December 23rd, 2011 by Steve Novella, M.D. in Quackery Exposed
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There are many medical pseudosciences that persist despite a utter lack of either plausibility or evidence for efficacy. Some practices emerged out of their culture of origin, or out of the prevailing ideas of a pre-scientific age, while others were manufactured out of the imagination of perhaps well-meaning but highly misguided individual practitioners. They were just made up – homeopathy, for example, or subluxation theory.
Iridology belongs to this latter category – a system of diagnosis that was invented entirely by Ignatz Peczely, a Hungarian physician who first published his ideas in 1893. The story goes that Peczely as a boy found an owl with a broken leg. At the time he noticed a prominent black stripe in the iris of one eye of the owl. He nursed the bird back to health and then noticed that the black line was gone, replaced by ragged white lines. From this single observation Peczely developed the notion of iridology.
Peczely’s idea was that the iris maps to the rest of the body in some way, and therefore the flecks of color in the iris reflect the state of health of the various body parts. This basic approach to diagnosis or treatment is called the homonculus approach – the idea that one part of the body maps to the rest of the body, including the organ systems. Reflexology, auricular acupuncture, and even straight chiropractic follow this approach.
This is what might have happened next: Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Science-Based Medicine*
December 23rd, 2011 by Jessie Gruman, Ph.D. in Book Reviews, Health Policy
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My friend and former Chair of the CFAH Board of Trustees, Doug Kamerow, has written a book that I think you will like.
Besides being a mensch and witty as heck, Doug is a family doctor and a preventive medicine specialist. In his new book, Dissecting American Health Care: Commentaries on Health Policy and Politics, these four characteristics constitute the lens through which he comments on scores of events, controversies and changes in public health and health policy that have taken place over the past four years. For example, Doug writes about last year’s debate over the H1N1 vaccine, the papal position on condoms and HIV, how prevention fared in the health care reform act (ACA) and his attempt to Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Prepared Patient Forum: What It Takes Blog*
December 22nd, 2011 by GruntDoc in News
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Aah, the French:
The idea of putting maggots into open flesh may sound repulsive, but such a therapy might be a quick way to clean wounds, a new study from France suggests.
via Maggots Clean Wounds Faster Than Surgeons | Wound Healing | LiveScience.
I kid. I think this is a good idea, and it’s natures’ way of saying ‘cleanup on aisle three’. Patients not infrequently will be brought to the ED with awful, non-healing wounds infested with maggots.
We typically kill them off, more because a) the staff is completely grossed out and b) if you’re living at home and have maggots in your wounds, let’s just say your personal hygiene is deeply suspect. Rank, in fact. Needs a decon level bad.
However, there is a legitimate role for biological wound cleaning; I have a WWII surgical book with a chapter in it on growing your own sterile maggots. It’s not an ER thing, but it’s yet another tool in the armamentarium of bad wounds.
*This blog post was originally published at GruntDoc*
December 22nd, 2011 by AnthonyKomaroffMD in Research
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The people you live with, work with, talk to, email, chatter with on Twitter and Facebook—your social network—can be good medicine, or bad.
The intriguing new science of social networks is demonstrating how personal interconnections can affect our health. Ideas and habits that influence health for better or for worse can spread through social networks in much the same way that germs spread through communities. In social networks, though, transmission can happen even though the people may be hundreds of miles apart.
An article in the December issue of the Harvard Men’s Health Watch explores how social networks can affect weight and mood.
Spreading weight
A study of people taking part in the landmark Framingham Heart Study found that Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Harvard Health Blog*
December 22nd, 2011 by John Di Saia, M.D. in News, Opinion
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The U.S. Food and Drug Administration today announced that it has taken action against eight California surgical centers and the marketing firm 1-800-GET-THIN LLC, for misleading advertising of the Lap-Band, an FDA-approved device used for weight loss in obese adults. The FDA issued Warning Letters to Bakersfield Surgery Institute Inc.; Beverly Hills Surgery Center; Palmdale Ambulatory Center; Valley Surgical Center; Top Surgeons LLC; Valencia Ambulatory Center LLC; Cosmopolitan Plastic & Reconstructive Surgery; San Diego Ambulatory Center LLC; and to 1-800-GET-THIN because Lap-Band is a restricted medical device that is misbranded as a result of misleading advertising by these groups. In the letters, the FDA warns that billboards and advertising inserts used by recipients of the Warning Letters to promote the Lap-Band procedure fail to provide required risk information, including warnings, precautions, possible side effects and contraindications. The FDA also is concerned that the font size of information related to risks on the advertising inserts is too small to be read by consumers.
Source: fda.gov/NewsEvents/Newsroom/PressAnnouncements
/ucm283455.htm#.TueG3YY1aZY.facebook
We have blogged on 1-800-Get-Thin and Lap-band surgery in general before. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Truth in Cosmetic Surgery*
There are many medical pseudosciences that persist despite a utter lack of either plausibility or evidence for efficacy. Some practices emerged out of their culture of origin, or out of the prevailing ideas of a pre-scientific age, while others were manufactured out of the imagination of perhaps well-meaning but highly misguided individual practitioners. They were just made up – homeopathy, for example, or subluxation theory.
