Can a simple mouth rinse help Muslims win Olympic gold?

Lester Sawicki is a dentist from Austin, who specialises mainly in spamming Amazon affiliate links across Blogger, Digg, Twitter, and generally whatever other site he can find a ‘submit’ button on. It’s hard to tell if his blog is intended as a real blog that he simply happens to have plastered with more adverts than a multi-bus pileup in Times Square during the Superbowl, or if he just shoves content there from time to time to give Google that impression, but I strongly suspect it’s the latter. It took me so long to find the bit about Muslim athletes that I started to suspect the tweet I used as the title of this post was generated by something like the Daily Mail-o-Matic. (In fact, it’s an energy-packed mouthrinse for use during the Ramadan fast.) He also writes sells ridiculous books with names like Yin Ain’t Yang: the ancient way to better health that only a Texan could come up with.

This came to my attention, anyway, because said ridiculous book was recently highlighted in the British Dental Journal, which is part of the Nature publishing group and therefore should know better. Here is the news story in its entirety. The first paragraph is a textbook case of “technically true” and it goes downhill from there.

A book written by a dentist in Austin, Texas reveals how the teeth, tongue and jaws are powerful tools that can unlock 'vital energy that may improve overall health, fitness and longevity'. According to Dr Lester Sawicki, author of Yin ain't yang, the ancient way to better health, modern science is beginning to understand ancient wisdom about the link between healthy teeth, gums and jaw function and boosting general fitness, health, and longevity. New evidence proves that teeth are joined to vital organs by way of energy channels and when the teeth, tongue and jaws are included in a regular meditative exercise routine you can access and refine the body's 'chakras' to promote a long, healthy, strong existence. Dr Sawicki believes that meditative exercise using your teeth, body, and mind can relieve stress, improve cardiovascular function and flexibility, increase bone density, balance hormones, circulate lymph, detoxify organs, increase brain function and induce happiness. The book offers a series of energy-building visualisations and physical exercises aimed at strengthening and aligning the 'chi centre' of the oral cavity with the 'power centres' of the body.

This was in their “news” section, which accepts press releases, so I can only assume he did that. Which is a bit sad - I expect this sort of thing from tabloids, I’m a bit disappointed when the Guardian do it, and now here it is in a scientific journal, listed as “news”. And the second sentence in the second paragraph is missing the phrase “Dr Sawicki believes”.

It’s just a bit sad when you’re jumping through hoops trying to get a paper through someone’s review system, if they’re publishing just any old shit in the news and comment sections.