Key Opinion Leaders on the Take

[ceberezin]

HE WHO PAYS THE PIPER CALLS THE TUNE
(French Proverb)

By Red Flags Columnist, Dr. Malcolm Kendrick
( email - malcolm~llp.org.uk )

And what song do we expect the pharmaceutical company wishes to hear sung by international medical opinion leaders? In general it goes like this ‘Use more of the new expensive drugs. For they will make you well.’ To the tune of Amazing Grace.

How much money does it take to get an international opinion leader to sing for their supper? That depends. In the case of Dr Bryan Brewer, a leader at the National Institutes of Health, it took $57,000/year.

‘Brewer, as a leader at the NIH was part of a team that gave the nation new cholesterol guidelines that were expected to prompt millions more people to take the daily pill. He also has written favourably of a specific brand of cholesterol medication, Crestor, which recently proved controversial.

What doctors were not told for years is this. While making recommendations in the name of the NIH, Brewer was working for the companies that sell the drugs. Government and company records show that from 2001 to 2003, he accepted about $114,000 in consulting fees from four companies making or developing cholesterol medications, including $31,000 from the maker of Crestor (AstraZeneca)’ LA Times Jan 11, 2005

However, this is relative peanuts compared to Dr P.Trey Sunderland III, a senior psychiatric researcher at the NIH. He took $508,500 in fees from Pfizer Inc. whilst collaborating with them, and endorsing their drug.

But these two are not, in any way, unique. Medical opinion leaders, those who put their names to the research and claim to write the clinical papers (you don’t believe they actually write clinical papers do you? – how touchingly naive) are all paid very large sums of money by the pharmaceutical industry.

Quite how much they get paid is somewhat difficult to ascertain. The exact amounts will remain a well-guarded secret between the opinion leader and their accountant. But I have been involved in doling out such payments, and the amounts soon add-up.

One of the best scams is that an opinion leader will be invited to talk, or present, at a major medical meeting. There are certain individuals who travel and talk all over the world. They will then be invited by another company to talk at the same meeting. Then another company, then another. A conversation ensues which goes something like this:

Opinion leader (having already had five other invitations): ‘I like to book my own travel, so just send me the money for an air-fare, first class, eight thousand dollars. Thank you.’ (The ‘Thank you’ is optional, and rarely used).
Do the maths. If one company is already flying an opinion leader to a meeting, and he Hoovers up five sets of air-fares from other companies, he – for it is almost always a he - can make forty thousand dollars in air-fares before the meeting even starts.

To be fair to the pharmaceutical companies, they can, and do, become somewhat enraged by such behaviour. But they are usually so terrified of upsetting a big cheese, who may then walk over to another company, that they just pay up anyway.

What really makes pharmaceutical companies mad is when an opinion leader agrees to chair two meetings – at the same time. I have been to a meeting when the chairman walked out, went across the corridor, and introduced a meeting – for another company – before returning. Then spent three hours dotting between the two meetings. An impressive display of juggling no doubt, but I don’t think the companies involved were terribly impressed.

What’s the going rate for such activities? The figures vary. Cardiology seems to be the biggest payer, and the highest fee I have heard of was $20,000 to chair a two hour meeting. You must remember that this is $20,000 plus air fares, accommodation, drinks, meals, entertainment etc. and this individual would also have been taking part in advisory boards, presenting at other symposia etc. It is not impossible for a top level opinion leader to make $100,000 during a five day meeting.

Fair enough, these are hugely hard working, highly intelligent individuals at the top of their profession. What they are paid is peanuts relative to a CEO of a major company. Why shouldn’t they demand, and get, huge fees?
No reason, except that these are the people who advise the NIH and the FDA. They also write the guidelines which set the standards for more humble doctors to follow. They, basically, decide which drugs are good and bad, and what treatment should be followed. In the end, what they say flows down and defines the drugs that your doctor will prescribe to you. We hope, and expect, that such advice will be untainted by commercial considerations. Some hope.

When the latest National Cholesterol Education Panel (NCEP) guidelines were unveiled, none of the panel members disclosed any affiliation to the pharmaceutical industry. I was part of a group (the centre for science in the public interest CSPI) who wrote to the National Heart Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI) – the group under which the NCEP operates. (NHLBI is part of the National Institutes for Health). We had a number of objections, but number one was that no financial disclosures had been made.

