| "Citations? This is a pretty big claim for a FDA-approved drug that was the most profitable drug on the market as of 2011." There are a bunch of books about this that you can get on Amazon. A good one I read is Overdosed America. But if you search on Amazon for 'statin' there are a lot more books that are specifically about this. "A quick literature search found Lipitor to be more efficacious[3] (Double blinded, placebo controlled, n = 1049)." The academic literature generally isn't a reliable source for information about pharmaceutical drugs, unless it's one of the NIH trials or another trial sponsored by an independent entity. The only way to get accurate information from trials sponsored by pharma companies is to FOIA the FDA, unless the raw data is on clinicaltrials.gov which it almost never is. There are again a number of books that explain why this is, I personally like both Overdosed America (again) and also Marcia Angell's book The Truth About Drug Companies. I'm sure Ben Goldacre's new book probably covers the same stuff though. "eep in mind that, as with all drugs, both are dose-dependent and have unpleasant side-effects when taken in combination with certain drugs, foods, and certain patient populations, such as pregnant women and those with liver disease." Plant-based medicines tend to be fairly forgiving about dosage. E.g. you're probably not going to get sick from eating any reasonably amount of oyster mushrooms, at least as long as they're fresh and you cook them properly. |
Make an argument here and cite your sources here, I'm not going to read a book just so I can respond to your post in half a month...
> The academic literature generally isn't a reliable source for information about pharmaceutical drugs, unless it's one of the NIH trials or another trial sponsored by an independent entity
How's a paper in a top tier medical journal[1]? It's paywalled, but if you actually care enough to read the information on the other side, I can grab you a copy. It's even registered on clinicaltrials.gov[2].
> I'm sure Ben Goldacre's new book probably covers the same stuff though.
This is one that I am somewhat familiar with. He makes plenty of good points with regards to transparency of information and reducing reporting bias, but you can't leap from that to the biggest drug on the market right now having zero efficacy.
> Plant-based medicines tend to be fairly forgiving about dosage. E.g. you're probably not going to get sick from eating any reasonably amount of oyster mushrooms, at least as long as they're fresh and you cook them properly.
False[4]. The end effect of consuming the plant material is a chemical ended up in your circulation at a given concentration. If that concentration is too high, you'll see adverse effects. If it's too low, you won't see any effect. At least in pill form, you know your dose and have quality assurance about that fact.
And we're ignoring the potential case of the process of cooking the food destroying the active compound...
[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18061058
[2] http://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT01687686
[3] http://www.aafp.org/afp/2005/0315/p1137.html
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_yeast_rice#Safety