Correct. And therefore, in terms of actually establishing something, next to worthless.
The trouble with the above sort of stuff is that you can use to prove anything. Maybe the problem with the students you mention is zinc deficiency; maybe something completely unrelated and they just needed some tutoring.
The double-blind study remains the gold standard for scientific medicine. Take a group of students at random, divide them into two groups. One group gets zinc plus tutoring. The other gets just tutoring. At the end of the study period, test both groups and see if there is a statistically significant difference between the two. If so, you have evidence of a genuine scientific advance, and are a public benefactor. If not, then there is no reason to believe in zinc as the kind of cure-all you suggest.
I assume that, if you had performed demonic exorcisms on the students at the start of their tutoring, and they improved, you would not assert that demons were the root of their problems. Why should it be zinc, with an equal paucity of evidence?
David, I just found this thread. I have a grandson who is very bright but has a terrible time concentrating in school (among other issues). I will definitely put him on the Zinc, Calcium, Magnesium supplements and see how he fares next year in sixth grade. I am a firm believer that vitamin deficiencies are the cause of many maladies. Thanks for the postings, If all goes well in September I’ll let you know. If not, I’ll let you know that as well.
Best wishes.
P.S. you don’t need a doctorate to excersize common sense.
No kidding. A 3-page thread with discussions and the guest still believes blindly what an anonymous source on the Internet says.
What happens btw if you are an American and don’t have any white spots on your fingermails and are leading a resonably full life? If I start taking zinc, will I be elected president or something?
Unless, of course, the guest is not a guest, and more of a foot-shaped cotton tube with button eyes, whose wide-eyed credulity is supposed to highlight the shreds of hope sprinkled throughout the crackpottery and thereby lure the desperate to financial ruin.
True story. 1994, early December, my 15 year old son is diagnosed with mononucleosis. He’ll be out of school for a few weeks, no big deal. After a week. I arrive home from work to find him on the floor. He fainted. Now every time he stands up for more than a few seconds, he faints. I haul him up to Lahey Clinic to see the pediatrician. Fainted three times in the office. An ambulance takes him to Children’s Hospital in Boston. Loads of tests. Lying down Blood Pressure 70/50. Sitting up BP less than 50/30. (These are approximate and from memory.) Could never get a BP while standing because he would faint every time. The result of the testing showed he had a very rare side effect from the mono. The nerves that stimulate blood flow when you become active were not working. Basically, nerve damage. No effective treatment. After two weeks and many tests they say I can take hime home in a wheelchair on Christmas Eve. We have to report to Lahey Clinic on M/W/F to have his BP taken. We ended up buying a cuff and stethoscope for use at home on the other days. We continue this for several months. The pediatricians tried everything they could think of, steroids, etc. Nothing worked. Basically they just gave up. Now it’s late March 1986 and no improvement whatsoever. The Dr’s have still expressed no hope for improvement. The nerves are not regenerating. Still fainting if he tries to stand. BP readings unchanged.
Now, since he had been so ill, I had cancelled my chiropractor appt’s for Dec, Jan, Feb but my aching back forced me to go back in on Tuesday evening the last week of March. I was lamenting to the Dr. about my son’s illness when she graciously offered, asked, practically begged me to bring him in. Said she would treat him for free, (my insurance did not cover chiropractic). Now she’s been great for me, has improved my quality of life immensely over the years but…I’m thinking to myself, she can’t help my son. By the time I get home I figure, what the hell, certainly can’t hurt. I call next morning and the office manager tells me to bring him in anytime I want that day. (Wednesday) After the visit to Lahey to have his BP taken I bring him to the chiropractor. She cracks him all over, hands me a bottle of natural vitamins/minerals. (I don’t remember what was in there, I only remember there were three vitamins/minerals listed on the bottle) Charges me nine bucks for the vitamins, nothing for the treatment. Tells Michael to take two pills in the evening and two in the morning. He takes his first dose right there. I bring him back again on Thursday evening for another treatment. By this time he had taken six pills. Instead of sitting on the steps and dragging himself up on his behind, he was able to stand long enough to walk into the office. Then had to sit down pretty quickly. I then take him Friday afternoon back to Lahey for his usual visit. (He has now taken eight pills.) He walked all the way from the car to the office. Nearly 1 1/2 city blocks. Every pediatrician and nurse left their patients and came to marvel at the improvement. They asked what we did? I told him I took him to my chiropractor and showed them the vitamin bottle. They all scoffed at the vitamins except for him primary pediatrician who simply said, “If it works, keep doing it.” He was well enough to go back to school the following Monday. I took him to the chiropractor three times a week for the next six months, still free of charge and I think I had purchased two more bottles of the vitamin/mineral supplement. After six months, Mike finally convinced me that he was cured and didn’t want to go anymore. No relapse. No long term effects. He’s a very healthy 28 year old.