Surprise, surprise, it turned out that every single member of the NCEP panel had close association with statin manufacturers, and had been paid varying – huge – sums of money by them. We thought you knew, bleated Dr Barbara Alving for the NHLBI.

In addition, as Dr Alving wrote in response. ‘Individuals who are most expert in a subject area are the ones most suitable to serve on a guideline panel for assessing the science and developing clinical recommendations. They are also often the very people whose advice is sought by industry.’

True, Dr Alving, but there are people out there - for e.g. Uffe Ravnskov – to pluck a name from the air - who has written a book, and hundreds of articles, critical of the idea that lowering cholesterol with statins is a good thing. He is an expert in this area – even if his views make him somewhat of a scientific pariah. Was he asked to take part in the creation of guidelines to bring some much needed balance to the discussions?

No, the only people chosen were the people who were absolutely and completely in favour of prescribing statins, and who were all being paid vast sums of money by statin manufacturers. The reality is that anyone who dares to criticise the established dogma will never be invited, never, ever. There are no critical voices, no discussion of the central issues. In this way dissent is, effectively crushed. And this is true of all therapy areas.

Currently the situation is thus:
It is almost impossible to become an ‘opinion leader’ unless you do the clinical trials paid for by the pharmaceutical industry. These are the biggest, highest profile studies, and the results are presented at major medical meetings, and published in the high profile medical journals.

Ergo, opinion leaders are almost all supported and promoted by the industry. From the very start, they are a self-selected group. Pro-industry, pro-drug use. Usually, pro-specific drug.

These people write the editorials and speak to the press and take part in discussion and symposia and presentations. They are then invited onto prestigious committees that decide on the medical treatment for all of us.
I am sure that they don’t think they are biased at all. But they come with built-in bias. In my opinion, they should be kept a million miles away from any decisions on guidelines, but because there are no other ‘experts’ out there, they are always and inevitably chosen - ‘Who else is there?’ And because of this we end up with madness. I shall leave you with an example of such madness.

A group of doctors in Norway decided to review the 2003 European guidelines on blood pressure and cholesterol lowering. Norway, as you may or may not know, is one of the healthiest countries in the World, with one of the longest life expectancies. It was also rated as having the highest quality of life in the World. People in Norway are extremely healthy and pretty wealthy. The rate of death from heart disease has also fallen dramatically over the last thirty years or so.

Here is a country, surely, that should be reasonably content with their overall health.

Not so, not so at all. According to the guidelines, by the age of twenty-four, 50% of Norwegian men had a blood pressure, or cholesterol level requiring drug treatment. By the age of forty nine, this had risen to 90%. Getz L et al. Scand J Prim Care 2004.

Ninety per cent of Norwegian men aged forty nine need to take drugs for the rest of their lives! If this isn’t medical madness, then I cannot imagine what is. And it is a guideline based madness that can be directly traced back to a group of ‘highly objective’ experts who have all been paid extremely large sums of money by pharmaceutical companies who make blood pressure and cholesterol lowering drugs.

I cannot for the life of me think of any other area of human enterprise whereby someone who is paid enormous sums of money by a commercial organisation would be allowed to set the standards in which those commercial organisations operate. Let alone an area of such importance. The closest analogy I can think of would be a judge, who had been paid a million dollars by Microsoft, being asked to sit to preside over an anti-trust suit against Microsoft. (I thought of writing Mafia instead of Microsoft, but lost the nerve).
No judge would ever be allowed to pass judgement over an organisation that had just paid him several hundred thousand dollars, with more to come – assuming the ‘correct’ verdict was reached. It would never, ever, be allowed. (Yes I know it probably happens, but you are supposed to try and keep quiet about it, otherwise you end up in jail).

Yet in medicine this happens all day, every day. It’s utterly flagrant, and no-one even bothers to try and hide it. In my opinion, it is a complete and total and absolute scandal. It is corrupt, and it should be illegal.…. I am not holding my breath for any action any time soon.

[catfishghj]

This is what congress should be having hearings about, rather than steroids in pro sports. It is not that I dont think drugs in sports is not an important issue, it just pales in compairison to this issue.

[Bat Spit]

As Iago the parrot would say:

" I think I'm gonna have a heart attack and die from not surprise!"


The only thing surprising about this information is that it made it to press.

[DebPenny]

But what press did it make it to? It looks to me like it's from the redflags website -- not mainstream press. This kind of information makes it to niche press, but the common NYTimes or other widely read press reader never sees it.

