Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, October 20, 1993 TAG: 9310190143
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By CAROLE SUGARMAN THE WASHINGTON POST
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Long
"Jean, that sounds disgusting!" I tell her, and we both laugh.
If sales of her new book continue to soar, Carper may get the last laugh. The powdered ginger in the tea (for her arthritis), the olive oil (an anticoagulant, among other things), the horseradish (for a rough throat) may sound like unappetizing folk fare. But not to Carper.
She practices what she preaches, recommending them all as remedies in "Food - Your Miracle Medicine" (HarperCollins, $25), which has apparently hit a public nerve like a jolt of caffeine (an emergency remedy for asthma; improves mental performance; dilates bronchial passages; triggers headaches, anxiety and panic attacks in some; furthers insomnia and may promote fibrocystic breast disease, according to the book).
I met Carper more than a decade ago at a weight-loss spa. I was younger and fatter; she was younger and wanted to lose a couple of pounds. At that time she was a medical correspondent for Cable News Network and has since written a number of books on nutrition, including the 1988 bestseller "The Food Pharmacy."
But now she's not just an acquaintance; at 61 she's becoming something of a phenomenon.
Since "Food - Your Miracle Medicine" was released at the end of June, it's been reprinted eight times. In September, it appeared on The New York Times bestseller list. A similar book, "The Healing Foods," by Patricia Hausman and Judith Benn Hurley, published by Rodale Press in 1989, has sold more than 1 million copies.
"It's the mood of the country," says Carper. "People are fed up with high health-care costs, the medical profession. They're ready for other solutions. They want alternatives to pharmaceutical drugs."
They also want easy answers. "Food - Your Miracle Medicine" is Carper's 18th book, a 528-page encyclopedia of cutting-edge research, subtitled "How Food Can Prevent and Cure Over 100 Symptoms and Problems."
To compile the book, Carper accessed computer databases containing more than 10,000 scientific studies, then drew conclusions about how certain foods can help ward off everything from herpes to heart disease to menstrual problems. The book is arranged by ailment, with "thumbs-up" and "thumbs-down" symbols to indicate which foods make the grade and which don't.
Who would have thought that researchers at the U.S. Department of Agriculture had studied the effect of fruits and nuts on brainpower? Or that a pulmonary specialist at UCLA recommends eating hot salsa for congestion instead of a menthol cough drop?
A lot of physicians from prestigious institutions, who previously looked askance at food's preventive and curative potential, are leading the way, says Carper. "They're investigating how folk remedies really work."
Why now? Why all of a sudden, when folk remedies have been around for centuries?
Carper thinks that the National Cancer Institute, with its aggressive public-health campaigns and research activities, has done an "enormous amount to legitimize" the field, that there are now better medical theories for food's therapeutic powers, that the technology for investigating the chemicals in food has advanced and that there's simply a "greater acceptance of exploring alternative medicine."
Will eating half an avocado a day really improve cholesterol levels more than a low-fat diet, as Carper claims? Can an orange a day heal defective sperm, preventing birth defects and infertility? Will eating spinach really prevent or relieve depression? Should evidence of these connections get the same "thumbs up" as the overwhelming correlations between fruits and vegetables and cancer prevention, for example? Has she gone a little far at times, taking fascinating research and turning it into prescriptive advice? It would be one thing if she just reported the findings, but she draws conclusions about all of it, setting herself up for scrutiny.
I read Carper some quotes from a news article that appeared about her book in the Atlanta-Journal Constitution. It's from one of many critics who have cringed at the title of her book and have charged that she relies on too few studies - sometimes single studies - to draw conclusions.
This one's from John Renner, president of the Consumer Health Information Research Institute in Kansas City, Mo. He says the book "contains some useful information, but it's a mixture of science, hype and hope. She lumps good research with the questionable."
Carper says she got all the research out of respectable medical journals, that there's no question some studies are better than others, but that she weeded out the bad ones before writing the book. She spends her whole life reading studies, she says. "No one has read as much of the medical literature as I have," she says. "How could they? This is all I do."
But I soon realize she's coming at this whole thing from a completely different perspective. People who make public-health policy look at a body of evidence before making recommendations - for their reputations as well as for the public welfare.
Carper, who presumably wants to sell books, also believes the public has a right to know about the research itself. "We have the clues," she says. "Some are more strongly developed, but we've got the clues."
Food, she admits, is not a substitute for medication. But it should be the first line of defense, she says. If it doesn't work, then pursue medication.
What's more, in response to criticism that she draws conclusions based on preliminary scientific findings, she questions the harm in trying a promising food. Even well substantiated studies aren't guarantees, she says. But food is safe; it's not like taking a drug. And "the best and only evidence is if it works for you. That's the only sure proof."
She has a point - and at least when it comes to mild conditions, there may not be any harm in trying. She may turn out to be right about some things too. (Of course, she may turn out to be wrong. A colleague with high blood pressure tried her celery recommendation - to no avail.)
I peeked in Carper's refrigerator (or is it a medicine cabinet?), then left her apartment feeling I should be more forward-thinking, less like a flat-worlder.
I even took my lingering sore throat to the supermarket that night and bought the ingredients for a Russian Horseradish Toddy. Robitussin hadn't worked, but maybe this folklore remedy would stand up "to scientific scrutiny," as the book suggested.
The foul mixture of warm water, horseradish, honey and cloves didn't get a fair test. One tiny sip was more than enough; I couldn't even gargle with it.
by CNB