Holiday Hokum? The lowdown on 5 supposedly healthy gifts

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Chocolates that claim to lift your mood. Lamps that supposedly bust stress. Shoes that promise to help you shed pounds.

When it comes to health products, it’s all too easy to end up gift-wrapping a package of nothing. Health writer Chris Woolston looked at five items that claim to be good for you that are vying for a place in Santa’s bag. If you bought them all, they’d cost more than $400. Their actual value? Hear what the experts he talked to said ...

Salt lamps

These functioning electric lamps enclosed in a chunk of salt have been adding their pleasant glow to health fairs and mall kiosks for years. Unlike most light fixtures, illumination isn’t their main selling point. Salt lamps are touted as a natural source of ‘negative ions’ that supposedly improve the health of anyone nearby. Some sellers claim the ions will relieve stress, ‘clean ambient air,’ boost your mood, improve the focus of children with attention deficit disorder. Others say salt lamps can treat migraines, insomnia, depression, sinusitis and viral infections.

Experts see two basic flaws behind the claim that users will ionize their way to good health.

First, it’s not possible for a chunk of salt to release a significant amount of negative ions, says Victor Stenger, a professor emeritus of physics and astronomy at the University of Hawaii in Honolulu. There isn’t nearly enough energy in a lamp to break up the ionic bonds between the sodium and chlorine in salt. ‘If that were true, we’d have chlorine gas coming out our salt shakers,’ he said.

Even if these salt blocks somehow released ions through a loophole in the laws of chemistry and physics, they couldn’t deliver on their health claims, says Michael Terman, director of the Center for Light Treatment and Biological Rhythms at Columbia University Medical Center in New York City. Terman’s studies have found that large doses of negatively charged oxygen ions generated by a machine can help ease depression in people with seasonal affective disorder -- a finding touted on several salt lamp sites. But there’s a world of difference between oxygen streaming from a machine and chlorine supposedly trickling from a rock, he says. ‘I was dismayed to see my research touted by salt lamp companies. It’s disgraceful.’ As for the claim that the color of the lamps can dramatically improve mood or treat ADHD -- ‘that’s just nuts,’ Terman says.

Earth footwear

You’ve probably seen these ‘calorie-burning’ walking shoes, loafers, sandals and boots at Whole Foods Market or specialty shoe stores. Earth footwear’s motto is ‘burn more calories with every step.’ The company website boasts ‘better leg and calf toning, tighter thighs, firmer stomach muscles, straighter posture and better breathing.’

Inclined shoes have been around for decades, but there’s still no good evidence that the design will help wearers burn extra calories or lose weight, says Geza Kogler, a scientist in the Clinical Biomechanics Laboratory at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta and a member of the Footwear Biomechanics Group of the International Society of Biomechanics. ‘I think it’s a stretch to make those claims,’ he says.

An unpublished study commissioned by the company found that wearing Earth shoes might actually slow weight loss. The 31 women in the study all walked about four miles three times a week for four weeks. Twenty-four women wearing Earth shoes lost an average of 0.7 pounds, while the seven women wearing regular walking shoes lost an average of 1.1 pounds. The Earth group did lose a bit more body fat, a finding not lost on study author and company consultant Katy Santiago, director of the Restorative Exercise Institute in Ventura. Santiago says her study shows that Earth shoes help wearers turn fat to muscle. ‘Losing weight is great, but in the long term, lean body mass is much more important.’

Eyeport Vision Training System

This device, developed by Hawaii optometrist Jacob Liberman, supposedly exercises eyes to dramatically improve their ‘speed, accuracy, and efficiency.’ The system features a console that flashes patterns of blue and red lights. Users are instructed to follow a set of programs for 10 minutes a day, six days a week, for 12 weeks.

Hannu Laukkanen, a professor of optometry at Pacific University College of Optometry in Forest Grove, Ore., says the system is no vision cure-all, but it can give tired eyes an impressive boost. Laukkanen, who has no financial ties to the company, co-authored a study on Eyeport for a 2006 issue of the journal Optometry. Thirty-one students with normal vision used the system for 10 minutes a day, six days a week, for three weeks. All of them also went three weeks without using the system. Tests showed that the students’ eyes worked more efficiently after the training. Their eyes could quickly work together to focus on a target, an improvement that could help prevent eyestrain in office and classroom. Other established vision training programs take much longer to work, Laukkanen says. James Kundart, an assistant professor of optometry at Pacific University, says the system has potential to help people who see blurred or doubled words while reading, even with glasses.

Portable toothbrush sanitizers

The makers of Zapi, a portable toothbrush sanitizer that uses ultraviolet rays, say the product will kill ‘up to 99.9% of the bacteria that thrive on your toothbrush’ along with cold and flu viruses. The site also says that germs on a toothbrush are a major source of tooth decay.

Though UV rays can undoubtedly kill germs, toothbrush sanitizers are ‘unnecessary,’ says Mathew Messina, a Cleveland-area dentist and the consumer adviser for the American Dental Assn. According to Messina, the germs that live in the mouth like things moist and warm, so ‘simply allowing the toothbrush to dry out will kill the bacteria.’ If you happen to drop your toothbrush in the toilet -- or if you’re worried that your toothbrush might contain flu germs or other infectious troublemakers -- he suggests a cost-effective alternative to a UV device: a new toothbrush. ‘You can buy a large number of new toothbrushes for the cost of a sanitizer.’ No matter where you keep your brush, Messina recommends switching to a new one every three months.

Intentional Chocolate

Intentional Chocolate claims that it has found a way to infuse chocolate with prayers of ‘good intentions’ from Buddhist monks. The monks -- some of whom are said to have trained with the Dalai Lama -- pray directly over the chocolate.

According to the company website, prayers contain simple messages such as ‘be well’ and ‘thank you.’ The website sells nearly a half-pound of chocolate caramels for about $16. It also says ‘scientific testing has demonstrated that consumption of Intentional Chocolate has a positive effect on mood, energy, and overall sense of well-being.’

Studies show that chocolate really can improve mood -- proof that researchers are sometimes willing to study the obvious. But can prayers make chocolate better? Researchers studied this question too. A 2007 study of 62 chocolate eaters, reported in the alternative health journal Explore: The Journal of Science and Healing, found that subjects who ate the blessed treats from Intentional Chocolate had more energy and better moods after three days than subjects stuck with plain, old unblessed chocolate.

It would take far more than a small study in an obscure journal to convince Richard P. Sloan, a professor of behavioral medicine at Columbia University Medical Center in New York City. ‘There’s nothing in the way that we understand the universe that would explain how a group of people could influence the well-being of others by blessing their chocolate,’ he says. Besides, he adds, if chocolate could be blessed, it could also be cursed.

Think about that before you bite into your chocolate Santa.

-- Chris Woolston