Article: The Corruption of Evidence Based Medicine — Killing for Profit

Indigophoton

Indigophoton

Senior Member (Voting Rights)
The idea of Evidence Based Medicine (EBM) is great. The reality, though, not so much. Human perception is often flawed, so the premise of EBM is to formally study medical treatments and there have certainly been some successes.

Consider the procedure of angioplasty. Doctors insert a catheter into the blood vessels of the heart and use a balloon like device to open up the artery and restore blood flow. In acute heart attacks studies confirm that this is an effective procedure. In chronic heart disease the COURAGE study and more recently the ORBITAstudy showed that angioplasty is largely useless. EBM helped distinguish the best use of an invasive procedure.

So, why do prominent physicians call EBM mostly useless? The 2 most prestigious journals of medicine in the world are The Lancet and The New England Journal of Medicine. Richard Horton, editor in chief of The Lancet said this in 2015

“The case against science is straightforward: much of the scientific literature, perhaps half, may simply be untrue”

Dr. Marcia Angell, former editor in chief of NEJM wrote in 2009 that,

“It is simply no longer possible to believe much of the clinical research that is published, or to rely on the judgment of trusted physicians or authoritative medical guidelines. I take no pleasure in this conclusion, which I reached slowly and reluctantly over my two decades as an editor”

This has huge implications. Evidence based medicine is completely worthless if the evidence base is false or corrupted. It’s like building a wooden house knowing the wood is termite infested. What caused this sorry state of affairs?Well, Dr. Relman another former editor in chief of the NEJM said this in 2002

“The medical profession is being bought by the pharmaceutical industry, not only in terms of the practice of medicine, but also in terms of teaching and research. The academic institutions of this country are allowing themselves to be the paid agents of the pharmaceutical industry. I think it’s disgraceful”
Click to expand...
So here’s a damning list of all the problems of EBM
  1. Selective Publication
  2. Rigged outcomes
  3. Advertorials
  4. Reprint Revenues
  5. Bribery of Journal Editors
  6. Publication Bias
  7. Financial Conflicts of Interests
Click to expand...
The article discusses and explains each of the listed items.
https://medium.com/@drjasonfung/the-corruption-of-evidence-based-medicine-killing-for-profit
 
Jonathan Edwards said:
All very true but what is this guy selling:

Intensive Dietary Management Program
Click to expand...

Mind you having come across some of the points Dr Fung makes (for free) on his You Tube channel about how Type 2 diabetes is treated, I can see why he is frustrated with Pharma. If T2 diabetes can be effectively treated through intermittent fasting and low carb high fat eating, then those selling diabetes medications and others selling processed "low fat" foods, will not be very pleased.

From my own perspective, I discovered Dr Fung last year after a friend in Canada told me about this fasting diet. She has T2 diabetes and was on increasing medications including insulin, but still could not keep her sugar levels controlled, and she was gaining weight. Since starting this, she has ceased needing any meds and has also lost some weight. This all from watching FREE You Tube channels from Dr Fung.

And my own experience with intermittent fasting has been good too. I started testing my sugar levels out of curiosity after a conversation on PR, and to my shock discovered they were rather high!!! I started intermittent fasting, because... well why not... what did I have to loose?

Now, I haven't lost weight (I could do with loosing a few lbs) but my sugars are now normal. Yay! However what really surprised me, was that I got a lift in my physical abilities! I was on a slippery slope decline again after the year I did taking Tenofovir (this changed my life dramatically - I was one of the lucky ones). However, the fasting that I'd started because of the sugar thing gave me quite a physical lift!!!

Now I'm not cured or anything near that, and I have still slid a bit since my best time after Tenofovir, but I am still above where I was when I started this fasting thing - and when I stop it, I slide a bit again.... so I don't much love fasting, but it sure helps.

