11 ms·

This whole comment section is totally delusional regarding the reliability of medical statistics and preliminary data in life science. It's funny (and sad) to s

by rscho 5y ago

This whole comment section is totally delusional regarding the reliability of medical statistics and preliminary data in life science. It's funny (and sad) to see people easily disparaging "state-of-the-art treatments" be so prone to experiment on themselves with moonshot claims.

myfavoritedog 5y ago
For decades, we were told that the food pyramid was the ideal healthy diet and that dietary fat was the enemy. It was all bullshit. Eggs are healthy, eggs are unhealthy, eggs are really unhealthy, eggs are healthy, eggs are really healthy. I had trained medical professionals tell me twenty years ago that I was going to ruin my kidneys with my low-carb dieting. Twenty years later, I'm still keeping the weight off and medical science has started to catch up to what I knew just by experimenting on myself with moonshot claims. The biggest problem with medical science (just look at how COVID issues were butchered by politics and celebrity), is that they refuse to just say, "We don't really know." Because all too often, they have no clue. But they are trained to come up with answers and sound confident about it.
- jopsen 5y ago
  > just say, "We don't really know." That is what OP says. What we open see is that "we don't know" is often equated with "does not work". (I guess that also very frequently how it works out)
- rscho 5y ago
  There are many things I don't know. However, here's one thing I know to be true: individual experiments do not make for population-level generalizations. Additionally, dieting by reducing or even excluding a single well-known food category when there are many more left appears as less radical than taking a pill that will rebalance your whole metabolism, don't you think? Regarding the "we really don't know" part: one can observe that people here are basing their own shamanic medicine on what they read in scientific papers, suddenly pretending that those papers can be trusted while they'll disparage the theories of clinical practitioners as being old-fashioned and manipulative. Well, it happens that many of those theories are based upon lots and lots of research and certainly more so that the "fad of the day" is. And yes, those theories are often refuted after years of clinical application, which does not bode well for experiments based on "few papers shamanic medicine".
  - quintaindilemma 5y ago
    What's your point here in the second paragraph? You say that 1. people use their own "shamanic" medicine based on published scientific papers, 2. people disparage clinical practioners' theories which are based on research and which are later often refuted, 3. you conclude that the "many of those theories" of (2) are "based on lots of research" but often flawed, 4. which "does not bode well for" experiments based on the papers of (1). What does (2) have to do with (1), unless the content of the papers and "experiments" in each are closely related? Perhaps you could clarify what you were trying to say here.
    - rscho 5y ago
      1. People want to take metformin. They will cite various sources they extract from Pubmed, but the truth is that they got the impression that metformin was good for them while reading pop-sci articles and Facebook threads. 2. They then proceed to ask their doc for metformin, since it's a prescription drug. Unless the doc wants to commit career-seppuku or the patient has a reason for taking metformin according to current guidelines based on years of clinical use and research, the doc will refuse even when presented said Pubmed evidence. Conclusion: people who want to take metformin will look into alternate sources, because they built a preconceived belief and nothing a sensible professional says will change their mind. People then proceed with metformin and if a change in indication occurs in the future that agrees with their belief, they will feel vindicated while in fact they are just lucky fools.
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gremloni 5y ago
No matter what, the underlying reality, is that there are certain chemical you can take in the right amount per person to give you the best health possible. We might not be there for a while but studies help us in that direction.
- rscho 5y ago
  Yes, I agree. But not all studies. There is a substantial proportion of studies that are just statistical noise, and a smaller but still substantial part that are outright fraud. However, individual experiments are not studies in the academic sense. Especially if they are not formally reported so that the experience is not lost in time.
jcims 5y ago
Sometimes 'state-of-the-art' falls short and the moonshot is all you've got.
- rscho 5y ago
  Certainly. And in that case, you should proceed only if really desired. And realize that doing this is not meant to help you, but to help others who will learn from the experience.
  - jcims 5y ago
    I agree but this proves difficult to pull off practically, at least in the US, because you need to find a provider that will support your choice. Without that you lose access to essentially all standard medicine.
quintaindilemma 5y ago
But an individual has no choice in his/her actions except the "moonshot". We are individuals, not statistical aggregations. Every choice we make is, in a way, a "moonshot".
- rscho 5y ago
  In medicine, if you opt in for something that falls into the domain of the experimental or research, then you should know that you are doing this for yourself, but for others who will benefit from the knowledge that it worked or failed. If it works, it'll just be a happy accident and means absolutely nothing in isolation regarding population-level guidelines. Which is why officially, people have a choice in participating to research studies but aren't allowed free access to whatever drug they want to take. This opinion is also supported by current medical ethics and practitioners have a duty to make their patients clearly understand that. Fortunately for the rest of the world, american patients have a lot of trouble in understanding that last point.

