How Health Nonsense Prevails - and What We Can Do About It
I spoke this week at the Henry Ford Hospital in West Bloomfield, Michigan - both at a community forum, and in grand rounds for the medical staff - on my usual topics: the fundamental truths and luminous potential of diet and lifestyle as our medicines of choice. A colleague and friend in the audience captured on video a brief snippet in which I explain how nonsense about health routinely impersonates gospel. Of course, these days, nonsense on virtually every topic impersonates gospel - we are, after all, in the post-truth era. But let’s stick with health.
- 10/10/2018
- 6
Lazarus Took Fish Oil
Tales of the prowess and health effects of fish oil (or, more generically, long-chain omega-3 fatty acids) have flopped around more over the years than…well, you know what. We have been told that fish oil is all but a panacea; and we have heard it is entirely useless. But this flipping and flopping have suddenly probed whole new depths of absurdity. Within literal days of one another, two headlines appeared on Medscape, arguably the premier information portal for health care professionals, reaching diametrically opposing conclusions.
- 28/09/2018
- 1
Modern Medicine and Maladies of Evidence
I won’t name any names, but I just read that a former science editor at a major, global publication has concluded that science advocacy is boring, and that she would now prefer to “slaughter the sacred cows” of conviction. Leaving aside the somewhat brutal image, and the potential innocence and genuine sacredness of the cows in question, we may simply note that acquiring conviction born of science generally takes years, even decades. Disparaging it just takes a news cycle, innuendo, and a bit of click-bait.
- 21/09/2018
- 2
Of Course Cancer Isn’t Random
Despite the study in one of the world’s most prestigious scientific journals, and the high-profile media coverage of it: no, cancer is absolutely NOT mostly random and a product of “bad luck.” It wasn’t true when these same investigators published very similar work generating very similar media hype and nonsense three years ago, and it isn’t true now.
- 18/09/2018
- 6
Big, Fat, New Meaning to “Red State”
I have quipped wryly for years that the relentless rise in obesity rates would eventually exhaust Crayola’s supply of colors. That’s because the CDC has long tracked the rising prevalence of obesity by state using color-coded maps of the U.S.
- 14/09/2018
- 1
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