So - after all that - what I'm really saying is, don't be too hard on Dr Fung. ;)
 
Keela Too said:
Mind you having come across some of the points Dr Fung makes (for free) on his You Tube channel about how Type 2 diabetes is treated, I can see why he is frustrated with Pharma. If T2 diabetes can be effectively treated through intermittent fasting and low carb high fat eating, then those selling diabetes medications and others selling processed "low fat" foods, will not be very pleased.
Click to expand...

Yes but my medical textbook said that for free in 1974. Using fasting and low carb diet has always been the treatment for type 2 diabetes, since I was a student. I would never have thought of doing anything else. Nobody needs to do a blog about this. It is what students are supposed to write in their finals essays.
 
Ah interesting @Jonathan Edwards but the message must have got changed in the intervening years, because that is not the advice that seems to be given now. Lots about low fat, and low calorie, and increasing exercise (where have we heard that before) and Here take these tablets and some injections. Certainly the LowCarb/HighFat with fasting thing was revolutionary to my friend, and quite quite different to the advice she'd been given by doctors! So maybe some info got lost in the '70s and it's now being revived?
 
Keela Too said:
Mind you having come across some of the points Dr Fung makes (for free) on his You Tube channel about how Type 2 diabetes is treated, I can see why he is frustrated with Pharma. If T2 diabetes can be effectively treated through intermittent fasting and low carb high fat eating, then those selling diabetes medications and others selling processed "low fat" foods, will not be very pleased.

From my own perspective, I discovered Dr Fung last year after a friend in Canada told me about this fasting diet. She has T2 diabetes and was on increasing medications including insulin, but still could not keep her sugar levels controlled, and she was gaining weight. Since starting this, she has ceased needing any meds and has also lost some weight. This all from watching FREE You Tube channels from Dr Fung.

And my own experience with intermittent fasting has been good too. I started testing my sugar levels out of curiosity after a conversation on PR, and to my shock discovered they were rather high!!! I started intermittent fasting, because... well why not... what did I have to loose?

Now, I haven't lost weight (I could do with loosing a few lbs) but my sugars are now normal. Yay! However what really surprised me, was that I got a lift in my physical abilities! I was on a slippery slope decline again after the year I did taking Tenofovir (this changed my life dramatically - I was one of the lucky ones). However, the fasting that I'd started because of the sugar thing gave me quite a physical lift!!!

Now I'm not cured or anything near that, and I have still slid a bit since my best time after Tenofovir, but I am still above where I was when I started this fasting thing - and when I stop it, I slide a bit again.... so I don't much love fasting, but it sure helps.

So - after all that - what I'm really saying is, don't be too hard on Dr Fung. ;)
Click to expand...
how do you do your fasting? Is it the only eat within an 8 hour slot or do you do nothing for a couple of days?
 
Keela Too said:
Ah interesting @Jonathan Edwards but the message must have got changed in the intervening years, because that is not the advice that seems to be given now.
Click to expand...

Not in my department. The story never changed. It is basic metabolic sense and it works if stuck to. But the key thing IS to get calories down because the insulin resistance is determined by weight. Low carb helps from day to day but it makes no difference to the insulin resistance in the long term. So you need both - low calorie and low carb - if you are to resolve the problem rather than hide it. There is no 'high fat' to it. Nothing should be high until weight has come down. But tablets and injections were always the wrong approach.
 
I mix it up a bit @Sbag

Sometimes I get in the pattern of only eating in a 4 to 8 hour window (ie daily fasts of 16 to 20 hours), then I get bored of that and eat normally 5 days of the week and nothing (just coffee/tea with milk) on 2 non-consecutive days each week.

I have also done fasts of 48 hours, and have attempted longer also. I did an 81 hour fast once - just to see what it would be like. Admittedly I ate a lot in the days after! LOL...

Whatever I'm at, I now rarely eat breakfast. Suits me.
 
