More Medical Profession Quackery: Blood Pressure

[barts]

The question I want to explore is should medical treatments be proven effective in double blind clinical studies before doctors are allowed to recommend them? I think they should.

Hypertension (high blood pressure) is a very common condition. Research suggests that lower blood pressure, statistically, is preferred to higher blood pressure. However, this doesn't mean that if a particular patient is given treatment for high blood pressure that he or she will live longer or have a reduced risk for any particular disease. A person with technically high blood pressure can live a long and healthy life. A person with "normal" blood pressure can have a stroke and heart attack at an early age. And doctors have no way of knowing with any reasonable certainty which is which. But that doesn't stop them treating and billing.

In fact, given that the cause of most patients' high blood pressure is unknown any given treatment can have worse side effects than what the blood pressure might cause. Wouldn't you think the medical industry should be investing in discovering what causes high blood pressure, rather than investing in drugs to lower it? Better to know the cause of a condition rather than treat the symptom. But no, this is not the way of much modern medicine.

Yes, it is possible to lower many patients blood pressure with drugs. But the lower blood pressure may or may not produce better health outcomes. That part is a crap shoot, and is mere quackery.

In my view, doctors ought not be prescribing treatments to patients that they have no means of knowing if the patient will benefit or not. For the most part, drugs prescribed to lower blood pressure are ill advised because we cannot know what the long term effects will be; they are as ill advised as the ancient practice of bloodletting.

What is also interesting is that there appear to be no studies or very few (because I can't find any) showing that lowering the blood pressure of otherwise healthy people reduces morbidity. Wouldn't you think someone would want to know if lowering blood pressure in healthy people actually helped people live longer? It seems not, particularly when a person with high blood pressure can be such a good customer for the drug companies and their physician pushers.

As I say, much of the medical profession remains, as it has for its entire history, mere quackery.

[minorwork]

The question I want to explore is should medical treatments be proven effective in double blind clinical studies before doctors are allowed to recommend them? I think they should.

If such could be done using death row prisoners as a chance to extend their lives for the good of all, from the date of their execution then there might be some possibility of doing a lot more research that otherwise would get a person sued. Dr. Jack Kevorkian favored death row inmates for such experimentation purposes.

Hypertension (high blood pressure) is a very common condition. Research suggests that lower blood pressure, statistically, is preferred to higher blood pressure. However, this doesn't mean that if a particular patient is given treatment for high blood pressure that he or she will live longer or have a reduced risk for any particular disease. A person with technically high blood pressure can live a long and healthy life. A person with "normal" blood pressure can have a stroke and heart attack at an early age. And doctors have no way of knowing with any reasonable certainty which is which. But that doesn't stop them treating and billing.

Statistics, probabilities are in play for sure. It's not ethical to stop treating and billing because an individual's reaction to the treatment is unknown. He doesn't have to take the treatment does he? Or would Obamacare demand it to retain coverage for accidents?

In fact, given that the cause of most patients' high blood pressure is unknown any given treatment can have worse side effects than what the blood pressure might cause. Wouldn't you think the medical industry should be investing in discovering what causes high blood pressure, rather than investing in drugs to lower it? Better to know the cause of a condition rather than treat the symptom.

Stop treating until then? Why better? Don't know why colchicine eases the pain of gout, but it does. Should pull it off the market too or since it went for only cents per pill, do some more tests to find a better dosage recommendation and so have to charge dollars per pill. To hell with the patients pain to satisfy the whys of how colchicine operates? No. If those suffering are willing to put up with diarrhea for cents per pill, let them. Don't force the study and then make the cost to treat the condition prohibitively expensive.

Yes, it is possible to lower many patients blood pressure with drugs. But the lower blood pressure may or may not produce better health outcomes. That part is a crap shoot, and is mere quackery.

Where's the crap shoot when there is no atherosclerosis in pulmonary artery system which do not carry more than 9-18 mmHg compared to the 120/80 mmHg of the arteries that DO sclerose, the high blood pressure precipitates the junk onto the walls. Lower means less sclerosing.

In my view, doctors ought not be prescribing treatments to patients that they have no means of knowing if the patient will benefit or not. For the most part, drugs prescribed to lower blood pressure are ill advised because we cannot know what the long term effects will be; they are as ill advised as the ancient practice of bloodletting.

That good, eh? You can doctor my ex.

