| There are many beliefs that we hold that deserve a challenge. Do mammograms truly reduce breast cancer deaths? Are cold and cough medicines safe and effective for children? Is the FDA a protector of the public or a servant of industry? Can sunlight actually reduce your chance of death from cancer? Are hospitals safe or are they dangerous? Do we already know that nutritional deficiencies are a major cause of cancer? From the pages of well-respected medical journals, the health briefs section provides that challenge to these and other well-established convictions. |
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Coffee
 -- Studies have suggested that low-grade systemic inflammation participates in the pathophysiology of obesity, insulin resistance, ischemic heart disease, metabolic syndrome X, and abnormal coagulation process. An extensive body of scientific evidence also suggests that dietary factors exert their influence largely through their effects on blood pressure, lipids and lipoproteins, as well as on markers of inflammation and coagulation. This evidence implies that dietary intervention designed to reduce the inflammatory process could be of benefit in reducing the risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD).
2 Comments made by visitors.
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Adverse Drug Events and Hospital Acquired Infections
 -- ADEs may account for up to 140,000 deaths annually in the United States and have been estimated to cost more that $136 billion a year. Approximately 30% of hospitalized patients experience adverse events attributable to drugs and that from 3% to 28% of all hospital admissions are related to ADEs. Moreover, fatal ADEs are expected in approximately 0.31% of hospitalized patients in the United States.
2 Comments made by visitors.
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Genetically Modified Food
 -- There is no longer any doubt that GM crops are not needed to feed the world, and that hunger is caused by poverty and inequality, and not by inadequate production of food. According to estimates by the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organisation, there is enough food produced to feed everyone using only conventional crops, and that will remain the case for at least 25 years and probably far into the future. A recent report by ActionAid concludes that, "The widespread adoption of GM crops seems likely to exacerbate the underlying cause of food insecurity, leading to more hungry people, not fewer".
1 Comments made by visitors.
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Mercury Fillings
 -- For medical reasons, amalgam should be eliminated in dental care as soon as possible. This will confer gains in three respects. The prevalence of side-effects from patients' mercury exposure will decline; occupational exposure to mercury can cease in dental care; and one of our largest sources of mercury in the environment can be eliminated. With reference to the risk of inhibiting influence on the growing brain, it is not compatible with science and well-tried experience to use amalgam fillings in children and fertile women. Every doctor and dentist should, where patients are suffering from unclear pathological states and autoimmune diseases, consider whether side-effects from mercury released from amalgam may be one contributory cause of the symptoms.
6 Comments made by visitors.
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Breast Implants and Cancer Risk
 -- In comparison with the general population, this study, like previous investigations, found excess risks of cervical, vulvar, and lung cancers among women with previous augmentation mammoplasties. Although the internal analyses suggested similar risks for most cancer sites between implant and comparison patients, a few differences persisted, including higher risks for respiratory and brain cancers, and leukemia.
1 Comments made by visitors.
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Water and Sanitation
 -- About 1.2 billion people still have no access to safe drinking water, and 2.4 billion do not have adequate sanitation services. Some 2 million children die every year from water-related diseases. In the poorest countries, one in five children dies before the age of five mainly from water-related infectious diseases arising from insufficient water availability, in both quantity and quality. Thus provision of safe drinking water and sanitation services to more than 1 billion people over the next decade remains one of the most critical challenges humanity is facing today.
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Tamoxifen
 -- Tamoxifen was not significantly protective against breast cancer in women at normal or slightly reduced risk of the disease. The principal investigators were concerned about the large numbers of women withdrawing from the study, the unexpected finding with hypertriglyceridaemia, the findings about vascular events, and the number of well women complaining about the side-effects of tamoxifen in addition to an increased occurrence of endometrial cancer.
0 Comments made by visitors.
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Cough and Cold Medications
 -- Over-the-counter (OTC) cough and cold medications are marketed widely for relief of common cold symptoms, and yet studies have failed to demonstrate a benefit of these medications for young children. In addition, OTC medications can be associated with significant morbidity and even mortality in both acute overdoses and when administered in correct doses for chronic periods of time.
