Ben Goldacre’s Rise of the Lifestyle Nutritionists on Radio 4 Won a Norwich Union Medical Journalism Award

HolfordWatch enjoyed Dr Ben Goldacre and Rami Tzabar’s 2-parter on The Rise of the Lifestyle Nutritionists on Radio 4 (see update for MP3 links). We thought that it was an interesting exploration of the scientific rhetoric that is intended to lend respectability to nutritionism, and its adherents. Visiting Professor Patrick Holford was included as a notable example of a self-styled nutritionists who distorts research and reduces it to what was characterised as ‘a low and somewhat tabloid-y level of discourse’ with a hefty dose of promotion for supplements. We’ve just learned that it won the Norwich Union Healthcare Medical Journalism Award for National Radio, 2008.