Eyes and supplements questions

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OK,

I went to the drmyhill site. Sorry, it is full of outright quackery. Doesn't disprove your point, but doesn't support it either.

The nutrition and pancreatic cancer study is based on a design well known to be among the most untrustworthy of all: patient diet history questionnaires. Remember the coffee and pancreatic cancer scare? Same junk method.

Note the odds ratios (hazard ratios): not one even reaches 2.0. Such ORs are absolutely meaningless. Confidence intervals (CI) which include 1, e.g. "1.69 (CI 95% 0.99, 2.89) are statistically invalid. All of the CIs in that study include 1.

The chromium study I can't trust because the references are not included. In any case, correlation does not equal causation. And when a scholarly-looking blurb for chromium just happens to end with a sales pitch for chromium supplements, my BS alarm goes off.

If some folks take supplements and notice health improvements, that's great, but it ain't science. The plural of anecdote is not data.

If the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition publishes studies with such shabby design and ORs and CIs, I can't really trust it. AND they don't specify what they mean by pancreatic cancer. There are several types: adenocarcinoma, cystic neoplasms, mucinous neoplasms, endocrine and neuroendocrine, etc.

I don't trust Dr. Whitaker:http://www.acsh.org/healthissues/newsID.901/healthissue_detail.asp

The age-related eye disease study gets back to my earlier point: they were looking at disease, not normal eyes.

Look, it may well be true that supplements, chromium, avoiding sugar etc etc do improve health. But the studies and sources cited here don't back that up.
When a properly done study shows a discernible benefit ( and odds ratios of less than 3 don't do that), I will be the first to recommend them. I'm not saying you guys are wrong or stupid. I'm saying that the sources don't support your beliefs.

Sorry if I sound testy, but there is so much junk science out there, and it is infuriating to see people led astray by it. Our best science is slow and blind enough as it is without all the lousy science being published. Remember when dietary fiber was supposed to prevent colon cancer? Turned out not to be true. Yet we all got on that fiber bandwagon, and food merchants made millions on it.
 
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I am not real big on medical studies because I don't trust the proffesion.
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Well, that explains the random nonsense about medical subjects you've been posting.
So Americans cut back on salt (sodium) and now we have problems with erectile dissfunction.
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That's one hell of a leap of logic. Are you actually suggesting that erectile dysfunction is a result of too little salt in one's diet? I'd ask for a cite, but you seem to be making it up as you go. Either that, or you'd refer me to a web page selling ear-candles, crystals, and chicken feet.
The doctors come up with Viagra (a sodium dirivative) to help the problem.
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Viagra isn't a sodium derivative. Neither is Cialis or Levitra. So much for that brilliant theory.
I really don't think they have fine tuned enough information to take the stands that they do in most cases.
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On the other hand, your practice of just making things up based on something someone told you is a valid method of reaching a conclusion. :rolleyes: How exactly are they supposed to fine tune the information without these medical studies you don't believe?
The numbers on diabetes speak for themselves.
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Your information about diabetes above was off-base. It starts with the nonsense about saying it is about to pass AIDS in the number of deaths (which, btw, it already far surpasses AIDS, but don't let facts get in the way) and goes downhill from there. The causes of diabetes are far more complicated than just eating sugar. Obesity and inactivity are rather large players. While consuming lots sugar certainly can contribute, there's much more to it than that.

This kind of thread is why one shouldn't take suggestions for anything serious (such as medical treatment, legal issues, or investing advice) on the internet without a grain of salt (or apparently a Viagra). While you might get some good information, there's always a chance that someone is going to suggest that putting some more salt on your french fries will make your penis work properly.
 
Khornet - Do you give no weight to P values? If an odds ratio is 1.85 with a P value of 0.0005, I would imagine it safe to say that the observed 85% increased odds are true and significant. You do mention confidence intervals, but IMO they are similarly important to P values and can indicate reliable results even with ORs that contain 1 (ie, an OR of 1.92 with a 95% CI of 1.78-1.96 would be more convincing than an OR of 1.92 with a CI of 0.78-2.31).

I did not read the linked "studies", I am just commenting on your post which does not mention these things. It's been a long time since I took stats and I'm still a bit shaky on clinical epidemiology so I'm not trying to outright correct you, simply asking your take.
 
