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WDDTY e-News Service - 4th December 2003

Fri, 5 Dec 2003 00:11:38 0000

 

 

WHAT DOCTORS DON’T TELL YOU - E-NEWS BROADCAST No. 61 - 04 December 03

 

Please feel free to email this broadcast to any friends you feel would

appreciate receiving it.

 

 

 

 

HOSPITALS: Are we sure they're places where people go to get better?

 

Hospitals are dangerous places, as new research has confirmed. Well over 30,000

patients die in American hospitals every year from some medical mishap, while

167,000 will suffer a serious injury that will at the very least extend their

hospital stay.

 

And the bad news-if that was not bad enough-is that the picture is far worse

than the one presented, researchers who produced the study have said.

 

The most dangerous procedure was vaginal delivery by forceps and other surgical

instruments, with over 22 per cent of all procedures resulting in injury. The

second highest was caused by vaginal birth without forceps, with nearly 9 per

cent of all procedures injuring the patient. But postoperative sepsis-which

occurs in 1.12 per cent of all patients-had the biggest impact, resulting in an

extended hospital stay of an additional 11 days.

 

This alarming picture, prepared by researchers from the Johns Hopkins University

in Baltimore, is a 'best guesstimate' based on 7.45 million discharge records

collected from 994 hospitals across 28 states in the USA during 2000.

 

As the researchers say, nobody knows the true picture, and their own evaluation

is a very conservative one compared with previous research studies, including

one that estimated that medical mistakes cause 98,000 deaths a year in American

hospitals.

 

The researchers concede that the situation is far worse than the one they have

reported-but just how worse is anyone's guess.

 

(Source: Journal of the American Medical Association, 2003; 290: 1868-74).

 

* DON'T DESPAIR! If you are facing a hospital stay, arm yourself with a copy of

our Hospital Survival Guide. It might at least make your stay a safer one. To

order, : http://www.wddty.co.uk/shop/details.asp?product=14

 

 

 

HERBAL MEDICINE: Not so much like conventional drugs, after all

 

Of all the alternative and complementary therapies, herbal medicine has usually

been viewed as being the closest to conventional medicine-and so just as

dangerous.

 

Not so, says Edvard Ernst, director of complementary medicine at Exeter

University, England. Just 8,985 cases of adverse reactions from herbs were

reported to the World Health Organization in 29 years until 1997, and this from

55 countries. This compares with the 190,000 adverse reactions from a

pharmaceutical drug that are reported every year to UK authorities alone. The

mild antidepressant St John's wort, for example, has at least half the rate of

adverse effects compared with conventional antidepressants, while kava is far

safer than benzodiazepines, even though it has been banned in many countries,

including the UK.

 

The argument that adverse reactions from herbal medicines are lower because

fewer people take them may not hold water, either. It's been estimated that

around 30 per cent of the adult population of the UK has taken a herbal remedy.

 

Ernst also dispels another myth that herbal remedies are ineffective. Hundreds

of medical trials have proven their effectiveness-and many of these trials have

been properly conducted scientific studies.

 

Sadly, the EU's legislation to harmonize usage of traditional herbal remedies

will kill off any further research, Ernst fears.

 

(British Medical Journal, 2003; 327: 881-2).

 

 

 

PUT ON YOUR HIGH-HEEL SHOES: They don't cause osteoarthritis

 

High-heeled shoes do not cause osteoarthritis in the knee, fashion-conscious

women will be relieved to hear.

 

Researchers feared that the shoes could be responsible for the disease that

affects twice as many women as men over the age of 65.

 

But they'll have to resume the search for the culprit after a study could find

no causal link with the shoes. They interviewed 111 women aged between 50 and

70 years who were waiting for knee replacement surgery, while the controls were

82 healthy women.

 

Women from both groups said they wore heels that were at least one inch (2.5 cm)

high. Indeed, the researchers concluded, high-heel shoes may even have a

protective effect.

 

(Source: Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, 2003; 57: 823-30).

 

* IF NOT SHOES, WHAT? Find out the causes of arthritis, and the many

scientifically-proven ways to improve the condition, in our definitive guide The

Arthritis Manual. It really is the last word on the condition. To order your

copy, : http://www.wddty.co.uk/shop/details.asp?product=366

 

 

 

INFERTILITY: Well, how about one of our cancer drugs?

 

No Enews broadcast would be complete without a 'let's knock the pharmaceutical

monster' story-so here's this week's offering.

 

One pharmaceutical, Sun Pharmaceuticals, has been accused of marketing a cancer

drug as an infertility treatment in India, for which it has not been licensed.