[acohn]

Call me a dense, but what does this have to do with a low-carb WOE?

[ItsTheWooo]

Call me a dense, but what does this have to do with a low-carb WOE?

Well many of us feel the resistance to low carb is at least partially fueled by industry's interests. Low carb is a completely safe, logical and effective way of controlling or preventing many diseases... diseases which, unfortunately, are enormous cash cows for industry. There's a lot of money in selling pills and surgeries to the obese person, to the diabetic, to the heart disease patient. Advising him to simplify his diet, chuck the "heart healthy" "whole grain" breads and "fresh squeezed" orange juice in leiu of huge garden salads with eggs and meat and watch in amazement as health improves is a lot less lucrative. Weight loss surgery, statins, etc these are where the money is. You know something is up when press on low carb effectiveness ends with dire warnings of MORE STUDIES NEEDED... yet a surgery that mutiliates the intestines so as to force malnutrition is considered the holy grail for "curing obesity".

[ceberezin]

I agree with Wooo.

To my mind, this article has everything to do with what low carbohydrate eating is all about. What I have learned through my involvement in this issue over the years is that our bodies consist of communities of cells that must communicate with each other. The endocrine system is the communication network, sending chemical signals that tell cell communities how to behave, how to interact, and what to do next. A disease state is a breakdown in communications: cells acting on bad information to produce undesired and destructive results. The health of the endocrine system is key to the health of the organism. Everything that happens in our bodies happens as the result of a complex metabolic pathways in which hormones, enzymes, and proteins interact to produce varying effects.

As Rosedale points out, insulin is the first hormone to appear in animal organisms. It is the ur-hormone from which all other hormones are directly or indirectly derived. As such it is positioned to affect almost all the metabolic pathways in our bodies. It is also the hormone most susceptible to environmental influences since it is stimulated directly by what we eat. The key to maintaining the viability of our metabolic pathways, and ultimately our health, is to control insulin resistance and hyperinsulinemia. The key to controlling insulin levels is to control carbohydrates. Nothing could be clearer.

Enter the pharmaceutical industry and their paid prostitutes, the key opinion leaders. The vast majority of medical research is a quest for the designer molecule. Such a molecule is worth billions in profits to a pharmaceutical company. To find this molecule, researchers define the symptoms of insulin resistance as separate diseases. They seek to isolate one component of a metabolic pathway as the cause of a disease state and then design a molecule to knock out that component. They are entirely oblivious to the fact that they have taken a deformed metabolic pathway and deformed it further by removing a key element. All the side effects of these drugs happen as a result of a metabolic pathway being devastated by a designer molecule.

Statins are the perfect case in point. Researchers have defined a disease called CHD and isolated LDL cholesterol as its cause. They designed a molecule to knock out LDL and claim that it’s a cure for CHD. Horse puckey! Statins work by suppressing HMG CoA reductase, a key liver enzyme that stimulates the production of cholesterol. What the researchers did not ask is why is the metabolic pathway in which HMG CoA reductase resides out of control and how do we get it back into control. One answer is that insulin stimulates the production of HMG CoA reductase, so if you want to control LDL cholesterol, control insulin, which, as we all know, means controlling carbohydrates.

It’s not just that the designer molecules are dangerous and cause serious side effects, as in the case of statins which suppress liver function. It’s also that the disease management model allows other manifestations of insulin resistance either to go untreated or to require another whole suite of prescription drugs with more pernicious side effects. A recent post to his bulletin board pointed out that forty percent of the money spent on prescription drugs goes for treating the manifestations of insulin resistance. I believe that the figure is closer to eighty percent when you consider that insulin affects far more than the major four disorders associated with metabolic syndrome.

Of course, the public never gets this information because it would never lead to a designer molecule that a drug company can patent and from which it can make billions. The opinion leaders cited in the article are crucial to the effort of preventing real health information from getting to the public. But there’s no conspiracy here; it’s really more insidious. The disease management model of health care which fuels the search for the designer molecule and justifies the pharmaceutical companies is simply the background of most medical research. The researchers have no idea that they’re participating in a system that produces disease and suppresses information. They think they’re doing good even as they check their stock portfolios. Everything in their education tells them that they’re doing the right thing when they search for the designer molecule. So when the opinion leaders take vast sums from the pharmaceutical companies, they see it as their due, and no one objects, except for a few rascally low carber types—but they don’t count.

