Sequel Thread To Holistic Doctors, and medicine

Very informative, thank you.I don't suppose there is any resource available where the average person could check out this issue concerning vitamins.This is one issue that is used as a selling point for those pushing their "natural" vitamins. They tell people to watch for a specific type or the L- etc. to identify a synthetic. I can't remember the various warnings or if L- was one of them, but the implication is there.Thanks again for the info, gives me something to think about.

The same is true of alternative medicine, but there are a couple of differences. The drugs promoted by alternative medicine are:

1. Often grown rather than manufactured, which isn't a problem.
   ​
2. Not approved by the FDA and so have not gone through a rigorous period of testing and clinical trials, which is very expensive and can take as long as 10 years.

The example of St. John's wort for depression is illustrative. It has been the subject of clinical trials, it's efficacy has been demonstrated, but it hasn't been subjected to FDA testing that would also identify potential side effects and harmful effects, recommended dosages, and so forth. This kind of information has instead been developed anecdotally if at all, and the sources of the product are highly variable.One of PurpleDawn's concerns about mainstream drugs was that we often don't know the exact mechanisms by which they work, but this is just as true of alternative drugs, it is certainly the case with St. John's wort, and it is also true of aspirin. We can discuss this again, but the answer will be the same. Human foibles cannot be avoided, and last time I checked, it isn't just big pharma that is run by humans. If there are flaws in the way big pharma approaches the drug development and approval process, a process largely defined by the FDA, then the solution is to develop remedies for these flaws, not to abandon scientific methodologies in favor of anecdotal approaches. It would be just as wrongheaded to advocate a return to horse-and-buggies because of automobile fatalities. These issues are equally valid for alternative medicine, only the answers are nowhere near as satisfactory. If you can't trust FDA sanctioned scientific studies, then you certainly can't trust anecdotal reports. Especially by self-selected groups who gather at Internet sites. As I said the last time you cited this book, when you find a book titled The Truth about the Scientific Method: How Scientists Deceive Us and What To Do About It, then you let us know. If the drug companies are truly lying, then the solution is to address that problem, not abandon scientific methods. You're using your acceptance of the demonization of big pharma to justify a return to methods from the stone age of science.You see, the issue isn't how bad big pharma is. In any given year news about the misbehavior of large companies across all industries hits the air waves many times. When big pharma does something wrong I would share your concern. But just as you don't go calling for abandonment of automobiles when General Motors has a recall, you don't abandon mainstream medicine just because of some misbehavior by big pharma.Whether or not big pharma is the evil entity you seem to think, and I doubt they are worse than any other big industry, and they're certainly highly regulated in comparison to most industries, you are clearly wrong to advocate abandoning modern clinical methods in favor of anecdote.--PercyEdited by Percy, : Grammar.

Interesting.You suggest that studies can be flawed and then you cite studies. There isn't a "less bioactive form" of vitamin C.The L form is bioactive.The D form is not bioactive at all. O! Those evil scientists and their Worldwide Conspiracy to suppress research! Yes there are. As I said previously, research is done on vitamins.However, research has shown that megadose "treatment" doesn't work.Let's take a look at your "evidence".Study No. 1: You didn't read the paper, did you?From the conclusion: Study No. 2: There is no control group in this study, nor was it double blinded.Study No. 3: My University doesn't have a subscription to the Puerto Rico Health Sciences Journal, so I can't evaluate the paper. You haven't read any of these papers, have you? Bullshit. Dr. Pauling published in reputable journals until his death in 1994. Vitamin C research is published all the time. Pubmed, remember?

I haven't any problem whatsoever trashing "journals" like Complementary Therapies in Medicine.Anyone with a laptop can publish a "journal". I can only show laymen like Lindalou that the vitamin C studies she cites are fatally flawed.If a trial isn't placebo-controlled or double-blinded, then it's worthless.Furthermore, Lindalou has exercised the same "cherrypicking" when she rejects studies that administered vitamin C orally.And I haven't got a problem with that.It's a valid observation.IV vitamin C and oral vitamin C have different effects on the serum levels of vitamin C.However, Lindalou has yet to present an IV vitamin C study that is double-blinded and placebo-controlled.

Nope. None of these studies was properly designed.All 3 are methodologically weak. Fatally flawed, if you will.Several literature reviews re:homeopathy have been done."Evidence of Clinical Efficacy of Homeopathy: A Meta-Analysis of Clinical Trials." European Journal of Clinical Pharmacology. 2000. 56(1):27-33. "The Methodological Quality of Randomized Controlled Trials of Homeopathy, Herbal Medicines and Acupuncture." International Journal of Epidemiology. 2001. 30(3):526-31. "Evidence of Clinical Efficacy of Homeopathy: A Meta-Analysis of Clinical Trials." European Journal of Clinical Pharmacology. 2000. 56(1):27-33. "Clinical Trials of Homeopathy." British Medical Journal. 1991. 302(6782):316-23. Thing is, PD, not one properly designed study has been offered as evidence.

