About the value of studies

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Ben
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Re: About the value of studies

Post by Ben »

Annapurna wrote:Excuse me Ben, but I could only watch the first 3 minutes, my time is too precious right now, as I'm working an averge of 11-14 hours a day. I find the commentaries themselves a bit too polemic and suggestive.
No problem, Anna.
Years ago I used to practice shiatsu and give people macrobiotic dietary advice for their health and happiness. I had a bit of an epiphany as I was delivering my daughter. After that moment, I dropped my pre-conceived ideas about 'western medicine' and started to read and listen with more discrimination regarding alternative medicine claims. Then years later, I witnessed the work of selfless health-care professionals who worked tirelessly and selflessly trying to keep my father and older brother alive. I've also witnessed the profound impact of treatment with family members with acute clinical depression.
I also had the opportunity to work in a number of large metropolitan hospitals and had professional and social relationships with clinicians. In my spare time, I organized a number of teams to participate in endurance cycling events and raised many thousands of dollars for unsexy causes such as geriatrics, hyperbaric medicine, and financing of research into trans-cranial magnetic stimulation for patients with treatment-resistent depression.
So impressed was I with the personal and scientific integrity of the people who I was exposed to, I recommended to my daughter a career in medicine some years ago. She is now near the top of the third year in the most prestigious medical faculty in Australia.
I understand that you have a career in alternative therapies, Anna. I'm not attacking you nor the choices you made. And while Dawkins is quite polemical, what he does do in that series is outline,very eloquently, the way in which scientific knowledge is advanced.
With metta

Ben
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Annapurna
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Re: About the value of studies

Post by Annapurna »

Ben wrote:
Annapurna wrote:Excuse me Ben, but I could only watch the first 3 minutes, my time is too precious right now, as I'm working an averge of 11-14 hours a day. I find the commentaries themselves a bit too polemic and suggestive.
No problem, Anna.
Years ago I used to practice shiatsu and give people macrobiotic dietary advice for their health and happiness. I had a bit of an epiphany as I was delivering my daughter. After that moment, I dropped my pre-conceived ideas about 'western
medicine' and started to read and listen with more discrimination regarding alternative medicine claims. Then years later, I witnessed the work of selfless health-care professionals who worked tirelessly and selflessly trying to keep my father and older brother alive. I've also witnessed the profound impact of treatment with family members with acute clinical depression.
I also had the opportunity to work in a number of large metropolitan hospitals and had professional and social relationships with clinicians. In my spare time, I organized a number of teams to participate in endurance cycling events and raised many thousands of dollars for unsexy causes such as geriatrics, hyperbaric medicine, and financing of research into trans-cranial magnetic stimulation for patients with treatment-resistent depression.
So impressed was I with the personal and scientific integrity of the people who I was exposed to, I recommended to my daughter a career in medicine some years ago. She is now near the top of the third year in the most prestigious medical faculty in Australia.
I understand that you have a career in alternative therapies, Anna. I'm not attacking you nor the choices you made. And while Dawkins is quite polemical, what he does do in that series is outline,very eloquently, the way in which scientific knowledge is advanced.
With metta

Ben
I'll give the videos another try then, Ben, I think I will have some time Friday and Saturday, but who knows. I am probably also aware of the scientific advance. But who knows. :D

If you remember the website I am translating -I am doing this for a colleague who got masters degrees in biology, zoology and evolutionary psychology.

Like me, he moved on to alternative medicine after university, but I am as aware as he is, that there is a lot of scary quackery going on and sadly, those peope often bring a whole branch into miscredit.

I understand the concern and mistrust my branch is sometimes exposed to. But usually explaining what it should be about and what it can do creates more trust.

I'm glad to see your daughter is going to a medical school and am wishing her the best!


Anna
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simplemind
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Re: About the value of studies

Post by simplemind »

Hi Anna,
Thank you for your responses. I fear that I may have slightly misunderstood your first post, and the connection to studies. Bias is a difficult issue, particularly when money is involved. As you mentioned, double-blind studies hopefully can go some way toward reducing those sorts of problems. So, we should all be worried about bias. But it sounds like you don't have a problem with traditional medicine or studies (in themselves).