[bluesmoke]

There's an old saying among law enforcement, "to solve a crime, follow the money". The same principle applys here. In the latest issue of Discover Magazine they profile a doctor who did a statistical study on the value of the various forms of cardiac surgery and found them to be of little value except for increasing the cash flow for medical institutions. He is now looking at statin drugs and finding similar truths. Nyah Levi

[Angeline]

Another brilliant post Ceberezin. It's because of people like you that I have been reading this forum regulary for over 2 years.

[TBoneMitch]

I corroborate 100% Angeline! A brillant post.

[ProfGumby]

Bravo all, great post!

And why also do you think the FDA is trying to classify all vitamins as drugs and obiesity as a disease??? Show them the money!

One thing I'd recommend to check out is the Book by Kevin trudeau that is making the late night infomercial circuit..........you may think he is, and he has the rep as being a crackpot, but he makes some extremely valid and relivant points in the book.

[VALEWIS]

Well said, Ceberezin. But if you think the complexity of health issues is being glossed over in the search for designer molecules, think about the area of mental health. The complexities there are not just medical, but involve cultural, cohort, and situational factors that are also considered from a disease model for which magic pills are sought. People are convinced of the existence of 'diseases' (think ADD for example)
which are in fact social phenomena that in other cultures might be perfectly acceptable. Obesity in certain cultures is also acceptable, and has been in our own recent history, in say Edwardian times.

Val

[Angeline]

I don't know if you mean the book Natural cures "they" don't want you to know about. I picked it up in a book store and started skimming through it with an open mind. But even though he had some good points, he soon started to sound hysterical and paranoid. Over the top. More like a snake-oil salesman than anything else. Judging from the results produced by a quick search on the internet, that impression was right. He is in a heap of trouble for doing just that.


Unfortunately all this amounts to a severe lack of credibility, and I can't just pick and choose the points I like and disregard the rest.

[ceberezin]

Thank you for the generous compliments regarding my post. I, too, have learned a lot by participating in this bulletin board. I find the energy here conducive to clear thinking. As Angeline pointed out, so much of the criticism of the medical establishment ends up sounding hysterical and paranoid and as an attack on science itself. Such attacks allow the medical establishment to posture as the defender of science, when, in fact, the truest criticism of the medical establishment is that it practices bad science. This website is remarkably free of those self-destructive tendencies which makes it a good place to learn.

VALEWIS brings up an interesting point regarding mental health and pharmacology. Here’s a hypothetical situation which demonstrates the point. Let’s say a perfectly healthy person with all his metabolic pathways functioning properly is walking through the forest, and suddenly, from behind a bush, out pops a snarling, drooling tiger. He feels instantaneous fear, accompanied by a rush of adrenaline. With luck, the adrenaline will give him the added strength to run away and save his life.

A researcher from the NIH looks at this situation and says, “Hmm . . . fear is a terrible problem. If I can conquer fear, I will have benefited mankind.” He sees that fear is accompanied by an adrenaline surge and decides to test the hypothesis that adrenaline causes fear. Through bio-engineering, he develops a strain of mice with no adrenal glands. He puts one of these mice in front of a cat, and the mouse doesn’t run away. “Aha!” , says our NIH researcher, “Without adrenaline the mouse feels no fear of the cat.” He then injects the same mouse with adrenaline and puts him back in front of the cat. This time the mouse scampers away to safety. “Eureka!”, says the researcher, “we have demonstrated that adrenaline causes fear. Now, all we need to is to develop an adrenaline reuptake inhibitor for humans, and fear will be a thing of the past.”

If this scenario sounds far-fetched, then consider that it is exactly the scenario for research on chronic depression and other emotional states. The only thing our hypothetical researcher has shown is that there is a connection between emotional states and metabolic pathways, something that’s been known for a long time. A better way to manage fear would be to eliminate the tiger, the stimulus for the emotional state and leave the metabolic pathway alone. The stimulus for chronic depression lies in the psychodynamics of the sufferer. But contemporary psychiatry has all but denied the existence of psychodynamics and has turned psychiatry into a branch of pharmacology. And so we get serotonin reuptake inhibitors instead of psychotherapy.

One side effect of suppressing adrenaline would be the death of the man walking through the forest because he wouldn’t run away from the tiger. A proven side effect of serotonin reuptake inhibitors is suicide.

