[Interactive chart] Snake oil? Scientific evidence for popular nutritional supplements

 From the Web site

This image is a “balloon race”. The higher a bubble, the greater the evidence for its effectiveness. But the supplements are only effective for the conditions listed inside the bubble.

You might also see multiple bubbles for certain supps. These is because some supps affect a range of conditions, but the evidence quality varies from condition to condition. For example, there’s strong evidence that Green Tea is good for cholesterol levels. But evidence for its anti-cancer effects is conflicting. In these cases, we give a supp another bubble.

This visualisation generates itself from this Google Doc. So when new research comes out, we can quickly update the data and regenerate the image. (How cool is that??)

Sources: PubMed, Cochrane.org

 

The interactive chart allows one to filter by health condition and supplement type (as enzyme, plant/herb). Data in this Google spreadsheet.

 

Related resources

MEDLINE plus: Complementary and Alternative Medicine Trusted health information links from the US National Institutes of Health (NIH). Includes basic information, news, organizations, specific conditions, multimedia, financial issues, and more

Bandolier: Evidenced Based Thinking about Healthcare – Alternative Medicine
The site brings together the best evidence available about complementary and alternative therapies for consumers and professionals. It contains stories, systematic reviews and meta-analyses of complementary and alternative therapies with abstracts.

Herbs at a Glance  Series of brief fact sheets that provides basic information about specific herbs or botanicals—common names, what the science says, potential side effects and cautions, and resources for more information. NCCAM (National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine)

Office of Cancer Complementary Alternative Medicine  The NIH, National Cancer Institute (NCI) Office of Cancer Complementary and Alternative Medicine (OCCAM) was established in October 1998 to coordinate and enhance the activities of the National Cancer Institute (NCI) in the arena of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM)
Quackwatch.com  Nonprofit  whose purpose is to combat health-related frauds, myths, fads, and fallacies. Information on quackery, questionable therapies and more

 

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