Typically, I would write an article about the silliness that is the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) but this time, I’ll just link to an excellent comment on the subject by Pat Sullivan on his blog. I couldn’t have explained the problems with the study they published any better than Pat did. Click here to go and read his blog.
Category Archives: Medical Research
Glucosamine Study – Another Sham Article by NEJM
For three weeks in a row, the pharmaceutical industry has trotted out their loyal horses, and printed articles in the New England Journal of Medicine on how poorly nutritional and herbal supplements worked as opposed to placebos and their stellar medications. The news media picks up exactly what the companies want them to report on, not the entire truth.
Week after week, flawed studies are paraded out, written by people with vested interests (paid shills) for the pharmaceutical industry who is seeing their profits erode because of the dangerous side effects of the medications they tout as life savers.
In this particular study, the big news supposedly was that glucosamine and chondroitin sulfate did little better than placebo in controlling pain in arthritic joints but boy did Celebrex work (guess who funded the authors?). In actuality, in severe cases, the nutritional supplement was superior but no one seems to focus on that.
The flaws in the study include a very high drop out rate (20%), small sample population and a very high placebo effect. Placebo’s in this trial were incredibly effective, way beyond what is found in almost all other placebo controlled studies. All in all, this paper wouldn’t have seen the light of day in a respectable journal unless it is another in a series of articles that fit an agenda perpetrated by the editorial staff of the New England Journal of Medicine.
How pathetic.
Plague Time – The New Germ Theory of Disease
Another fabulous book that should be on every health care practitioners bookshelf and should be read by anyone interested in the causation of disease. It is a must read that will open your eyes about the relationship between infection and diseases like schizophrenia, coronary heart disease, cancer, and much more. Dr. Paul Ewald writes in an easy to understand and flowing manner which makes the read enjoyable. Click on the book to go to Amazon.com and pick up a copy.
Improvements seen using anti-fungal drugs. Is it really because of the yeast?
One common thread I read about in many newsgroups relating to autism is the use of antifungal drugs like Nystatin and Flagyl to treat this common neurological disorder. There is a lab that claims to have a series of markers that prove that many autistic children have yeast (that nonsense will be the subject of another blog later this month) and it is a major part of their disease. They go on to show that they have many case studies from parents showing remarkable recoveries because of the use of antifungal therapy. This they go on to pontificate, is proof positive that they are right. Sorry, but that isn’t proof as there may be a stronger alternative reason.
One of the things that antifungal drugs may do is they may downregulate Phase I detoxification which is typically high in autistic children. The importance of this? If a child is toxic from solvents, heavy metals or other environmental insults, upregulated Phase I (increased) may create more neurotoxic byproducts than the Phase II detoxification system can handle. When we give the child an antifungal and they do better are we really just killing yeast or are we releaving the pressure caused by the neurotoxins floating around their system?
Well then, if we are lowering the Phase I detoxification pathway by using antifungals, isn’t this good regardless of why? Absolutely not. By abusing these kind of drugs we increase the likelihood of creating a new drug resistant fungus that may cause incalcuable long term damage to the child. Upregulating Phase II detoxification also known as conjugation reactions, is a better, safer and more productive choice.
Another poor study from the NEJM
An article in the recent issue of The New England Journal of Medicine (February 9, 2006 Vol. 354, No. 6) is a prime example of an anti-herbal, anti-nutritional attitude exhibited by the editors. They included a study titled “Saw Palmetto for Benign Prostatic Hyperplasia” in which the authors claim “…saw pametto did not improve symptoms or objective measures of benign prostatic hyperplasia.” This article is fraught with so many errors that it should make everyone wonder wheather the editors have a nefarious motive to discredit herbal medicine.
I know, its pretty strong language, but when you include a study of such poor quality that would not be published if it was about a drug, you can be pretty sure that the people who accepted this study for publication are anti-herbal.
First off, the dosage, as usual, was below what any naturopath would recomend to their patient. Second, the authors never verified that what they were giving to the study members was really the active ingredient in saw palmetto. Three of the authors (Drs. Kane, Shinohara and Avins) are also all well-paid consultants and/or are paid speaking fees by pharmaceutical companies that make drugs used to treat BPH. Conflict of interest screams quite loudly in my ears.
They came up with some pretty lame explanations for why this study seems to contradict 30 other studies that did find benefits to saw palmetto supplementation.
All in all, it is pretty sad that what the media reports is one negative study and not the 30 other positive ones. Drug company advertising money?