The diversity of human response to any drug is often so varied that what works for one patient at one dose at one time of day will affect another the same but only when taken at a different time of day. Statins except for Pravachol work best before bedtime. Given this diversity my doc starts at the minimum dosage or half even if the patient has proved sensitive to other drugs. What would you have him do?

What is also interesting is that there appear to be no studies or very few (because I can't find any) showing that lowering the blood pressure of otherwise healthy people reduces morbidity. Wouldn't you think someone would want to know if lowering blood pressure in healthy people actually helped people live longer? It seems not, particularly when a person with high blood pressure can be such a good customer for the drug companies and their physician pushers.

Surely you DID find indications of higher mortality in those with higher blood pressure, eh? What would you do with that information?

As I say, much of the medical profession remains, as it has for its entire history, mere quackery.

Fire 'em all and hire exorcists, witchdoctors, and reiki specialists at half the price. What the hell if they're all quacks.

Better idea. Hire a big mean bastard with one eye that carries a club taser combo. Hire him to enforce a one-on-one lifestyle change given that lifestyle change incentives are otherwise lacking. A buddy says that both guys he knows, the ones that break kneecaps, will take the gig. One charges half what the other does because he likes the work.

[Dieval]

In my view, doctors ought not be prescribing treatments to patients that they have no means of knowing if the patient will benefit or not. For the most part, drugs prescribed to lower blood pressure are ill advised because we cannot know what the long term effects will be; they are as ill advised as the ancient practice of bloodletting.

I can't believe you just compared the medication for high blood pressure to "bloodletting"....however, since I can speak with first hand knowledge of how high blood pressure medication can help a person (me), your "view" of what "doctors ought" to do is horrible for the people who suffer from high blood pressure. Leave what "doctors ought" to do to the professionals.

[barts]

I can't believe you just compared the medication for high blood pressure to "bloodletting"....however, since I can speak with first hand knowledge of how high blood pressure medication can help a person (me), your "view" of what "doctors ought" to do is horrible for the people who suffer from high blood pressure. Leave what "doctors ought" to do to the professionals.

Yes you can speak with first hand knowledge about "you" and only "you", and that is what is referred to as a "statistically insignificant sample". While you didn't go into details and I'm not asking for any, I would not be surprised if, perhaps, your doctor prescribed medication that lowered your blood pressure. What your doctor cannot tell you, however, is whether or not doing so will prolong your particular life. There are some things doctors can do well. For example, he or she can stitch up a cut, and be fairly certain you'll not bleed to death. He or she cannot be certain that prescribing you medication for high blood pressure will do anything for you in particular except give a lower reading on a sphygmomanometer.

Otherwise healthy people who have high blood pressure, rarely suffer. Many will suffer with side effects if they take medication. My point is that lowering high blood pressure caused for unknown reasons in otherwise healthy people will not necessarily result in better health outcomes for any particular person. Moreover, it's worth remembering that these drugs are being prescribed by a profession that is rife with conflicts of interest, is responsible for between 44,000 and 98,000 preventable deaths and 1,000,000 excess injuries every year due to preventable errors, and is the prime pusher for a social epidemic of addiction to prescription drugs that makes addiction to illegal drugs look positively quaint.

And lastly, not infrequently, doctors prescribe drugs they've learned about while on a drug company funded junket to some exotic location.

Few "professions" are as corrupt and dangerous as the medical profession.

I wish you the best of health, and genuinely hope that you have one of the minority of doctors who is more concerned about their patient's health than their bank accounts and drug company perks.

[minorwork]

If you can't trust your doctor, who can you trust? Politicians?

[barts]

If you can't trust your doctor, who can you trust? Politicians?

You can trust your doctor and your politician if you've bought them, and most of them are for sale. Just ask the drug companies who have bought lots of them.

[minorwork]

You can trust your doctor and your politician if you've bought them, and most of them are for sale. Just ask the drug companies who have bought lots of them.

How many are you willing to bury by barring the sale of blood pressure meds until the causes of high blood pressure can be fathomed?

[Dieval]

Yes you can speak with first hand knowledge about "you" and only "you", and that is what is referred to as a "statistically insignificant sample". While you didn't go into details and I'm not asking for any, I would not be surprised if, perhaps, your doctor prescribed medication that lowered your blood pressure.

Why yes, my doctor did...I believe I said that, in a round-about way...

What your doctor cannot tell you, however, is whether or not doing so will prolong your particular life.

Well, since my Doc (and every other doctor out there) isn't a psychic, you're correct...however, high blood pressure is dangerous and is well known to cause problems (you can look up exactly what those problems are).

