I’ve always wanted to include Lucy Lawless in one of my articles. “Xenatol” sounded like “Xylitol”. Yeah. It’s pretty bad word play. Sorry. Hey, how much did you have to pay to read this stuff? 😉
I thought my debunking of Dr. Mark Hyman’s “10 Rules to Eat Safely for Life)“1 would be a one off job, but the deeper I read, the more nonsense I found. There’s enough material there for a half dozen articles, and Hyman commits some real howlers. If there was ever evidence that these snake oil salesmen don’t actually read the labels of the overpriced products they’re selling, Hyman’s “Endefen” supplements is it.
I’d like to start with this pearl of wisdom from Dr. Hyman:
“Throw out food with artificial sweeteners of all kinds (aspartame, Splenda, sucralose, and sugar alcohols—any word that ends with “ol” like xylitol, sorbitol). They make you hungrier, slow your metabolism, give you bad gas, and make you store belly fat.”–Mark Hyman on artificial sweeteners 1 (emphasis mine)
So Dr. Hyman claims that the sweetener xylitol will make us hungrier, slow our metabolisms, cause us to “tootle melodiously through our sphincters” (I’m embarrassed by the word “fart”), and store belly fat?
My grandfather had an old saying from which Hyman would benefit: “a closed mouth gathers no feet.”
Here’s an interesting product sold in the Hyman store: “Endefen”: 2
Mark Hyman’s Endefen product. Wonder what’s inside? (click/enlarge)
The full ingredients list is available at this link,2 but let’s zoom in on that suspicious-looking additive trying to hide behind sunglasses and false wig. You! I say! You there sir! You with the red circle around you! Can you stand up and identify yourself please?
Bless his heart! Dr. Hyman is selling xylitol, the very additive he says to avoid!
Why it’s Xylitol! Hyman is selling the very sweetener he says to avoid!1,2 To add the icing on the cake (no sugar pun intended), once you’ve finished all twenty-eight servings of Endefen, you will have consumed 26.6 grams of xylitol. Just under seven percent of the entire 420 gram bottle is xylitol by weight.
And oh, dear friends… I wish we could drop this and move on. But did you notice the “Mannose” above the “Xylitol” in the Hyman’s Endefen? Shouldn’t someone with a medical degree know that mannose a sugar monomer, especially if he’s going to preach about sweeteners as if they’re bringing on Armageddon?
“If sugar (by any name, including organic cane juice, honey, agave, maple syrup, cane syrup, or molasses) is on the label, throw it out.”–Mark Mark Hyman
Add in the mannose and Dr. Hyman’s product is now 8% sugar by weight.
Golly Gee. Should we tell somebody about this? Dr. Hyman? Are you there sir? Hello?
Nobody seems to be picking up… hello? Dr. Mark Hyman! Paging Dr. Hyman…
I *love* PubChem. The naming section for compounds is particularly helpful in trying to determine if Hyman’s “D-Xylitol” is xylitol. Chemists say it is.
Image Credits
Mark Hyman, Endefen, and PubChem snapshots are used in strict compliance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107 of United States copyright law (commonly known as “fair use law”). This material is distributed without profit with the intent to provide commentary, review, education, parody, and increase public health knowledge.
Xena Warrior Princess meme by the author, used under parody provisions of Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107 of United States copyright law (commonly known as “fair use law”). This material is distributed without profit with the intent to provide commentary, review, education, parody, and increase public health knowledge.
References
(1) 10 Rules to Eat Safely for Life (and What to Remove from Your Kitchen)
http://drhyman.com/blog/2012/02/02/10-rules-to-eat-safely-for-life-and-what-to-remove-from-your-kitchen/
(2) Endefen Supplement on Dr. Mark Hyman’s Online Store
http://store.drhyman.com/Store/Show/Healthy-Fiber/449/Endefen
(3) PubChem Compound Summary for CID 6912: Xylitol
https://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/compound/xylitol#section=Top
Bad Science Debunked 