Follow the money. We’re bombarded by TV ads pushing dietary supplements and other forms of pseudo-medicine marketed to our aging population.
Enter dubious product claims for “brain protection” and treatment for sports concussions. These products are unproven and often promoted by practitioners and athletes with financial conflicts of interest.
Examples are numerous. An industry-funded study of a particular chocolate milk product claimed it protected athlete’s brains. Several school officials spent thousands of dollars for this quick fix. Some soccer coaches are requiring children to wear headgear and mouthguards which have been proven to be ineffective in reducing the impact of heading the ball.
It gets better. A new jugular compression device is justified by claims that woodpeckers avoid brain injury by using their omohyoid muscle to occlude their jugular vein. 300 college and high school have adopted an unrelated neck training device. The same manufacturer has established a “foundation” that claims that student athletes are deficient in omega. NFL quarterback Russell Wilson claims that “water pumps oxygen to your brain a lot.” It turns out that he is an investor in a fortified water company.
These pseudoscientific interventions distract from the actual dangers of certain sports, especially in children.
Adapted from Lancet Neurology, October 2021.
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