Now you can call me gullible, call me a fool. I won’t buy the Brooklyn Bridge, but if it can’t hurt, I’ll give it a shot.
“Now it’s late March 1986 and no improvement whatsoever. The Dr’s have still expressed no hope for improvement. The nerves are not regenerating. Still fainting if he tries to stand. BP readings unchanged.”
I’m delighted that your son is doing so well, Sail1993, but you seem to totally discount whatever good may have been done by the chiropractic treatment he was receiving and instead to place virtually all of his improvement on the pills themselves.
How do you know that most of his improvement wasn’t due to the physical manipulations provided by your chiropractor who seemed very confident of her ability to do him some good, and who, in spite of the pills, still deemed it necessary to work on him three times a week?
I’m not being critical here as I’m intrigued by some of the claims being attributed to zinc/calcium/magnesium in this thread and by some of the things I’ve discovered by Googling zinc as a result, and I’m also inclined, as you are, to think that if it doesn’t hurt, what’s the harm in giving it a try. Still, I think there must have been a very good reason for your chiropractor to devote that much of her time and effort in working on your son herself (and for free, at that), and I’m inclined to think that perhaps the supplements worked to enhance the benefits of the treatment she was providing rather than being (apparently) solely responsible for his recovery.
Again, I’m delighted to hear that he is doing so well, both for his own sake and yours, and I look forward to hearing why you feel the pills themselves were the determining factor in your son’s recovery.
Starving Artist,
I never said that the supplement was solely responsible for Mike’s recovery. I simply stated the sequence of events. I attribute his recovery to both the supplement and the adjustments. But please note that it was the chiropractor who gave Mike the supplement, so she must have believed that they would significant to his recovery. I’m not in a position to say what may have happened if he had had one treatment without the other. As an extreme example, sort of like having chemo coupled with radiation, maybe both were needed to cure him. All I know is that it worked. I posted the above for the responders whose first inclination is to ridicule alternative therapies and to show that “traditional” medicine is not the only way. I’ve always been a pretty straight-laced person. I suffered 12 years of back pain that put me to bed for up to three weeks at a time before a far-sighted orthopedic surgeon told me to try a chiropractor. I thought they were quacks. And even after she made such a positive impact on my quality of life my first impulse was to reject such a treatment for my son. I still have to force myself to have an open mind, but if it is possible that something so simple as 15, 20, or 30 mgs of zinc could have an impact on my grandson, (with no negative side effect), I’d be a bigger fool if I didn’t try it.
If it has no impact, I’ve lost nothing but a few dollars for a vitamin tablet. If it works, maybe I won’t have to spend four hours a night doing math homework that should take 20-30 minutes and they’ll be a heck of of lot less frustration around here. It won’t be scientific, and I’ll have no journal article to back up any claim, but I’ll also be the first to say, “Sorry, this did not work for us.”
Enough said from me on this subject. If anyone is interested, I’ll report back after he gets his first report card next fall.
Me, too. I figure, like Sail1993 above, that if there are sufficient indicators that something might do some good, and no harm is done by trying them, why not give it a shot? Based on some of the claims made in this thread (so far unrefuted, though certainly questioned) plus information gained from Googling the subject, I bought some zinc/calcium/magnesium last night to add to my battery of vit/min supplements and will see if I gain some benefit.
And Sail, did you pick up on my use of the words “seem” and “apparently”? I wasn’t condemning what you had to say in your post, I merely wanted to know why it was that you “seemed” to place most of your emphasis for his recovery on the pills rather than the chiropractor. If I misunderstood, I apologize. And of course I’d be very interested to hear the results of your grandson’s report card when you post it. No hard feelings, eh?
No hard feelings at all. Your question was thoughtful and not intended to ridicule and since the entire thread centered around a supplement it would be easy to assume that all my faith was put solely in them.
Anyway, wish us luck with the zinc/cal/mag supplement. In this case I’m not planning to make any other changes so any improvement I will have to attribute to the zinc. I’m looking forward to the experiment. I’ll know pretty quickly if there are changes in behavior but the proof will have to wait for the report card.
Ciao!!!
:smack: Doy! How could I have missed it. I had a feeling there was some sort of a gag there but never paused to puzzle it out. Oh, well, like I always say, I may be dumb but at least I’m stupid…or…uh…something like that.
And thanks for letting me know that you didn’t take offense to my post, Sail1993, and as I said above I look forward very much to learning the results of your grandson’s behavior and report card. I wish you both the very best of luck.
And that will have precisely the same significance as if you reported that it “worked” - in other words, zero. Negative and positive testimonials are equally worthless.
I run into this sort of statement a lot online. When you hear someone say “Doctors have little nutrition training and don’t recognize the value of XManna-Prehistoric Coconut Oil Enemas”, the correct translation is “Doctors don’t put any stock in my nutty nutrition ideas”.
Oh, and trusting your chiropractor for nutrition advice makes as much sense as depending on your auto mechanic for stock tips.
