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  #1   ^
Old Mon, Dec-26-16, 10:20
WereBear's Avatar
WereBear WereBear is offline
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Default How statistic lie: drug edition

Dr. Cate has been red-hot lately. Here's an article about how statins were "sold" to doctors:

Quote:
An example is a recent Lancet review article has been hailed as the “definitive” summary of the potential risks versus potential harms of statin drugs. The authors conclude that most of the side effects we’ve thought statins had are actually nonexistent. They predict just 2 adverse events per 15 cases of heart attack or stroke prevented, and make rather strong statements about doctors not prescribing statins often enough.

A couple of folks I respect have pointed out that the authors have long served as apologists for the statin industry. In my video critique of the Lancet article I discuss Malcolm Kendrick, and HealthInsightUK.

My concern about this particular article is that, as far as being the last word on risk versus harm, it’s seriously flawed by failure to include ALL the common side effects in the analysis. Some side effects simply weren’t discussed, like heart failure. But most side effects were dismissed based on the results of randomized controlled trials. However, a little-known stage of most such trials called the “run-in” or “wash out” period, can be used to screen out massive numbers of study subjects. I believe that this little trick is often used to sway the results in favor of a given drug.

Statisticians Can Easily Mislead Doctors About Statin (or any) Drug Safety


This also explains the staggering breadth and reach and danger of drug-related side effects; a subject which scares me every time I research it.
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  #2   ^
Old Mon, Dec-26-16, 14:51
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GRB5111 GRB5111 is offline
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Plan: Very LC, Higher Protein
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Default

The video is an eye opener in that one can assume that this is being done to promote many pharmaceuticals. It means that patients and doctors are being given unreliable information that can have serious health consequences. It's another example of how people are responsible for their own research and cannot afford to blindly follow the recommendations of medical experts. Question anything and everything one is told to put in one's body.
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  #3   ^
Old Mon, Dec-26-16, 15:57
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cotonpal cotonpal is offline
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Plan: very low carb real food
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This is statistics 101. If you cannot know who was excluded from a study and who was included you cannot generalize the findings to a larger group of people. It's also statistics 101 that if you want to determine if you agree with the conclusions that a study has come to you have to have the raw data along with a full description of the study design.

Doctors are trained to be clinicians and often get no education in experimental design and statistics. If the research is flawed they will not be aware of that.

Jean
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  #4   ^
Old Mon, Dec-26-16, 16:12
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Meme#1 Meme#1 is offline
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Every time I read side effects of some drugs and watch those
god-awful nonstop drug commercials it reminds me that someone
has suffered each bad reaction or they wouldn't list each. Just
to cover themselves from liability because...they warned you!

But doctors, I think they know more than you think, they're just on the gravy train...Why swim upstream when the profits are so great just going with the flow?
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  #5   ^
Old Tue, Dec-27-16, 06:45
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WereBear WereBear is offline
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It's the way doctors are trained: "there's a pill for every ill."

As I discovered in my nightmare medical journey, they have been trained to sit there, ticking off symptoms that a drug will make go away. And then they give you the drug(s). Next!

But that just cancels out the symptoms. I saw a specialist and when I talked about sleep problems and exhaustion, he wanted to give me Ambien and Prozac. And Lipitor, because I was there.

No tests, no diagnosis. Just a fistful of prescriptions. And when these drugs drive me back to complain about side effects, guess what? More drugs! More side effects!
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  #6   ^
Old Tue, Dec-27-16, 06:54
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JEY100 JEY100 is online now
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Default

New podcast with Dr Lembke on doctor's overprescribing with more deadly consequences than statins...opioids.
http://livinlavidalowcarb.com/blog/...addiction/27175

One tidbit...more than 50% of doctors are now salaried employees of larger group practices, which have established practice guidelines on what drugs have to be prescribed for what test results, etc. ...and how long to spend with each patient. Some doctors see 40 patients a day...easier to continue to hand out pain relief than seek the cause of pain.
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  #7   ^
Old Tue, Dec-27-16, 09:00
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WereBear WereBear is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by JEY100
New podcast with Dr Lembke on doctor's overprescribing with more deadly consequences than statins...opioids.
http://livinlavidalowcarb.com/blog/...addiction/27175

One tidbit...more than 50% of doctors are now salaried employees of larger group practices, which have established practice guidelines on what drugs have to be prescribed for what test results, etc. ...and how long to spend with each patient. Some doctors see 40 patients a day...easier to continue to hand out pain relief than seek the cause of pain.


Cheaper, too; to their way of thinking. Expensive operation/PT to fix that joint or a script to make them stop complaining about the pain...

