prostate cancer
oracknows | October 6, 2016A frequent topic of discussion on this blog is the concept of overdiagnosis. It’s a topic I’ve been writing about regularly since around 2007 or so and is defined as the detection in an asymptomatic person of disease that, if left alone, would never progress to endanger that person’s life or well-being within his or her lifetime. The problem with overdiagnosis is that it pretty much always leads to overtreatment, the treatment of overdiagnosed disease that is not health- or life-threatening. The key shortcoming in our knowledge that leads to overtreatment is that, once we detect disease with…
oracknows | October 9, 2015Over the years, I've frequently made the points that the vast majority of physicians are not scientists and, in fact, that many of them suffer from a severe case of Dunning-Kruger when it comes to science. Even going back to the very early history of this blog, you can find examples, the most common of which seemed to be physicians denying evolution and embracing creationism. Of these, the doctor I wrote about most frequently back in the day was the creationist neurosurgeon Michael Egnor, but with the onset of the 2016 Presidential race there's been a new creationist neurosurgeon in town with…
oracknows | May 20, 2013Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in.
OK, I know I use that line entirely too much, but I also don't really care. When something fits, wear it. And if it doesn't fit, you must acquit. Sorry, I'll stop. I'm in a weird mood as I write this. But it's really hard not to get into a weird mood after reading the lastest bit by that crank to rule all cranks, that quack who tries to rule all quacks, Mike Adams, founder of NaturalNews.com. Last week, he laid down the vile stupid fast and furious to attack Angelina Jolie's decision to undergo bilateral prophylactic mastectomy. It was hard…
oracknows | April 8, 2013One of the more depressing things about getting much more interested in the debate over how we should screen for common cancers, particularly breast and prostate cancer, is my increasing realization of just how little physicians themselves understand about the complexities involved in weighing the value of such tests. It's become increasingly apparent to me that most physicians believe that early detection is always good and that it always saves lives, having little or no conception of lead time or length bias. A couple of weeks ago, I saw another example of just this phenomenon in the form…
gregladen | November 2, 2011In a recent study, 35,533 prostate cancer-free men in a higher risk age group for prostate cancer in the US, Canada and Puerto Rico were given various treatments of Vitamin E, selenium, and placebo in order to see if claims that Vitamin E and/or Vitamin E with selenium were effective in reducing prostate cancer risk.
8752 received selenium alone - 575 developed prostate cancer.
8737 received Vitamin E alone - 620 developed prostate cancer.
8702 received both - 555 developed prostate cancer.
8696 placebo - 529 developed prostate cancer.
It turns out that Vitamin E may increase the risk of…
edyong | October 8, 2009Chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) is a disease that afflicts people with extreme and debilitating tiredness that lasts for many years and isn't relieved by rest. Some estimates suggest that it affects up to 1% of the world's population. We don't know what causes it. Prostate cancer is one of the most common cancers in the world and kills around 221,000 people every year. Its causes too are largely unknown. What do these two diseases have in common? They have both been recently linked to a virus called XMRV (or xenotropic MulV-related virus in full).
This doesn't mean that you can 'catch' either…
palmd | March 17, 2009I've written a number of times how blindingly stupid and irresponsible Deirdre Imus has been. Now, Don Imus has revealed he has prostate cancer, and he is apparently surprised. According to ABC News, "he was surprised by the diagnosis because he had been following a healthy diet for the last decade." He also stated that, "... it was all the stress that caused this."
I'm not nearly as surprised as Mr. Imus. Prostate cancer is the malignancy most closely correlated with age (and of course, gender) and estimates are that between 14-70 % of men his age may have prostate cancer (occult or…
oracknows | March 5, 2009I realize I've said it before, but I still can't believe as many people read what I like to lay down on a daily basis right here on this blog. Believe me, it has nothing to do with an sort of false sense of modesty. After four years at this, I know I'm good at blogging. Real good. But good isn't always enough to make much of a difference or even to garner an audience. Whether I've done the first, I don't know. I like to think that I have. As for the second, I've done pretty well for myself. Indeed, after a year of stagnant traffic, January and February were the best months, traffic-wise, in…