The original paper:Supplemental ascorbate in the supportive treatment of cancer: reevaluation of prolongation of survival times in terminal human cancer.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1978 Sep;75(9):4538-42. We didn't randomize the study, but it's OK?There's no standardization, no good matching of controls by age, stage, and performance status. The results of this study are essentially meaningless.In addition, there's strong evidence that Dr. Cameron jerry-rigged the selection of his "untreatable" patients.If the two groups (the control group and the vitamin C group) were comparable, the average time from the initial diagnosis to "untreatable" status should be similar for both groups.But they were not.More than 20% of the patients in the control group had died within a few days of being labeled untreatable, whereas none of Cameron's patients had died.This suggests that Cameron's patients had had less advanced disease when they were labeled untreatable.And remember this cite?Intravenously administered vitamin C as cancer therapy: three cases
CMAJ ” March 28, 2006; 174 (7)The first patient received a number of other "alternative therapies," including thymus protein extract, N-acetylcysteine, niacinamide, and whole thyroid extract. In addition, renal cell carcinoma is a tumor type that is one of the more common tumor types to be reported to undergo unexplained spontaneous remissions.The second patient had a primary bladder tumor with multiple satellite tumors. These were all resected with apparently clear margins transurethrally using a cystoscope. After surgery, this patient chose to use several "alternative" treatments, among them vitamin C.The third patient agreed to radiation therapy but refused chemotherapy, opting instead for intravenous vitamin C. She, too, used a variety of other alternative therapies, including beta-carotene, bioflavonoids, chondroitin sulfate, coenzyme Q10, dehydroepiandrosterone, a multiple vitamin supplement, N-acetylcysteine, a botanical supplement, and bismuth tablets.Besides the confounding factor of using multiple alternative therapies, the patient reported only had a Stage I diffuse B cell lymphoma. Radiation therapy alone used to be a common treatment for such tumors and is well known to be able to produce long term survival in early stage lymphoma.In all 3 cases, the conventional therapies -- surgery, radiation, chemo -- are ignored.In all 3 cases, a slew of quackery was tried after conventional treatment.And you want to claim that vitamin C did the trick?

quote:

---

Nope. None of these studies was properly designed.

​

All 3 are methodologically weak. Fatally flawed, if you will.

---

And you are who?
Again you give me nothing, not even links.How are those specific studies weak?
Why are they in PubMed, which you recommended, if they are flawed?Since your reviews are dated 1991, 2000, and 2001; I can assume they aren't dealing specifically with the studies I provided.
The studies I provided are dated 2005, 2006, and 2007.Again, average me will reject your reviews because they are older than the dates on the studies.Also when I am forced to search on my own and find your source, I find additional information."The Methodological Quality of Randomized Controlled Trials of Homeopathy, Herbal Medicines and Acupuncture." International Journal of Epidemiology. 2001. 30(3):526-31.Your quote which comes from the findings: Here's the description: So besides being old, it has nothing to do with the studies I provided.Again using your source, I notice that there are clinical trials listed for 2003-2007.One of the studies I provided was on arnica concerning postoperative swelling of knee surgery. Your source has a listing for a study concerning arnica dealing with tonsillectomies.Description: Findings: Do you understand yet, that by not providing links and quoting just the findings of old reviews as though they pertain to all of homeopathy, causes you to lose credibility.In your attempt to show that everything is "bunk", you overlooked the review of one of the studies I provided.Brinkhaus B., Wilkens J., Ludtke R., Hunger J., Witt C., Willich S. Homeopathic arnica therapy in patients receiving knee surgery: results of three randomised double-blind trials. Complement Ther Med. 2006 Dec;14(4):237-46. Epub 2006 Oct 13.Description: Finding: So as an average person, what I see is someone more concerned with winning an argument than giving us useful information or helping us to clearly understand so we can make a rational decision.This is usually when we smile and excuse ourselves to get some punch.

Good question!Your post very effectively makes the point I was trying to make to Molbiogirl. Most people are surprised to find out just how messy a business science really is, and you can find papers out there that span a wide variety of conclusions on the same topic. But as to the quality of those papers? Well, judging quality takes familiarity with both the subject area and with the proper protocols for conducting double-blind placebo-based trials.Molbiogirl mentioned some factors that a low-quality study might not take into account, such as withdrawals. A withdrawal is a form of self-selection, something one can't have in a truly valid study, but there are statistical approaches to adjusting for withdrawals. A study that doesn't mention withdrawals might be considered suspect.So, incredible as it might seem, yes, someone can publish a low quality paper in a medical journal. It doesn't take a whole lot of effort to just record information about patients' course of treatment who agree to be part of the protocol and write it up. Won't get you published in the New England Journal of Medicine (very prestigious, very particular, very demanding), but it might well get you published. And you can shop your paper around to a series of journals of descending quality until someone bites. Not everyone in medicine is the equivalent of an Einstein. As in all other fields, the vast majority are somewhere in the vicinity of average.--Percy