Look at the BILLIONS spent on Type II diabetes, when we all know how most of those people could fix it themselves. It drives me nuts, I tell ya.
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  #8   ^
Old Tue, Dec-27-16, 10:57
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Meme#1 Meme#1 is offline
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Plan: Atkins DANDR
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Quote:
Originally Posted by WereBear
Cheaper, too; to their way of thinking. Expensive operation/PT to fix that joint or a script to make them stop complaining about the pain...

Look at the BILLIONS spent on Type II diabetes, when we all know how most of those people could fix it themselves. It drives me nuts, I tell ya.


Speaking about Type II diabetes, yesterday I was near two people who both had it and it was not under control. Being low carb for a couple of years now, I can smell it, it fills the air around them.

Both of them were big rice eaters.

But if you told them to stop eating rice, they would be horrified!
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  #9   ^
Old Wed, Dec-28-16, 07:32
WereBear's Avatar
WereBear WereBear is offline
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Plan: EpiPaleo/Primal/LowOx
Stats: 220/125/150 Female 67
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Default

I wandered into a ring of diabetes blogs once, and they were the nicest people, struggling with an impossible task.

They were all damning their "brittle" diabetes.

They would have their carefully measured meal, with the recommended number of carbs, and take their insulin, and sometimes it would work but mostly it wouldn't. Their blood sugar would be too high, and they would take a little more insulin next time, and then it would be too low, and they would frantically eat more...

Travel, special occasions, and times they had to have one more serving of their favorite stress food; all became disasters that made them sick and frantic. Always there loomed a bleak future if they couldn't get this right, and they could not get it "right."

Doctors blamed them, and they blamed themselves.

It is what Dr. Bernstein calls The Laws of Small Numbers.

Quote:
“Big inputs make big mistakes; small inputs make small mistakes.”

That is the first thing my friend Kanji Ishikawa says to himself each morning on arising. It is his mantra, the single most important thing he knows about diabetes.
...

The name of the game for the diabetic in achieving blood sugar normalization is predictability. It’s very difficult to use medications safely unless you can predict the effect they’ll have. Nor can you normalize blood sugar unless you can predict the effects of what you’re eating. If you can’t accurately predict your blood sugar levels, then you can’t accurately predict your needs for insulin or oral blood sugar–lowering agents. If the kinds of foods you’re eating give you consistently unpredictable blood sugar levels, then it will be impossible to normalize blood sugars.


By being told to load up on carbs, these diabetics are getting those unpredictable blood sugar levels. It was so terribly sad.

This, too, is the fault of Ancel Keys and his lipid hypothesis. Since diabetics have a higher risk of heart disease, they got their fat pared even more, and pushed into hearthealthywholegrains, more. So they are dealing with diabetes and heart disease. They get statins right out of the gate.

It really is horrying to step back and see it happening and know there is little I can do. That is why reforming the entire attitude is so very important.
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  #10   ^
Old Thu, Dec-29-16, 07:39
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JLx JLx is offline
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Plan: High protein, lower fat
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Default

As a diabetic, not only is my nurse practitioner always wanting to prescribe statins but one time the pharmacy itself called me directly to see if I knew I could "benefit" from statins - not knowing anything about my blood tests, but purely on the basis of having diabetes!
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  #11   ^
Old Tue, Jan-03-17, 15:12
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Merpig Merpig is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by JEY100
New podcast with Dr Lembke on doctor's overprescribing with more deadly consequences than statins...opioids.
http://livinlavidalowcarb.com/blog/...addiction/27175
I had surgery this summer to have a metal plate installed to stabilize my shattered wrist. When I woke up from the surgery I was in major pain. The surgeon gave me quite a *large* prescription for Percocet. The first few days I did take 1-2 daily, but didn't really want to take them so eased off. For a while I had to see the doctor weekly and at each visit, for weeks, he would ask "Do you need more pain pills?" I always said NO, but if I had said yes I certainly would have gotten more pills!

I wonder how long it takes to develop an addiction? Thirty+ years ago I had knee surgery and was in major pain for several months. I was also prescribed an opioid, and took 3-4 of them daily for months(in those pre-google days, never having heard of opioid addiction). Then one day I realized I was not in much pain anymore, so I stopped taking them. They never did anything for me except ease the pain, and when the pain was mostly gone there was no more reason for me to take any!
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  #12   ^
Old Tue, Jan-03-17, 15:16
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Merpig Merpig is offline
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Plan: EF/Fung IDM/keto
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Quote:
Originally Posted by JLx
As a diabetic, not only is my nurse practitioner always wanting to prescribe statins but one time the pharmacy itself called me directly to see if I knew I could "benefit" from statins - not knowing anything about my blood tests, but purely on the basis of having diabetes!
I'm fortunate that my doctor is pretty anti-statin too, but I've gotten mail from my health insurance company asking if I knew that I could "benefit" from statins!
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