@Jonathan Edwards As I understand it Dr Fung's reason for calling it high fat, is that protein should not be replacing the carbs that have been dropped. So he says it's okay to add in some normal fats (ie not margarines etc) to help make the diet more palatable. He says it is then easier to be satiated by the foods eaten. He doesn't agree with "low fat". :)
 
Keela Too said:
I mix it up a bit @Sbag

Sometimes I get in the pattern of only eating in a 4 to 8 hour window (ie daily fasts of 16 to 20 hours), then I get bored of that and eat normally 5 days of the week and nothing (just coffee/tea with milk) on 2 non-consecutive days each week.

I have also done fasts of 48 hours, and have attempted longer also. I did an 81 hour fast once - just to see what it would be like. Admittedly I ate a lot in the days after! LOL...

Whatever I'm at, I now rarely eat breakfast. Suits me.
Click to expand...
thanks for the info - i wanted to try the fasting as I had been reading about how it can help regenerate mitichondria. I wouldn't be able to do the 48 hr ones though as I get too shaky if I don't eat for even a few hours.

It's good to know that you have seen benefits from it, so I will definitely make the effort to try it.
 
Keela Too said:
@Jonathan Edwards As I understand it Dr Fung's reason for calling it high fat, is that protein should not be replacing the carbs that have been dropped. So he says it's okay to add in some normal fats (ie not margarines etc) to help make the diet more palatable. He says it is then easier to be satiated by the foods eaten. He doesn't agree with "low fat". :)
Click to expand...

Well that does not make a lot of sense to me. If you need to reduce intake you need to reduce it. Fat has the highest concentration of calories of any food type by far. There is no question of replacing anything missing with low carb. You just eat less. If your weight is normal and you reduce carbohydrate to prevent glucose rises then I doubt it matters whether you get calories from fat or protein. Fat is cheaper. But if your weight is normal satiation is not an issue so I don't get this bit about having fat to feel satiated. When most people eat fat they put on weight because it is so rich in calories.

None of this is the least bit new. It is a sales pitch like all the others. I am sure Dr Fung gets business through his free adverts. I am afraid I have seen this too many times to be fooled.
 
I think this is rehashing a simple principle ...eat less calories and don’t overindulge on carbs. If it suits person A to intermittent fast to bring their calories (and carbs) down then great, if person B wants to control overall intake a different way ...fine. The net result is the same

I studied biology and food science in the eighties followed by post grad research in the nineties and it wasn’t different then...the only thing that seems to have changed is the amount of garbage on the internet. These blogs and the like seem to work on feeding myths about food and trying to make it more complicated than it really is ....e.g. “you're not fat, you’re sick” or “you’re not fat, some bad conspiracy has done this to you (greedy farmers, bad pharma, manufacturers toxifying food by processing it, ignorant gps not giving you a nutritional diet plan that fits with the latest fad or more recently “it’s not you it’s your biome”...blah blah blah.

People don’t like the simple truth...eat less and you won’t be fat. Much better to blame someone or something else?

This sounds like the normal book selling smoke and mirrors to me

I really wish they would turn the record over it’s getting highly tedious almost like those replacement boiler or double glazing phone calls (btw records are large black things that old people used to listen to ..for our younger members)
 
I don't know. I mean folk look at us and think we need more exercise if we want to get fitter and feel well. It sounds so simple, start small and build up stamina.

Without looking very closely, the solution seems simple and logical.

So, I wonder about obesity. The urge to eat and drink are biological urges to keep you alive. It is easy to blame the obese for just eating too much, telling them if they eat less and exercise more they'll be well again.

Yet there *could* be something that is messing with the system. Perhaps food additives, dietary imbalances, micro-organisms or something not yet investigated, wreaks havoc with the individual's appetite balance, and once that happens a vicious circle starts?

I think I am much slower to judge the obese now that I've experienced ME.
 
Keela Too said:
I don't know. I mean folk look at us and think we need more exercise if we want to get fitter and feel well. It sounds so simple, start small and build up stamina.

Without looking very closely, the solution seems simple and logical.

So, I wonder about obesity. The urge to eat and drink are biological urges to keep you alive. It is easy to blame the obese for just eating too much, telling them if they eat less and exercise more they'll be well again.