PubMed makes no guarantee of a study's design.The page you’re looking for isn’t available. | National Institutes of Health (NIH) Studies are regularly torn to shreds by colleagues after they've been published. I never said they had anything to do with the particular studies you cited.I looked at those 3 studies myself. Have you read them?I offered the reviews as evidence that previous studies had failed to meet scientific standards. I'm not particularly concerned with my standing in your eyes, purple. From the study:Homeopathic arnica therapy in patients receiving knee surgery: results of three randomised double-blind trials. Complement Ther Med. 2006 Dec;14(4):237-46. From an article discussing randomization:Randomized Controlled Trials
AJR 2004; 183:1539-1544 From the study: Strike one. Strike two.You'll note that the authors gave no detailed information on compliance, just that it was "good". No effect in 2 out of the 3 types of surgeries.Not good! Even worse.From the randomization paper again: From the study: Strike three. The study used pain killers along with the arnica. Very stupid.From the conclusion: 2 out of 3 showed no effect.I'd call that failure.Would you like the post op on the other 2 papers?Edited by molbiogirl, : No reason given.

Percy,Here's a list: From Assessing the quality of controlled clinical trials | The BMJ

quote:

---

The establishment is very much biased towards a drug-based approach to illness. When I have suggested here before that pharmaceuticals have a lot of influence over what gets studied and the results of those studies, people scoffed. I would like to discuss this again. What truly frightens me is the degree of trust some people here place in the clinical studies published by prestigious journals.

---

OK, if what you say is true, then how on earth could this happen, all from within the "establishment"?

quote:

---

Journals can be biased, and studies can be flawed.

---

Anecdote is certain, beyond any doubt whatsoever, to be biased, and the conclusions made using it are nearly guaranteedto be flawed.

It's good news to see cough medicines going out of favour like this. I also believe they provide no benefit. However, this is one cog in a very big wheel.If the editors of prestigious medical journals are standing up and saying that there are flaws in the system that need changing, shouldn't people be taking notice? I'm not saying that their criticisms mean that the whole establishment should be torn down. As I've said elsewhere here, clinical trials need to be conducted independently rather than by the companies that sponsor the drugs. There's a clear conflict of interest that ought to be of concern. What's more, a wider spectrum of possible treatments needs to be tested. Older drugs as well as new -- let the new ones be proved to be better than the old; and if they aren't, let doctors prescribe the older (usually much cheaper) drugs. Try vitamins, herbs, acupuncture, whatever. I'm very much in favour of letting these things stand the rigorous gold-standard tests, as long as those tests are well designed, conducted, unbiased, and fair.There is a lot of information out there about the biased and sometimes fraudulent nature of clinical trials, if you look. It doesn't just appear in AltMed journals. As we've seen, the BMJ and the New England Journal of Medicine have been amongst the leaders in calling for reform. I found an article from the Center for Medical Consumers titled Why Do We Need a Publicly Funded, Publicly Accessible Database of Clinical Trials?. It talks about the way drugs gain FDA approval through clinical trials, and about how studies sponsored by pharmaceutical companies are more likely to have outcomes favouring the sponsor than are studies with other sponsors. Here is another article from the Wall Street Journal about the suppression of negative trial results. It reports that a 1999 analysis found that the percentage of positive studies in some fields tops 90%. As a result, "what we read in the journals may bear only the slightest resemblance to reality."You may argue, as others here do, that a flawed system is better than no system at all. In a way I agree, the system needs fixing not trashing. However, it's important to be aware of the distorted picture coming across to the public as a result of these particular flaws. It means that major antidepressant drugs are touted as being effective when there have been a number of clinical studies showing otherwise; those aren't mentioned. We're here debating about clinical trials of vitamin C. There are some negative ones. Strange how you hear so much about these negative vitamin trial results in the media; they pounce on them. Where are the negative drug trial studies, why aren't they so widely reported? As I've said over and over, the system favours drugs, and the pharmaceuticals have a hand in the whole process from development to approval. What chance does AltMed stand in gaining popular approval as long as this is how things work? You can focus on individual studies as MBG has been doing here, but in doing so you risk losing sight of the bigger picture.