There are some things doctors can do well. For example, he or she can stitch up a cut, and be fairly certain you'll not bleed to death. He or she cannot be certain that prescribing you medication for high blood pressure will do anything for you in particular except give a lower reading on a sphygmomanometer.

- which helped my particular issue....why is that a bad or questionable thing?

Otherwise healthy people who have high blood pressure, rarely suffer.

what exactly do you mean by "rarely suffer"? How exactly do you define "otherwise healthy people"? How many of those people are out there? Sources for this generalization?

Many will suffer with side effects if they take medication.

How do you define "many"? Most side effects that happen are minor compared to the alternative and happen in a small percentage of people taking the med...and by the way, I'll gladly take any side effects of the medication over the effect of having high blood pressure.

My point is that lowering high blood pressure caused for unknown reasons in otherwise healthy people will not necessarily result in better health outcomes for any particular person. Moreover, it's worth remembering that these drugs are being prescribed by a profession that is rife with conflicts of interest, is responsible for between 44,000 and 98,000 preventable deaths and 1,000,000 excess injuries every year due to preventable errors, and is the prime pusher for a social epidemic of addiction to prescription drugs that makes addiction to illegal drugs look positively quaint.

"preventable errors"? are these errors in medications or just general medical "errors"?

And lastly, not infrequently, doctors prescribe drugs they've learned about while on a drug company funded junket to some exotic location.

Few "professions" are as corrupt and dangerous as the medical profession.

Have you ever had debilitating condition caused by high blood pressure? I doubt it or your opinion would probably be different.

[gallo]

The question I want to explore is should medical treatments be proven effective in double blind clinical studies before doctors are allowed to recommend them? I think they should.

Yes. A good idea.

Hypertension (high blood pressure) is a very common condition. Research suggests that lower blood pressure, statistically, is preferred to higher blood pressure.

And I believe that there have been double blind studies done on blood pressure. High blood pressure isn't a good thing.

However, this doesn't mean that if a particular patient is given treatment for high blood pressure that he or she will live longer or have a reduced risk for any particular disease.

Actually, you have stated two different realities in a single sentence. While treatment for high blood pressure does not offer any assurance that one will "live longer" (whatever that means), statistics indicate that lower blood pressure does, in fact, reduce the risk of several heart related problems, myocardial infarction and stroke among them. There is also the heart enlargement that is a direct result of high blood pressure.

A person with technically high blood pressure can live a long and healthy life.

But if you have high blood pressure, that would be a crap shoot. Statistically, if you have high blood pressure, your risk of death from a multitude of causes is much greater than a person with acceptable pressures.

A person with "normal" blood pressure can have a stroke and heart attack at an early age. And doctors have no way of knowing with any reasonable certainty which is which. But that doesn't stop them treating and billing.

Indeed. It seems that you aren't aware of a thing among physicians called "best medical practice." And "best medical practice" is to prescribe medication to reduce blood pressure simply because people with high blood pressure do not live as long as people with normal blood pressure. They also advise patients who do not have high blood pressure, but are overweight, to loose weight. In fact, high blood pressure is not the primary cause of either a stroke or a heart attack.

In fact, given that the cause of most patients' high blood pressure is unknown any given treatment can have worse side effects than what the blood pressure might cause.

Such as? Please be specific.

Wouldn't you think the medical industry should be investing in discovering what causes high blood pressure, rather than investing in drugs to lower it? Better to know the cause of a condition rather than treat the symptom. But no, this is not the way of much modern medicine.

But the cause for most cases of high blood pressure isn't much of a mystery. We obese people have high blood pressure. A fact. If we loose weight, our blood pressure goes down. Exercise helps. I'm not sure that there hasn't been any research into that.

Yes, it is possible to lower many patients blood pressure with drugs. But the lower blood pressure may or may not produce better health outcomes. That part is a crap shoot, and is mere quackery.

Give me a break. You want guarantees from something that doesn't offer guarantees. If you have high blood pressure, the statistics from many studies show that a reduced blood pressure gives you a statistical advantage for a longer life. Only an idiot would look for a sure thing.

[quote]In my view, doctors ought not be prescribing treatments to patients that they have no means of knowing if the patient will benefit or not.[/quote0
Then why go to a doctor? Any doctor has no way of knowing if a patient will benefit from any prescribed medication.

For the most part, drugs prescribed to lower blood pressure are ill advised because we cannot know what the long term effects will be; they are as ill advised as the ancient practice of bloodletting.