3 Comments made by visitors.
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Television and Children
 -- This study concluded television viewing time is positively associated with social problems, delinquent behavior, aggressive behavior, externalization, and total problem scores in children. Other studies have blamed television for causing conduct disorder, symptoms of psychological trauma, social skill difficulties, anorexia nervosa, nutritional changes, dieting and obesity, and substance use and abuse, and for negatively affecting sexuality and body concept and self-image.
2 Comments made by visitors.
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Breast Cancer Treatment Options
 -- Some of the local therapies for breast cancer had substantially different effects on the rates of local recurrence - such as the reduced recurrence with the addition of radiotherapy to surgery - but there were no definite differences in overall survival at 10 years. More recently, it has appeared that radiotherapy can also produce a small increase in the rate of death from causes other than breast cancer.
0 Comments made by visitors.
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SSRIs and Upper Gastrointestinal Bleeding
 -- Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors increase the risk of upper gastrointestinal bleeding. The concurrent use of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs or aspirin with selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors greatly increases the risk of upper gastrointestinal bleeding.
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COX-2 Selective NSAIDs a Failure
 -- All NSAIDs, both COX-2 selective and nonselective, provide only a modest symptomatic benefit over placebo, and this benefit has been proven only in short-term trials. With long-term therapy, it is not known whether the benefits of this class of drugs exceed the harms. In fact, there is evidence to suggest that the opposite is true. Meta-analysis of FDA data from the CLASS and VIGOR trials shows, first, that COX-2 selective NSAIDs do not necessarily reduce the incidence of complicated ulcers. Second, the meta-analysis demonstrates that, rather than proving safer, COX-2 selective NSAIDs cause more morbidity (total SAEs) than nonselective NSAIDs.
0 Comments made by visitors.
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Cancer and Micronutrients
 -- Approximately 40 micronutrients (the vitamins, essential minerals and other compounds required in small amounts for normal metabolism) are required in the human diet. For many micronutrients, a sizable percentage of the population is deficient relative to the current RDA. Remedying these deficiencies, which can be done at low cost, is likely to lead to a major improvement in health and an increase in longevity.
1 Comments made by visitors.
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Sunlight and Cancer Prevention
 -- The research studies presented here suggest that dermal activation of vitamin D from regular, moderate sun exposure has a strong protective effect in the prevention of breast can colon cancer; has a weaker protective effect in melanoma, leukemia, and lymphoma; and acts to lower overall cancer death rates.
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Carbonated Beverages and Bone Health
 -- The result from this study of adolescent girls confirm our earlier findings of an association between bone fractures and carbonated beverage consumption in older women former college athletes. They also support our hypothesis that the association is due to the cola drinks, which contain phosphoric acid.
4 Comments made by visitors.
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Gulf War Syndrome
 -- Observed patterns suggest that excess morbidity among Gulf War veterans is associated with characteristics of their wartime service, and that vaccines used during the war may be a contributing factor.
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Vitamins
 -- Insufficient vitamin intake is apparently the cause of chronic diseases. Recent evidence has shown that suboptimal levels of vitamins, even well above those causing deficiency syndromes, are risk factors for chronic diseases such as cardiovascular disease, cancer, and osteoporosis. A large portion of the general population is apparently at increase risk for this reason.
1 Comments made by visitors.
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Vegetarians Live Longer
 -- Overall vegetarians had a mortality about half that of the general population. Within the cohort, daily consumption of fresh fruit was associated with significantly reduced mortality from ischaemic heart disease, cerebrovascular disease, and for all causes combined.
1 Comments made by visitors.
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HRT: Heart Disease, Breast Cancer, Gallbladder Disease
 -- Conclusions. - During an average follow-up of 4.1 years, treatment with oral conjugated equine estrogen plus medroxyprogesterone acetate did not reduce the overall rate of CHD events in postmenopausal women with established coronary disease. The treatment did increase the rate of thromboembolic events and gallbladder disease.
0 Comments made by visitors.
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Lotronex and the FDA
 -- This story reveals not only dangerous failings in a single drug's approval and review process but also the extent to which the FDA, its Center for Drug Evaluation and Research (CDER) in particular, has become the servant of industry.
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