Percy you mentioned St. John's wort. A study was done several years ago on this herb. There are over 1000 studies showing its usefulness in mild to moderate depression. Now, remove the words "mild to moderate" and replace them with "severe" and you get this headline: ST. JOHN'S WORT NOT EFFECTIVE IN TREATING DEPRESSION.I tried it myself before I took the prescription ADs. I only took it for a day because I got awful stomach cramps (a common side effect) and felt . . . well, "weird" is the only way to describe it, though I experienced many varieties of that word while I was trying to find a drug to help me. I don't recommend SJW to anyone. It's actually a mild antidepressant. I'm not interested in defending it. But my anecdote doesn't matter anyway, right? The point I'm making is that you get one clinical study that interprets results in a certain way, and all the headlines can make people think that the substance in the trial has been thoroughly debunked. The latest study always seems to have a way of erasing all the studies that have gone before it, at least in the eyes of the media and the public. I agree. Which is why I hope with my diet and supplement regime to avoid having to take any of these things. Food and vitamins are native to the body and will cause few, if any, side effects. Vitamin C is a harmless substance. What have you got to lose by giving terminally ill cancer patients, let's say, some of it intravenously? It will not hurt and there's good evidence that it will help. Vitamins are not drugs, it's important to remember this. They are not equally as dangerous.I suggest you read my recent post to Nator, regarding your remaining comments about big pharma. You talk about human failings in these companies and compare them to car manufacturers. The thing is, though, doctors prescribe medications and people take them based on the trust they've developed in the system. These are matters of health, and of life and death. Some people are indeed trying to address the problem. What do you suggest in the meantime? Do you think the logical thing for me would have been to continue to trust my doctors and take one drug after another, hoping to find one that "worked," until the system was fixed? Do you have any idea what I went through, putting that poison in my body? What thousands of others on my internet lists went through? If I thought you'd listen I'd give you examples that would make your hair stand on end. Try telling them they should have just patiently trusted the system until changes could be made and I have a fair idea of what they'd say in reply, most of it unmentionable in polite company.I have a question for you. Do you think that taking a pill is the best way to treat something like depression? Depression is not a natural condition of the brain and body, and its causes can be myriad. I'll list a few possible ones. Divorce. Stress at work. Poor diet. Food or environmental allergies. Heavy metal toxicity. Illness. Doesn't it make sense to find the root cause and treat it, instead of using an antidepressant as a sticking-plaster? Even for those who feel great taking an AD, and there are some, the very real danger is that the cause of the depression will be ignored as long as the drug works. This is one of the problems with the whole philosophy of allopathic medicine: it treats the symptoms, not the root causes of illness. How do you expect clinical trials to address any of these concerns without a significant paradigm shift in the way medicine is viewed and administered in the Western world? Edited by LindaLou, : No reason given.

Because I know that's what you want to see. However, I'm quite happy to stop playing the click-and-link war centred on PubMed. There are some inherent problems with this as it is. I do not have access to the actual studies, as you do. Yes I would like to read a study before commenting on it, because as I said abstracts aren't always an accurate reflection of the studies they describe. They don't always give important information. But I make no pretense at having the training and expertise to read these papers, so it's difficult for me to make my case in this way on an equal footing to you. I can of course ask my ND, as I have done at times, but I don't like having to be piggy-in-the-middle. If you two got together I'm sure sparks would fly and many studies would be bandied around like ping-pong balls LOL. I think it would be important to ask whether this approach is arriving at the actual truth. In my eyes, there are problems with the system that cause drugs to be promoted as safe and effective, while other approaches are more or less ignored by comparison. I've discussed this in more detail in my posts here to Percy and Nator. I said "bioavailable."I would be interested in seeing the actual Pauling-Cameron study though, seeing as how Pauling has been a point of contention here. Do you have a link?If we are going to talk about vitamin C studies, let's keep it to human studies where the vitamin C was given intravenously. Vitamin C is not exactly the premier substance being researched however, so I'm not sure if there are many double-blind placebo-controlled studies to be found. But I'll have a go.I at least have some info now to cover a couple of your study citations, neither of which was based on humans, which is why I think we ought to restrict it to that.Suppression of squamous cell carcinoma in hairless mice by dietary nutrient variation.
Robinson AB, Hunsberger A, Westall FC.
Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine, Cave Junction, OR 97523.(This is Pauling's ex-protege who was asked to resign from the institute, and went on to sue.) If this was valid, you would have hospitals starving people, not giving them nutrient IV protocols as they do. Have there been any follow-up studies on humans?Secondly, you cited:Degradation of encephalitogenic protein in aerobic ascorbic acid solutions. Westall FC, Thompson M, Robinson AB. Experientia. 1976;32(7):848-9.This was done in a petri dish. You told me yourself that in vitro experiments can show just about anything.I wouldn't have known any of these details about the studies because I don't have access, as I said. My ND looked this up for me. If you want to discuss other studies with me I'd like some links to the full papers please. And keep in mind that while it's easy to debate studies like this, I feel it's important to keep an eye on the big picture. As long as people are willing to take drugs to get better, and they are told that they are safe and effective, then little headway will be made in the use of alternatives such as vitamins.