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There's a significant population of science denying cranks and so those who want to raise legit concerns about the quality and alas, often motivation of medical
by chx 4y ago
There's a significant population of science denying cranks and so those who want to raise legit concerns about the quality and alas, often motivation of medical studies are easily grouped with those. But:
1. There's no such thing as good / bad cholesterol. This is complete baloney and Pfizer lost a staggering amount of money when a drug raising good cholesterol got as far as human trials -- and failed them. There is no significant evidence for concluding that dietary saturated fat is associated with an increased risk of coronary heart disease or cardiovascular disease. There's growing amount evidence though that cholesterol is a symptom and not a cause.
2. The diagnosis and treatment of ADHD in adults but most especially in children is extremely suspect. Last year there was a study pretty much confirming it is overdiagnosed in children. But even worse, whether ADHD is even a thing or multiple conditions wrongly bundled under a single name is basically an open question. We basically put labels on children with "problematic behaviors" like "autistic spectrum disorder" and "ADHD" and then eventually find that 30-80% of ASD children are meeting criteria for ADHD. First of all what sort of study is 30-80%? But if the higher end is true, the question strongly arises: are these even two things?
3. I would bet dollars to doughnuts in a few decades we will look at all current nutrition advice to something akin of medieval quackery. How is this not self evident: genes obviously affect how foodstuff interact with our bodies thus any sweeping generalization is inherently suspect or most likely complete baloney. Like, how can anyone seriously think only lactose intolerance is an inherited genetic trait.
I would need to dig into my notes if someone needs them but a group of statisticians at a university started to look into medical studies and then FOIA the raw data and found like 80% of them cherry picking the data.
The incentives are not exactly at the right place.
- eyelidlessness 4y ago> The diagnosis and treatment of ADHD in adults but most especially in children is extremely suspect. Go on… (I’m adult diagnosed, for disclosure, but please do go on and tell me how suspect my diagnosis was, how I shouldn’t have been diagnosed as a child, how my medication is harmful. Go on and tell me about my life which you know better than I do.)
- pindab0ter 4y agoJust because you might have gotten a diagnosis that helped you doesn’t mean everyone has. I for one am actually interested if he can back up that claim. So when you as them to “Go on…”, please leave it at that. There’s no reason to be snarky.
- chx 4y agodoi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2021.5335 > Findings In this systematic scoping review of 334 published studies in children and adolescents, convincing evidence was found that ADHD is overdiagnosed in children and adolescents. For individuals with milder symptoms in particular, the harms associated with an ADHD diagnosis may often outweigh the benefits.
- eyelidlessness 4y agoYou have the benefit of being casually disconnected from the topic and presenting yourself as intellectually curious. I have the experience of being alive because I was diagnosed and treated. Your curiosity about whether I get to live or die is up to you, but my place to speak to that isn’t up to you until I’m dead.
- handedness 4y ago
- eyelidlessness 4y ago
- jb1991 4y agoI would be curious to see discrepancies in ADHD diagnosis between countries. You hear about it all the time in the U.S. but rarely in many other places, including Europe.
- briefcomment 4y agoAdd polyunsaturated fats to that list If you really want to dive into the wealth of counter narrative research that's being conducted, here's a huge collection http://haidut.me http://haidut.me
- refurb 4y agoThere's no such thing as good / bad cholesterol. This is untrue. There is lots of data to suggest elevated LDL is a risk of cardiovascular disease and that high HDL lower risk. Pfizer's drug failed because of safety issues, not because "There's no such thing as good / bad cholesterol".
- chx 4y ago> there is lots of data to suggest elevated LDL is a risk of cardiovascular disease Elevated LDL is a symptom of inflammation. It is not a cause and lowering it doesn't help. The research mixed up cause vs correlation.
- toomuchtodo 4y agoHigh sugar diet the cause (“Western Die” and whatnot)?
- refurb 4y agoI love reading medical advice on HN. Genetic errors which cause high LDL levels result in significant cardiovascular disease. It's a very strong cause and effect. I won't argue that inflammation doesn't play some role (it seems to play a role in many diseases), but I wouldn't dismiss current medical opinion on LDL. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Familial_hypercholesterolemia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Familial_hypercholesterolemia Familial hypercholesterolemia (FH) is a genetic disorder characterized by high cholesterol levels, specifically very high levels of low-density lipoprotein (LDL cholesterol), in the blood and early cardiovascular disease.
- imtringued 4y agoWhy aren't you adjusting for LDL subfractions? Seriously, yes having too much LDL can be a sign of having harmful subfractions but that doesn't mean high LDL actually is harmful or low LDL is healthy.
- refurb 4y ago
- TulliusCicero 4y ago> then eventually find that 30-80% of ASD children are meeting criteria for ADHD. First of all what sort of study is 30-80%? But if the higher end is true, the question strongly arises: are these even two things? 80% of ASD kids meeting criteria for ADHD doesn't mean that 80% of ADHD kids meet the criteria for ASD. ADHD seems a lot more common.
- drc500free 4y ago> Last year there was a study pretty much confirming [ADHD] is overdiagnosed in children. That paper is very clear that they did not study misdiagnosis. They are a bit jargony with the use of "overdiagnosed." "Overdiagnosed" does not mean incorrectly diagnosed, it means that there are subgroups who get a net harm from being treated. A more understandable term for what they measure is "overtreated." The solution is likely better protocols for mild cases, not to state that ADHD is not a thing.
- emodendroket 4y ago> 2. The diagnosis and treatment of ADHD in adults but most especially in children is extremely suspect. Last year there was a study pretty much confirming it is overdiagnosed in children. But even worse, whether ADHD is even a thing or multiple conditions wrongly bundled under a single name is basically an open question. We basically put labels on children with "problematic behaviors" like "autistic spectrum disorder" and "ADHD" and then eventually find that 30-80% of ASD children are meeting criteria for ADHD. First of all what sort of study is 30-80%? But if the higher end is true, the question strongly arises: are these even two things? You know, just the other day I read about some brain scan study which suggested high-functioning autism looked, in brain scans, more like ADHD than like profound autism. But I think to some extent this sort of problem is inevitable if you're trying to dream up a taxonomy for conditions entirely from how they present themselves with a limited understanding of their biological basis.
- klodolph 4y ago> I would bet dollars to doughnuts in a few decades we will look at all current nutrition advice to something akin of medieval quackery. All current nutrition advice? Does this equally include the nutrition advice that your cousin gives on Facebook, as well as the advice given by doctors of nutritional science? I get where this skepticism comes from. Nutrition is complicated, and there's a lot of bad advice shared by random people you meet. There's also the diet supplement aisle at your local grocery store, which is full of poorly-regulated products with dubious claims. (At least, in the US, we have these. They are not regulated as drugs.) At the same time, nutrition-based interventions are some of the most effective public health policies we've ever implemented. In the US, we have programs like WIC. We have iodized salt. We cure blindness in children. We cure scurvy. These are all amazing things--things which we kind of take for granted, because we're not ever exposed to scurvy, childhood blindness, etc. This is not the first time I've heard such extreme skepticism of nutritional science and it just boggles the mind because if you talk to someone who works in the field, they have amazing success stories to talk about.