perricone diet

From : Harriet Hall, M.D. and Stephen Barrett, M.D.
A Skeptical View of the Perricone Prescription

Dr. Perricone would be more credible if he could show us a study demonstrating that people who followed his prescription lived longer, had "younger" skin demonstrated by objective measures, or felt better compared to those on a placebo program—or that they were better in any measurable way. Instead, he provides only testimonials, exaggerated claims, partial truths, and incorrect statements. He cherry-picks possibly supportive studies from the literature and ignores contradictory studies. The diet he recommends is low in calories, and weight loss alone may improve the way his patients look and feel. His advice about tobacco and sunscreens is appropriate, but there is little science behind the rest of his program. He seems to have gathered every nutrient and skin cream he had any reason to hypothesize might work and advised using all of them. A more rational approach would have been to first see which ones really worked, and later to see if any combinations of the effective agents worked better than a single agent. No scientist worth his salt does experiments without controls; Perricone treats everyone, so that there is no basis for comparison.