“There is only one cancer screening test that has definitively been proven to help people live longer: lung cancer screening in heavy smokers,” writes Prof. H. Gilbert Welch, MD in his most recent book Less Medicine, More Health: 7 Assumptions That Drive Too Much Medical Care.

(It is from Chapter 3 / Assumption #3: Sooner Is Always Better: Disturbing truth: Early diagnosis can needlessly turn people into patients, under the section titled “Does Screening Save Lives?”)

“Why?

“Because heavy smokers face a twenty- to thirty-fold [20- to 30-fold] increased risk of lung cancer death.

“In other words, for heavy smokers, lung cancer is a big component of their overall death rate.”

To say this another way…

• Breast cancer screening has not been shown to reduce the total risk of death over some number of years
• Prostate cancer screening has not been been shown to reduce the total risk of death over some number of years
• Colon cancer screening has not been been shown to reduce the total risk of death over some number of years
• Oral cancer screening has not been been shown to reduce the total risk of death over some number of years
• Screening for other cancers has not been been shown to reduce the total risk of death over some number of years

He started the chapter by saying, “THIS CHAPTER MAY CHALLENGE your assumptions about screening—specifically, cancer screening.”

Prof. H. Gilbert Welch, MD is also the author of the wonderful book Overdiagnosed: Making People Sick In Pursuit Of Health which is about the same topic as this book, the topic of over-diagnosis and over-treatment which does NOT help people live longer.

The reason that I feel passionately about this is because my mother suffered tragically from drug-induced side effects which her doctors were blind to.

It is along the same lines as Prof. Welch’s books which look at the effects of of over-diagnosis and over-treatment.

Read the entire article | Email this article

Abilify (aripiprazole), an antipsychotic drug being promoted as an add-on drug for people who are depressed, caused an average weight gain of 2 pounds in a four month study of Bipolar patients according to a study from Italy. Read the entire article | Email this article

Abilify (aripiprazole), an antipsychotic drug being promoted as an add-on drug for people who are depressed, caused an average weight gain of 2 pounds in a four month study of Bipolar patients according to a study from Italy. Read the entire article | Email this article

Children and adolescents, 4- to 19-years-old, given Abilify (aripiprazole) gained an average of 11.7 lbs in less than 3 months (11 weeks) according to a new study published in JAMA. Read the entire article | Email this article

Here is a fascinating story about a person named P. Wagner who who could not stop eating when taking Zyprexa and gained 70 pounds, but then lost a tremendous amount of weight when switched to Geodon combined with Abilify. Read the entire article | Email this article

Below is a chart comparing weight gain during the first two-and-a-half months from various antipsychotic drugs. Read the entire article | Email this article

Many antipsychotic drugs are associated with weight gain. Solian (amisulpride), Geodon (ziprasidone), and Abilify (aripiprazole) are associated with weight gains of less than 4.4 pounds, however, Zyprexa (olanzapine) has been associated with a large weight gain of between 8.8 and 22 pounds according to a paper from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, Missouri. Read the entire article | Email this article

Schizophrenic patients given Abilify (aripiprazole) lost 3 pounds in six months compared to a weight gain of 9.4 pounds in patients given Zyprexa (olanzapine) according to a new study. Read the entire article | Email this article