What Works and What's Worthless

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What works and what's worthless
By: William Campbell Douglass II, MD


Last week in the Daily Dose, I tried to reveal to you the
alarming extent of today's Depression epidemic -- and the
even more alarming one-sidedness of the mainstream's
treatment of it with prescription antidepressants...

But now I want to shock you once more with this doozy:
Antidepressant drugs don't work -- and drug makers KNOW IT!
Strap yourself in, because what I'm about to expose is going to make you want to jump up and scream. Here goes...

First, the semi-amusing part: A review of 96 separate trials conducted since 1979 reveals that placebos (sugar pills with no medical effects) performed just as well as -- and in many cases even BETTER THAN -- drugs for the treatment of depression, according to a recent report in the International Journal of Neuropsychopharmacology. That's right -- harmless, penny-a-pop Sugar pills cured Depression as readily as the drugs major pharmaceutical companies no doubt spent millions to create...

And in one documented case, the placebo outperformed the
drugs by 28%!

Now for the disturbing part: Drug makers know this, yet
continue to push their addictive antidepressants down our
(and our doctors') throats anyway. Need proof? Before a drug can be approved by the FDA, its maker is required to submit two trials that show clearly positive effects. According to the article, the manufacturers of Prozac needed five separate trials to collect a pair with positive clinical results. And for the makers of Paxil and Zoloft, it took EVEN MORE.

What that means is this: Drug makers knew their
antidepressants didn't work, yet continued to subject them
to trials anyway, trusting in the law of averages to
eventually supply them with a pair they could submit to the FDA. It also means that antidepressant drugs and Sugar pills most likely defeat Depression in the same way -- because the patient believes they are going to work, a phenomenon called the "placebo effect." This begs the question: WHAT ARE THE DARNED DRUGS FOR?

The answer, of course, is profit. Because the mainstream
media will likely never report what I've just told you (and you won't hear it in your doctor's office, either), people will continue to believe in and buy antidepressant drugs. Which begs another dark question -- one I touched on in the March 28th Daily Dose: Could the recent boom in depression cases be the result of a subtle campaign of suggestion in the media -- a deluge of ads for antidepressants on TV, the radio, and in print? Think about it.

Actions to take: If this thought depresses you, try the
proven treatments I've recommended before: St. John's wort, a vacation, and the company of friends and family who care about you. These are things worth getting addicted to.

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Listen to the patient...

As you know, I make no secret of my opinions about today's
medical training. For starters, too many med school grads
are brainwashed into being nothing more than drug reps.
Whatever happened to teaching young doctors to be savvy
clinicians and diagnosticians? Why aren't we teaching them
to think outside the pillbox, to seek creative, lternative
solutions?

And then there's the doctor's "bedside manner." The phrase
refers to a doctor's way of dealing with patients -- making them feel at ease, prepared, and fully aware of the medical realities they face. It's a vital part of medicine, one that all doctors should be required to develop skills in. But apparently it's not a big part of modern medical curricula --or a priority among most doctors nowadays, young or old.

I mention this because in the last few years, I've sensed
that the gap between doctors and their patients has widened considerably. It's almost as though mainstream doctors everywhere believe that medicine itself has become larger than the people they're seeking to treat. That's just plain wrong, in my opinion. And a recent study quantified this perception...

In a study of nearly 1000 Breast Cancer patients, NEARLY
HALF of them indicated that their doctor's explanation of
the condition, its diagnosis, and treatment options was
insufficient, incomplete, or difficult to understand. And
almost 60% of these patients wanted to speak to medical
staff more, according to research published in the Annals of Oncology.

See what I mean about lacking bedside manner?

In my opinion, medicine -- be it mainstream, alternative, or experimental -- should revolve around the patient. ALL
doctors (regardless of discipline) should remember first and foremost that they're treating A PERSON, not just a disease or condition. And that person needs to understand what's happening to them, and what's going to happen to them once treatment begins...

Sometimes that takes having a little patience and paying
attention to the patient. That doesn't mean being
all "touchy-feely" and offering up "compassion" in place of a "cure," as I explained in the August 2002 issue of Real Health. It just means REALLY LISTENING to what the patient says -- and looking for physical disease first, when a patient says, "I'm sick."

Valuing what's important -- and knowing what's not,

William Campbell Douglass II, MD



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