Results for: supplement quality
Will Your Smartphone Become a Tricorder?
The Star Trek universe is a fairly optimistic vision of the future. It’s what we would like it to be – an adventure fueled by advanced technology. In the world of Star Trek technology makes life better and causes few problems. One of the most iconic examples of Star Trek technology is the medical tricorder. What doctor has not fantasized about walking...
The deceptive rebranding of aspects of science-based medicine as “alternative” by naturopaths continues apace
That naturopathy is a veritable cornucopia of quackery mixed with the odd sensible, science-based suggestion here and there is not in doubt, at least not to supporters of science-based medicine (SBM). However, what naturopaths are very good at doing is representing their pseudoscience as somehow being scientific and thus on par with conventional SBM. So how do they accomplish this? Certainly, it’s...
Is thyroid replacement a performance-enhancing drug?
Has one physician uncovered the secret to Olympic Gold medals? And is that secret as simple as undiagnosed low thyroid function? That’s the question posed in a recent Wall Street Journal column entitled U.S. Track’s Unconventional Physician. Like the story that Steven Novella described yesterday, this narrative describes the medical practice of Dr. Jeffrey S. Brown, who sees thyroid illness where others...
Dr. Who?
If the “Health Freedom” movement has its way, everyone in the United States will be able to practice medicine. It may be quack medicine but that doesn’t seem to bother them. Short of that, chiropractors, naturopaths and acupuncturists are aiming to reinvent themselves primary care providers and even physicians. As David Gorski pointed out, this will reduce medical doctors to just another iteration...
Cranberry, the alt-med zombie
If there’s a characteristic that’s common among proponents of alternative medicine, it’s tenacity. The willingness to stick with an idea, no matter the evidence, must give one a certain clarity. The naturalistic fallacy is often the foundation. Natural is good, synthetic is bad, no matter the evidence. In some cases, in spite of the evidence. How one deals with contradictory evidence is...
The “no compassion” gambit
As usual, I was impressed with Mark Crislip’s post on Friday in which he discussed the boundaries between science-based medicine and what we sometimes refer to as woo or what Mark often refers to as sCAM. It got me to thinking a bit, which is always a dangerous thing, particularly when such thinking leads to my writing something for my not-so-super-secret other...
Boundaries
Vacation then taxes have consumed my focus the last two weeks, and I have had little time to devote to issues of infectious diseases, much less SBM, so I will instead meander around a more philosophical terrain. I feel guilty when I do not have a substantive, data driven post evaluating a paper or essay in detail, but some weeks there just...
AAFP CME Program Succumbs to “Integrative Medicine”
For many years I have been using Continuing Medical Education (CME) programs offered by the American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP). The FP Essentials program consists of a monthly monograph with a post-test that can be submitted electronically for 5 hours of CME credit. Over a 9-year cycle, a complete family medicine curriculum is covered to prepare participants for the re-certification board...
Behold the spin! What a new survey of placebo prescribing really tells us
One of the recurring topics here at SBM is the idea of the placebo: What it is, what it isn’t, and how it complicates our evaluation of the scientific evidence. One my earliest lessons after I started following this blog (I was a reader long before I was a writer) was that I didn’t understand placebos well enough to even describe them...
At Your Own Risk
In 2011, Americans spent some $30 billion on dietary supplements. Yet, except for the industry itself and a few politicians and “health freedom” advocates, you’d be hard pressed to find anyone (who’s given it some thought) of the opinion that dietary supplement regulation is adequate. Three recent reports, two from the government and one from a newspaper, demonstrate why this near-universal conclusion...