, the FDA did not object to Cheerios' claim to cut cholesterol, for which there is some evidence. It is only when they made very specific claims about the percent reduction involved and the time period (claims which could not be supported by evidence) that the FDA stepped in. This is the difference between questionable claims and patently false ones. When that line is crossed, I think the FDA has a role.
ReplyDeleteYour cephalopod sleuth donned a Sherlock hat but couldn’t decide which tentacle should hold the magnifying glass. Nevertheless, this is what Octopus found out:
ReplyDeleteThe rationale behind the FDA letter to General Mills:
According to the manufacturer’s label, the product can reduce levels of “bad” cholesterol by 4 percent within six weeks. The FDA believes the implied medical claim is misleading to the public.
At issue is the disease known as atherosclerosis, or thickening of the arterial blood vessels. The condition is brought on by low-density lipoproteins (aka “bad” cholesterol). There are two measures of cholesterol that determine risk factors for developing the disease: overall triglycerides (total cholesterol), and the ratio between LDL (low-density lipoproteins) and HDL (high-density lipoproteins).
If you have a total cholesterol reading of 280, a 4% reduction would bring it down to 268.8, not enough to satisfy any doctor, especially a cardiologist treating a patient.
The packaging label says nothing about the relationship between LDLS and HDLs, the other measure of risk for developing the disease. Specifically, oxidized LDLs deposit cholesterol on the walls of vessels causing them to thicken, reduce blood flow, and raise blood pressure. HDLs help remove cholesterol from tissues and carry it to the liver. Thus, high ratios of HDL actually help slow or prevent the progression of disease.
To prevent or slow the advancement of the disease, total cholesterol should be as low as possible, and the ratio of LDLs to HDLs should be as high as possible. Specifically, total cholesterol should be below 200, and the LDL:HDL ratio should be 3.5 or greater.
Statins such as Simvastatin (Lipitor) and Crestor are prescribed to lower overall cholesterol and improve the ratio of LDL:HDL. In fact, a high dosage statin can reduce overall cholesterol from 280 to around 150 and bring a poor LDL:HDL ratio within recommended range.
What is misleading about the Cheerios label: The devil lacks these details. No amount of Cheerios will bring overall cholesterol levels or LDL:HDL ratios within range, and the danger to the public is the false sense of thinking the product confers a medical benefit when it does not. Cheerios is no substitute for proper monitoring of a condition that can be life-threatening.
In other words, there is no need to turn yourself into a cereal killer.
Unfortunately, an unwanted side effect of statins is possible liver damage. Those with increased risk for heart disease or those who already have problems and are on a statin drug should NOT stop it, but for those who are simply concerned with maintaining good heart health there are other measures that may do just as much.
ReplyDeleteThe first line of defense against high cholesterol/ high LDLs is to maintain a normal body weight within the BMI recommended - for many people, dropping 20 pounds or so will go a long way to bringing these numbers down. Talk to your doctor about taking a 81 mg aspirin a day. Cardiovascular exercise such as walking or swimming should be on the daily roster unless you have health problems that preclude this.
Properties of oatmeal have been shown to help reduce cholesterol levels, but by such a small number that if yours is very high, experimenting with oats while ignoring medical intervention is really not an option.
To get the most out of oatmeal, you really need the kind you cook and you need to eat it every day.
Yes, but does the FDA need to classify Cheerios as a "drug" in order to ask them to stop making specific or misleading claims -- the F in FDA seems to give them that power -- and why, seeing the unending smorgasbord of quack medicines, including a piece of duct tape that "removes toxins" through your feet and a thousand worthless weight loss programs, are they picking on General Mills whose product is at least nutritious?
ReplyDeleteIf they are starting, at long last, to stem the tide of bogus medical claims, it seems a very strange place to start.
Point taken, Fogg - it is quite silly for the FDA to be getting their panties in a bunch over the "Cheerios controversy" and, as you cited, there are many more blatantly quack "cures" out there that should be investigated.
ReplyDeleteRockync: "Properties of oatmeal have been shown to help reduce cholesterol levels, but by such a small number that if yours is very high, experimenting with oats while ignoring medical intervention is really not an option."
ReplyDeleteCaptain Fogg: "If they are starting, at long last, to stem the tide of bogus medical claims, it seems a very strange place to start."
Gotta start somewhere, right? And why not start with a mass market product that reaches millions of consumers, some of whom may have atherosclerosis in need of urgent treatment. A misleading oatmeal benefit claim is hardly in the public interest ... at least according to the FDA.
Historically, the FDA has served us well. Remember Thalidomide? Thousands of birth defects throughout Europe, but the FDA kept this drug out of the USA.
This reminds of my Union Committeeman days. There always seemed to be an uneffective committeeman on the committee. These clowns would let everything slide until something so lame that management wouldn't care would come along. Then they would get militant. One of these guys threw a hissy at a labor management meeting abour a supervisor cleaning a toilet. He demanded it never happen again or else. Like the boss was going to scrub toilets again.
ReplyDeleteMuch the same with Cheeriogate. The corporate bigwigs are sitting back saying, "yeah. Okay. We'll say something else. You've validating your reason for exsisitence FDA. Now run along."
Ah, 8pus, but here we are some 50 years later and the FDA, in its infinite wisdom, has approved the use of thalidomide in treating leprosy and a form of melanoma.
ReplyDeleteOnce drugs are allowed in, they are sometimes prescribed for off-label uses. All it will take is a few careless docs to start another thalidomide baby tragedy.
"All it will take is a few careless docs to start another thalidomide baby tragedy."
ReplyDeleteCareless doctors can drop babies on the floor, for that matter. Denying all hope to a 70 year old male because a drug causes birth defects is ridiculous.
Great, they kept thalidomide out of the country before most of you were born, but that's too feeble an argument even to call it a fallacious use of statistics.
This really started out to be a tongue in cheek send up of the FDA, but the fact is, they do a very inadequate job and they know it.
Whether thalidomide is banned or approved, one way or the other, it will cost an arm and a leg.
ReplyDeleteOooo, 8pus, I think you pulled a Sykes there!
ReplyDeleteCapt - I do agree that by and large, the FDA more often fails to fulfill their mission, with protracted delays on getting life saving drugs to the market as well as allowing drugs on the market without adequate data.
The thalidomide victory was probably more by accident than design.
Rocky: "Oooo, 8pus, I think you pulled a Sykes there!"
ReplyDeleteOctopus must be feeling his Cheerios today.