[VALEWIS]

Ceberezin, one of the major issues for me with mental health stuff is that there is no way to actually pin down a Dx..the decision to call someone "X disorder" is based on consensual agreement...the whole of the psychiatric diagnostic compendium is based on consensus...like, hands up those of you who agree that this constellation of behaviors will be called X Syndrome. It then goes into the DSM handbook as a diagnostic entity. This is the truth, but because psychiatrists are trained in medicine, there is a belief that their socially constructed diagnoses have a basis in biology. The reason they get away with this, in addition to that belief, is because ALL behavior ultimately has a biological correlate and so this tells us nothing at all of signal importance.

So just like the mistaken belief that obesity itself causes death, the rush is to find the designer drugs to reduce obesity rather than look at the factors that cause ill-health: eating processed denatured food and not exercising at all, hormonal imbalances etc. Obesity tends to go away as a side effect of improved health management, not as its cause.

I see all of this as ultimately a problem of what might be loosely called 'reductionist' thinking in our culture. We try to reduce many complex phenomena to one basic cause.

Val

[VALEWIS]

Whoops, when I just said "Obesity tends to go away as a side effect of improved health management, not as its cause." ..what poor English! Sorry.

I meant to say that if we manage our health as we should, morbid obesity then generally goes away as a side effect of bad or inadequate health management. The fact is that many obese people who eat properly and exercise well live a long life, and are not morbidly obese nor diabetic. So drugs targeting obesity itself are an example of what is wrong with reductionist thinking.

Val

[ProfGumby]

I don't know if you mean the book Natural cures "they" don't want you to know about. I picked it up in a book store and started skimming through it with an open mind. But even though he had some good points, he soon started to sound hysterical and paranoid. Over the top. More like a snake-oil salesman than anything else. Judging from the results produced by a quick search on the internet, that impression was right. He is in a heap of trouble for doing just that.


Unfortunately all this amounts to a severe lack of credibility, and I can't just pick and choose the points I like and disregard the rest.

Ya that's the one I was talking about. A friend picked up the book and I only skimmed through it. More than anything, I wonder if he was using the book to sell any products etc...

Like I said, he has a reputation, and as far as infomercials go, that is a bad one...but I'd still like to read the book, unless anyone has a better book available regarding natural cures, and by that I mean accepted cures that really work......

[TBoneMitch]

Thanks for this very instructive thread, everyone.

I think you made very astute points summing up the situation.

I agree with Cerebezin: this forum is almost hysteria-free and it is a good place to exchange info and learn. I have learned a lot here.

By the way, cerebezin, you do not list scientific studies in your profile, but you seem really well-versed in medical science.
That is impressive!

[Frogbreath]

"One side effect of suppressing adrenaline would be the death of the man walking through the forest because he wouldn’t run away from the tiger. A proven side effect of serotonin reuptake inhibitors is suicide."

Let's not go over the edge of logic here. Depressed people taking SSRI's don't commit suicide because there is a sudden absence of some natural substance preventing such thoughts. I only wish.

On another note: The book about what "they" don't want you to know doesn't actually contain any natural cures, just the reasons the pharmaceutical/government complex keeps information down. I was stupid enough to buy this sorry book after seeing the infomercial one night. You'll get more relevant and accurate information on how the drug companies operate right here. Many thanks to Cerebezin

[ceberezin]

Thanks, Frogbreath. However, I never meant to suggest that SSRIs cause suicide. The relationship is more complex. Everyone else in my family except for myself is or was a mental health professional, so I've always gotten an earful about "Prozac Kills."

Since people seem to be interested, I will relate the following story about my experience in a pharmaceutical company. In my work as an organizational consultant, I participated in a project in a large pharmaceutical company that taught me a lot about how the medical-pharmaceutical-health insurance complex works. The project was called “Global Value Planning.” The idea was to back up economic information into the development cycle so that they could be sure they were designing a molecule that would get paid for. To the pharmaceutical company, the world appeared as various “payer environments.” The UK, with its National Health Service, was one kind of payer environment that called for a particular strategy to enter. The US, with its private health insurers was another kind of payer environment. There, the strategy was to get on the formulary of a few large insurers and the rest would follow suit. The project was supposed to assure that whatever molecule was produced would have a value proposition that worked in multiple payer environments.

Payers and drug companies play an elaborate game in which payers throw up obstructions to new molecules and companies take down these obstructions. Part of the game is for the drug companies to enlist the aid of “Key Opinion Leaders,” prominent doctors and researchers who could be counted on to give company products a good review for reasons the original article details. Then the idea is to get as much on the label as possible to give the sales force as much leeway as possible in pitching the drug to doctors and to sponsor free continuing education sessions for doctors which are nothing more than pitch sessions for company products.

