The English government cracks down on alternative pet remedies
One cannot play charades forever. European veterinary groups have long been more skeptical about “alternative” veterinary practices than their American counterparts. For example, the European Board of Veterinary Specialties refuses to grant continuing education credits for non-scientific endeavors attempting to masquerade as a way to improve one’s clinical knowledge, and the practice of veterinary homeopathy is forbidden in Sweden. Now comes good...
Statins – The Cochrane Review
A recent Cochrane review of the use of cholesterol-lowering statin drugs in primary prevention has sparked some controversy. The controversy is not so much over what the data says, but in what conclusions to draw from the data. Statin drugs have been surrounded by controversy for a number of reasons. On the one hand they demonstrably lower cholesterol, and the evidence has...
One Hump or Two? Camel’s Milk as a New Alternative Medicine
I wasn’t really surprised to learn that camel milk is being promoted as a medicine. I long ago realized that the human power of belief is inexhaustible. The news did make me laugh, probably because camels are rather funny-looking animals, because I am easily amused, because it reminded me of some of my favorite camel jokes, and because it wouldn’t do any...
Molecular breast imaging (MBI): A promising technology oversold in a TED Talk?
Occasionally, there are topics that our readers want — nay, demand — that I cover. This next topic, it turns out, is one of them. It’s a link to a TED Talk. I’m guessing that most of our readers have either viewed (or at least heard of) TED talks. Typically, they are 20-minute talks, with few or no slides, by various experts...
Old drugs, new tricks
What does honey bee colony collapse disorder have to do with a potential new cancer treatment? They both relate – in a convoluted manner – to an old antibacterial drug called nitroxoline. True to my devotion as a natural product pharmacologist, I’m proud to say that new life would not have come to nitroxoline had not a fungal natural product called fumagillin...
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January 21, 2011
The risks of CAM: How much do we know?
CAM products and treatments are often sold as "all-benefit, no-risk". While we can highlight the lack of evidence for benefit, even harder can be assessing the risks of CAM.
For shame, Dr. Oz, for promoting Joseph Mercola on your show!
Dr. Oz goes deeper into the quackery well by hosting one of the most notorious quacks of all on his show, Dr. Joe Mercola.
Dr. Oz Embraces Joseph Mercola
At SBM we are highly in favor of physicians and scientists interfacing with the public, using mainstream and new media to promote the public understanding of science and to explain the modern practice of medicine. Now that Dr. Dean Edell has retired (unfortunately) from his radio show, it is probable that Dr. Mehmet Oz has the highest exposure of any media physician....
Why We Get Fat
Journalist Gary Taubes created a stir in 2007 with his impressive but daunting 640-page tome Good Calories, Bad Calories. Now he has written a shorter, more accessible book Why We Get Fat: And What to Do About It to take his message to a wider audience. His basic thesis is that: The calories-in/calories-out model is wrong. Carbohydrates are the cause of obesity...
Simply Raw: Making overcooked claims about raw food diets
This week, I plan on taking on something that’s been sitting near the bottom of my “to do list” for several weeks now. Indeed, readers have been sending me links since November or so to what will be the topic of this week’s post, but something somehow has always managed to push it aside each weekend when the time came to sit...