ARTICHOKE EXTRACT SHOWN
TO REDUCE HIGH CHOLESTEROL
CHOLESTEROL LEVELS DRAMATICALLY REDUCED WITHIN THREE MONTHS.
On Super Bowl Sunday, January 28, the Toronto SUN printed an advertisement for a product called CYNAROL. The label says that it's XtraPure and contains artichoke PowerConcentrate (11:1). What does that mean?
In Canada, and in the U.S., it's against the law to make health claims for an herbal product. The distributor for this one is again Florainc.com in the U.S. and Canada's Flora Health sites. But, guess what? When you click on their Canadian web site, they don't have one link about Cynarol.
I give up, here's a Canadian newspaper, advertising a product to Toronto SUN readers and they don't even list it on their site.
Oh, I forgot, they use "prominent Canadian naturopathic doctor" David Wikenheiser to put another Canadian stamp on the product.
Wikenheiser described a patient that tried this stuff. The text of the ad is probably one of the best reasons why we need better regulation of natural medicines, and of licensed health professionals in Canada. The last time Wikenheiser appeared in a national advertisement, he was recruiting patients in his British Columbia practice, but the ad appeared in Ontario.
In one sentence he says that a 55 year old patient had an very high LDL cholesterol. Two sentences later the ad said, "There was nothing out of the ordinary in his blood test chemistry.
So, did Wikenheiser use a crystal ball to make a diagnosis of liver dysfunction? Yes, this man had a right sided back ache, and Wikenheiser says that there must be something wrong with his liver. How in the world does he come up with that diagnosis? As a medical doctor once told me, if it quacks like a duck it must be a duck. But, in this case all this licensed naturopath and paid expert for Flora has to do is to endorse one of their products.
He doesn't have to do more than that, and the company makes money hand over fist. What is all this based on anyway? I'd call it nothing.
Yet the advertisement continued for several more paragraphs extolling the positive effects that this artichoke extract had on the circulatory system, energy reserves, RNA content of liver cells, and cell division.
Stop for a minute folks, what does all that mean. Let's say that you have a liver cancer cell, just sitting there, doing nothing, minding its own business. You read the Toronto SUN, skipping over the bare-chested lady on page 3, and accidently stumble on this one on page 8. You rush out to the store because you have a right sided backache, which of course you have a sneaking suspicion is caused by a sluggish liver. Why, because Dr. Wikenheiser said so, that's why.
The trouble is, that back pain could be kidney, it could be multiple myeloma, or leukemia, or lung cancer hanging around.
You take this or any other herbal remedy that the health food store lady throws at you because, after all, they can be trusted, just like Wikenheiser. A few months later you become jaundiced, and a few months after that you die of liver cancer that should have been diagnosed by a real doctor.
The herbal products industry is out to get your money by presenting weak arguments, by telling tales, and by basically not reading their own advertisements very carefully.
Will your lawyer be able to sue them because you relied on their products to get you well, and ignored the obvious signs. Or, let's say for a momemnt that your own personal naturopath sold you this product off the shelf to make your back pain go away. What would you do then?
In Camada. you have a snowballs chance in hell of getting redress for your ill-health or premature death becaused you relied on artichoke extract to cure you. Yet, folks like Wikenheiser and their colleagues in their barely regulated naturopathic profession want your government to spend hundreds of millions of dollars, no make that billions of dollars to pay for educating naturopaths, herbalists, and their followers, and then cover their treatments and concoctions with our tax dollars.
Studies don't show what they claim:
- Inefficiency of cynarin as therapeutic regimen in familial type II hyperlipoproteinaemia. -
Atherosclerosis, 26(2):249-53 1977 Feb
Seventeen ambulant outpatients with familial Type IIa or Type IIb hyperlipoproteinaemia were treated with Cynarin, the
1,5-dicaffeyl ester of quinic acid, the constituent of the artichoke (Cynara scolymus). The dose tested was 250 mg and
750 mg daily. The mean serum cholesterol and triglyceride concentrations were not significantly changed within 3
months. Cynarin, administered per os, has no hypolipidaemic effect in familial Type II hyperlipoproteinaemia.
Almost all of the studies that are accessible for the last 40 years or so on Medline show no effect on any human tissues. Almost all of them are done in rats. We are not rats my friends.
A good review article said
A number of animal studies suggest that artichoke protects the liver from
damage by chemical toxins.9 Artichoke's liver-protective effects have never,
however, been proven in controlled clinical trials.
Because artichoke leaf is believed to stimulate gall bladder
contraction, individuals with gallstones or other forms of gall bladder disease
could be put at risk by using this herb. Such individuals should use artichoke leaf
only under the supervision of a physician. It is possible that increased gall
bladder contraction could lead to obstruction of ducts or even rupture of the gall
bladder.
Somehow that information seems to have escaped the copywriter and Dr. Wikenheiser. I suggest that they all go back to the books, and to the Toronto SUN, I say shame on you.
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