Talk:Nutraceutical

pseudoscience

The term "nutraceutical" is a term being propagated by commercial interests and smacks of pseudoscience. Does it really belong in Wikipedia? --Rhombus 16:27, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

Hell yeah, reading this stuff is excellent edutainment! --193.166.137.75 (talk) 11:39, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Seconded, this article seems heavy in nutritionist bullshit. I don't know whether there is any hope, since this kind of bullshit permeates everything including mainstream press, TV and even some peer-reviewed journals. --Tweenk (talk) 17:49, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Neologism concerns aside it does not read as a balanced article. It reads like a promo piece for the American Neutraceutical Association. Work is needed. Simonm223 (talk) 01:30, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

This term Nutraceutical and it's evolving definition is perfect for facilitating the revealing of many years/decades of scientific work/research that has been buried or ignored by "interest" who believe in monopolies(healthcare-business-government-old fashion arrogance). The spread of factual/scientific health info. through the internet(ie. wikipedia) frightens the typical health professional of which I am of that class/group. I will highlight just one example of a research of "frightening potential" that has been ignored......Nobel Laureate Hans Fischer, a chemist, who synthesized Heme from Chlorophyll over 70 years ago.(source-Nobelprize.org) User:Jerry.eldin 12:20, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

indeed this is just a propaganda page trying to leverage Health Canada and FDA use of a word. footnote 10 in the Classification of nutraceuticals section is incorrect. the document does not confirm the statement associated with it. this page has definitely been corrupted in order to con potential customers doing research. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.49.196.44 (talk) 23:21, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

Term Definition, 1st

The first sentence states 'Neutraceutical ... refers to foods claimed to have a medicinal effect". I would think that all neutraceuticals actually DO have an effect. The fact that many foods wrongly claim to be neutracuticals does not alter the definition. User:pathh

This is a no true Scotsman. The simple fact is that a lot of things marketed as "nutraceuticals" have no measurable effect at all, and some are even harmful when consumed in large quantities. "Nutrition science" is a field dripping with pseudoscience and marketing bullshit. --Tweenk (talk) 17:53, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Search Engine Links

Under links, we have links to the topic nutraceuticals in many search engines. These links aren't substantial enough to be here. A reader can go to the search engine and type in the word for themself. External links should give you something with real human work behind it: an article, not just a computerized string search you can run for yourself.

I haven't erased them yet, because I am deferring to the authors of the article, but I think erasing them would be appropriate. 67.127.185.219 00:28, 5 July 2006 (UTC)Kevin

I did a wiki search for Medical Foods and was led to this page on Nutraceuticals/Nutriceuticals. That is uncool - many nutraceutical marketers have attempted to pose as Medical Foods. This is inappropriate given that the FDA provides virtually no oversight or regulation regarding the informal use of the term "nutriceutical" whereas Medical Foods are a distinct class of product and are indeed regulated. Creating confusion in the mind of patient/consumers is an unfair practice (at worse) and ignorant (at least). Palassistant (talk) 16:31, 9 July 2010 (UTC)Jim CurriePalassistant (talk) 16:31, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

Term Definition, 2nd

Removed this sentence:

Nutraceuticals are a refined specific food source that allows concentrated food therapy in a specific area of nutrition.

Ground 21:40, 27 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I added a link to the American Nutraceutical Association web page. That web page has an FAQ with a really great discussion of what exactly "nutraceutical" means, but the evil structure of the web site prevents linking directly to that page. Currently the nutraceutical FAQ is at http://www.americanutra.com/faq_links.cfm?FaqCategoryID=3&cfid=598052&cftoken=16931204, and you must use JavaScript to view the actual FAQ entry for the word. I felt it was better to just link the front page than to incorporate a link that is likely to be broken in the future. --Steveha 19:00, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Non-traditional medicine

Much of modern traditional medicine is aimed at treating sick people, not at keeping healthy people people healthy. There are sources of "non-traditional" material which can be especially useful as a starting point for people who are looking for new perpsectives in addition to what their doctor may be telling them. For example, the Results Project is a non-profit organization which encourages kids with Attention_Deficit_Disorder to be happy, healthy and successful by using, among other approaches, nutritional therapies. The Results Project has a particularly thought-provoking set of quotations including:

"Doctors give drugs of which they know little, into bodies, of which they know less, for diseases of which they know nothing at all." Voltaire

