Antidepressant drugs have been getting a bad rap in the media. I’ll just give 3 examples:
On the Today show, prominent medical expert Tom Cruise told us Brooke Shields shouldn’t have taken these drugs for her postpartum depression.
In Natural News, “Health Ranger” Mike Adams accused pharmaceutical companies and the FDA of covering up negative information about antidepressants, saying it would be considered criminal activity in any other industry.
And an article in Newsweek said “Studies suggest that the popular drugs are no more effective than a placebo. In fact, they may be worse.”
Yet psychiatrists are convinced that antidepressants work and are still routinely prescribing them for their patients. Is it all a Big Pharma plot? Who ya gonna believe? Inquiring minds want to know:
Are antidepressants more effective than placebo?
Has the efficacy of antidepressants been exaggerated?
Is psychotherapy a better treatment choice?
The science-based answers to the first two questions are Read more »
Ear infections are the bane of childhood and can spoil many outdoor adventures. One of the most common infections of childhood, they provoke long nights of miserable children, sleepless parents, and unhappiness all around. They may be recurrent, and can also progress (rarely) to more serious medical problems, such as meningitis.
What Are Ear Infections?
Acute otitis (inflammation of the ear) media (“middle”) infection is caused by bacteria or viruses. When it occurs, there is redness and inflammation of the eardrum, frequently with a collection of blood, serum, or pus behind the drum. To know whether or not this has occurred, and to precisely determine the anatomic diagnosis and severity, one needs to see the eardrum, which is what the healthcare provider does with an otoscope.
With otitis media (middle ear infection), there is no drainage from the external ear canal (unless the eardrum ruptures, which is unusual in an adult and more common in a child) and the victim has a fever, sometimes with an accompanying sore throat. In many cases, the victim has a history of prior similar ear infections. Most often, otitis media occurs in children; when it occurs in an adult, it may be associated with a sinus infection or functional obstruction of the eustachian tube (the pressure-release mechanism from the middle ear into the throat).
It is interesting to note that children who chew Read more »
For several years I’ve been preaching in the pages of the Harvard Heart Letter about the importance of taking part in clinical trials. Why? Because I believe they improve medical care, telling us what works and what doesn’t. Figuring it was time to put up or shut up, I volunteered for a clinical trial. I’m glad I did—I learned a lot, received excellent care, and saw first-hand the effort it takes.
The trial was called Targeting Inflammation Using Salsalate in Type 2 Diabetes, or TINSAL-T2D for short. It was being conducted at 16 centers, including the Joslin Diabetes Center in Boston, a short walk from my office. Its aim was to see if an old drug called salsalate (a cousin of aspirin) could arrest low-grade inflammation that may—emphasis on may—make muscles resistant to the effects of insulin and eventually tip the body into type 2 diabetes.
I responded to an ad for TINSAL-T2D and, after undergoing a few preliminary tests, was accepted to take part in it. I was given a bottle of blue pills and asked to take several of them every day. No one—not lead investigator Dr. Allison Goldfine, not study nurse Kathleen Foster, and certainly not me—knew if the pills were the real thing or a placebo. I was also asked to check my blood sugar every morning, and to show up monthly for blood tests and questions galore.
I just finished my year-long stint, still not knowing whether I was taking salsalate or a placebo. I really don’t care, though I’m keen to know if salsalate worked as hoped, something I’ll learn when the results are published.
In a well done placebo-controlled study published in this week’s Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), use of escitalopram (Lexapro) reduced hot flashes in menopausal women.
Investigators enrolled 205 women, randomizing them to either Lexapro 10 mg or placebo, with instructions to increase to two pills a day if needed after four weeks. Lexapro users experienced about a 60 percent reduction in hot flash frequency over the eight-week study. About half ended up on the larger 20 mg daily dose by study’s end. The drug’s effect was apparent at about one week of use, and it was well tolerated.
As in almost studies of menopausal treatments, the placebo group also experienced a significant reduction in symptoms — about 40 percent — but the difference between placebo and drug groups was significant. Compared to placebo users, Lexapro users had a bigger rebound of symptoms when stopping their treatment, were more satisfied, and more likely to want to continue the study drug, another validation of the drug’s efficacy. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at tbtam*
Regular readers of the Better Health blog are familiar with the shoddy science behind homeopathy (an outdated system of “medical” treatment that relies on water dilution and shaking to ‘”strengthen” the effects of drugs). But because homeopathic placebos have been marketed so successfully (even receiving paid endorsements from hockey teams), the Ontario government has decided to regulate homeopathic practices.
In this terrific news exposé, reporters ask if it’s appropriate for the government to regulate health scams. In doing so, are they not lending credibility to modern-day snake oil? Check out these videos and let me know what you think. Is there a roll for government in regulating homeopathy?
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Tom Cruise told us Brooke Shields shouldn’t have taken these drugs for her postpartum depression.
Ear infections are the bane of childhood and can spoil many outdoor adventures. One of the most common infections of childhood, they provoke long nights of miserable children, sleepless parents, and unhappiness all around. They may be recurrent, and can also progress (rarely) to more serious medical problems, such as meningitis.
