Marketers have been using scientific buzz words to sell products for centuries, positioning themselves as "healthy", but it's now as prominent as ever.
Alberta University research chair Timothy Caulfield coined the term “scienceploitation” to describe how brands borrow language from emerging areas of science to market unproven products.
"Increasingly real science is used to justify the marketing or to justify a product even if the science isn't there because they know it gives us veneer of credibility.
"There's actually research that shows unfortunately, alas, the strategy works.
"They put a sciency term in there and that's what we remember, we remember the sciency term or the reference to science and not how that might actually connect to the product.
"There's harm in the financial lost; then extreme circumstances where you might get an unproven therapy that can do real harm."
Some buzzwords include: supporting gut health, skin detoxing, immunity support, hormone balance, energy enhancement.
"All these things sound impressive, sound sciency, they give a veneer of legitimacy to the product; but the real science isn't there," Caulfield said.
"It hurts the legitimate science because it kind of de-educates us; about the real research that's going on in the area.
"It fools all of us and it's a growing trend."
Caulfield said to be aware of this phenomenon and look for words that leverage science and see if relates to the product.
"They want the stamp of approval of science."
Caulfield said to try not to be fooled.
"If something worked well, if something had a miraculous property or could really cure us or have a miraculous impact from an anti-aging perspective, I promise we'd know."
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