Just because a scientific paper sounds authoritative, it doesn’t mean we should always take what’s published in journals as gospel. For example, here’s what scientists might really mean when they pontificate:
“It has long been known” . . . [I didn’t look up the original reference]
“A definite trend is evident” . . . [These data are practically meaningless]
“Of great theoretical and practical importance” . . . [Interesting to me] Continue reading
When I was hospitalized after my heart attack, cardiologists immediately prescribed Lipitor, a statin drug which happens to be the biggest-selling drug on earth, made by Pfizer, which happens to be the biggest drug company on earth. My LDL (bad) cholesterol numbers went from 4.1 while still in the Coronary Care Unit down to 1.9 a few short weeks later.
(These are Canadian readings, by the way: to convert from Canadian to American readings, just multiply by 40). That’s quite a spectacular result for lowering one’s LDL cholesterol levels – but the question remains: do I really need to take this powerful cholesterol drug every day for the rest of my life?
Dr. Mark Ebell, a professor at the University of Georgia and deputy editor of the journal American Family Physician, says:
“High-risk groups have a lot to gain. But patients at low risk benefit very little if at all. We end up over-treating a lot of patients.”
You know, of course, about the placebo effect, in which patients report positive results from taking a mere sugar pill. Turns out there is also something called a nocebo effect, too. This is defined as a negative placebo effect. It happens, for example, when patients take medications and actually experience adverse side effects unrelated to any specific pharmacological action of the drug. The nocebo effect is associated with a person’s prior expectations of adverse effects from the treatment. In other words, if we expect a treatment to hurt us, cause harm, or make us feel sick – it likely will.
The U.K.’s bright and brainy Dr. Ben Goldacre of Bad Science describes this phenomenon in this short but entertaining presentation from last year’s irreverent Nerdstock tour (“Nine Lessons and Carols for Godless People). Continue reading
Here we go again, says health journalism watchdog Gary Schwitzer of Health News Review, citing headlines that blare claims like “Coffee may reduce stroke risk!”
These media headlines introduced findings from a new study in which women who drank more than a cup of coffee a day had a 22% to 25% lower risk of stroke than those who drank less, according to Swedish researchers.
Their research was published in Stroke: Journal of the American Heart Association. Stroke is the third leading cause of death in North America, behind heart disease and cancer.
But Gary Schwitzer explains that although this was a big study (over 34,000 women ages 49-83, followed for an average of 10 years), it was only an observational study that can’t prove cause and effect. Continue reading
Join science broadcaster Daniel Keogh (aka Australia’s Professor Funk and host of the ABC series The Stupid Species: Why Everyone – Except You – Is An Idiot) as he leads us on this short and enlightening exploration of the many strange effects of placebos (and nocebos). Watch his 3-minute video. See also: Dr. Ben Goldacre’s Rapid-Fire Story of the ‘Nocebo Effect’
With a university degree in biology, young David landed a new job with a medical communications company. His first writing assignment was to produce scientific abstracts for studies of a newly approved antibiotic. Alas, the drug had a major weakness: it didn’t work on pneumococcus, a common bacterium. But this wasn’t something the drug’s manufacturer (David’s client) wanted doctors to know.
So David and his fellow medical writers were ordered to just avoid writing about it. Continue reading
The Ethical Nag 