In his weekly journal review on a BMJ blog,
Dr. Richard Lehman writes about a study published in the Lancet:
This trial of cognitive behavioural therapy for “health anxiety” was an enormous undertaking: “Of 28 991 patients screened, 444 were randomly assigned to receive either adapted cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT-HA group, 219 participants) or standard care (standard care group, 225).” The screened patients were attending cardiology, endocrine, gastroenterology, and respiratory medicine clinics in six English general hospitals. Those who were allocated CBT received a mean of six sessions and their improvement was measured as 298 points greater than in those in the standard care group. Without examining the score in detail, the reader really has no idea what this means. But only 13.9% of the CBT patients attained “normal” levels of health anxiety, whatever they may be. I am lost. Perhaps this is a good use of CBT, perhaps it isn’t. Maybe we should go about reducing British health anxiety in other ways—for example, by shutting down certain newspapers. (GS note: emphasis added by me.)
The Journal of the American Medical Association distributed this video news release about a paper concerning coronary artery calcium scans and scores.
Dr. Lehman also blogged about this study:
My take on coronary calcium scoring is simple: if you are worried enough to think about it, just swallow a statin every night and take more exercise. But like the medieval theologians who supposedly argued about how many angels could fit on the end of a pin, the coronary artery calcium scorers have taken to arguing about how thick the calcium needs to be. Bizarrely, the thinner the calcium, the more dangerous it seems to be. You can read the full paper for nothing. But you’d be better off going for a walk and eating an orange.
Health anxiety, again. I love Lehman’s blog.
——————-
Follow us on Twitter:
https://twitter.com/garyschwitzer
https://twitter.com/healthnewsrevu
Opinions on other issues in news, journals, PR, advertising, marketing
@HealthNewsRevu "There’s no harm in trying to make a buck, per se. But there is harm in promoting things that are not backed up by evidence, and in converting normal states of health into sickness" https://t.co/aeUTK4CVAs
Men’s Health Month: "Some of it was thinly-veiled, profit-driven fear-mongering," says @garyschwitzer: https://t.co/MOWdxlenvz
Comments
Please note, comments are no longer published through this website. All previously made comments are still archived and available for viewing through select posts.
Comments are closed.
Our Comments Policy
But before leaving a comment, please review these notes about our policy.
You are responsible for any comments you leave on this site.
This site is primarily a forum for discussion about the quality (or lack thereof) in journalism or other media messages (advertising, marketing, public relations, medical journals, etc.) It is not intended to be a forum for definitive discussions about medicine or science.
We will delete comments that include personal attacks, unfounded allegations, unverified claims, product pitches, profanity or any from anyone who does not list a full name and a functioning email address. We will also end any thread of repetitive comments. We don”t give medical advice so we won”t respond to questions asking for it.
We don”t have sufficient staffing to contact each commenter who left such a message. If you have a question about why your comment was edited or removed, you can email us at feedback@healthnewsreview.org.
There has been a recent burst of attention to troubles with many comments left on science and science news/communication websites. Read “Online science comments: trolls, trash and treasure.”
The authors of the Retraction Watch comments policy urge commenters:
We”re also concerned about anonymous comments. We ask that all commenters leave their full name and provide an actual email address in case we feel we need to contact them. We may delete any comment left by someone who does not leave their name and a legitimate email address.
And, as noted, product pitches of any sort – pushing treatments, tests, products, procedures, physicians, medical centers, books, websites – are likely to be deleted. We don”t accept advertising on this site and are not going to give it away free.
The ability to leave comments expires after a certain period of time. So you may find that you’re unable to leave a comment on an article that is more than a few months old.
You might also like