Do antidepressants really work to treat depression? A new, six year meta-analysis amalgamating hundreds of the best performed clinical trials has demonstrated that antidepressants are better than placebo. The study, published in the Lancet, showed modest effects, positively affecting about 60% of people treated. Drugs varied in efficacy, ranging between about one third to twice as effective as placebo. What […]
It Seemed a Good Idea at the Time…
Researching the Obvious Often we do things because – that’s the way we’ve always done it. Yet when tested impartially, especially in medicine and public health, these “rules of thumb” frequently prove unsupported – or positively harmful. The standard joke about medical school education – “half of what we’re teaching is true, the other half false – […]
Medical Overuse (8/12/13)
Three Trillion a Year How did American health care come to cost nearly three trillion dollars a year? One place to look is at procedures – diagnostic tests and therapeutic treatments. In terms of costs, “procedures” can be as simple as a red blood cell count or as complicated as a liver transplant. Hospitals, drug […]
The New Hypochondriacs (Our Brave New Sensor World – 1/30/13)
New York, 2016 Your smartphone blasts you into semiconsciousness at 3:20 in the morning. As you shakily grab the sides blue and white neon flash across the screen – “Warning! You are at risk of heart attack. Consult your physician immediately.” You stare at the messages, but the picture stays the same. Hit a few […]
Gimme the Pill! Seductions of Supplements (8/22/12)
Every Work Day Just about every day I’m in the office patients come to me clutching a new pill bottle. Inside will be tablets or capsules purportedly containing anywhere from one to 50 or more ingredients. What Do People Want To Know? Will these pills work to cure their sleep problems/Crohn’s disease/heart disease/cancer/irritable bowel syndrome/memory […]