One can tell a lot about how solid a scientific opinion is by the response to questioning. Genuine science is never settled. It is constantly questioning assumptions as new knowledge emerges. Dogma rejects questioning and seeks to harass those who dare pose questions....
There is a wonderful quote by Aldous Huxley: “Medical science is making such remarkable progress that soon none of us will be well.” With the degree of disease mongering, over diagnosis and awareness that we have at present this prediction is coming true....
Once upon a time medical practice was about the consulting room. Here the patient and doctor could consider what was best for the individual based on their unique circumstances. The aim was to treat the patient, not to treat a number, or to treat to a target or to...
There is nothing I like more than finding out that something that has been widely believed for decades is wrong. The cholesterol myth fits the pattern of so many items in my blog: it sounds good, it superficially makes sense, and there is a biologically plausible...
Sometimes, one reads a statement so obvious that one needs to ask, “Why didn’t I think of that?” So it was that I read on the blog of Dr David Healy a most obvious observation about medications. “Drugs can have a hundred effects … but we only test for one”. In medical...
For the last 40 years or so we have been told that the best diet for reducing the risk of cardiovascular disease (heart attacks and stroke) is a low fat diet. This idea is so strongly ingrained in health thinking that even questioning it is met with derision and...
