Category: Science and Medicine

NIH funds training in behavioral intervention to slow progression of cancer by improving the immune system

Editor’s note: Because of Dr. Gorski’s appearance at CSICon over the weekend, he will be taking this Monday off. Fortunately, Dr. Coyne will more than ably substitute. Enjoy!     NIH is funding free training in the delivery of the Cancer to Health (C2H) intervention package, billed as “the first evidence-based behavioral intervention designed to patients newly diagnosed with cancer that is...

/ October 29, 2012

More Boosting the Immune System

Can you boost your immune system? Sure, with a vaccine. That's about it.

/ October 19, 2012

Don’t call CAM “cost-effective” unless it’s actually effective

Before deciding CAM is cost-effective, it is important to determine if is just effective. That low bar has not been surmounted.

/ October 11, 2012

Clinical Practice Guidelines: Cholesterol Tests for Children?

The American Academy of Family Physicians journal American Family Physician (AFP) has a feature called Journal Club that I’ve mentioned before.  Three physicians examine a published article, critique it, discuss whether to believe it or not, and put it into perspective. In the September 15 issue  the journal club analyzed an article that critiqued the process for developing clinical practice guidelines. It discussed...

/ October 9, 2012

I Never Meta Analysis I Really Like

David Gorski recently pointed out that Science Based Medicine is going on five years. Amazing. That there would be so much to write about day after day comes as a surprise to me. Somehow I vaguely thought that ‘controversies’ would be resolved. Pick a SCAM, contrast the SCAM with reality as best we understand it, and, once the SCAM was found wanting,...

/ October 5, 2012

Patients Still Respect Evidence

A recent survey about patient attitudes and desires with regard to health care demonstrate that respect for scientific evidence is still the dominant factor in preferring treatments. (Full study) This is good news, although the numbers could be better. Researchers asked subjects what factors were important in determining which treatments they would prefer, the scientific evidence, the experience of the clinician, or...

/ October 3, 2012

Iron supplements for fatigue

How are you feeling today? Tired? Is it your active lifestyle wearing you down? Or is it a sign of something more serious? Complaints about fatigue seem ubiquitous. Perhaps it’s a product of a culture with little downtime. Yet from a medical perspective, fatigue can’t be dismissed with a simple instruction to “get more sleep”. When approached in the pharmacy, I take...

/ September 27, 2012

XMRV Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Update

Sometimes science works the way it’s supposed to. Scientists make hypotheses, test them by gathering preliminary evidence, and then argue about the inevitable conflicting results. Eventually better and better evidence is gathered until a consensus is achieved. Actually, I think that is how science usually works, it’s just that most questions in science are narrow and technical and don’t command media or...

/ September 26, 2012

Protect Yourself

Every year influenza makes the rounds, and every year people refuse to get vaccinated for very bad reasons. Don't be a Dumb Ass - get vaccinated.

/ September 21, 2012

Physicians and “CAM”

In the last 20 or so years, the popularity of so-called “complementary and alternative medicine” began to lure physicians (M.D.s and D.O.s) into employing CAM treatments, or what is now rebranded as “integrative medicine.” Of course, CAM use by a physician necessarily requires some deviation from the “conventional” standard of care. Because deviation from the standard of care can be grounds for discipline by the...

/ September 20, 2012