Dear All,

I have been really down for a couple of days because I felt like I got
scammed at the health food store.   It wasn't so much about money as a
loss of trust.  I have no choice but to tell this story in detail,
because I don't think it'll come across in an "abridged" version.
Anyway, if you don't want to read it, please let me indulge myself.
This is a rant, vent or whatever you call it.

I had decided that the time had come for me to check out potential
vitamins and supplements for my husband, and so I did a lot of research
on the subject. I kind of dreaded plunging into this netherworld, by
which I mean nothing is certain. I put the most credibility in the last
article I read, which claimed to have assessed all the major nutrition
and pca studies that had been done to date.  The authors were 2 docs at
St. Lukes/Columbia U. Hospital here.  They cited 85 references, all
from respectable journals.  Anyway, Dr. Franklin Lowe and his colleague
concluded that *nothing* had been proven according to their scientific
standards to be effective in "changing the course of pca".  They
suggested that men who are basically healthy need only take a
multivitamin once a day.

Well, I thought these two were party poopers, because although they had
said that none of the supps had met their exacting criteria, a lot of
the studies had seemed very suggestive of some benefit.  I thought to
myself, "If  Dr. Lowe were a pca patient, he'd be putting tomato sauce
in his coffee.   And eating cruciferous vegetables with pomegranate
dressing."

So I decided  I would look into buying some dietary supplements that
could "do no harm".  I looked online and found some good deals at
Costco and filed that away in my mind.  However, I felt like I needed
some immediate gratification, so I picked myself up and went to a local
food store, Fairway Market, which had recently expanded and added a
health food section.  Fairway is an icon in this neighborhood, known
for good quality and prices and as a store you could trust.

Based on what I had read here and elsewhere, I put on my shopping list
items like pom extract (article strongly suggests a "synergy" in having
pom juice together with pom oil or other part of the fruit), omega 3,
Vit. E., Selenium, Green Tea Extract, lycopene, etc.  But I saw this
outing as just preliminary, so I "left the checkbook at home",
mentally, anyway".

In the store I looked for some of these items and wasn't making much
progress, and I found I was carrying so many bottles I couldn't even
get around!  So it occurred to me to look for something that Steve K.
had mentioned here called Theraflex Prostate 2.2.  I thought that might
do in the meantime and at least I could carry it home.

The only person around was a woman who was standing on a stepladder
stocking items on the shelves.  I approached her and asked if they had
Theraflex.  She looked somewhere briefly and then said, "No".  Then she
asked me if the problem was prostate-related, and i proceeded to tell
her everything.  Spilled my guts.

Well, this woman immediately took charge.  First, she told me that she
would give me (absolutely free) a book by an expert in prostate health
and nutrition.  I didn't show much interest, because frankly, I didn't
care what some boob had to say about health food  I am just not into
supplements myself.  (I used to take calcium, but I even gave that up
because a study had said it didn't work.)   So I was kind of skeptical.

Well, the woman started pulling off bottles from the shelves at
breakneck speed.  She told me that the "expert" who had written the
Prostate nutrition book particularly favored this brand of supplements.
I looked at them and said to her, "I don't think I'll take these
because I never heard of New Chapter vitamins.  So, of course, she said
they'd been around forever.

At that point, she kind of stuck the pca and nutrition book in front of
me, and when I looked closer I saw that it had been written by one
Aaron Katz, MD, Assoc. Prof., Clinical Urology, Director, Center for
Holistic Urology, Columbia University.

Well, immediately my attitude changed, because I considered Columbia U.
to be a venerable institution that I could trust.  Especially because
it's local and I am familiar with it.

Anyway, I inspected the book closely to see if it was genuine or some
kind of promotional item.  No, everything checked out.  The book,
"Prostate Health", had a price-tag on it, $15.95.  On the cover there
was a blurb by Dr. Mehmet Oz, a holistic doc whom I knew to be
respectable  (and I believe he had even operated on Bill Clinton).

