COMMERCIALISM AND THE TRUTH
“First casualty of commercialism is the truth.”
My screen time and yours are being repeatedly invaded and polluted with unproven claims of commercialism. We are annoyed, disturbed and intellectually insulted. We all know that commercials are unreliable and deceptive. Commercials for the sake of more sales and profits, sacrifice the truthwithout any concerns.
These continuous daily deceptions sometimes backfire and we hate what they offer. But usually commercialism has long term, ill effects on our psychology, behaviors and personality. After hearing these lies, day after day for a long time, we have become brain washed and start to believe in them.The difference between the truth, deception and lies becomes blurred, in our mind and we start to lie too. We no longer appreciate the differences between the truth, deception and lies and, their moral and ethical importance. The truth is no longer matters. This mental state reflects in our personality, our relationships, our work and our political preferences.
One wonders if commercialism and advertisements have such bad effects on us, why aren’t there strict laws, rules and regulation about them?
Let’s take one example and talk about the dietary supplement industry. This is a huge industry. It generates billions of dollars in sales every year through deceptive advertisements. There is never any scientific evidence behind their claims.
Modern medicine has prolonged our life expectancy. We old folks worry the most about our cognitive decline and fear of dementia. We are gullible. We will easily believe and take anything to prevent our mental decline. That is why just the brain health benefit dietary supplement industry alonegenerates $3.2 billion in sales every year just in the USA.
Since dietary supplements are not considered drugs, they aren’t strictly regulated by the government. Therefore, dietary supplement companies are free to claim anything, as long as their products are not dangerous and harming the public.
Even though there are no scientifically proven dietary supplements that prevent cognitive decline, dementia and Alzheimer’s, many supplements such as Ginkgo biloba, coenzyme Q 10, multiple vitamins, caprylic acid, coconut oil, coral calcium, green tea, jellyfish ingredient and 58 other dietary supplements are promoted for this purpose and for brain health.
They are all useless, unnecessary, possibly hazardous and very costly dietary supplements. You can’t separate physiologic functions of human body as different groups of health, like brain health, heart health or digestive health. The human’s body systems work all together and in harmony. Nothing is better for human health than a healthy diet, healthy living, physical and mental activities. We do not need supplements unless our diet is not healthy, we have malabsorption or we are deficient of certain vitamins and minerals.
