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From: https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/probiotics/ The Wall Street Journal has an assessment of probiotics in the Jan 13, 2009 issue entitled “Bug Crazy: Assessing the Benefits of Probiotics. <http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123180831081775767.html>” For some reason when I wander around the hospital on rounds people show me articles such as this and ask, so whatcha think about this? Probiotics are interesting. They are live bacteria given to treat and prevent diseases. It is one of those overlap areas for scientific medicine and so called alternative medicine. There are good clinical trials to suggest areas where these agents are of benefit, but other aspects of their use are blown out of proportion for the real or imagined benefit probiotics may provide. Much of alternative medicine where it overlaps with real medicine is the art of making therapeutic mountains out of clinical molehills. The Wall Street Journal article is the kind of reporting that drives. Me. Nuts. It drives me nuts because the reporting acts as if the underlying assumptions of the therapies are true. Start with the second sentence. Many medical experts believe that consuming healthy bacteria, called probiotics, improves the body’s overall balance of good versus bad micro-organisms, boosting general health. Many? What is many? A few loudmouths like me? A consensus? Experts in what? What is a “healthy bacteria”? Are the bacteria healthy? Or does it make you healthy? Then the last part of sentence, “improves the body’s overall balance of good versus bad micro-organisms, boosting general health.” What the does that mean? Already there is the assumption, unchallenged, that there is an issue in people between good and bad bacteria that is affecting health. And which people? Which bacteria? Under what circumstances? The importance of understanding which patient populations may benefit from an intervention is key. My mind was boggled when they mentioned that there were 241 products released last year containing probiotics. Someone is getting a good balance of good income versus bad income, boosting some bank accounts’ health. Before we move on to the rest of the article, let’s talk about the colon and the bacteria that live there. FULL: https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/probiotics/ _________________________________________________________ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: https://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