Howdy conqueror,

the P values cited were 0.05, 0.06, and 0.02. That means there was, respectively, a 95%, 94%, and 98% chance that the finding of non-significant confidence intervals and nonsignificant odds ratios was not due to chance. P value alone is not enough, which is why we have ORs and CIs. Put the three together and we find that there is a high probability that the study in question accurately found that there was no significant difference between the high-sugar and low-sugar groups, because the odds of cancer in the high sugar group were not significantly higher.

For those of you scratching your heads over all this, I offer this point: we humans have a huge capacity for BS-ing ourselves. A good and honest scientist keeps this in mind, and is constantly asking himself "Now, in what way could I be kidding myself about these results? Is there any way I could have made this study find what I wanted it to find, or have I set it up so that it will find the truth irrespective of what I'm hoping for?"

So we have statistical tools to test whether there is really any difference between the test group and the control group, how much of a difference there is, and whether the difference means anything at all. Beyond that, we must look at the design of the study to see whether it is reliable in the first place. Studies based on the subjects' self-reporting, such as the one based on diet histories, are notoriously unreliable. Anyone notice the recent embarassment of the Lancet, the venerable British medical journal? They reported huge civilian casualties in Iraq, and they got their numbers by the same method: self-reporting from subjects. When the numbers were checked by a more sound method, it was found that the Brits had exaggerated by a factor of FIVE. They also got sucked in because they didn't do the honest science thing and look hard to be sure they weren't finding what they wanted to find. And they clearly (and by their own admission) wanted to show how "Bush's war" was slaughtering Iraqi civilians by the stadium-full.
 
Also, Conqueror

When I say "CIs that include 1" I mean that they traverse 1, ranging from below 1 to above 1. So 1.78-1.96 is meaningful, but 0.78-2.31 is not.
 
Sorry to hog this thread,

but I must respond to Kingcreek's statement. While it is true that many studies are funded by drug companies, that by itself is no reason to discount them. You have to look at the studies themselves.

If I do as study purporting to show that shaking a rubber chicken over your head each night reduces blood pressure, you don't respond by saying "Oh, you're just a shill for the rubber chicken industry." You duplicate my study and report whether you got the same results or something different. Only after you've proved me wrong can you indulge yourself in speculating why I did such a damnfool thing.
 
When I say "CIs that include 1" I mean that they traverse 1, ranging from below 1 to above 1. So 1.78-1.96 is meaningful, but 0.78-2.31 is not.
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Thanks for the clarification. I read your post as saying "any CI that has 1 as the first digit is not valid" and that's mostly what I took issue with. You also said an OR less than 2 is not significant, which I think falls under the same misunderstanding - an OR of 1.8 but with a small CI is still significant.
 
Conqueror,

if by OR you mean odds ratio, we may not be speaking the same language. The study used the term 'hazard risk', which I'm taking to mean 'risk ratio' or 'relative risk'. A relative risk of 2 or less is not meaningful, and some respected epidemiologists think less than 3 is not meaningful.

Also, it must be kept in mind that relative risk does notmeasure risk. It is only a quantification of the difference between the study groups, e.g. high sugar and low sugar, in this study. It most certainly does not prove that, for example, at a RR of 2.0, high sugar folks are at twice the risk of low sugar folks.

Enjoy med school. That was 24 years ago for me. What a ride. I was in St. Louis, and had some of the best shooting experiences of my life there.

Incidentally, it was in my freshman year that the scare stories about the dreaded "plastic gun" first came out in the news. Having handled, fired, and field-stripped said plastic gun (G17) a few days earlier, I knewe that it was BS. That began my life of skepticism about the media, especially when reporting science and medical news.

For a great example of shoddy study desighn riddled with bias, see the famous Kellerman study in NEJM, showing that you are 34 times more likely to be killed with the gun in your home than to be defended by it. Junk science costs lives.
 
I spend all day in a clinic talking to people about their health. could we maybe talk about, i dunno, guns, or something?

I realize I'm the one who brought up bilberry on the other thread but this is a long thread that is sort of tangent-y.
 
KHornet,

No more full of quackery than an establishment that maintains that mercury amalgam dental fillings are "safe".

The nutrition and pancreatic cancer study is based on a design well known to be among the most untrustworthy of all: patient diet history questionnaires. Remember the coffee and pancreatic cancer scare? Same junk method.
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And just how many studies are done any other way? We can dispute the possible error factor in any study that includes a patient questionaire; what about the actual biochemical and physiological process described?

but I must respond to Kingcreek's statement. While it is true that many studies are funded by drug companies, that by itself is no reason to discount them. You have to look at the studies themselves.
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Given the track record of drug companies and not just a few genuinely dangerous drugs and vaccines, many with fatal consequences, I see no reason to trust any study conducted by a drug company.
 
LAK,

no offense intended, but the mercury amalgam filling stuff is the rankest junk science, and no scientific study has ever shown they do any harm. If you believe that then you are not rational, at least on this subject. That makes you a perfect target for junk-science health-scare scams.

The pancreatic cancer study doesn't address the biologic mechanisms other than to say 'emerging science' suggests a link between insulin levels and pancreatic cancer. I'd love to see what the authors consider "emerging science" when they don't practice science themselves.

If you believe you can judge the truth of a study by its authors instead of evaluating the science itself, then you do not believe in reason and are operating on emotion instead.

As I said before, if a well-designed study shows that supplements help eyesight in non-diseased subjects, I won't get mad.........I'll get supplements, because I want the truth. Why is it that junk-science believers always get mad, instead of addressing the criticisms?
 
I'd ask for a cite, but you seem to be making it up as you go.
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Just like the mediical proffession. The Federal government tells us tha 90,000 Americans a year die from poor medical help. I believe it cause I have seen it for years. Both friends and FAMILY have died due to the poor quality.

Worst of all most in the medical proffession are anti gun. Not only do they hurt people by their practice but they want to refuse people the ability to defend themselves.

Todays doctors or voodoo, not much different. IMHO

jj

Edited to add, the pills and potions that doctors push along with their dirty hospitals have killed many thousands of Americans. People here who carry a gun for self defense are far more apt to run into a bad doctor that a BG. Think about it.
 
It's easy to bash doctors while you're in good health. Lets see how you feel if you ever get a kidney stone. Most people who love to bash doctors and pills are the first ones in line for morphine and surgery when something hurts. To compare modern medicine to voodoo and say there's not much difference is asinine - if medical science was junk, we'd be facing the same problems today that we were 200 years ago.

How many people do you know who've died of cholera, dysentery, polio, smallpox, or malaria lately?
 
Just eat your carrots.
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Yup. Eat fruits and vegetables. Fresh is better but any kind is better than none.

In the South Pacific, many Japanese aviators found themselves cut off from their supply lines. Limited primarily to rice stocks, the vision of their aviators began to deteriorate. They discovered that by scrounging up & providing fresh fruits and vegetables the vision of their pilots recovered.

Most all sunglasses provide good UV protection. I don't, however, trust the cheap Chinese $1.99-type sunglasses to protect my eyes. Usually there's a sticker on them declaring their UV protection.
 
It's easy to bash doctors while you're in good health. Lets see how you feel if you ever get a kidney stone. Most people who love to bash doctors and pills are the first ones in line for morphine and surgery when something hurts. To compare modern medicine to voodoo and say there's not much difference is asinine - if medical science was junk, we'd be facing the same problems today that we were 200 years ago.

How many people do you know who've died of cholera, dysentery, polio, smallpox, or malaria lately?
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It's even easier to bash doctors after you watch your family die in their care. I have had doctors tell me the system is broken with surgeries being done just for the money. I have seen people die of infections they got in a hospital,FAMILY

I am going to leave it at that as I have no respect for the proffesion in general and trust damn few of them.

jj
 
"I have seen people die of infections they got in a hospital'

And that's the doctors' fault? Think about what a hospital is: a single building where ALL the sick people from a given region congregate. It's unavoidable that people will get infections there occasionally that they didn't have when they arrived. I'm very sorry you've had bad experiences, but many, many more people are alive because of modern medicine than are dead because of it.
 
Khornet
no offense intended, but the mercury amalgam filling stuff is the rankest junk science, and no scientific study has ever shown they do any harm. If you believe that then you are not rational, at least on this subject. That makes you a perfect target for junk-science health-scare scams.
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Right. That's why more than a few dentists I know have avoided or had their mercury amalgam fillings taken out because of health concerns. But they can not recommend to their patients they do so out of fears of establishment retributions. It is a "cosmetic issue" only.

