Just in case you thought the Grapefruit Diet was a good idea, think again!

[morningstar]

Folks, I actually think this was a pretty balanced news story. It gave many sides, lots of information, and quoted its sources. The focus on the story was not about grapefruit being bad for you, it was about how this food can interact with some drugs. That's not fear mongering or blaming a fruit for a drug's side effects, that's information.

We all have things we believe about nutrition, health, food, etc. It's important to not let our personal beliefs blind us to actual information that's given. It's important that we don't simply negate the information that exists because it doesn't happen to fit into our world view. Media information must be evaluated on a number of fronts - sources, media ownership, bias, balance, based on credible experiements, etc. Sometimes the media information is crap. But sometimes we find that new information comes out that requires that we change our world view - and that happens frequently in the world of health, nutrition and exercise, where old "truths" turn out to be old wives tales once examined scientifically. It is a very hard thing to do - to evaluate information objectively, rather than judging it against our own bias - but it is necessary if we want to really understand something.

 

[hiitdogs]

Folks, I actually think this was a pretty balanced news story. It gave many sides, lots of information, and quoted its sources. The focus on the story was not about grapefruit being bad for you, it was about how this food can interact with some drugs. That's not fear mongering or blaming a fruit for a drug's side effects, that's information.

We all have things we believe about nutrition, health, food, etc. It's important to not let our personal beliefs blind us to actual information that's given. It's important that we don't simply negate the information that exists because it doesn't happen to fit into our world view. Media information must be evaluated on a number of fronts - sources, media ownership, bias, balance, based on credible experiements, etc. Sometimes the media information is crap. But sometimes we find that new information comes out that requires that we change our world view - and that happens frequently in the world of health, nutrition and exercise, where old "truths" turn out to be old wives tales once examined scientifically. It is a very hard thing to do - to evaluate information objectively, rather than judging it against our own bias - but it is necessary if we want to really understand something.

If it was just information that would be great. But there is not week going by that a "story" like that is reported. One day soy is good for your health, the next day it is the worst thing you can eat. I am still waiting for the report to come out that we got it all wrong and broccoli is actually bad for your health

Most people don't have the knowledge or background to evaluate a study or medical report. It all has to be put in context of who did the study or sponsored it, as you stated. Many people just take whatever is reported or written as the truth and stop eating healthy food like grapefruit altogether.

I am not denying that grapefruit has shown interactions with certain drugs and that is well documented in studies. http://www.cop.ufl.edu/fdic/index.php
I just can't find anything remotely scientific in this article. It is a report about ONE individual who was taking BCP and had a blood clot. I am not asking for a clinical trial but maybe a second or third incident to back up the assumption that grapefruit exasturbated the blood clots in combination with the pill.

I am pretty open to all kinds of information but I am not changing my "world view" based on an article about a single individual where the doctors "believed" that the fact that she ate grapefruit 3 days in a row triggered this event. How much grapefruit did she eat? Based on what did they think that grapefruit was the trigger?

Why were they looking for any additional triggers. It is well documented that BCP can cause blood clots. Could this have something to do with trying to derail a potential lawsuit by putting the "blame" on the individual? I don't know but it just makes you wonder!

I think this kind of reporting just contributes to the increasing confusion of people. Geez, one day you should eat this, the next day it's going to kill you.

 

[regina]

Thanks for info!