By Craig Maltby, Guest Blogger

CNN launched its revamped health site this week: CNNHealth.com. Dr. Sanjay Gupta, the popular CNN health reporter, published his first blog entry on the new site. He talked about the one supplement he takes daily -- fish oil -- then proceeded to instruct his audience that most supplements have no science behind them and people should not rely on them. At the same time today, news was released about a study showing more kids are taking nutritional supplements. The most popular one is fish oil. Yet, the AP story on the study had this quote: "The reality is none of these things work, including some of the more popular ones. They're placebos," said Wallace Sampson (an emeritus clinical professor of medicine at Stanford University) who is a founding editor of the Scientific Review of Alternative Medicine. Another health luminary in the Washington Post said homeopathy is "one step above fraud."

I left my comment on Dr. Gupta's blog:

"The professional health community, much like the professional investment community, is as confused and widely split as ever about their craft. Despite research reports and analysis coming out the wazu about financial markets, indicators and performance metrics, virtually no one, save for a few lone wolves shunned at every turn, predicted our global meltdown. And no one has a clue about how to effectively fix it.

"Health care experts berate us not to trust or use supplements because clinical evidence is non-existent. Yet, every day we read new papers published by many of the great academic centers touting new findings about various nutrients and supplements. For every clinician at Harvard who says supplements are bogus, there?s another researcher at Berkeley or Tufts who has significant new findings about efficacy of a certain nutritional compound. What?s the poor consumer to believe? I guess it goes to show medicine and health is just like any other discipline. There is no uniform voice or irrefutable doctrine. There is only educated guessing. If I guess that a supplement may deliver a benefit I desire and I believe it?s safe and of proper quality, I?m gonna try it."