FW: WDDTY e-News Service - 4th December 2003

[Guest guest]

Not sure what to make of the comment about Ernst - he's also done a lot of

slagging off of homoeopathy. He's the one who keeps doing these studies

that conclude that homoeopathy isn't effective!

Sue

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WHAT DOCTORS DON’T TELL YOU - E-NEWS BROADCAST No. 61 - 04 December 03

HOSPITALS: Are we sure they're places where people go to get better?

Hospitals are dangerous places, as new research has confirmed. Well over

30,000 patients die in American hospitals every year from some medical

mishap, while 167,000 will suffer a serious injury that will at the very

least extend their hospital stay.

And the bad news-if that was not bad enough-is that the picture is far worse

than the one presented, researchers who produced the study have said.

The most dangerous procedure was vaginal delivery by forceps and other

surgical instruments, with over 22 per cent of all procedures resulting in

injury. The second highest was caused by vaginal birth without forceps,

with nearly 9 per cent of all procedures injuring the patient. But

postoperative sepsis-which occurs in 1.12 per cent of all patients-had the

biggest impact, resulting in an extended hospital stay of an additional 11

days.

This alarming picture, prepared by researchers from the s Hopkins

University in Baltimore, is a 'best guesstimate' based on 7.45 million

discharge records collected from 994 hospitals across 28 states in the USA

during 2000.

As the researchers say, nobody knows the true picture, and their own

evaluation is a very conservative one compared with previous research

studies, including one that estimated that medical mistakes cause 98,000

deaths a year in American hospitals.

The researchers concede that the situation is far worse than the one they

have reported-but just how worse is anyone's guess.

(Source: Journal of the American Medical Association, 2003; 290: 1868-74).

HERBAL MEDICINE: Not so much like conventional drugs, after all

Of all the alternative and complementary therapies, herbal medicine has

usually been viewed as being the closest to conventional medicine-and so

just as dangerous.

Not so, says Edvard Ernst, director of complementary medicine at Exeter

University, England. Just 8,985 cases of adverse reactions from herbs were

reported to the World Health Organization in 29 years until 1997, and this

from 55 countries. This compares with the 190,000 adverse reactions from a

pharmaceutical drug that are reported every year to UK authorities alone.

The mild antidepressant St 's wort, for example, has at least half the

rate of adverse effects compared with conventional antidepressants, while

kava is far safer than benzodiazepines, even though it has been banned in

many countries, including the UK.

The argument that adverse reactions from herbal medicines are lower because

fewer people take them may not hold water, either. It's been estimated that

around 30 per cent of the adult population of the UK has taken a herbal

remedy.

Ernst also dispels another myth that herbal remedies are ineffective.

Hundreds of medical trials have proven their effectiveness-and many of these

trials have been properly conducted scientific studies.

Sadly, the EU's legislation to harmonize usage of traditional herbal

remedies will kill off any further research, Ernst fears.

(British Medical Journal, 2003; 327: 881-2).

PUT ON YOUR HIGH-HEEL SHOES: They don't cause osteoarthritis

High-heeled shoes do not cause osteoarthritis in the knee, fashion-conscious

women will be relieved to hear.

Researchers feared that the shoes could be responsible for the disease that

affects twice as many women as men over the age of 65.

But they'll have to resume the search for the culprit after a study could

find no causal link with the shoes. They interviewed 111 women aged between

50 and 70 years who were waiting for knee replacement surgery, while the

controls were 82 healthy women.

Women from both groups said they wore heels that were at least one inch (2.5

cm) high. Indeed, the researchers concluded, high-heel shoes may even have

a protective effect.

(Source: Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, 2003; 57: 823-30).

INFERTILITY: Well, how about one of our cancer drugs?

No Enews broadcast would be complete without a 'let's knock the

pharmaceutical monster' story-so here's this week's offering.

One pharmaceutical, Sun Pharmaceuticals, has been accused of marketing a

cancer drug as an infertility treatment in India, for which it has not been

licensed.