Medical education reinforces the disease management model of health care so that doctors are continually clamoring for more and better treatments and see the designer molecules pushed by the drug companies as the answer. The three components of this complex, the medical establishment, the pharmaceutical companies, and the health insurers share the same set of assumptions and have become mirror images of each other. The whole thing is fueled by the search for the designer molecule because that’s where the money is. That’s how our health care system has become a disease management system run for the benefit of the pharmaceutical companies.

[VALEWIS]

One can find natural aids for 'mental health' by doing a bit of searching. For example. Want to increase searatonin levels? Then take a precursor, e.g. 5 HTP, available at health food stores. Another one is SAMe which has been used to facilitate SSRI's because it works so well itself. And I am sure there are others that folks here can tell us they have used with good effect. Generally, most people can get rid of what ails them emotionally with time and reduction of stress, whether self-induced or external. And as many, many folks have noted here over and over, a healthy diet and exercise does wonders for one's sense of well being...

Val

[Frogbreath]

Let's not venture into the mental health issues, please. I've been way too far down that road, doing all the "natural remedies." SAMe is bad for bipolars, BTW. St. Johns never did anything for my depression. Sometimes the expensive drug is the only drug, or at least the best drug, for a given illness. Lamictal is one very expensive drug, but it's the only thing that has tempered my mood swings. (My HMO unfortunately thinks that all bipolars should respond to the less expensive lithium or Depakote and therefore charges me the maximum co-pay) Wellbutrin allows me to function without the depression that has devastated my life. I'm sorry, but I just get really tired of all the "natural" suggestions for mental illness.

We do seem to have a culture that wants to label every little difference as an illness and then medicate it, but when one's entire life has been painful and a drug has brought relief...there's nothing simple about this issue. I get the same feelings in these discussions as I do when the vegetarians get going. Life is just not that simple.

[VALEWIS]

Frogbreath, you have a point about bipolar.I had not heard that SAMe is bad for bipolar depression but take your word for it. But many, many people are put on heavy duty drugs for minor depressions which could have just used simpler remedies. There is a place for all prescribed medications for some people and for natural remedies for many. YMMV.

Val

[Dodger]

There is scientific evidence that St. phn's Wort is as effective in treating depression as are manufactured drugs and has less side effects.

Twenty-two randomised controlled trials were identified. Meta-analysis showed St John's wort to be significantly more effective than placebo (relative risk (RR) 1.98 (95% CI 1.49-2.62)) but not significantly different in efficacy from active antidepressants (RR 1.0 (0.90-1.11)). A sub-analysis of six placebo-controlled trials and four active comparator trials satisfying stricter methodological criteria also suggested that St John's wort was more effective than placebo (RR 1.77 (1.16-2.70)) and of similar effectiveness to standard antidepressants (RR 1.04 (0.94-1.15)). There was no evidence of publication bias. Adverse effects occurred more frequently with standard antidepressants than with St John's wort.

http://www.intclinpsychopharm.com/pt/re/intcpsychopharm/abstract.00004850-200109000-00001.htm;jsessionid=Cd8n7TezFaS23ujN8wdKY1kjf21wVvYPoGRExmV2hFjD8MYLisll!-806031158!-949856031!9001!-1

[VALEWIS]

Yes, and other studies have shown that exercise or psychotherapy works as well as anti-depressants as well. As all these studies involve averaging techniques, it is well to bear in mind that a few people won't show the average effect. Also it is not always the case that people who suffer from bipolar type depression benefit from certain drugs/remedies including prescribed ones...theirs appears to be a special type of depression.

Val

[ProfGumby]

When you view studies, sometimes it is best to see who financed them or who is reporting them. We have all seen some real hatchet work regarding Low carb.......your Kidneys shrivel up and die yet??

I agree though, that sometimes, the "most expensive drug" is the one that works. But then too, it will not work on everyone.

Also, did you ever read some of the side effects on some of these drugs? They are worse than the problem they treat, in some cases!

Anyone can site any study to suit their needs........

I am not accusing anyone here of any hidden agenda, but that is what you have to watch for in the media in this day and age.

[kmct10]

It's so nice to read plain, unadelterated truth for once.

