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Current Cultural Biases Flavor Science

By On · Add Comment · In biomarkers, disease, genes, genetics, Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), medical science, paradigm

Another blow to the ‘genetics-is-the-answer-to-everything’ faction of medical science.  According to a recent study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), researchers often overstate the importance of biomarkers as links to disease, by citing papers that report the strongest associations, even when ensuing analyses downplay the connection.

The study looked at papers on biomarkers–biological characteristics, such as gene or protein activity, which can be used to monitor a person’s health–that had been cited more than 400 times.  These studies were then compared to others on the same biomarkers, and it was found that many papers were reporting stronger links between biomarkers and disease than were actually found in the majority of studies.  Even worse, many papers reported a stronger association than was observed in the largest single study of the same biomarker.

As an example:

A 1991 study that was cited 1,436 times found that patients with a high level of a compound called homocysteine in their blood had a 27.7-fold elevated risk for vascular disease. But a meta-analysis reported only a 1.58-fold increased risk.

Doh!

I love this because I know that there just is no such thing as true objectivity in science.  The fact that science is carried out by humans with beliefs and biases means that it will always veer in the direction of researchers’ own perspectives.  And that’s the way it should be!  Yes, we all want objectivity in science, but puh-leez–the universe (at least as it pertains to humans) is driven by our thought processes.  It is impossible not to affect observations, studies, or science as a whole by the human factor.

It takes a genius (Newton, Einstein, Watson/Crick) to drive a paradigm–the way in which we view the world.  The rest is up to the people of the era: WE direct science, art, politics, philanthropy, economics and education based on our own interpretations of the world.

So yes, there will be citation bias in science.  More reason to scrutinize the ‘genetics-is-the-answer-to-everything’ mind-set.  It ain’t.  In fact, my bias is that it merely plays a supportive role in most health/illness issues.  But that’s not our current paradigm, so I will gleefully chuckle at a distance every time some free-thinking scientists pick up on the current cultural biases at play during our attempts at objective observation.  Watch out climate researchers!

Wisdom

By On · Add Comment · In heart attack, medicine, nutritional supplements, paradigm, statins, stroke, vitamins

There has been a long history of competition between conventional medicine and proponents of nutritional supplements. Conventional medicine spends a lot of time “debunking” the utility of nutritional supplements. You know what I’m talking about; you’ve heard it; you’ve heard the medical “experts” on T.V. say that taking vitamin supplements is useless. I’ll bet it confused you.

It confused you because common sense tells you that vitamin supplements are helpful. It also confused you because you’ve heard from so many people–your chiropractor, your acupuncturist, your trainer, your nutritionist, other medical doctors, the same T.V. news program reporting on a different story–that taking vitamins is good for you. So which one is it: good for you, or not necessary?

Well you won’t get a straight answer any time soon, as the mainstream medical machine is stepping-up the propaganda. According to new reports, vitamins C and E are useless for cutting the risk of heart attack or stroke. So are vitamins B12 and folic acid, according to another report. However, a third report shows that the statin drug Crestor cuts the risk of heart attack and stroke as well as reduces deaths from both, even in people with normal cholesterol. Wow! Frickin’ drugs, man…they’re miraculous!

Okay, here’s my problem with these studies. Taking nature and trying to squeeze it into a faulty paradigm is erroneous at best, and dangerous at worst. Vitamins are substance not produced by the human body, but necessary for life. We get most of our vitamins from the foods we eat. But the important point is: we need them. We do not need drugs. Drugs are useful, but we don’t need them. We’ve gotten through ~200,000 years of evolution (or 99.9% of our existence) without drugs…but not without vitamins. True, we have been supplementing for a far shorter time than we have been taking drugs…but we need vitamins. So the real questions should be: Do vitamins supplements work, and what do they work for?

The problem with the types of studies mentioned above is that modern researchers are trying to fit a natural and essential substance into a medicinal paradigm. Today’s medical paradigm is a disease treatment paradigm, not a health paradigm. Nothing wrong with fighting disease, but it’s entirely different than enhancing health. To look at vitamins for their disease fighting properties alone is nonsensical. They are life giving substances, health-enhancing material–taking vitamin supplements promote life, they don’t necessarily fight disease. That’s where medicine goes wrong; with medicine everything is about fighting disease.

Frankly, this paradigm and disease-fighting model is severely limited, and becoming progressively more expensive. When we spend billions of dollars studying and focusing on a small percentage of the population’s health woes then, ultimately, to sustain the costs, the model must be carried over to the general population. Thus the powers that be start rationalizing why we need drugs “even in normal people.” I’m not saying it’s a conspiracy–these well meaning “experts” believe it. Why? Because they create studies, and collect data, that fit into their model. And the results, by design, are forced to reflect the operative paradigm, so we get limited knowledge. As it has been said: Knowledge comes from knowing the facts, but wisdom comes from asking the right questions. So validating substances, or the practices surrounding them, based on their disease-fighting capabilities alone is simply foolish.

Not Quite Right Yet

By On · Add Comment · In alternative, chiropractic, gratitude, medical science, paradigm, prevention, stretch, water, wellness

Welp, they almost got it right. Medical science is working very hard to jump onto the wellness bandwagon. There was a time when the term prevention was considered an “alternative” concept – that is, medical science placed very little stock in the idea of practicing preventative measures. But not anymore. Oh no. Not only is it very hip (medically speaking) to promote prevention, but now mainstream medicine is trying to form the term to fit within its own paradigm.

Imagine my excitement when I caught the headline, Preventive steps could save 100,000 U.S. lives: study. What? Do my eyes deceive me? Is the mainstream medical information machine really going to push the same agenda as I do with The Six Keys To Optimal Health? Wow, cool man. Let me check it out.

Hmmm. Not quite. But I guess it’s a start. The premise of the article is that if people were to take preventative measures, such as taking an aspirin every day, quitting smoking, getting more colorectal exams, getting more mamograms, and getting annual flu shots, then many life threatening diseases could be averted. OK, that’s true. But is that the gist of prevention? What about health, I mean, that surely can’t be all there is to it, can it?

Heck no. And the problem lies within the philosophy of our current health paradigm, which is: you are fine until you have symptoms, and when you do, you’re sick, and then you’ve got to be treated for your particular illness. All right, we know that one. It’s been in place for at least a century, so we’ve all been there, done that. And we ain’t gettin’ any healthier, now, are we? No, but we do have an overloaded medical system, which creates quite a problem.

I’m not going to go into all the details of why our current system doesn’t work and how we can change it into something more useful. Let’s save that for my upcoming book, The Six Keys to Optimal Health. You’ll find that I do a very thorough job of dissecting the current health paradigm and how we can now take our understanding of health to the next level. And based on the studies coming from our current health authorities, I can assure you the change isn’t going to come from that camp any time soon.

Instead, if I were to rewrite this study, it might read something like this:

Increased use of just five preventive services would save more than 100,000 lives every year in the United States, and they are:

These tips are just a small taste of what you’ll find in my upcoming book, and I’ll provide the information to prove them. You better believe that. When you’re done, you won’t even think about prevention, because if you do things right, there will be nothing to prevent.

Copyright © 2013 Dr. Nick Campos - All Rights Reserved.