The company has been accused of illegally promoting and marketing its drug,

letrozole, which has been licensed as a breast cancer treatment for

postmenopausal women. But drug company representatives have told

gynaecologists in India that it can also induce ovulation in infertile

women.

The company is investigating the allegations, and has said the illegal

promotion may be down to salesmen " going overboard " .

(Source: Monthly Index of Medical Specialties India, September 2003).

FATS: They cause heart problems, but not stroke. Right?

Start researching the effects of diet on health, and you'll end up confused,

if not dazed. Take, for instance, the findings of a new study that has

concluded that a diet high in fats-such as red meat, eggs, dairy and

nuts-may increase the risk of coronary heart disease, but not of stroke.

This major study, which involved 43,732 men aged between 40 and 75, confirms

earlier findings that even the 'bad' fats such as saturated and trans

unsaturated fatty acids do not increase the chances of stroke, even if the

generally-accepted view is that they are association with heart disease.

The fat intake of the 725 men who suffered a stroke during the 14 years of

the study did not appear to play a part in their disease, the Harvard

research team concluded. In fact, even the type of fat consumed did not

seem to be a cause.

This is all very perplexing because there is a close link between heart

disease and stroke. What appears to need re-evaluating, the researchers

suggest, is the role that cholesterol plays in the two diseases. In short,

cholesterol may not be a factor in stroke at all, they suggest.

But could it be that cholesterol is one of medicine's great red herrings?

(Don't forget, you read it here first folks-unless you're a longstanding

WDDTY subscriber, in which case you read it 10 years ago).

(Source: British Medical Journal, 2003; 327: 777-81).

MACULAR DEGENERATION: A drug-free therapy

Last week they got a bit of a kicking; this week they are already trying to

redeem themselves. We're talking about those nice people from NICE (the

National Institute for Clinical Excellence), which is supposed to assess the

efficacy, and expense, of a drug before allowing it onto the approved list

of those available on the UK's National Health Service.

They are recommending to doctors to try photodynamic therapy instead of a

drug in treating age-related macular degeneration.

The therapy is worth considering, and more patients should have access to

it, if only to provide enough material for a proper trial, say NICE.

The therapy uses a low-power laser to seal 'leaky' blood vessels under the

retina associated with the condition. The therapy has " a reasonable chance

of halting or slowing the progression of the disease, " NICE reports.

What? No drugs?

(Source: British Medical Journal, 2003; 327: 698).

READERS' CORNER

Fibromyalgia: One reader saw people's suggestions for treating fibromyalgia

in last week's E-news, but missed our original recommendations. In the

original piece, we said that trials had found homeopathy,

electro-acupuncture and massage therapy provided long-term relief.

Depression: One reader has picked up on our E-news article about the role

that a positive attitude can have on recovery after by-pass surgery (see

E-news no. 58). But, she wonders, does it go deeper than that? Depression

isn't a mental problem, but is a general health problem brought on by

exhaustion, toxicity, and the like. By-pass patients don't die because of a

negative attitude, but because of a poorer health status, revealed by their

depression, she suggests.

Self-sufficiency: Aren't suppliers of herbal and complementary products

just the same as the big pharmaceuticals, asks one reader? In other words,

isn't the profit motive paramount with them as well? Instead, people should

be self-sufficient and so (presumably) should grow their own herbs.

Grammatical ignoramus: Oh dear. We've already upset one E-news reader, and

he'd signed up only the day before receiving last week's broadcast. He's

taken exception to our use (or misuse) of the Queen's English.

Specifically, he says we have misused the term " taketh " which was part of a

headline in E-news no. 60. The problem was, according to our reader, that

we used it with a third person plural, as in " They taketh away " . Taketh, he

said, is the old form of the third person singular, as in The Lord taketh

away. " I am distressed to find it difficult to concentrate on the text when

in a constant state of irritation at the fact of its having apparently been

written by a grammatical ignoramus " , he says. Unfortunately for our reader,

we find in the Merriam-Webster Dictionary that taketh can be used with a

singular or a plural, and the dictionary gives the example of: " They that

taketh not their life in vain. . . " . We hope our reader doesn't taketh

umbrage.