"The carpenter desires timber, the physician disease." Rig Veda IX. 7.9

"I find medicine is the best of all trades because whether you do any good or not you still get your money." (Moliere: "A Physician in Spite of Himself," 1664)

"Unless we put medical freedom into the Constitution, the time will come when medicine will organize into an undercover dictatorship to restrict the art of healing to one class of men and deny equal privileges to others; the Constitution of the Republic should make a special privilege for medical freedoms as well as religious freedom." Benjamin Rush, MD., a signer of the Declaration of Independence and personal physician to George Washington

"The doctor of the future will no longer treat the human frame with drugs, but rather will cure and prevent disease with nutrition." Thomas Edison

"We must admit that we have never fought the homeopath on matters of principle. We fought them because they came into our community and got the business." Dr. J.N. McCormack, AMA, 1903

"One of the biggest tragedies of human civilization is the precedents of chemical therapy over nutrition. It's a substitution of artificial therapy over nature, of poisons over food, in which we are feeding people poisons trying to correct the reactions of starvation." Dr. Royal Lee, January 12, 1951

No quote is a substitute for scientific evidence, which is profoundly lacking for a number--arguably a majority--of "neutraceuticals". I recommend watching this page for scientifically-ungrounded marketing blitzes and allowing only the most thoroughly backed-up specific claims.--Xris0 (talk) 03:26, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

Food additives etc. (need merging)

At WikiProject Food and Drink I've started the thread Food additives etc. ==> need merging. in hopes that some of the pages:

• Food supplements,
• Food additive,
• Food fortification,
• Dietary supplement,
• Food processing,
• Bodybuilding supplement,
• Nutraceutical, and
• Nutrification (aka food enrichment)

can be merged/eliminated. I hope that that thread will be a central place to discuss this somewhat messy situation. I'll be adding this comment to each of the articles' Talk pages. --Hordaland (talk) 12:02, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

Portmanteau/portmanteau word

The article starts off by noting that nutraceutical is a combination of nutrition and pharmaceutical. Would it be appropriate to mention that it is a portmanteau/portmanteau word? -Indalcecio (talk) 17:35, 1 May 2011 (UTC)

Incorrect information (a.k.a. pseudoscience or just plain bullshit)

In the intro paragraph the claim is made that

"The American Nutraceutical Association works with the Food & Drug Administration in consumer education, developing industry and scientific standards for products and manufacturers, and other related consumer protection roles.[citation needed]"

I did a search on the FDA website, for the term "American Nutraceutical Association" and could only find one usage on the entire website, on page 28 of a letter to the FDA with the subject "Our Reference: GRAS Notification and Exemption Claim for Certified Organic Spirulina":

"Jensen GS, Ginsber DI and Drapeau C. Blue-green algae as an immuno-enhancer and biomodulator. Journal of the American Nutraceutical Association. 2001; 3:24-30."

This leads me to believe that the claim is not true and makes skeptical of all the other claims. All information I have been able to find points to the American Nutraceutical Association being a bogus organization that sounds scientific and exists for the sole purpose of endorsing dubious claims. Most of this article is basically a pseudoscience advertisement for the vitamin sellers.

Chuck Coker (talk) 05:25, 5 March 2013 (UTC)

References

major edit

HI, I went through this article today and removed a great deal of essay-like WP:SOAPBOX content, including content that has been tagged with "citation needed" for over 2 years. Also removed self published sources. The National Nutraceuticals Center appears dead - it has not been updated since 2005 (http://www.clemson.edu/NNC/index.html) and its founder and director doesn't even list it on his website http://www.clemson.edu/cafls/departments/biosci/faculty_staff/gangemi_j.html so I removed this as a source. "Farmaceuticals" are not nutraceuticals - this is just a way to manufacture drugs... the plants or animals are not intended to be eaten. Deleted that text. Likewise, medical foods are not relevant, so deleted that. Deleted the examples... unclear what the point of this is -- the list could go on and on. Renamed "medicine as food" section as "history" and moved to the end. Jytdog (talk) 00:17, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

Four years later, still a weak article, but at least has not gotten nearly as bloated as it was before the 2013 renovation. The food-is-medicine history is not really relevant, and the chia seed image has no connection to the article. David notMD (talk) 17:52, 27 September 2017 (UTC)

I am thinking this all needs to be merged away to dietary supplement and food ingredient... Jytdog (talk) 19:27, 27 September 2017 (UTC)