If it goes click, I'll buy it......

[newhome]

8 minutes ago, Onoff said:

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-4726136/amp/How-curry-spice-helped-dying-woman-beat-cancer.html

 

I prefer to read the medical evidence rather than rely on the daily fail lol but I have heard of people with myeloma who have had success with curcumin I just hadn’t researched it. I was talking about solid tumours rather than blood malignancies TBH. However she took 8g of curcumin a day as I mentioned above with absorption aided by bioperine. The reason why she was worthy of a BMJ report is that she abandoned all conventional treatment whereas most people don’t so it’s difficult to ascertain whether the supplement has made a difference. It still only works for some people however, definitely not all, in the same way that NICE approved immunotherapy drugs might work for around 1 in 5 people. 

 

http://casereports.bmj.com/content/2017/bcr-2016-218148.full

 

 

[newhome]

PS I love this forum - from Kwikstage to cancer in about a dozen posts! 

[Hecateh]

1 hour ago, newhome said:

PS I love this forum - from Kwikstage to cancer in about a dozen posts! 

and me

[Onoff]

3 hours ago, newhome said:

PS I love this forum - from Kwikstage to cancer in about a dozen posts! 

 

I think it was on here or the previous forum that I asked once of the brainiacs, whether there was a formula for how far off thread a topic had strayed.

 

Seem to remember someone came up with one...

 

[Ferdinand]

3 hours ago, Hecateh said:

 

Taller yes but she was always the brainy one - First from Oxford.  

 

 

 

Never sure about Oxford Uni. Seems to produce a lot of very highly intelligent intellectually-penetrative fools, based on people I know who went there, politics and the meeja.

 

10 of our 13 Prime Ministers since the war went there for a University. The others were Edinburgh, none and none (Brown, Callaghan and Major).

 

Perhaps not a good sample ? .

 

The international HE rankings would disagree with me.

 

F

 

Edited June 10, 2018 by Ferdinand

[newhome]

30 minutes ago, Ferdinand said:

Seems to produce a lot of very highly intelligent intellectually-penetrative fools,

 

I worked with someone with a first from Oxford, in geography I believe. He couldn’t do software development all the time he had a hole in his ass though so was still a trainee grade years and years later. Ordinarily you’d expect to move up after a year or 2. I have no idea why he stayed there but it appears that a first from Oxford didn’t help with drive, ambition or anything else much really. He got made redundant in the end. 

 

 

 

[Hecateh]

34 minutes ago, Ferdinand said:

 

Never sure about Oxford Uni. Seems to produce a lot of very highly intelligent intellectually-penetrative fools, based on people I know who went there, politics and the meeja.

 

10 of our 13 Prime Ministers since the war went there for a University. The others were Edinburgh, none and none (Brown, Callaghan and Major).

 

Perhaps not a good sample ? .

 

The international HE rankings would disagree with me.

 

F

 

Only one PM went to the same college. (No prizes for guessing who)

 

One of her boyfriends from then certainly fit your model but as she grew up the 6th child in a family of seven she would barely have survived as purely an intellectual.  She was also the stroppy little madam whereas I just went with the line of least resistance.  

 

[SteamyTea]

44 minutes ago, Onoff said:

I think it was on here or the previous forum that I asked once of the brainiacs, whether there was a formula for how far off thread a topic had strayed.

I will have a stab at it, based on my intuition and pet prejudices.

Nothing in this world is linear, you may like to think it is, but when start to look under the hood, you see strange things going on.

So first off I shall define some variables.

 

t = time post up (hours)

i = initiator of post popularity (0-10)

s = subject, real or imaginary (0-10)

d = deviance from subject expected (0-10)

o = origin of topic, work or personal (0-1)

g = rate of fall out, can be thought of as acceleration downwards, like gravity (0-10)

h = adjustment factor, a unit less number that takes the form 1 exp(^pn) where p is the number p of posts, n is the adjustment factor and is usually negative)

 

so, once rearranges as such:

 

t.i.h.s.g.o = d

With a bit of imagination and plotting to the exponent of -0.1, you get the below chart, once the plots hit the zero on the y-axis, it is time to abandon all hope of recovery.

 

 

 

 

[ToughButterCup]

10 minutes ago, newhome said:

[...]

a first from Oxford didn’t help with drive, ambition or anything else much really.

[...]

 

In later life, I found it professionally politic to  try to hide the fact that I went there. I came to detest the incestuous bitching and awful politicking that went on in our department. (post-grad at The Department of Educational Studies)

[Ferdinand]

>t.i.h.s.g.o = d

 

There is another term.

 

Or d = 0.9 * P(F) where P(F) is the probablility of a post by someone who's forum name starts with F.

 

F

[Ferdinand]

Does anyone have any good Yogi Berra quotes?

[newhome]

2 minutes ago, recoveringacademic said:

 

In later life, I found it professionally politic to  try to hide the fact that I went there. I came to detest the incestuous bitching and awful politicking that went on in our department. (post-grad at The Department of Educational Studies)

 

It was other people in the office who used to mention it actually, the guy himself never talked about it. And it was mostly mentioned in the context of how could it be so when he was so hopeless in his work. I can never understand why people settle for a job they hate. One life, live it, although I’ve maybe been lucky and always found something I have (mostly) enjoyed. 

