Is there room on the bandwagon for everyone?

I’m imagining similar stampedes going on right now. But this time they’re nutritionists, doctors, researchers and health reporters who are scrambling aboard the various bandwagons that are announcing the news: Forget everything we told you! Here’s the way it really is!

The surprising thing is that these suddenly popular bandwagons are leaning heavily toward alternative ideas. Conventional wisdom just doesn’t seem to be holding up the way it used to.

 

Now that the mainstream press has picked up on these reports, the ESTROGEN DOUBTING Bandwagon is loaded to capacity. And some of the new riders on this bandwagon seem to be genuinely aghast, having realized for the very first time apparently that the most common estrogen replacement prescribed by doctors is conjugated equine estrogen. Translation: estrogen derived from the urine of pregnant horses. In fact, the most common brand, Premarin, takes its name directly from its source: PREgnant MARe’s urINe.

But I’ve been listening closely, and so far I’ve heard very little from this new bandwagon about the benefits of natural estrogen – a treatment that has nothing to do with farm animals and has no carcinogenic side effects. And I don’t really expect to. Natural hormone replacement does not have the FDA stamp of approval, which means, of course, that it’s not produced and promoted by one of the pharmaceutical giants.

Suddenly, many of the nutrition “experts” who spent over two decades preaching a low-fat mantra can’t recant fast enough. They’re climbing over each other to get a good seat on the LOW FAT CAUSED THE OBESITY EPIDEMIC Bandwagon.

These two bandwagons – the HRT and the low-carb diet – are simply the most high profile. There are others that are not quite flashy enough to make the cover of Time magazine (as both of those did). Last week, for instance, I told you about a very popular arthroscopic knee surgery for osteoarthritis – a surgery that racks up an insurance tab of more than $1 billion a year – that is now revealed to be completely ineffective. In response, a chorus of doctors are now piping up, saying, “We suspected all along!”

And there’s the issue of fluoride in our water. I wish I could say there’s a bandwagon filled with public officials calling for an end to widespread fluoridation of community water supplies. But that bandwagon is still a long way off. For the time being THE “HEALTH” SUPPLEMENT YOU DRINK WHETHER YOU WANT TO OR NOT Bandwagon rolls on with Dannon now marketing “Fluoride to Go” bottled water with a campaign aimed at kids. My guess is that within just a few years we’ll hear the WE TOLD YOU FLUORIDE WAS BAD Bandwagon rolling around the bend.

And then there’s the Great Pyramid of Dubious Nutrition.

 

In the decade that the pyramid has been touting carbo-loading, obesity has been on the rise and more and more nutritionists have been questioning the wisdom of the pyramid. Harvard nutritionist Walter Willett, for instance, points out that the pyramid treats all fats as bad, which we know is not true, and all starches as good, which they clearly are not.

What’s that sound? Those are the first notes we’re hearing from the GET A NEW PYRAMID Bandwagon. And joining in is a host of critics who claim that the USDA is probably bending to please a powerful, deep-pockets lobby that wants to keep the Eat Lots of Bread message prominently displayed at the wide base of the pyramid. If we hear enough of that criticism then the GET A NEW PYRAMID Bandwagon may eventually take on enough riders to make the cover of Time magazine.

Is conventional wisdom really wise? Sure it is. But conventions change, and wisdom changes. I’ve noticed lately more reports that mainstream health care providers and nutritionists have started to incorporate alternative medicine and diet concepts into their practices. But I’ve yet to hear of a single case of an osteopath who practices alternative medicine crossing over to embrace mainstream pharmaceuticals. That’s a bandwagon that will never get rolling.