When today's poison is tomorrow's wonder drug

BY Visa Ravindran| IN Media Practice | 14/10/2009
Flooded with often contradictory information on health by the media, whom should we believe?
There’s no escape from the old-fashioned route to resolving your doubts with your doctor,says VISA RAVINDRAN

ARE your daily two cups of coffee a panacea or poison? Is soya the new wonder potion or can it damage your system? The answer depends on which website or newspaper article you choose to believe. But how does one make such choices?

The flood of information now available can leave the new, extremely-health conscious consumer confused. There are not many ways of checking authenticity of information, especially when it invades your personal sphere via e-mail. A recent e-mail warning about a woman who suddenly ended up in a wheelchair with multiple sclerosis-like symptoms was scary. These symptoms were later traced to the excessive amounts of aspartame entering her system from the half-a-dozen Diet Cokes she was gulping down every day.  Fortunately for her, once the source of the symptoms was traced, they could be reversed. 

Often, people surf the net to find an explanation for unpleasant changes in their bodies. It hardly helps, specially when you are highly stressed, to find different websites giving clashing data. One site put the chances of survival with a particular type of cancer at 65%, while another put it at a vastly-reduced 20%.

The rapidity with which scientific studies change views on a particular treatment, and on the nutritive value of a foodstuff or additive, call for constant readjustments of one's food habits. A recent study even says that for a healthy old age, a satisfactory social life is far more important than a balanced diet and exercise! 

Soya protein has been long presented as a wonder food and a boon to the lactose-intolerant. But look into the Observer Food Monthly's website and you will be shocked by an article on two food scientists questioning the US Food and Drug Administration's claim ( later backed also by the British Food Standards Agency), that eating 25 grams of soya protein daily, could help lower cholesterol and reduce the risk of heart disease. An extract from their letter accessed by the magazine states: ``We oppose this health claim because there is abundant evidence that some of the isoflavones (phytoestrogens) found in soy demonstrate toxicity in oestrogen-sensitive tissues and in the thyroid. This is true for a number of species, including humans. Additionally, the adverse effects in humans occur in several tissues and, apparently, by several distinct mechanisms...Thus, during pregnancy in humans, isoflavones per se could be a risk factor for abnormal brain and reproductive tract development."

However, the relevant part of this article comes a couple of lines towards the end. Nutritionist Kaayla Daniel, who has studied the soya bean for years, dismisses these fears"and claims that the traditional process of making fermented soya products like tofu or tempeh destroys many of the allegedly dangerous chemicals in soya, unlike modern factory methods used today." So one is now led to wonder whether it is the bean or the modern methods of processing it that renders it dangerous. But how many would read the article completely? And what's the solution for those who do?

Some misleading reports are obviously deliberately positioned to empower drug companies. A Reuters report published in the TOI (September 13, 2009), says a survey recently presented at a Vancouver conference found that 12% of research articles in well-known medical journals failed to disclose authors who contributed  "substantially". ``Those additional authors sometimes had financial ties to pharmaceutical companies, and critics say the resulting papers often interpreted data about these companies' drugs more favourably.'' As the report progresses, the information gets more frightening. It claims drug-maker Wyeth got 26 papers penned by paid ghostwriters who touted hormone replacement therapy for women in 18 journals, playing up the benefits and downplaying the risks.

Hormone replacement therapy (HRT) and the advantages of using aspartame as a sugar substitute for diabetics and weight watchers, are two topics that have had the most frightening swings between good and bad and still hang in the balance. 'HRT Losing Support as a Preventive against Second Heart Attack for Women' says holisticlive.com, and webmd.com concludes that women with existing heart disease have not shown benefits after four years on hormone replacements.

Coffee is recommended for reducing the risk of colon cancer, liver cirrhosis and gall bladder stones (natural-homeremedies.com), and as a medicinal food (ecosalon.com). Several studies claim that coffee is effective in staving off Alzheimer's disease. However, other studies call it a `drug' that has adverse side-effects when taken in excess. Even determining what is excessive is subjective!

Add to this the flurry of data prompted by pharma companies catering to the  evergrowing ' need' to be slim and ' wrinkle-free' in a fitness-crazy world that drops all fat today, embraces olive oil tomorrow and learns the day after tomorrow that some fat is necessary in the daily diet to avoid X,Y OR Z!

'Don't Believe the Health Hype: Six Fallacies Debunked' says one site while warning the info seeker to 'be forever vigilant' in 'sifting truth from hype.' But where's the guarantee that this website is credible?

Coffee, alcohol / wine, soya beans, fibre, sugar, salt and oil have all swung from poison to panacea in various reports of various studies. And then there are transfat vs hydrogenated fat, the 'avoid all things white'- and the 'no fermented food' schools of nutrition. What does the confused health consumer do?  Especially, if as is common in India, she veers from allopathy to ayurveda, unani and siddha, not to mention the several branches of New Age medicine?

This is not to say that information technology has not had a positive impact on medicine. Telemedicine, where highly-qualified doctors from reputed hospitals are available for consultation to those who, for various reasons, are unable to meet doctors in person, is a technological boon. 'The Doctor Answers' type of phone-in programmes are reliable and balanced because there is direct interaction between the caller and the doctor on call. But here the third person listening in is apt to make mistakes if attention either to the query or response fluctuates. Such programmes however, leave you feeling less anxious than do some `awareness-raising' health programmes where you cannot resolve the doubts they leave you with. 

Actual medical reports of unusual surgical interventions and research summaries telecast by various channels are also of interest to the lay person. To some extent,  popular medical TV serials such as ' E.R.' also help, making  the interiors of hospitals and various intimidating medical procedures familiar terrain for even  the most remotely- domiciled. However, the facts deduced from them may not be the most accurate.

However, it is the internet that can leave you totally at sea. Some doctors, such as Dr.Jefferson Underwood III of Montgomery, take the trouble to guide patients to reputable sites. He advises net users to enlist their healthcare provider's help when wading into online health information.                                                        

One way out is using `CARS' î º credibility, accuracy, reasonableness and support, says an article in the Statesman Journal (Salem, Oregon). First, look for the author, his/her credentials, whether s/he is certified / licensed by a national / international organization. Then look at the bottom of the page for references to peer-reviewed research journals, not magazines. The best sites, the article by Shannon Simmons concludes, will provide links to supporting documents and studies.

Data smog is dangerous and particularly so in the context of medical information. To navigate your way through it, the watchwords would be: evaluate the source, crosscheck with your medical professional and do not become a greedy consumer.

 

 

 

 

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