Perricone on QuackWatch

[jands]

Interesting article about Dr. Perricone on Quackwatch:
http://www.quackwatch.org/11Ind/perricone.html

The problem with Quakwatch is that the owner (Stephen Barrett, M.D.) is a retired psychiatrist, not a scientist.

However, a lot of what he writes makes sense to me, probably because I'm a cynic who has little faith in the biased opinions and integrity of most retailers.

I am always looking for hard facts or subtantiated proof for any claims (ie. we only sell the best), something some businesses do not seem to want to supply!

So much info, so many different opinions, so many sources of ingredients claiming to only offer 'the best'!

It is really hard for the average consumer to get the right answers and not get scammed in one way or another.

That is why I appreciate smartskincare as yet another source of unbiased inormation.

[drtodorov]

Perricone's approach seems to be a balancing act between wishful thinking and scientific evidence, where a modest amount of interesting and/or promising research is eggagerated to appear as a fully substantiated clinical modality. It makes for a good sales pitch and poor science, which is an all too common combination.

This is not to say that all of the ingredients he promotes, such as lipoic acid or DMAE are entirely without merit. They have some supporting research (although not that much) and seem to be modestly useful in skin care based on the limited data available. But they are not any better (and perhaps even less effecive) than better researched agents, such as retinoids or even vitamin C.

[Melissa]

jands,
I agree with you . It is very hard to get the right answers especially with vitamins. After several attempts to find out if one company Vitamin C was the L-ascorbic acid form I was giving an answer " probably we only use the best. "
I was not satisfy with this answer & search for another company, but it takes a lot of time & I wasted a lot of money with the wrong vitamins to mix in my base creams. too much fillers....

[drtodorov]

Generally, if something is called pure Vitamin C powder it is supposed to be L-ascorbic acid because D-ascorbic acid is NOT vitamin C. But it is prudent to double-check with manufacturer.

[cjdavis]

[thegoodwitch]

I too think that Perricone's schtick is mainly hype. Also, after reading Dr. Barry Sear's "Zone Diet" books, it is obvious that Perricone has done more than a little borrowing from Sears. Perricone's diet recommendations are basically Sear's + salmon and supplements ad nauseum.

To Dr. Sear's credit, the Zone Diet actually did change my life in terms of energy level and overall health (can't say exactly what it's done for my skin, but I'm sure it hasn't been bad!). There is definitely something to the idea of keeping one's blood sugar as stable as possible for the promotion of "good" eicosanoids.

My main complaint against Perricone, however, is the ridiculous pricetag on his skincare line. It really does make him look like the proverbial "snake oil salesman."

[marta]

I wonder why it is that no one has independently tested Perricone products?

How is it that he is exempt from listing any of his ingredients in his products?

Otherwise, I actually found the information in Perricone books to be helpful. In the wrinkle cure, he talked the least about topicals but instead offered nutrition approach and vitamin and mineral approach. And teaching folks to guard against overindulgence in sugar and what it alone does to your body chemistry is not a bad thing. Teaching me to take anti-oxidants is a good thing as well. Between his numerous appearances on NPR I don't feel like I need to read any other books. I have sampled a number of his products (Sephora is generous in this department) and they seemed pretty remarkable to me.

[Lucy]

I've tried Dr.Perricone's diet and I loved it : eating salmon, blueberries,
broccolini and drinking green tea for 7 weeks. My body, facial features and skin have shaped up beautifully.

[cjdavis]

[jamesherried]

I read the article about Dr. Perricone on quackwatch.com, and the authors(who themselves are attacking Dr. Perricones's beliefs) of the article make some false statements themselves. Here are two obviouos ones. The first statement is one made by Dr. Perricone in his book, the one in brackets is the refutation made by the authors of this article:

1)Vitamin C deficiency causes wrinkles. [Sun exposure and tobacco use are the only recognized factors known to cause wrinkles.]

2)Growth hormone is the true "youth hormone." [Only in the sense that it helps youths grow into adults!]

The authors say that "sun exposure and tobacco use are the only recognized factors known to cause wrinkles". Well, we know that isn't true, because we know that you can also get wrinkles from repeated facial movements, such as squinting.

They also refute the idea that "growth hormone is the true youth hormone", and the authors seem to think that the only value growth hormone has is in helping young people grow into adults. I think it's pretty well established now that growth hormone(if injected) does work to restore "youthfulness" . Dr. Denese says that in her clinical experience, nothing even comes close to HGH injections in terms of restoring youth to an aging body, and she attributes the youthfulness of her celebrity clients to that. And I don't think those people would continue to pay those high prices if HGH didn't work. But Dr. Denese isn't the only doctor who makes that claim. What we're not sure about is what the long term effects of HGH injections are in terms of safety.

Anyway, I think quackwatch.com is run by a lot of conventional, main-stream-medicine-oriented people who haven't seemed to learn yet that although blind acceptance isn't a good thing, being overlyskeptical is just as bad, just as biased, and just as "unscientific".

[cjdavis]

[jamesherried]

[jamesherried]

The authors of the article on quackwatch(about Dr. Perricone) also make another mistake when they say that HGH is useful only for helping young people grow into adults. They ignore the fact that HGH has also been used successfully(to my knowledge) to treat AIDS patients, and relieve some of the symptoms associating with premature aging in that disease.

[violinist1225]

There is always going to be some kind of error in any study; although I think Mr P's book was good, I found it was hard to maintain long term and the thing with taking suppliments. But, I guess that's most things.

[jamesherried]