Post Tagged with: "evidence based medicine"

Most new cancer drugs won’t let you live longer or improve your quality of life

5 by / on 13 Oct 2017, / in cancer

Cancer drugs can come with nasty side-effects, we know that, but they are worth taking because they have been properly scientifically tested and found to help patients live longer and have a better quality of life. But the latest research shows that the reality is not so comforting. Over half of new drugs are being prescribed to patients with little or no evidence they do any good at all. Here’s how it works.

How the low-fat high-carb dogma fell apart

27 by / on 12 Dec 2016, / in low carb diet

The Brexit effect – ideological conflicts, bitter disputes over facts, distrust of experts, trolling abuse on twitter– seems an apt description of what has been happening recently in the supposedly evidence-based world of nutrition.

Low carb revolt: start of a brave new medical future?

40 by / on 6 Jun 2016, / in low carb diet

Last week the front page of The Times carried a story that was an opening shot in a revolution. I’m sure that the editors didn’t intend it as that and that the readers didn’t see it that way either. It was a story about shifting from the long recommended low fat diet to one that cut back on carbohydrates instead. Standard fare for the cuddly lifestyle pages, hardly material for social upheaval.

Meet a doctor who thinks for herself and wants you to as well

21 by / on 29 Apr 2016, / in evidence based medicine

The complicated and confusing debate about statins – are they worth taking or not; are they safe or do they have nasty side effect? – has suddenly plunged into anarchic and uncharted territory by the claims of a new rival drug.

Utopia: A realistic blueprint for an honest drug industry

4 by / on 20 Oct 2015, / in evidence based medicine

Generally we don’t trust utopias. If they don’t remain fantasies but emerge into the real world, we expect them either to rapidly descent into rigid authoritarian hells or to disintegrate into factions and unproductive chaos.

Policy on Alzheimer’s: sure we want a cure, just so long as it’s not cheap

18 by / on 6 Aug 2015, / in dementia

Do you believe there is a new drug for Alzheimer’s just over the horizon? That there is no truth in the popular idea that B vitamins might cut your risk of getting this dreadful disease?
Well you are wrong on both counts but it’s not your fault, you’ve quite reasonably fallen for some very sophisticated marketing. Let me explain.

Statin cheerleader Sir Rory Collins plans to examine himself. It could prove painful

32 by / on 22 Jul 2015, / in statins

Professor Sir Rory Collins, the austere director of the institute in Oxford that produce much of the evidence supporting the increasing use of cholesterol –lowering statins, is in hot water once more. Last week he declared that he intended to investigate himself.

Pioneering clinic points to new directions in cancer treatment

9 by / on 9 Jun 2015, / in cancer

As anyone who is involved with cancer knows, you have two options. Follow the standard, scientifically validated route – variations on surgery, drugs and radiotherapy – supported by proper clinical trials or venture into the unapproved, unlicensed territory of complementary medicine frequently described as quackery.

Your indispensable guide through the health advice jungle

5 by / on 7 May 2015, / in evidence based medicine

We are being doctored to death. GPs’ surgeries and public health bodies routinely warn of hazards lurking all around us. They tell us sunshine is bad. Drinking alcohol is bad. Cholesterol is bad. Saturated fat is bad. Being overweight is bad.

Lazy and irrelevant research used to smear vitamins as dangerous. Not again!

8 by / on 28 Apr 2015, / in vitamins

Yet another round of media stories this week picking up on an “expert’s” claim that vitamins are ineffective and dangerous. They are the medical equivalent of blaming immigrants or single mothers for various social ills; scare stories that spin the data and draw totally unjustified conclusions.

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