by rscho 5y ago

myfavoritedog 5y ago

For decades, we were told that the food pyramid was the ideal healthy diet and that dietary fat was the enemy. It was all bullshit. Eggs are healthy, eggs are unhealthy, eggs are really unhealthy, eggs are healthy, eggs are really healthy. I had trained medical professionals tell me twenty years ago that I was going to ruin my kidneys with my low-carb dieting. Twenty years later, I'm still keeping the weight off and medical science has started to catch up to what I knew just by experimenting on myself with moonshot claims. The biggest problem with medical science (just look at how COVID issues were butchered by politics and celebrity), is that they refuse to just say, "We don't really know." Because all too often, they have no clue. But they are trained to come up with answers and sound confident about it.

jopsen 5y ago
> just say, "We don't really know." That is what OP says. What we open see is that "we don't know" is often equated with "does not work". (I guess that also very frequently how it works out)
rscho 5y ago
There are many things I don't know. However, here's one thing I know to be true: individual experiments do not make for population-level generalizations. Additionally, dieting by reducing or even excluding a single well-known food category when there are many more left appears as less radical than taking a pill that will rebalance your whole metabolism, don't you think? Regarding the "we really don't know" part: one can observe that people here are basing their own shamanic medicine on what they read in scientific papers, suddenly pretending that those papers can be trusted while they'll disparage the theories of clinical practitioners as being old-fashioned and manipulative. Well, it happens that many of those theories are based upon lots and lots of research and certainly more so that the "fad of the day" is. And yes, those theories are often refuted after years of clinical application, which does not bode well for experiments based on "few papers shamanic medicine".
- quintaindilemma 5y ago
  What's your point here in the second paragraph? You say that 1. people use their own "shamanic" medicine based on published scientific papers, 2. people disparage clinical practioners' theories which are based on research and which are later often refuted, 3. you conclude that the "many of those theories" of (2) are "based on lots of research" but often flawed, 4. which "does not bode well for" experiments based on the papers of (1). What does (2) have to do with (1), unless the content of the papers and "experiments" in each are closely related? Perhaps you could clarify what you were trying to say here.
  - rscho 5y ago
    1. People want to take metformin. They will cite various sources they extract from Pubmed, but the truth is that they got the impression that metformin was good for them while reading pop-sci articles and Facebook threads. 2. They then proceed to ask their doc for metformin, since it's a prescription drug. Unless the doc wants to commit career-seppuku or the patient has a reason for taking metformin according to current guidelines based on years of clinical use and research, the doc will refuse even when presented said Pubmed evidence. Conclusion: people who want to take metformin will look into alternate sources, because they built a preconceived belief and nothing a sensible professional says will change their mind. People then proceed with metformin and if a change in indication occurs in the future that agrees with their belief, they will feel vindicated while in fact they are just lucky fools.

deleted 5y ago

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deleted 5y ago

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gremloni 5y ago

No matter what, the underlying reality, is that there are certain chemical you can take in the right amount per person to give you the best health possible. We might not be there for a while but studies help us in that direction.

rscho 5y ago
Yes, I agree. But not all studies. There is a substantial proportion of studies that are just statistical noise, and a smaller but still substantial part that are outright fraud. However, individual experiments are not studies in the academic sense. Especially if they are not formally reported so that the experience is not lost in time.

jcims 5y ago

Sometimes 'state-of-the-art' falls short and the moonshot is all you've got.

rscho 5y ago
Certainly. And in that case, you should proceed only if really desired. And realize that doing this is not meant to help you, but to help others who will learn from the experience.
- jcims 5y ago
  I agree but this proves difficult to pull off practically, at least in the US, because you need to find a provider that will support your choice. Without that you lose access to essentially all standard medicine.

quintaindilemma 5y ago

But an individual has no choice in his/her actions except the "moonshot". We are individuals, not statistical aggregations. Every choice we make is, in a way, a "moonshot".

rscho 5y ago
In medicine, if you opt in for something that falls into the domain of the experimental or research, then you should know that you are doing this for yourself, but for others who will benefit from the knowledge that it worked or failed. If it works, it'll just be a happy accident and means absolutely nothing in isolation regarding population-level guidelines. Which is why officially, people have a choice in participating to research studies but aren't allowed free access to whatever drug they want to take. This opinion is also supported by current medical ethics and practitioners have a duty to make their patients clearly understand that. Fortunately for the rest of the world, american patients have a lot of trouble in understanding that last point.