[newhome]

16 minutes ago, Ferdinand said:

Does anyone have any good Yogi Berra quotes?

 

“I’m smarter than the average bear Boo Boo” 

 

(the game isn’t over until it’s over )

 

 

Edited June 10, 2018 by newhome

[Ferdinand]

10 minutes ago, newhome said:

 

“I’m smarter than the average bear Boo Boo” 

 

(the game isn’t over until its over )

 

 

He does seem to be very "Murray Walker".

 

Exact contemporaries to within 2 years, except one is dead.

[Pete]

On 09/06/2018 at 22:41, newhome said:

 

I had physio for 5 months before the op. I'm sure it helped afterwards but the shooting pain in the actual knee doesn't help. That seems to be getting worse rather than better unfortunately and sadly the op didn't actually fix the main problem so my consultant says he's not surprised that the pain is there still. 3 months is D day apparently so still a bit to go to see if it will get better.  

 

Did Turmeric and high dose curcumin for about a year along with Omega 3 and about half a dozen other joint related things but I never noticed any difference sadly. Might start taking them again - can't make it any worse I guess. 

 

I take glucosamine, MSM and cod liver oil daily and my knees are a lot better than they used to be. Been taking it for quite a few years now.

[newhome]

29 minutes ago, Pete said:

I take glucosamine, MSM and cod liver oil daily and my knees are a lot better than they used to be. Been taking it for quite a few years now.

 

Trouble is my knee has a hole in the meniscus that catches when the knee moves causing the pain. I can’t see how supplements would help that really. My other knee is great, not even a twinge. 

 

I tell ya, whoever designed the knee has a lot to answer for 

[Hecateh]

My sister in law swears by glucosamine but I found it didn't help me at all.  

This is why I have some issues with the placebo effect.  I know it exists and if  my improvement is all psychosomatic - I don't really care so long as I feel well and get relief from things that are or have been bothering me.  But why do some things that come highly recommended not work for me and others do?

 

 

[SteamyTea]

9 minutes ago, Hecateh said:

But why do some things that come highly recommended not work for me and others do?

Some of this goes back to Milgram's experiments (now debunked) about deferring to a higher authority (or not wanting to piss your friends/relatives/boss off).

it is why the double blind randomised trail system is used.  This is not perfect as it does not isolate the patient from the medical professionals, but it is the best we currently have (though computerised diagnostics and treatment recommendations are proving to be more successful)

[Pete]

1 hour ago, Hecateh said:

My sister in law swears by glucosamine but I found it didn't help me at all.  

This is why I have some issues with the placebo effect.  I know it exists and if  my improvement is all psychosomatic - I don't really care so long as I feel well and get relief from things that are or have been bothering me.  But why do some things that come highly recommended not work for me and others do?

 

 

I take mine for arthritis after quite a few knee ops from just a clear out to a cartilage trim. Made a big difference for me and I also take Rosehip and between them has relieved all most of the arthritic pain.

[Pete]

2 hours ago, newhome said:

 

Trouble is my knee has a hole in the meniscus that catches when the knee moves causing the pain. I can’t see how supplements would help that really. My other knee is great, not even a twinge. 

 

I tell ya, whoever designed the knee has a lot to answer for 

You need to get that sorted. I went in for a small op to remove an osteophyte from my knee earlier this year. Just imagine a small meteor in your knee and you will not have to google it. Made a big difference to how my knee operates and building our house suddenly became a lot easier, from a knee point of view anyway!!

[Hecateh]

1 hour ago, SteamyTea said:

Some of this goes back to Milgram's experiments (now debunked) about deferring to a higher authority (or not wanting to piss your friends/relatives/boss off).

it is why the double blind randomised trail system is used.  This is not perfect as it does not isolate the patient from the medical professionals, but it is the best we currently have (though computerised diagnostics and treatment recommendations are proving to be more successful)

Whilst I agree double blind randomised system is the best way of testing.  Using this don't many of the drug trials get very much the same results with big pharma disregarding results that don't meet their 'expectations' .  

There is little effective research done generally on vitamins and other supplements but Australia is conduction a huge study on vitamin D at the moment because of the strength of observational evidence as to benefits,  However even this uses relatively small amounts at 60,000 units per month, whereas doses of 5 to 10k per day are recommended.  

 

Quote

 

Why do a vitamin D trial?

Vitamin D in your body comes from exposure to the sun or from your diet. Having enough vitamin D in your blood stream is important for maintaining healthy bones, but we don’t really know how much our bones need. Having higher vitamin D levels might also reduce risks of 
diseases such as diabetes, heart disease, multiple sclerosis and some cancers, but this is uncertain. 