Excellent post and points on mental health as well. SRI's take away inhibitions - just like alcohol. It becomes much easier to shoot your neighbors and kill yourself when you can't help feeling great about it.

"I see all of this as ultimately a problem of what might be loosely called 'reductionist' thinking in our culture. We try to reduce many complex phenomena to one basic cause. "

That cause being a reductionist physics, the greatest error of our times. Science is overzealously trying to reduce everything to physics, in the process wiping out complicated, messy, human, psychological truths.

This article illuminates the real corrosive effect of the self-perpetuating industrial-medical-govt research grant complex, the blindness and inflexibility of massively over-centralized beauracracy, and the hobbling of research by the competition for money. No wonder world respect for us is starting to crumble.

[Frogbreath]

Everyone pokes fun at the enormous list of awful side effects listed for drugs - especially antidepressants. The list is so long, of course, because drug companies must include all the possible side effects even the ones that only show up in one out of a thousand people (and no one knows for certain if it was caused by the drug and is a true side effect). Many drugs have their origins in herbal remedies and herbal extract, in particular, should be treated as drugs (I don't mean by the FDA). I mean they should be taken with caution by the consumer. Maybe the St Johns W I took had less of the active ingredient than I needed. Most of the studies I've referenced conclude that St Johns is effective for mild to moderate depression. I wouldn't trust it to treat depression for someone who has a history of severe, suicidal depressions.

I find myself both sides of this argument. I'm referring to the pharmaceutical vs. natural remedy struggle. I've never been a pill taker until the last five years which have driven me desperation. I've had to make some choices I don't like and I especially don't like making pharaceutical companies richer. However, I gladly give my money for Lamictal and Wellbutrin because without them my life is a living hell.

Presently I'm being pressured to take a statin drug to lower my cholesterol which took a big jump upward when I reached menopause. My last round with Atkins sent it soaring which is contrary to what is supposed to happen. So far I've been putting my doctor off while I do a trial run with Policosanol. It was developed in Cuba and isn't patented by a pharmaceutical company. It's supposed to work at least as well as the statin drugs and has far fewer side effects. It seemed to be working after the first month I took it. I hope it has continued to work because my cholesterol is really high. I don't enjoy low carbing as much without the cream and butter!

[Angeline]

That cause being a reductionist physics, the greatest error of our times. Science is overzealously trying to reduce everything to physics, in the process wiping out complicated, messy, human, psychological truths.


All good points kmct10. I think one of the reason for this "reductionism" is that it's necessary for the creation of the "designer molecule" as Ceberezin calls it. You need to simplify a disease to a restricted sympton in order to be able to design a molecule that will affect it. This way you can have multiple drugs that impact multiple symptons and multiply your bottom line. When these drugs causes problems you can simply pile on more drugs to "correct" them.

Everyone has heard the story of a elder person, being given a drug for a small problem being turned into a pill popping zombie and seeing their health quickly degenerate to infirmity and death

Here's another example. You all know Ozzie ? If you watched his show and compared his slurred speech and zombie-like behavior to earlier interviews he gave, you can't help but be shocked by the contrast. His family finally woke up and fired the doctor. Since he stopped the drugs, he looks and sounds much better.

[VALEWIS]

Frogbreath,

Do read this article: http://eurheartj.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/reprint/23/22/1738

You only need be concerned about HDL and triglycerides, and with C reactive protein. Not cholesterol overall. Framington and other longitudinal studies find that for older women high overall cholesterol is related to longevity. Mine went up when I started LC as well and after 2 years has settled into slightly high LDL (which could be the big fluffy kind which we can't get checked in Australia), very high HDL, and very low triglycerides....all of them very good results. I didn't want to give up my sat fats either and I think they are doing me good judging from my lipid results.

Val

[Frogbreath]

The triglycerides are bad and the cholesterol levels are so high that the good and bad can't be sorted out accurately - so I'm told.

[VALEWIS]

Sounds like you have complex health issues, Frogmouth..generally though low carbing in time gets the lipid results to improve. Some of the cholesterol skeptics do not believe that there is anything other than an indirect connection between what fat you eat and cholesterol levels. They would suggest that it is more likely that some inflammatory process is causing cholesterol to be raised. As you are likely on a number of medications for health, I wonder what effects they might have in this regard? Who knows. But given that you have to deal with doctors who are worried about it, good luck with the policosynol. Isn't there another effective cholesterol reducer that is natural as well...I recall reading about one.