So, on the basis of the endorsement by the Columbia uro dept, I ended
up buying almost $90 worth of vitamins (mostly new chapter brand).

the list included:

Every Man's One Daily  $15.37
Zyflamend                      20.97
E & Selenium
Food Complex               15.37
LycoPom                        20.95

[Above all by New Chapter]

Omega 3 oil                    12.71

When I got home I looked at the book right away and saw that it had a
reference to the supplement co's website, www.newchapter.info.  I had
never seen a suffix like that and I thought maybe this was a non-profit
enterprise or something.  It wasn't, and I would not be surprised if
that name was intended to confuse or mislead.

Anyway, that's when everything started to go downhill.  When I looked
thru the book, I realized practically all of it was an advertisement
for New Chapter supplements and a few other brands.  All of these were
patented supplements and were made by companies that had "sponsored"
the book.  There were 4 of them: New Chapter,  Natural Source, Amino Up
and QOL Labs.

Well, I just hit the roof because I felt like I'd been deceived.  I had
bought all this stuff based on it being "recommended" by this doc.
But what I hadn't known was that this was a paid endorsement.  And it
turns out New Chapter gives this book out to everybody as a freebie to
plug their supps., and it is not even available commercially (for the
most part).  I looked up the publisher and saw that it was a vanity
press, not a known name.

I really hate this sort of huckstering and taking advantage of cancer
patients.  I believe the salesperson should have had some integrity and
had let me know, up-front, that the book had been subsidized by some
vitamin companies.  And the doc should not have pretended that his book
was unbiased, because it was "bought and paid for" by others.

I can't describe how betrayed I felt, because I although I had gotten a
free book, I had lost my faith in just about everything.  I couldn't
believe that the esteemed Columbia Pres. Hospital would associate
itself with such schlock.  BTW, I have always recommended Columbia as
being the #1 Hosp. in New York and I had really believed it. So for me,
it was like an icon had been shattered.  I was also angry at Fairway
Market, a well-known company, which I had also trusted completely.

You have to appreciate just how commercialized this book was.  In it
Dr. Katz recommends, among other things":

New Chapter 5LX
Zyflamend, also by above company, (which he himself is researching and
is inconclusive)
Holy basil, which is supposed to bring "perfect health, long life and
enlightenment."

Then he adds a laundry list of items, all patented products by new
chapter, as part of a daily "zyflamend" protocol. This included
Supercritical DHA 100, Supercritical Holy basil, Turmericforce,
Anti-Aging Formula, Every Man One Day Multivitamin,, etc.

Then the doc got around to advertising his other "sponsors", like GCP
(Amino UP Co), AHCC, Prostabel (Natural Source), Garlicforce (NC),
Genikinoko (QOL Labs), etc.

Anyway, I was just disgusted that what was supposed to have been an
independent book by an expert in pca nutrition at one of the top
hospitals was nothing but a long commercial.  It really grossed me out.
Likewise, my husband, and he does not get upset easily.

We decided that we were going to give back all the supps, because I
would not have bought them in the first place had I known all of this.

Then, to top it all off, the doc gave some plugs for the Life Extension
Foundation (a "supposedly" nonprofit coop for purchasing vitamins) and
PCRI, both of which orgs. I have some problems with.  And last but not
least, he thanked Dr. Stephen Strum for having reviewed the book.

Aside from it promotional material, the book read like a term paper
that had been written by a college student in haste.  The doc made a
whole lot of claims but didn't substantiate anything.  Everything he
mentioned was "in the works", "promising", the paper is on the way,
etc.  In fact, he touted Provenge (which was mentioned here today) as
"really promising". Apparently it is not. So altogether the book was
really shoddy.  That was very disappointing to me, too.

The best part is that I went to Fairway market afterwards and
complained to the manager, he informed me that the woman who had sold
me all this stuff was not even an employee, but a *sales rep* for New
Chapter vitamins.  Of course, she hadn't told me any of that.  And the
regular clerk had been absent.  Well, to me, this sort of sleazy
behavior reflects not just on the sales rep, but on the company itself.

I intend to write to some people at Columbia U. about this, if I ever
get around to it.  This is no way for a "top" doc at a top hospital to
behave, IMO.

Anyway, my husb. is just now going out to return all of the supps
(because I don't even want to set foot in the store) and he and I are
both disappointed that nothing had come out of this shopping trip.  We
had hoped to get him started on a regimen.  It would have made us feel
better.

Thanks for listening.

Leah