| Robert 2005-07-20, 2:08 pm |
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"Jim Chinnis" <jchinnis@SPAMalum.mit.edu> wrote in message
news:rn0gd1t709lcf5gehnnfmd8bod6divdr5a@4ax.com...
> "Juhana Harju" <shantigiri@despammed.com> wrote in part:
>
>
> My mistake. I was hurrying and confused it with a similar spoof.
>
mechanisms,[vbcol=seagreen]
>
> But garlic hasn't been shown to "work." There's the rub. When
> someone says it's as good as a statin, they need to be ablr e to
> show that it reduces MIs and strokes and cardiac death by about
> the same amounts that statins do and in the same populations.
>
>
> Please clarify. I probably eat a diet similar to the one you
> advocate. But I can recognize when advocates engage in hyperbole.
> Most of the studies that are cited over and over don't prove what
> they are claimed to.
>
> If you want to state that you can drop your statin and just add
> more garlic, you really need to have a randomized study. Randomize
> a bunch of people into two groups. Give one a placebo every day
> and give the other a garlic pill. Wait a few years or so and see
> if the garlic group has 30% fewer heart attacks and strokes and
> cardiac fatalities are lower.
>
> Governments have failed to fund the necessary studies for public
> health.
>
> It's fine to advocate garlic as a replacement for statins if you
> ackowledge that there are no data to show how cardiac morbidity
> and mortality are changed by consuming garlic--that you only have
> effects on markers and risk factors.
> --
> Jim Chinnis Warrenton, Virginia, USA
Jim, it is pretty typical for alternate healthcare promoters to have a
double standard. They chastise modern meds for lack of definitive proof with
clinical studies but when it comes to alternatives then those proofs are
accepted as long as there is even a remote possibility that it may work.
You have an entire industry born out of cholesterol lowering but only a very
few industries employ randomized clinical trials with outcome.
Most of the alternative supplements are used in preventing health problems
and they imply that they be used in treating disease as an intervention.
They blur the line when talking about preventing disease and treating
disease.
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