It can be frustrating and unsettling when after years of telling us that something is good…or bad for you, doctors then tell us that the opposite is true! “Redefining the truth” is the essence of science, particularly the science of medicine. The medical mantra is: Keep studying, keep collecting data, keep analyzing, and if the “truth” changes, report it!
Here are some more revisions of the truth as examples.
Baby Dolls and Teen Pregnancies
Giving high school students a baby doll to take of care for several weeks is touted as a deterrent to teen-age pregnancies. The sophisticated doll is programmed to cry, make demands, go to sleep (or not), etc. just like a real baby. Students are instructed to care for it 24/7 as if it were a real baby. The expectation is that such a “reality-check” would make teen agers more aware of the burdens of caring for an infant and that would convince them to use effective birth control.
A recent report in the British Medical Journal documented that the average teen age pregnancy rate in those who cared for a doll stayed the same or even INCREASED in some schools. The article speculates that the positive, loving experience that some teens had and the extra attention they received while caring for the doll caused this. The company that makes the dolls quickly switched its marketing pitch from “reducing teen pregnancy” to “teaching quality infant care”.
“Get the Lead Out”
The high level of lead in the water in Flint, Michigan in 2015 immediately raised an alarming concern about “poisoned children”. A blood lead level of 5 micrograms per deciliter is considered “a threshold for official action as a “precautionary principle” according to public health experts. 5% of the kids in Flint had blood lead levels of 5-10 micrograms per deciliter. The increase from 2.4% having a level over 5 in 2013 to 4.9% of kids tested in 2015 raised the public health alarm.
It is well known that the body can excrete lead. If the input of lead (ingested in food, water, or dirt or breathed in from car exhausts) exceeds the excretion rate and the blood lead level reaches 40-69 micrograms per deciliter then outpatient treatment is recommended, even though the person is asymptomatic. Blood levels above 70 can cause symptoms and are treated by hospitalization. None of the Flint children had lead levels over 40.
Lead performs no essential function in our bodies and chronically high levels can cause neurological damage, so it is incumbent of public health officials (and politicians) to prevent prolonged exposure, but these children have NOT been damaged. They will, I am sure, be monitored and studied for years to come to see if there is any subtle effect of these low lead levels. Because that’s what medical science does.
Lowering Blood Pressure in Intermediate-Risk Persons Without Heart Disease with Two Drugs Did Not Decrease the Rates of Major Cardio-vascular Events
NEJM 374:21 May 26, 2016,pg. 2009-2019
Lowering Cholesterol in Intermediate-Risk Persons Without Heart Disease and Normal Lipid Levels With One Drug Decreased the Risk of a Major Cardio-Vascular Event from 4.7% to 3.6% (a 25% reduction)
same NEJM issue pg. 2012-2031
Lowering Blood Pressure AND Cholesterol in the same study as above with Three Drugs Decreased the Risk of Some Major Cardio-vascular Events from 5.0% to 3.6% (a 30% reduction)
same NEJM issue pg. 2032-2043
Like Fox Radio, “We report the news. You decide.”
“Get the Fat Out…But Which Fat?”
The British Medical Journal published an article in April written by a team of scientists at NIH headed by Christopher Ramsden, called the “Indiana Jones of biology” because he specializes in excavating old studies, particularly those that go against our “mainstream government-sanctioned health advice”. He unearthed a 1968 five-year, tightly controlled study of over nine thousand participants randomly assigned to either a vegetable oil based diet or a standard animal fat diet.
The study documents that eating vegetable fats instead of animal fats did NOT, repeat did NOT, reduce the risk of heart disease or death. Substituting a vegetable oil diet ( about half of the saturated fat of the standard diet) did lower the average blood cholesterol by 14%, BUT the risk of death INcreased 22% for every 30 points the cholesterol fell!
Dr. Robert Franz of the Mayo Clinic, the son of the organizer of the 1968 study, speculates that his father’s team was disappointed that they could find no benefit of the vegetable oil diet, and so didn’t publish it widely. An accompanying editorial in the BMJ concluded that “ the benefits of choosing polyunsaturated fat over saturated fat seem a little less certain than we thought.”
Again like Fox Radio: “We report the news. You decide.”
“Worried About Peanut Allergy in Your Family?
Avoid Peanuts! No, NO, Eat Them as Early as You Can!”
The experts use to say “no solid foods to infants before age 4 to 6 months.”
Experts now say “do not delay solid foods beyond 4 to 6 months.”
In the past 10 years childhood peanut allergy has doubled from 1.4% to 3% (still small).
The experts use to say that “if you’re worried about peanut allergy in your child do not give peanut food until age 3 years”.
Experts now say “give the infant peanut food as early as 4 months of age.”
A 2015 study in the New England Journal of Medicine showed that consumption of peanut food at 4 months of age reduced the development of a peanut allergy (documented by skin-prick tests) by 70% – 86%!!
“We should no longer recommend avoidance of allergenic foods in infants.”
HUB's LIST of medical fun facts 