Beverage "Yerba Maté" May Have Ties to Head/Neck Cancers

[D.]

The American Botanical Council, a non-profit dedicated to the
development of research and information sharing about
botanical and herbal products, has issued an abstract in their
July 31st edition of "HerbClip" that discusses the South
American beverage Mat=E9, sometime called "Yerba Mat=E9," and
its possible ties to head and neck cancers.

This beverage is increasingly seen in coffee shops, health
food stores, natural products retailers and sometimes even
mainstream grocery stores. It's popularity is gaining in the
USA, and it is reputed to have more than $250 Million in sales
in this country.

Yerba mate (pronounced yair-ba mah-tay) is known to South
Americans as the "Drink of the Gods;" it is a hot beverage
made from the dried leaves of the Ilex Paraguariense bush
indigenous to Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay. And
thanks to its robust caffeine content, the drink is a natural
stimulant. The drink is traditionally steeped and served in
hollowed-out gourds, sipped through metal straws designed to
filter out stems and leaf bits. It was first consumed by the
Guarani Indians centuries ago. Today, it is not uncommon in
Argentina to see businessmen walking down the street sipping
out of a Mat=E9 gourd.

However, there may be a very dangerous connection between
cancers of the head and neck and mat=E9 consumption.
"HerbClip" reports on a study done in "Head and Neck" which
used modern informatics on a number of previously published
research studies. Although there were a number of issues that
need further research (difference between hot and cold mat=E9
consumption, smoking and alcohol use among participants, etc.)
the researchers made some very specific claims: "Mat=E9
consumption plays a significant and independent role in the
development of upper aeodigestive tract cancers," and "Mat=E9
drinking should be considered one of the risk factors for
cancer of the neck and head."

It should be noted that further research is being conducted to
determine the mechanism of carcinogenic action.

Dave

The above full-text article was extracted from
http://shamvswham.blogspot.c= om/

[Mark Thors]

"D." wrote:
>
> The American Botanical Council, a non-profit dedicated to
> the development of research and information sharing about
> botanical and herbal products, has issued an abstract in
> their July 31st edition of "HerbClip" that discusses the
> South American beverage Maté, sometime called "Yerba Maté,"
> and its possible ties to head and neck cancers.

Whoa! You accused me of citing a "third tier journal" when I
quoted from a refereed, peer-reviewed research journal. And
here you are summarizing a piece in HerbClip, the unrefereed
publication of a public relations outfit for the herbal
supplements industry. The HerbClip piece is itself a summary
of a meta-analysis (a paper study which analyzes the results
of other studies).

Your article is a summary of a summary of a meta-analysis.
What a pile of crap. You dare to call my citation a "third
tier journal" -- even though it is backed up by confirming
research in other journals -- but you shamelessly plug the
mouthpiece of the herbal supplements industry as though it had
the same standing as a genuine research journal.

This shows just how far you'll go to please the supplement
companies you'd like to have as sponsors for your commercial
blogspot web site. Being honest isn't on your agenda. All you
care about is trying to get your share of the billions of
dollars spent on supplements.

[D.]

On Aug 14, 12:55 pm, Mark Thorson <nos...@sonic.net> wrote:
> "D." wrote:
>
> > The American Botanical Council, a non-profit dedicated to
> > the development of research and information sharing about
> > botanical and herbal products, has issued an abstract in
> > their July 31st edition of "HerbClip" that discusses the
> > South American beverage Mat=E9, sometime called "Yerba
> > Mat=E9," and its possible ties to head and neck cancers.
>
> Whoa! You accused me of citing a "third tier journal" when I
> quoted from a refereed, peer-reviewed research journal. And
> here you are summarizing a piece in HerbClip, the unrefereed
> publication of a public relations outfit for the herbal
> supplements industry. The HerbClip piece is itself a summary
> of a meta-analysis (a paper study which analyzes the results
> of other studies).
>
> Your article is a summary of a summary of a meta-analysis.
> What a pile of crap. You dare to call my citation a "third
> tier journal" -- even though it is backed up by confirming
> research in other journals -- but you shamelessly plug the
> mouthpiece of the herbal supplements industry as though it
> had the same standing as a genuine research journal.
>
> This shows just how far you'll go to please the supplement
> companies you'd like to have as sponsors for your commercial
> blogspot web site. Being honest isn't on your agenda. All
> you care about is trying to get your share of the billions
> of dollars spent on supplements.

Mark,

Your responses are almost comical. No matter what I post,
positive or negative about an alterntive health product, you
come back and flame. I've been written privately by usenet
readers who can't believe that you have the patience to
continue doing this, but you'll find it doesn't bother me. In
fact I've removed all of my back-and-forth posts from previous
threads with you and will remove this one as well when you've
had a chance to see it.

However, as a Pharmaceutical industry chemist, you SHOULD know
that "Head and Neck" is a peer reviewed medical journal,
edited by the distinguished Ehab Y. Hanna, MD at the
University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston.
This is one of our nation's top cancer research institutions.
The quotes I used were directly from Head and Neck. I
reference HerbClip because I believe it says something that a
non-profit which is setup to spread research data on botanical
remedies now has published something very concerning about a
hot herbal product.

I do not promote my blog in the posts I make here (I've taken
the name out of the headlines). I show a link referencing the
original article, instead, so that if anyone wants to review
it and it's referenced links or other essays on the same
topic, they can do so. They won't be bombarded with ads,
because there aren't any. In actuality, your continuing flames
and changing the topic of the thread is more of a nuisance to
the newsgroups you belong to than my innocuous posts, which do
not have any spam element to them.

I'd really appreciate anyone who reads this to post a message
below and ask Mark to stop these attacks. Or, alternately, if
you agree that my news reports on various health topics are
annoying, post that, and I'll get the message. Thanks.

Dave

[Mark Thors]

"D." wrote:
>
> However, as a Pharmaceutical industry chemist, you SHOULD
> know that

Once again, you can't tear yourself away from your lying
accusation that I'm a "Pharmaceutical industry chemist",
because once you've gone down that road you have too much ego
invested in it to stop. You can't admit you were just
fabricating spin, because that would be the same thing as
admitting everything I've said about you is correct.

Falsely accusing someone of being a "Pharmaceutical industry
chemist" in this newsgroup is exactly like accusing someone of
being a Communist back in the 1950's. You are practicing a
form of neo-McCarthyism.

You do that because you don't have any defense for your crap
articles. You can't pretend that HerbClip is a peer-reviewed,
refereed journal, because it isn't. It's the mouthpiece of an
herbal supplement industry trade group.

Your only alternative is to attack the critic, rather than the
criticism. That further demonstrates the complete lack of
credibility behind your poorly researched articles.

You only care about your Internet-get-rich-quick scheme. You
only care about driving traffic to your commercial blogspot
web site, in the vain hope you will be rewarded by sponsorship
from the supplement companies you cater to.