ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, February 18, 1997 TAG: 9702180128
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: WASHINGTON
SOURCE: Associated Press
Matt Aukofer had heard all the hype about zinc helping colds. So he popped the lozenges when his sniffles hit - and suffered a week with the flu, a virus that zinc isn't known to affect.
``I had a hard time telling if it helped or not,'' said Aukofer, 34, of suburban Washington, who is considering giving zinc another chance on his next cold.
Zinc lozenges are selling as fast as stores can stock them, the latest in a series of health fads that have Wall Street and manufacturers raking in big dollars even before science determines whether the therapies really work.
``I never told anybody it was a cure for the cold,'' said Dr. Michael Macknin of the Cleveland Clinic, whose study of Cold-Eeze zinc lozenges kicked off the fad - and who then found himself embroiled in controversy when he made $145,000 on Cold-Eeze stock.
``This doesn't deserve the publicity it's gotten for a preliminary study.''
But the $6 billion, mostly unregulated dietary supplement industry is growing 10 percent a year, fueled largely by news reports touting preliminary research that send consumers racing to the store.
Take beta carotene, hailed as a possible cancer preventive with annual sales of $100 million. Scientific testing last year concluded that Americans are wasting their money on it.
Books proclaiming DHEA, an anti-aging pill, are best-sellers, despite doctors' warnings that the hormone may be dangerous. Side effects include permanent masculine hair growth and deeper voices for women, troubling signs that the pills, which the body turns into estrogen and testosterone, might be active enough to hormonally stimulate cancer growth.
Just last month, a University of Arizona report that selenium may reduce cancer had Arizona stores sold out of the trace element - despite scientists' warnings that not only was proof lacking, but too much selenium is toxic.
``We're a quick-fix society,'' laments Dr. Lewis Green, an Emory University family physician. ``We get blindsided with patients coming in with all kinds of demands for things that haven't been tested and proved.''
Laymen aren't the only ones vulnerable. Emory's Dr. Erica Frank, co-editor of the journal Preventive Medicine, recently deliberately fooled a medical class - and the instructor - into believing there was an Eastern science called ``zephyrology,'' where air samples measured over body organs signal chemical imbalances.
``They were just fascinated,'' said Frank, who then revealed the fake. ``I think I made the point that unless you have data, it is hard to distinguish between'' science and sham.
Fads like zinc fall into a gray area: scientifically promising but unproven.
Macknin performed a 100-patient study at a respected hospital, which passed scientific scrutiny to be published in the Annals of Internal Medicine in July.
Macknin said he ``got goose bumps'' as he compared the data and discovered those who took zinc every two hours starting within a day of the first symptoms got well three days sooner than people who took a placebo.
``I was more than a little skeptical'' when the study began, Macknin said. The findings were ``very exciting.''
But he stressed that one small study is not proof. Indeed, he said, earlier zinc research was skewed because so many people disliked the taste and stopped taking zinc, then told researchers they felt better.
Still, Macknin bought 9,000 shares of tiny Quigley Corp. after his study was finished - but before he finished preparing the data for publication.
By January, when stores had ordered $12 million worth of Cold-Eeze, the stock had risen above $30 a share, from below $1 last spring.
What's a consumer to think?
``I just tell people to look for the preponderance of evidence, not a single study,'' said Charles Inlander of the nonprofit People's Medical Society. ``I've never seen a magic bullet.''
LENGTH: Medium: 77 linesby CNB