Horsepuckey! The adverse effects of high blood pressure are documented.

What is also interesting is that there appear to be no studies or very few (because I can't find any) showing that lowering the blood pressure of otherwise healthy people reduces morbidity.

Could that be because there are so few otherwise healthy people who have high blood pressure?

Wouldn't you think someone would want to know if lowering blood pressure in healthy people actually helped people live longer?

Indeed. A statical fate. High blood pressure has a higher mortality rate than lower blood pressure.

It seems not, particularly when a person with high blood pressure can be such a good customer for the drug companies and their physician pushers.

Idiotic nonsense. High blood pressure is, statistically, a bad thing.

As I say, much of the medical profession remains, as it has for its entire history, mere quackery.

Well, I'm still able to walk three miles a day because of the practice of a medical professional. I suspect that he isn't a quack. In fact, his last resort is surgery, which seems strange for a person who makes his living by doing surgery. The collapse of my lumbar spine was because of prior injuries. And yet, this medical "quack" prescribed other non-invasive treatments, rather than surgery, on two occasion. And when a planed four hour surgery became a 7 hour surgery when he found a ruptured spinal dura, he fixed it - being the "quack" that he is. I can still walk today because of him.

[barts]

How many are you willing to bury by barring the sale of blood pressure meds until the causes of high blood pressure can be fathomed?

How many people are being buried due to the side effects of drugs that won't help them? You need all the information before you can draw a conclusion. The medical profession and drug companies in particular tend to produce and publish research with positive conclusions not negative ones.

[barts]

Why yes, my doctor did...I believe I said that, in a round-about way...
Well, since my Doc (and every other doctor out there) isn't a psychic, you're correct...however, high blood pressure is dangerous and is well known to cause problems (you can look up exactly what those problems are).

- which helped my particular issue....why is that a bad or questionable thing?

what exactly do you mean by "rarely suffer"? How exactly do you define "otherwise healthy people"? How many of those people are out there? Sources for this generalization?

How do you define "many"? Most side effects that happen are minor compared to the alternative and happen in a small percentage of people taking the med...and by the way, I'll gladly take any side effects of the medication over the effect of having high blood pressure.

"preventable errors"? are these errors in medications or just general medical "errors"?

Have you ever had debilitating condition caused by high blood pressure? I doubt it or your opinion would probably be different.

Most of what you've written is about you personally. Just because, in your view, you think medication helped you. It doesn't follow it will help everyone. But that seems to be what you're arguing.

As for "preventable errors" see, In Hospital Deaths from Medical Errors at 195,000 per Year USA. About 45,000 die on the roads. Hospitals and doctors are far more dangerous than the nation's highways.

It is well known that high blood pressure can cause problems. What's not known is if your high blood pressure will cause you problems. It's much like automobile accidents. It's well known that it is highly likely drivers will be involved in accidents that cause injury or death. What can't be determined is which drivers.

I don't recall objecting to treating "a debilitating condition caused by high blood pressure". I do recall talking about the crap shoot of giving lowering blood pressure in otherwise healthy people. If a physicians knows that a patient's hypertension is causing organ damage, treatment is called. If a physician is prescribing drugs to lower blood pressure in a patient who is not having problems other than high blood pressure, they are guilty of malpractice, in my view.

[barts]

Well, I'm still able to walk three miles a day because of the practice of a medical professional. I suspect that he isn't a quack. In fact, his last resort is surgery, which seems strange for a person who makes his living by doing surgery. The collapse of my lumbar spine was because of prior injuries. And yet, this medical "quack" prescribed other non-invasive treatments, rather than surgery, on two occasion. And when a planed four hour surgery became a 7 hour surgery when he found a ruptured spinal dura, he fixed it - being the "quack" that he is. I can still walk today because of him.

Here we go again. See post above about medical mistakes.

Of course, some doctors help some patients. But that doesn't mean the patient your doctor sees will be helped. Some patients get treatments from doctors that do no good at all, but the patient recovers anyway and credits the doctor with the cure.

Some people win at Las Vegas, but that doesn't mean everyone will.

And again, your personal experience has no bearing what another patient will experience. Or what your doctor's next patient went through.

Doctors in the US in particular tend to over-prescribe drugs, over-test, and over-treat. It's how they make money.

Is your personal doctor a "quack" or "charlatan"? Let's assume not. Does that mean all doctors are ethical and competent professionals with only their patient's health at top of mind. Of course not.

There are those who claim that naturopaths healed them. Does that make it true for everyone?