Dr. Mark Hyman: (Artificial) Sugar Daddy

Dr. Mark Hyman tells us that xylitol is addictive and leads to obesity, metabolism disorders, and addiction, but that doesn’t stop him from loading it into his children’s daily vitamin supplement.

It’s been a while since we last heard from Dr. Mark Hyman, the hypocritical doctor who openly sells a product filled with the same chemicals he falsely claims causes cancer.  Actually, he’s  selling two such products.  Well, OK, there are over a half dozen.  But I digress.

Today, I’d like to talk to you about Hyman and sweeteners.  Dr. Mark has the following to say about one of my favorites, xylitol:

“Whatever you do, stay away from artificial sweeteners. I recommend giving up aspartame, sucralose, sugar alcohols such as xylitol and maltitol, and all of the other heavily used and marketed sweeteners unless you want to slow down your metabolism, gain weight, and become an addict.” (emphasis mine)–Dr. Mark Hyman¹

Good Lord!  According to Hyman, xylitol is responsible for increased risk of obesity, rewiring your brain chemistry and metabolism,  and is highly addictive.¹ Sounds pretty dangerous!  Something you’d especially want to keep away from children, right?

Friends, cast your eyes on Herr Hyman’s “Pure Pals” children’s vitamin supplement, and its list of ingredients:²

Pure Pals, sold by Mark Hyman, contains 1 gram of xylitol per pill.2

The ingredients in Mark Hyman’s Pure Pals for children.2 (click/enlarge)

Wait a minute, that’s xylitol in them thar pills!²  Doctor (and I feel embarrassed to use that word) Hyman recommends one gram of xylitol per day for children aged 2-3, and two grams per day for those aged 4 and up.²  Remember, this is the sugar substitute that’s supposed to be highly addictive, increase obesity, and rewire your children’s brain chemistry.  Yet the man making these claims wants to feed it to your children daily, at a cost of $27.60 per bottle.

To put this into context, let’s look at how xylitol is used in some well known candy products, and compare it to Hyman’s recommended daily dosing for a four year old child. A publication produced by Augusta University’s Dental College of Georgia³ reveals ten times less xylitol (0.2 grams per piece) in a piece of Mentos Pure candy, 132% less in Icebreakers Frost Mints (0.33 grams per mint), and less than 50% in Spry Gum (0.72gm/piece).³

But, what should one do upon finding any of these candies in the kitchen of their home?  According to the good doctor: throw them out immediately!⁴  I kid you not.  Read Hyman’s polemic “Four Steps To Detoxify Your Kitchen“⁴ lest you think I exaggerate.

Another delicious piece in this Pie of Irony is that xylitol is a naturally occurring compound, so Hyman’s use of the word “artificial” is rather disingenuous.  According to the U.S. National Library of Medicine’s PubChem database:

“Xylitol is naturally found in many fruits (strawberries, plums, raspberries) and vegetables (e. g. cauliflower).”

–Extracted from PubChem Detail for CID 6912⁵

According to PubChem, xylitol can be produced industrially starting with, for example, a variety of natural sources, including almond hulls and birch bark,⁵ but it’s important to remember that everything is a chemical, so “artificial” and “natural” are just arbitrary labels.

For the record, this isn’t the first time Dr. Hyman has been caught selling xylitol in his products⁶ but, as I pointed out in this meme when I caught him red handed three years ago, none of his lemming-like followers seem inclined to read the man’s own product labels:

For at least three years, Dr. Mark Hyman has been selling products containing xylitol,⁶ which he links to an overabundance of health problems–and nobody seems to notice. (click/enlarge)

Ironically, the PurePals vitamin product is manufactured by Pure Encapsulations, the same company that makes Neuromins, another Hyman product that contains chemicals the doctor hypocritically and falsely links to cancer.⁷  Why would a doctor claim his own product causes cancer?  Because once the man says “hello, I’m a doctor,” people stop paying attention, bend over, grease up, and proceed to get screwed.

What do we make of all this hypocrisy, then?  Perhaps we should take Mark Hyman’s advice and simply throw his Pure Pals product in the garbage:

“Throw out food with artificial sweeteners of all kinds (aspartame, NutraSweet, Splenda, sucralose, and sugar alcohols — any word that ends with “ol,” like xylitol or sorbitol)” –Dr. Mark Hyman⁴

References
(1) Why You Should Ditch Artificial Sweeteners
Warning: not a scholarly link
http://drhyman.com/blog/2015/12/02/why-you-should-ditch-artificial-sweeteners/
Retrieved 29 Dec 2017

(2) Pure Encapsulations “Pure Pals” Children’s Supplement
https://store.drhyman.com/supplements-1/purepals-formally-pure-bears-without-iron.html
Retrieved 29 Dec 2017

(3) Xylitol Products
Augusta University’s Dental College of Georgia
https://www.augusta.edu/dentalmedicine/axium/documents/xylitol-products2.pdf
Retrieved 29 Dec 2017

(4) Four Steps To Detoxify Your Kitchen
Warning: not a scholarly link
http://drhyman.com/blog/2015/01/22/4-steps-detoxify-kitchen/
Retrieved 29 Dec 2017

(5) U.S. National Library of Medicine PubChem Database: Xylitol (CID 6912)
https://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/compound/6912#section=Top
Retrieved 29 Dec 2017

(6)  Xylitol, Warrior Princess
https://badscidebunked.wordpress.com/2015/11/23/xylitol-warrior-princess-mark-hyman-debunked/
Retrieved 29 Dec 2017

(7) Trick or Tweet: Dr. Mark Hyman Exposed
https://badscidebunked.wordpress.com/2015/09/10/trick-or-tweet-dr-mark-hyman-exposed/
Retrieved 29 Dec 2017

 

Image Credits
Mark Hyman imagery and Pure Encapsulation screen snapshots and product image captures 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.

Ice Cream Truck/Candy Man parody image by the author, also produced and used under the 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.

 

Xylitol, Warrior Princess: Mark Hyman Debunked

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