Val

[VALEWIS]

Whoops, I called you Frogmouth instead of Frogbreath! As I live in the land of the much beloved green frogs (Queensland) this could be a natural mistake.

Val

[DebPenny]

Presently I'm being pressured to take a statin drug to lower my cholesterol which took a big jump upward when I reached menopause. My last round with Atkins sent it soaring which is contrary to what is supposed to happen. So far I've been putting my doctor off while I do a trial run with Policosanol. It was developed in Cuba and isn't patented by a pharmaceutical company. It's supposed to work at least as well as the statin drugs and has far fewer side effects. It seemed to be working after the first month I took it. I hope it has continued to work because my cholesterol is really high. I don't enjoy low carbing as much without the cream and butter!Frogbreath, what's your ratio on your cholesterol? My total went up to 270 (not due to menopause yet) when I started low-carbing, but my ratio is perfect at 4.2 (270 / 65 HDL). So check that first. Especially since a high HDL is much more important that a low LDL and statins lower HDL as well as LDL.
The triglycerides are bad and the cholesterol levels are so high that the good and bad can't be sorted out accurately - so I'm told.Sounds unlikely to me. Did you ask to see the reports yourself? Also, if you're low-carbing, your triglycerides should be low because it's carbs that raise them (triglycerides are directly related to bloodsugar levels). Was your test a fasting test? I'd have it done again at least a few times to see an average because the other thing is that lipid tests fluctuate a lot, just like blood pressure readings. And when you do the fasting test, make sure you fast the whole required time. Eating even one hour into the fasting time will skew the results.

One of the things I've learned is that no diagnosis should be performed on one simple test. I was diagnosed as diabetic from just one fasting blood test. And now they are saying that the best test for diabetes is the hA1c test, which was not done until I had been low-carbing for three months and showed that I was not diabetic. As far as cholesterol goes, make them do the test that determines the type of LDL you have. Type 1 and 2 are the kind that are supposedly 'dangerous' while all the others are the big fluffy kind that are as helpful as HDL.

High blood pressure is another thing that should be tested frequently and perhaps with a constant monitoring device before it is diagnosed. I typically measure high at the doctor's office in the morning, but everywhere/when else, I test low. My doctor wanted to treat high blood pressure based solely on my in-office readings. When I wore the monitor, it was 'proved' that I did not have a problem. One of the things the monitor showed too was how quickly my pressure came down after it spiked during stress. Then I started going to the doctor in the afternoons and the doctor started taking my blood pressure at the end of my visits... no problems.

Doctors don't typically want to take the time to make in-depth diagnoses, so they rely on sketchy details and put us on medications that are often not necessary. Don't let your doctor do that to you. You have time to get this properly diagnosed. Get second opinions and tests.

[VALEWIS]

Frogbreath, here's a post on a different thread that relates to this:http://forum.lowcarber.org/showthread.php?p=5315551#post5315551&conly=

Val

[kmct10]

Frogbreath, your post about your cholesterol was disturbing. Be precise about what your stats are, and how you interpret "doing Atkins", as that seems to mean very different things to different people. Some folks go way overboard with it. Perhaps the wiser ones in here can help you.

As for drugs, take whatever works for you. We are only dismissing the great majority of drugs which are prescribed for those who really don't need them.

As for natural remedies, or "St. John's Wort" - I wouldn't trust any remedy that says "takes three months to notice effects"! I"m not that patient. That sounds like the amount of time it took the snake-oil salesman to get out of town.

And to paraphrase Hurley of "Lost" - "Dude, I'm not even gonna ASK about your name!"

Cerebezin - another great post about your experience in Pharmaceuticals. Maybe some of you people who really know what you're talking about should write books. It seems your firsthand knowledge could be very helpful on a larger scale, somewhere with more influence than in here. Just a thought, or a wish, on my part.

[Dodger]

As for natural remedies, or "St. John's Wort" - I wouldn't trust any remedy that says "takes three months to notice effects"! I"m not that patient. That sounds like the amount of time it took the snake-oil salesman to get out of town.

The "takes up to three months" is standard for all anti-depressants, whether 'natural' or manmade. It takes a long while for the body's chemistry to fully adjust. Most people feel the results a lot sooner. In a significant percentage of people the drugs have no noticeable effect ever.

It works the other way too. A person will still feel fine for a long time after stopping anti-depressants and will not notice the gradual slide down into the hell-hole of depression.