Meat and Weight Contol
A new study published in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition is reporting an association with eating meat and weight gain. This is a fairly robust epidemiological study, but at the same time is a good example of how such information is poorly reported in the media, leading to public confusion. The data is taken from the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer...
Glucosamine: The Unsinkable Rubber Duck
Glucosamine is widely used for osteoarthritis pain. It is not as impossible as homeopathy, but its rationale is improbable. As I explained in a previous post, Wallace Sampson, one of the other authors of this blog, has pointed out that the amount of glucosamine in the typical supplement dose is on the order of 1/1000th to 1/10,000th of the available glucosamine in...
NCCAM Director Dr. Josephine Briggs and the American Association of Naturopathic Physicians
On Friday, one of my partners in crime here at Science-Based Medicine, Dr. Kimball Atwood, wrote an excellent Open Letter to Dr. Josephine Briggs. Dr. Briggs, as most regular readers of SBM know, is the Director of the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM). As most regular readers of SBM also know, we at SBM have been quite critical of...
Open Letter to Dr. Josephine Briggs
Josephine P. Briggs, M.D. Director, National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine Dear Dr. Briggs, As you know, we’ve met twice. The first time was at the Yale “Integrative Medicine” Symposium in March. The second was in April, when Drs. Novella, Gorski and I met with you for an hour at the NCCAM in Bethesda. At the time I concluded that you...
Californians give a whoop – or I hope they do.
I’m certain by now many of our readers have come across news of the current pertussis, aka whooping cough, epidemic in California. Beginning this February and accelerating dramatically through May and June, California has so far seen a ~500% increase in pertussis cases compared to last year, and only two days ago announced the death of a sixth baby from infection. Public...
Taking On Homeopathy in Germany
Homeopathy is having a bad year. From a scientific point of view, it has had a couple of bad centuries. The progress of our scientific understanding of biology, chemistry, and physics has failed to confirm any of the core beliefs of homeopathy. Like does not cure like (this is a form of superstition known as sympathetic magic, with no basis in science)....
The China Study Revisited: New Analysis of Raw Data Doesn’t Support Vegetarian Ideology
Over a year ago I wrote about The China Study, a book by T. Colin Campbell and his son based on a huge epidemiologic study of diet and health done in China. The book’s major thesis is that we could prevent or cure most disease (heart disease, cancer, diabetes, autoimmune diseases, bone, kidney, eye and other diseases) by eating a whole foods...
The Texas Medical Board acts in the case of the Winkler County whistle blowing nurses
I can’t speak for anyone else who blogs here at Science-Based Medicine, but there’s one thing I like to emphasize to people who complain that we exist only to “bash ‘alternative’ medicine.” We don’t. We exist to champion medicine based on science against all manner of dubious practices. Part of that mandate involves understanding and accepting that science-based medicine is not perfect....
Terrible Anti-Vaccine Study, Terrible Reporting
One of my goals in writing for this blog is to educate the general public about how to evaluate a scientific study, specifically medical studies. New studies are being reported in the press all the time, and the analysis provided by your average journalist leaves much to be desired. Generally, they fail to put the study into context, often get the bottom...
Bought and Sold: Who Should Pay for CME
There are two topics about which I am a crank. The first, as you might have guessed, is alternative medicine. The other is pharmaceutical reps. Drug companies are somewhat schizophrenic. They have amazing scientists who invent drugs that treat an astounding array of diseases. Then, they take these drugs and turn them over to marketing, to be sold with all the enthusiasm...