When Cancer Should Not Be Called Cancer. Prostate Cancer
Renaming the lowest-risk prostate cancer would cut down on overly aggressive treatment, some doctors say First, Do No Harm. This is often a difficult concept for patients to understand. The drumbeat is always for more and more testing, and earlier and earlier diagnosis. The fact remains, however, that too much information can be as…
Read MoreWho Wants To Live Forever
This article has some of the latest longevity developments for those interested. I wanted to highlight this section on Alzheimer’s research and the role of amyloid. We’ve discussed this before in the blog , and the huge controversy about the approval of the drug Aduhelm in newsletters. This article discusses a new drug that targets…
Read MorePhenylephrine No Better Than Placebo
FDA advisory panel’s declaration paves way for removal of dozens of medicines in the U.S. Your favorite cold medicine for a stuffy nose may soon be unavailable. An advisory panel to the Food and Drug Administration declared Tuesday that an ingredient in widely used oral decongestants doesn’t work, setting the stage for dozens of products…
Read MoreThe Research Scandal at Stanford Is More Common Than You Think
“This is a major issue, one that extends well beyond one man and his career. Absent public scrutiny, journals have been consistently slow to act on allegations of research falsification. In a field dependent on good faith cooperation, in which each contribution necessarily builds on the science that came before it, the consequences can compound…
Read MoreOpiates No Good For Back and Neck Pain
Opiates No Good For Back and Neck PainDo No Harm!!! New study from the Lancet shows that opiates are no better than placebo for low back and neck pain. My patients know that I’ve never understood the reliance on opioids for these problems since the risk is high and they do nothing to address the…
Read MoreThey Lost Their Legs. Doctors and Health Care Giants Profited.
The perverse incentives that arise in our medical system can have horrible consequences. First do no harm. Or another hazard, Science Says No, Doctor Says Yes.As the article says. But more than a decade of medical research has shown that the vast majority of people with peripheral artery disease have mild or no symptoms and…
Read MorePodcast ZDoggMd and Rita Redberg: When Less is More
Readers of my blog might know that I have been so impressed with Rita Redberg, MD from UCSF. She has the courage to stand up to industry pressure and tell the truth about various very important topics. Some of these are the use of statins, overtesting for disease, the use of bisphosponates for bone density. …
Read MoreMedical Device Makers Spend Millions to loosen Regulations
This is an older article and back up for some of the writing I’m doing. It’s a good summary of the pressures to take these devices to market.
Read MoreScience behind Acupuncture: Andrew Huberman Podcast with Rick Rubin
Please click on my photo for a short video explaining the importance of the subject of this blog post. thanks!! The reason that I’m writing a book about the science behind acupuncture, the validity of acupuncture is that it doesn’t seem that people really understand how much science there really is. But, not only that,…
Read MoreFDA to take tougher line on fast tracked drugs
This is a welcome development! The FDA has had a priority of releasing drugs and medical devices on an unsuspecting public before they’ve really been tested thoroughly. Drug companies pay the FDA, and it’s a big source of their funding. They’re well aware that once a drug is released they’re hard to pull them back…
Read More