Yet there *could* be something that is messing with the system. Perhaps food additives, dietary imbalances, micro-organisms or something not yet investigated, wreaks havoc with the individual's appetite balance, and once that happens a vicious circle starts?

I think I am much slower to judge the obese now that I've experienced ME.
Click to expand...
I read somewhere a couple of years ago that ifsignalling is broken and the leptin/ grehlin mechanism is affected then it doesn't seem to matter how little calories you eat , some of it will be shunted to fat. The normal feedback loop has gone .
 
arewenearlythereyet said:
People don’t like the simple truth...eat less and you won’t be fat. Much better to blame someone or something else?
Click to expand...

I dont think its is necessarily that simple. The simplicity may be in the advice but the advice does not take people into account. Its a simple message to say drink less and you wont be an alcoholic but its actually a complex issue.

I eat too much for example but you could put sweets and cakes in front of me all day long and I would give them all back to you because I simply don't have a sweet tooth.

But I would eat too much of savoury foods. If i had the same appetite for sweet foods as I do for other types I'm pretty sure I would be much heavier than I am now.

There may well be bad food habits that were given to people when they were very young but I am not sure its that simple. We all have tasted alcohol some of us hated it some loved it for example. I'm not sure also, as some people say, we can put thing so purely down to "its psychological some people consume x or w or z for emotional reasons and then get addicted to it".

I just really count myslef lucky that I was always satisfied after a single glass of wine or beer, and don't like sweets. I don't know why that is compared to other people but I don't think the reasons are simple.

We know babies can be born addicted to drugs for example but we never consider the same with sugar for example or other carbs.

The notion eat less may be simple though. Achieving that and maintaining it may be less simple.

One could use the example of a person trying to keep themselves hydrated drinking espresso coffees as opposed to drinking water. One will hydrate you one will give you a caffeine habit.

Try to eat less of things that will make you want to come back for more 5 minutes later when the fake energy has burned out may be better advice.
 
Last edited:
Keela Too said:
I don't know. I mean folk look at us and think we need more exercise if we want to get fitter and feel well. It sounds so simple, start small and build up stamina.

Without looking very closely, the solution seems simple and logical.

So, I wonder about obesity. The urge to eat and drink are biological urges to keep you alive. It is easy to blame the obese for just eating too much, telling them if they eat less and exercise more they'll be well again.

Yet there *could* be something that is messing with the system. Perhaps food additives, dietary imbalances, micro-organisms or something not yet investigated, wreaks havoc with the individual's appetite balance, and once that happens a vicious circle starts?

I think I am much slower to judge the obese now that I've experienced ME.
Click to expand...

How about chickens grown to full size within 6 weeks when the normal time would be 3 months because what they are being exposed to, then those chickens being consumed by us.

How about the growth hormones injected into dairy cows to increase their milk production for us to consume.
 
Keela Too said:
Yet there *could* be something that is messing with the system. Perhaps food additives, dietary imbalances, micro-organisms or something not yet investigated, wreaks havoc with the individual's appetite balance,
Click to expand...

Sorry @Keela Too , but it makes no difference to the advice if there is. You cannot change the number joules in a carbon-hydrogen bond. Lots of things will affect appetite but the physics remains the same. If a person is overweight they will get back to normal weight if they restrict calories and only if they do. Anything else is a violation of the law of conservation of energy. Leptin levels make absolutely no difference to this.

If people have insulin resistance and are of normal weight (and rather few actually are) then restricting carbohydrate may well help sugar swings but that is a different issue.
 
Check out TOFI - thin on outside, fat on inside - there are indications that there are rather a lot of people in this category.

All calories are not equal, the body uses the different macronutrients in different ways. I will try and find info on the leptin ghrelin mechanism and it seems to play a more fundamental role in appetite and weight modulation . I read up on ot a couple of years ago.

The daftest aspect though is that exercise does anything significant for weight loss- it is great for many things ( like mental, cardiovascular and bone health) but thermodynamically it dosn' t stack up.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom