It was bad enough when my cardiologist told me this bit about fish oil and Omega just a few weeks ago, but to read it in the New York Times rubs salt in these wounds.

And about avoiding dust mites, cockroaches, etc. to combat asthma!

Considering how much $ and time I've spent on such remedies, all these allegedly rigorous studies are massively dismaying. Not wanting to actually calculate my outlay on Omega oils (in the right ratio of six or three?), and other supplements - plus what I still have in storage.

Of course, per that same publication, most supplements are probably mostly sawdust or other fake materials anyhow (except in California where they're more rigorous in testing), so it may not matter. Still, if true, claims like these amount to proving there is no nutritional G-d.

Consuming certain substances among other virtues, conveys the sense that it IS possible to personally intervene in the otherwise certain inevitability of death if not taxes. Thus, I'm probably going to continue with most of them if only to use up my supplies (of resveretrol etc., not to mention red wine), at least until this debunking is more widely proven. (Rememnbering uncomfortably how long it took me to abandon glucosamine chondroitin...)

Besides, liquid fish oil itself (Nordic Naturals, especially) is reputed to ward off so many natural ills! Having been convinced of the inflammation hypothesis of aging and free radical damage, I need to feel I can wear SOME kind of suit of dietary armor.

Still I feel honor-bound to pass on this PSA. Your thoughts on these studies (perhaps easiest to accept those not related to dietary strictures)?

Medical Myths not just from Mom but our doctors

quote:

Medical Myths not just from Mom but our doctors

Read the abstract of the underlying study.

quote:

Patients were randomly assigned to n−3 fatty acids (1 g daily) or placebo (olive oil).

Maybe olive oil is just as good as fish oil for reducing heart disease, and they BOTH have a beneficial effect.

I'm also not sure their end point was a real end point. I'm having a hard time parsing their jargon, but it seems they picked an endpoint of death from cardiovascular causes or admission to the hospital for cardiovascular causes.

quote:

At the beginning of the trial, the primary efficacy end point was defined as the cumulative rate of death, nonfatal myocardial infarction, and nonfatal stroke.8 However, after a blinded assessment at 1 year showed an event rate that was lower than expected, the primary efficacy end point was revised as the composite of time to death from cardiovascular causes or hospital admission for cardiovascular causes.

What if neither happened, and you're still alive?

And, if you died from another cause, is it possible that cardiovascular disease was a contributing factor?

Maybe there are answers for all of this, but neither the article nor the abstract answers them, and I didn't see answers in the lengthier study (which I admittedly skimmed).

Anyone who succumbs to "medical breakthrough" clickbait (like me) will note that over time contradictions are bound to appear in the same publications. After all, any hints on ways to achieve if not immortality at least, lengthened lifespan and quality of life, are certain to attract readers even if vital specs on the finding are missing.

For instance, the business about dust mites and asthma neglects to mention it is only causally related in asthma sufferers who are allergic to dust! Kind of basic. (Written by the mother of a child whose near fatal asthma WAS triggered by various allergies.)

Since stress is linked to all kinds of medical ills, it's a moot point as to whether studying such studies does more harm than good on that account alone. That's not even including how clear the stats are presented and understood, much less whether authors' mercenary links to related products are properly highlighted.

I'm also looking forward to greater advances in identifying populations studied (age, sex, race and increasingly, DNA), in medications, foods and treatments.

(As an aside, I'm made still more cynical after a recent You-tube about scientific breakthroughs in the Edwardian period - a collection among others, of ads and news items describing the wonders of asbestos, radium uses in medicine and industry, electrocutions from misuse of electricity and poisonings and explosions from early refrigerant gases. What will be learned later about our modern "miracles"?)