To fully understand the health effects of vitamin D we need to do studies with very large numbers of people. D-Health is one of the largest trials of vitamin D in the world – we are aiming to recruit about 25,000 Australians aged 60-84. The aims are to see if taking a vitamin D tablet changes the risk of a person being diagnosed with health conditions such as cancer, heart disease or infections (like flu). D-Health will give us much-needed information so we can give people correct advice in the future.    (https://dhealth.qimrberghofer.edu.au/page/About/)

 

 

 

Abstract for test https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27086041

 

In addition to this there is further testing going on into the effects of vitamin D supplements on MS, again supplementary to strong observational evidence. This trial is using varying doses which do meet the recommendations

Quote

 

This is a Phase IIb randomised, double blind, placebo-controlled trial testing a range of doses of oral vitamin D supplements in people with a first episode of symptoms that may be a precursor to MS (known as clinically isolated syndrome or CIS). This might include symptoms such as blurred vision (optic neuritis) or limb weakness (transverse myelitis) (these symptoms may also be described as a first demyelinating event).

The trial will test whether vitamin D supplements can delay or prevent a second episode, or attack, which would lead to a diagnosis of MS. It also tests the appropriate dosage levels and safety.

The need for the vitamin D MS prevention trial has arisen from a now significant body of evidence for the role that vitamin D deficiency plays in MS. However, to date there has not been a clinical trial conducted to provide the necessary evidence on the benefits that can be expected from vitamin D supplementation or the correct dose.

MS Research Australia and our colleagues in the MS research community see this trial as a high priority and an area in which the expertise in Australia and New Zealand can contribute significantly to the prevention and better treatment of MS globally.

...

The trial will test 3 dosage levels of daily oral vitamin D3 supplements (1000, 5000 & 10,000 International Units) against placebo (dummy tablets) .

The role of vitamin D in MS

The evidence for the role of vitamin D deficiency in MS is now very strong and was reinforced by the internationally important Australian study (Ausimmune, 2004-2007), comparing MS patients in with CIS in Brisbane, Newcastle, Geelong and Hobart. Vitamin D deficiency is thought to play a role in MS since geographical areas of lower levels of UV radiation, and hence lower vitamin D synthesis in the skin, have higher incidences of MS. Variations in genes involved in the vitamin D metabolism pathway have been implicated in susceptibility to MS and vitamin D deficiency has also been shown to be associated with a higher rate of relapses in people with established MS.   (/msra.org.au/vitamin-d-ms-prevention-trial-prevanz/)

 

 

This trial is has run for 5 years (so there has been strong observational evidence for a long time) and first results are expected next year.  

Edited June 11, 2018 by Hecateh

[Hecateh]

35 minutes ago, Pete said:

I take mine for arthritis after quite a few knee ops from just a clear out to a cartilage trim. Made a big difference for me and I also take Rosehip and between them has relieved all most of the arthritic pain.

Yes - I have heard many good results for glucosamine for arthritis.  I suspect it was not arthritis causing my issues, moresome other deficiency, D3 is my suspicion, as since taking this my joints, and for me it was particularly ankles and hands, no longer give me any bother.

[Jeremy Harris]

24 minutes ago, Hecateh said:

Whilst I agree double blind randomised system is the best way of testing.  Using this don't many of the drug trials get very much the same results with big pharma disregarding results that don't meet their 'expectations' .  

 

 

Yes, this is exactly what they do.  Getting hold of raw data to review is damned hard, but the legislation in some countries does require pharmaceutical companies to provide it, although they are exceptionally good at giving what seem to be valid reasons for disregarding data points that don't fit with what they are trying to promote.

 

The major problem is that the focus of trials is often on adverse effects, rather than efficacy, as it's adverse effects that impact directly on approval.  It isn't at all uncommon to find approved medications that have little or no benefit, the best that can be said for them is that they haven't yet been shown to be harmful.

 

[newhome]

59 minutes ago, Pete said:

You need to get that sorted. I went in for a small op to remove an osteophyte from my knee earlier this year. Just imagine a small meteor in your knee and you will not have to google it. Made a big difference to how my knee operates and building our house suddenly became a lot easier, from a knee point of view anyway!!

 

I had an arthroscopy 7 weeks ago and he trimmed the tear and washed out the floating bits but didn’t find the hole until the camera was in (only the tear showed up on the MRI). He said that he was hopeful that the hole would glide over the knee but believe me there is no gliding going on. Fixing the hole will need a bigger op with a 3 - 6 month recovery. I emailed him on Friday actually and he replied saying that I need to leave it 3 months and see if things settle down. Joy! 

 

[SteamyTea]

3 hours ago, Hecateh said:

There is little effective research done generally on vitamins and other supplements

Except there is, loads and the outcomes all generally all the same.  JFGI (I got bored once I had counted to 60 reports on the Cochrane site)

 

I think, as Jeremy pointed out, often the studies are looking for harm rather than effectiveness.

Also not right to compare non-medicines with medicines i.e. unlicensed supplements against licences medicines.

And then there is the issue of bad diagnoses and treatments, not to mention ones own outcome expectations.

 

A decent statistical review usually sorts out the wheat from the chaff, but those reports are hard to come by for free.

Edited June 11, 2018 by SteamyTea