I also admit that some of my skepticism with alternative medicine is due mostly to my few encounters with what you called 'charlatans.' So, I don't want to generalize too quickly. I do particularly like your emphasis on lifestyle. This is something I've heard my doctors (in my few visits) say over the years and it's certainly true. It's tough to treat a lot of problems when they're the result of a long (and stubborn) lifestyle. I suspect that the consumer demand of those seeking health care (with dreadful lifestyles) helps drive some of the frenzy we have for popping pills.
chownah
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Re: About the value of studies

Post by chownah »

It still seems like the topic here is alternative medicine....almost no one has talked about the value of studies.
chownah
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Sobeh
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Re: About the value of studies

Post by Sobeh »

There is a critique of studies in general, while other studies are referenced as support for alternative health care.

It is trying to have one's cake and eat it, too. Cherry-picking evidence that supports one view, and ignoring studies which challenge it, is hardly scientific.
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Annapurna
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Re: About the value of studies

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chownah wrote:It still seems like the topic here is alternative medicine....almost no one has talked about the value of studies.
chownah
True.
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Tex
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Re: About the value of studies

Post by Tex »

Studies can be of tremendous value, if they are verifiable and reproduceable. Whenever the results of a new study are published, the first questions should always be, "was this a well-designed experiment that accurately measured what it claimed to measure?" and "has anyone duplicated these findings yet?". If the answer to either is "no", the study isn't worth very much (yet).

And Anna's point about considering who funded the study is critical. In one of my psych courses in college we read the reports of two different studies on a new medication. One was funded by the pharmacology company that created the medication, and the other was funded by the Food and Drug Administration. The results were quite different.

So studies can be beneficial or detrimental, depending on the agenda of those writing the check and the skill of those conducting the study.
"To reach beyond fear and danger we must sharpen and widen our vision. We have to pierce through the deceptions that lull us into a comfortable complacency, to take a straight look down into the depths of our existence, without turning away uneasily or running after distractions." -- Bhikkhu Bodhi

"No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man." -- Heraclitus
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Annapurna
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Re: About the value of studies

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Quite so, Tex. :namaste:
PeterB
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Re: About the value of studies

Post by PeterB »

Tex wrote:Studies can be of tremendous value, if they are verifiable and reproduceable. Whenever the results of a new study are published, the first questions should always be, "was this a well-designed experiment that accurately measured what it claimed to measure?" and "has anyone duplicated these findings yet?". If the answer to either is "no", the study isn't worth very much (yet).

And Anna's point about considering who funded the study is critical. In one of my psych courses in college we read the reports of two different studies on a new medication. One was funded by the pharmacology company that created the medication, and the other was funded by the Food and Drug Administration. The results were quite different.

So studies can be beneficial or detrimental, depending on the agenda of those writing the check and the skill of those conducting the study.
Which is one of the major benefits of the British NHS- style system.
The body which overseas the commissioning and testing of new drugs and other treatments is an independent body which does not accept at face value the research carried out by the pharma companies.
The body in question is funded directly by central government and derives no part of its funds from vested commercial interests. In the course of its investigation it does of course consult all existing studies as well as conducting its own studies.
These studies are completely vital in the assessment of all and any treatment.
Anecdotal evidence when assessing the efficacy of any treatment is of no value at all, due to observer bias, wishful thinking, anxiety states , secondary gain, and sheer human credulity.
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Annapurna
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Re: About the value of studies

Post by Annapurna »

The topis is not about medical studies only.

