Centre for Science, Athabasca University, Athabasca, Alberta T9S 3A3, CANADA.
J Am Coll Nutr. 2009 Dec;28(6):674-7. doi: 10.1080/07315724.2009.10719800.
Our first objective was to determine the accuracy of information provided to customers in health food stores (HFS) in Canada. The second objective was to compare the accuracy of this information with that provided to customers in pharmacies.
Undergraduate students visited 192 HFS and 56 pharmacies, located across Canada. In approximately half of the stores, they asked whether a specific supplement would help to prevent a particular condition or enhance health in a particular way. In the rest of the stores, they asked for advice on particular health concerns.
On 88% of times that questions were asked in HFS, the recommendations made were either unscientific (6%) or were poorly supported by the scientific literature (82%). By contrast, this occurred for only 27% of visits to pharmacies (p < 0.01). Conversely, on two thirds of visits to pharmacies, staff gave advice considered to be fairly accurate or accurate, but this seldom occurred in HFS (68% vs. 7%, p < 0.01).
The vast majority of information provided in HFS in response to questions has little scientific support. Pharmacies are a far more reliable source of information, although they still have significant scope for improvement.
我们的首要目标是确定加拿大保健食品商店（HFS）向顾客提供信息的准确性。第二个目标是将这些信息的准确性与药房提供的信息进行比较。
本科学生访问了加拿大各地的 192 家 HFS 和 56 家药店。在大约一半的商店中，他们询问某种特定的补充剂是否有助于预防特定的疾病或以特定的方式增强健康。在其余的商店中，他们就特定的健康问题寻求建议。
在 HFS 中，有 88%的情况下，提出的建议要么是不科学的（6%），要么是缺乏科学文献支持的（82%）。相比之下，这种情况在去药店的 27%的访问中发生（p<0.01）。相反，在去药店的三分之二的访问中，工作人员提供的建议被认为是相当准确或准确的，但这种情况很少在 HFS 中发生（68%对 7%，p<0.01）。
HFS 中针对问题提供的绝大多数信息几乎没有科学依据。药店是一个更可靠的信息来源，尽管它们仍然有很大的改进空间。