 

The company has been accused of illegally promoting and marketing its drug,

letrozole, which has been licensed as a breast cancer treatment for

postmenopausal women. But drug company representatives have told gynaecologists

in India that it can also induce ovulation in infertile women.

 

The company is investigating the allegations, and has said the illegal promotion

may be down to salesmen " going overboard " .

 

(Source: Monthly Index of Medical Specialties India, September 2003).

 

 

 

FATS: They cause heart problems, but not stroke. Right?

 

Start researching the effects of diet on health, and you'll end up confused, if

not dazed. Take, for instance, the findings of a new study that has concluded

that a diet high in fats-such as red meat, eggs, dairy and nuts-may increase the

risk of coronary heart disease, but not of stroke.

 

This major study, which involved 43,732 men aged between 40 and 75, confirms

earlier findings that even the 'bad' fats such as saturated and trans

unsaturated fatty acids do not increase the chances of stroke, even if the

generally-accepted view is that they are association with heart disease.

 

The fat intake of the 725 men who suffered a stroke during the 14 years of the

study did not appear to play a part in their disease, the Harvard research team

concluded. In fact, even the type of fat consumed did not seem to be a cause.

 

This is all very perplexing because there is a close link between heart disease

and stroke. What appears to need re-evaluating, the researchers suggest, is the

role that cholesterol plays in the two diseases. In short, cholesterol may not

be a factor in stroke at all, they suggest.

 

But could it be that cholesterol is one of medicine's great red herrings?

(Don't forget, you read it here first folks-unless you're a longstanding WDDTY

r, in which case you read it 10 years ago).

 

(Source: British Medical Journal, 2003; 327: 777-81).

 

*SO WHAT ARE THE SECRETS OF HEART DISEASE AND DIET? Find out the real answers

in our guide Your Healthy Heart. To order your copy, :

http://www.wddty.co.uk/shop/details.asp?product=110

 

 

 

MACULAR DEGENERATION: A drug-free therapy

 

Last week they got a bit of a kicking; this week they are already trying to

redeem themselves. We're talking about those nice people from NICE (the

National Institute for Clinical Excellence), which is supposed to assess the

efficacy, and expense, of a drug before allowing it onto the approved list of

those available on the UK's National Health Service.

 

They are recommending to doctors to try photodynamic therapy instead of a drug

in treating age-related macular degeneration.

 

The therapy is worth considering, and more patients should have access to it, if

only to provide enough material for a proper trial, say NICE.

 

The therapy uses a low-power laser to seal 'leaky' blood vessels under the

retina associated with the condition. The therapy has " a reasonable chance of

halting or slowing the progression of the disease, " NICE reports.

 

What? No drugs?

 

(Source: British Medical Journal, 2003; 327: 698).

 

 

 

READERS' CORNER

 

Fibromyalgia: One reader saw people's suggestions for treating fibromyalgia in

last week's E-news, but missed our original recommendations. In the original

piece, we said that trials had found homeopathy, electro-acupuncture and massage

therapy provided long-term relief.

 

 

Depression: One reader has picked up on our E-news article about the role that

a positive attitude can have on recovery after by-pass surgery (see E-news no.

58). But, she wonders, does it go deeper than that? Depression isn't a mental

problem, but is a general health problem brought on by exhaustion, toxicity, and

the like. By-pass patients don't die because of a negative attitude, but

because of a poorer health status, revealed by their depression, she suggests.

 

 

Self-sufficiency: Aren't suppliers of herbal and complementary products just

the same as the big pharmaceuticals, asks one reader? In other words, isn't the

profit motive paramount with them as well? Instead, people should be

self-sufficient and so (presumably) should grow their own herbs.

 

 

Grammatical ignoramus: Oh dear. We've already upset one E-news reader, and

he'd signed up only the day before receiving last week's broadcast. He's taken

exception to our use (or misuse) of the Queen's English. Specifically, he says

we have misused the term " taketh " which was part of a headline in E-news no. 60.

The problem was, according to our reader, that we used it with a third person

plural, as in " They taketh away " . Taketh, he said, is the old form of the third

person singular, as in The Lord taketh away. " I am distressed to find it

difficult to concentrate on the text when in a constant state of irritation at

the fact of its having apparently been written by a grammatical ignoramus " , he

says. Unfortunately for our reader, we find in the Merriam-Webster Dictionary

that taketh can be used with a singular or a plural, and the dictionary gives

the example of: " They that taketh not their life in vain. . . " . We hope our

reader doesn't taketh umbrage.

 

 

 

* To search the WDDTY database - where every word from the last 14 years of

research can be found – click on http://www.wddty.co.uk/search/infodatabase.asp

 

 

 

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