ALL studies...
PeterB
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Re: About the value of studies

Post by PeterB »

It makes no difference. Just as studies are absolutely vital in assessing the efficacy of medicines, so they are in planning engineering projects. In assessing educational programmes. In experimental work in labs. In agriculture. In peace studies. In assessing the effect of diet of therapuetic techniques and meditation programmes.
Studies are broadly of two kinds quantitative and qualitative.
The Suttas are themselves qualitative studies.
Studies are utterly essential in all areas of human functioning.
The Pandora's box of scientifically cogent evidence based practise will never be closed again.
The day of anecdotal evidence is happily consigned to the dustbin of history.
A village wiseman or wisewoman operating in remote locations or in the past had to make the most of the knowledge and resources available. If their motivation was to ease suffering , then that is praiseworthy , despite their limited knowledge.
But that age of innocence is passed. To attempt to build a bridge, or design a curriculum, or treat an illness on the basis of anecdotal evidence and subjective assessments would now amount imo to a breach of Right Livelihood.
To give a parallel. In the 1920's a Buddhist could own a tobacco shop and deal in good conscience. The results of smoking were not known. That situation has now changed as a direct result of studies. And no Buddhist ( except perhaps in rural Asian locations ) could excuse their Livelihoods in the same way.
Pandora cannot be put back into the box...
Anicca
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Re: About the value of studies

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According to a recent study by the Annals of Internal Medicine, here in America you get the *best* studies money can buy...
A recent study published in the journal Annals of Internal Medicine has revealed that industry-funded clinical trials -- that is, drug trials funded by pharmaceutical companies -- almost always show positive results for the drugs they test. In contrast, only about half of government-funded studies show the same drugs to be safe and effective...
LA Times article
Natural News article

Metta
Kenshou
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Re: About the value of studies

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Breaking news, people lie to get you to buy their junk.
Calahand
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Re: About the value of studies

Post by Calahand »

"If this type of ignorace weren't so sad, I would have been rolling on the floor by now.

Still 20 years ago, every serious scientist dismissed acupuncture.

Now they have to admit that it works, because we have so much evidence.

In a while from now, it may be possible to explain how homeopathy works.

What any homeopath like me can already tell you today is this:

We know it works, and so do our healed patients.

We are 'tailors'. We don't make one suits that fits all.

We don't treat symptoms, but remove causes. "

I disagree with you, it is not ignorance to tell people the truth. If there is no evidence that it works, then as a good doctor (whether homeopathic or whatever) it is your duty to tell your patient that it may or may not work for them, if they are willing to try it, they can go ahead, but you are not even sure if it will help, it might as well harm, you just don't know!. And i am not talking about the subjective opinion that you "feel" that it works, but an objective one that has been established by independent repeated studies that show that YES it works.

The main philosophical principle that drives modern medicine is this , "DO NO HARM" - "Primum non nocere (in latin)" , and they do repeated studies to test what they know and do to patients such that they don't unknowingly harm the patient, and they also advance the knowledge of medicine in the process of testing themselves. This enables us as a society- to constantly check ourselves, and give people only those things that we are sure will help them. I can't believe people don't appreciate the time and effort that these medical doctors, researchers and establishments like FDA, CDC or NIH put into this effort. Sometimes as a scientist you might spend like 20-30 years of your life working on something and you realize that it doesn't work because someone else proved it for sure that it doesn't work, and you have to accept that. Its not right to call it ignorance.
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Vardali
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Re: About the value of studies

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Anicca wrote:According to a recent study by the Annals of Internal Medicine, here in America you get the *best* studies money can buy...
A recent study published in the journal Annals of Internal Medicine has revealed that industry-funded clinical trials -- that is, drug trials funded by pharmaceutical companies -- almost always show positive results for the drugs they test. In contrast, only about half of government-funded studies show the same drugs to be safe and effective...
LA Times article
Natural News article

Metta
And as awareness of this pheomenon rises, people tend to believe less and less what published studies say ...

For example, I don't trust any studies and promotions from the food industry, at all. I basically try to avoid processed food as much as possible and rely on my own experience. I would imagine that alternative medicine follows similar logic.

Still, I wouldn't say, corporations "lie" to promote their products. They just have become very sophisticated in highlighting selective truths. Still, bottomline is probably the same: I don't trust what they are market ;)

That's why such a "reference culture" has emerged where people rate their experience and others base their purchasing decisions on it ... It's going more back to anecdotal experience rather than studies due to the latter having been devalued.

:popcorn:
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