How many cancer patients and sufferers of these 1001 "syndromes" have mercury amalgam dental fillings? They isolated these people intheir "studies"?

The level of vapors from mercury amalgam is safe you might say? A documentary aired in the UK during the 1990s told of the little quandary that arose from an unexplained gain in weight of the calibrating weights at the weights and measures laboratory in London.

Long story short; after an exhaustive search for the cause, an analysis of surface deposits on the weights showed that mercury vapor from the dental fillings of workers at the lab had condensed on them.

You want to talk about junk science - just tell us all what the "safe" levels of mercury or mercury compounds are permissible in the body. I am all ears.
The pancreatic cancer study doesn't address the biologic mechanisms other than to say 'emerging science' suggests a link between insulin levels and pancreatic cancer. I'd love to see what the authors consider "emerging science" when they don't practice science themselves.

If you believe you can judge the truth of a study by its authors instead of evaluating the science itself, then you do not believe in reason and are operating on emotion instead.

As I said before, if a well-designed study shows that supplements help eyesight in non-diseased subjects, I won't get mad.........I'll get supplements, because I want the truth. Why is it that junk-science believers always get mad, instead of addressing the criticisms?
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Well, science is a divided subject on a great many topics. Be it global warming or health issues.

Junk science believers get mad when they find out they've been had. Like a friend of mine whose teenage child has the mind of an eight old after getting a "safe approved" vaccination. Needless to say he and his wife no longer trust junk science.

I have not been treated for any illness by a doctor in a decade or more. I rarely get a cold, or flu even though I work in areas frequented by and in daily contact with hundreds or thousands of people. The few times I have I'll generally get rid of it in 24 to 48 hrs. Oregano oil, sambucol and maybe some extra C.

I can not count the numbers of people I see every year, year round with cold or flu-like symptoms. I know a couiple from india with a couple of kids; they told me that until they came to this country they rarely got sick - now it is flu, colds etc and frustrating trips to the doctor. They are switching to organic food and alternative treatments. No more junk science.
 
I've found that juicing apples, carrots, celery and spinach are the best things for my overall health. Carrots and spinach are especially good for the eyes from what I've read.

We all know about carrots and benefits to our eyes but spinach has lutein and antioxidants also which are very good for the eyes. I don't think many people know that about spinach?

Some people say take a gulp of olive oil after consuming spinach because we need the oil to absorb the lutein?

I've read about bilberry and there seems to be something to it. Never tried it though.

Spinach:

http://www.ilovespinach.com/MacD.html

http://64.233.167.104/search?q=cach...l+spinach+and+lutein&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=5&gl=us
 
You're thinking in terms of the precautionary principle

which is the logic used by our friends at the EPA. It holds that if large doses or high exposures to a given agent can cause disease in lab animals, and you have no idea what is a safe level of human exposure, then the safe level of exposure is presumed to be zero. Thus if high doses of mercury are toxic, minute ones must be as well. That's not science, it's a policy decision.

You can poison yourself with water. Prolonged exposure to high oxygen levels damages the retina. That doesn't mean they are toxins.

No study--I repeat, NO well-done study--has EVER shown any disease from mercury amalgam fillings. That doesn't mean that the suffering is all in the patient's head, but that the fillings aren't the cause.

Yes, medical errors and shabby practice are all too common. But they are not typical. LAK, you are treating the medical profession the way anti-gunners treat you and me. I don't blame you for your anger, but it's misdirected.

I've wasted enough of everbody's time with my ranting. I will leave you with one comment: junk science is an important tool of those who wish to disarm us. Shooters should learn how to recognize and debunk junk science if they want to keep their rights. Next time you hear that "A child is killed by a gun every 15 minutes", ask how they got that number. Do they include 19-year-old gang members? (They do.) Do they count suicides? (They do.) Is there a steady stream of killing every 15 minutes? (There isn't. They take the annual total of deaths and divide by the number of hours in a year. It's as if a jumbo jet with 365 passengers crashes with no survivors, and the media then say that every day someone dies in a plane crash.) I'm done. Sorry to hijack the thread.
 
You also avoided the same question as the FDA et al; what is the safe level of mercury?

Cheerio doc. And happy hunting.
 
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