This past week or so America is reading about how parents are carting up their kids and moving to Colorado in order to receive “Medical Marijuana” for seizures. I just watched the video on USA today and honestly, the one child who reportedly is having hundreds of seizures a day looked to me like she was just blinking. I don’t know how someone is objectively measuring this child’s reported seizure activity- call me skeptical. Also the father who is constantly clenching his jaw and not looking at the camera seems a bit unconvincing and unconvinced himself.
My intention of bringing this topic up again is not to bash parents who are desperately seeking to make their children seizure free but rather to point out the irony of average citizens making brazen claims that marijuana has therapeutic efficacy for seizures. The examples used in the video are certainly pretty mild conditions. Not all involuntary muscle contractions represent seizures either. Did the editors of USA today bother to test what was in that bottle the parents claim contains special street marijuana? For all we know it is a liquefied version of their therapeutic seizure medication.
In the US we have an agency called the FDA which is responsible for overseeing the approval of medications/drugs for indicated medical conditions. How in the world did this country get to where we are legalizing medical marijuana before the professionals have debated the topic? To this point the doctor community has never suggested in any substantive number that marijuana bought in the streets has any true medicinal value. Additionally how is it regular folks are out there informing the rest of us that there is a new indication for dope, namely childhood seizures? What’s astounding is that the media is so stupid they would publicize such claims as if gospel, suggesting doctors and the pharmaceutical industry are so stupid they never figured this out before marijuana was legalized in a few states. This really smells fishy.
A couple of years back I took a very honest and thorough review of the history of marijuana as well as the evidence (or rather lack of) regarding medical reasons to use marijuana. I will remind folks that this whole thing about using the herb of choice for everything from immune system health to seizures just flat lacks scientific evidence. Given its often desirable side effects, of course America wants to consume marijuana. As far as I am concerned that that is a topic of public debate but please don’t drag your doctor into this. Also, if there really is an opportunity to find an indication then lets by all means scientifically pursue this. Does anyone doubt Johnson and Johnson, for instance, wouldn’t jump on the opportunity to purify, test and seek FDA approval for selling whatever might be active in the concoction those parents are giving these anecdotal cases? I don’t.
Florida’s own John Morgan of Morgan and Morgan wants to set the democratic platform up for the medical marijuana topic, I say go ahead and seek legalization, just not for medical reasons.
Negative News for Multivitamins: Are There Reasons to Question Conclusions from the Media?
My readers know that in my view, nutrition is everything when it comes to general health and wellness (well nearly everything). Globally there is population evidence suggesting that people who eat a diet emphasizing vegetables and fruits (and thus high density micronutrient/antioxidant food sources) have lower incidences of virtually any disease you wish to look for. We know that vitamins are essential to proper cellular function and energy metabolism- that’s why we call them essential vitamins. Without them, chemical cellular activities necessary for life cannot run.
We know also that eating protein throughout the day results in faster metabolism and lower central obesity. Clearly nutrition and lifestyle are critical to health. So why do the media and a large part of the medical community want to toss out conversations and studies looking at the role of nutrition and supplements on our health? I think it is because it is very hard to control for broad variables like multivitamins and food sources. Doctors are not well versed in nutrition- I recall being told dogmatically in medical school that “vitamins are a waste of money” with very little support of that dogmatic statement. This thinking hasn’t really changed. It is easy to attack things you are ignorant of.
Those that want to tout the benefits of supplements have plenty of water to carry as well. Scientists that have done vitamin studies do a poor job controlling for the supplements used. Good study design is critical for decent science. The supplement industry fails to do good studies and this is convenient for the industry (and equally convenient for the doctors to stay dogmatic). I say it is high time some folks put their money where their mouths are. Meanwhile we consumers have to do our best to eat optimally if we are interested in staying well. The decision to supplement is personal. Based upon the current literature no one should anticipate their insurance carrier paying for vitamins.
The media blitz that preceded two publications in the Annals of Internal Medicine (December 17th 2013 volume 159 Number 12) highlights how the medical community at large enjoys pooh-poohing supplementation of vitamins for diseases. In fact, the editorial provided in the same journal was titled: Enough is Enough: Stop Wasting Money on Vitamin and Mineral Supplements. Below I provide an analysis of the two trials from a doctor’s perspective.
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