Reliable health info from the ‘medically unqualified’?

by Carolyn Thomas     @HeartSisters

“Medical websites created by medically unqualified individuals (i.e. persons who are not physicians) are unreliable and should, de facto, be considered medically unsound. Don’t you agree?”

That’s a question that the late great Dr. Tom Ferguson said he was often  asked during his public talks and workshops. The pioneering physician, author and researcher studied and wrote about the empowered medical consumer starting in the 1970s – a time when most people had never even heard of such an animal.

So as one of those “medically unqualified individuals” who in 2009 launched this site about women’s heart disease, I was particularly interested in Dr. Tom’s answer to that question. Here’s what he wrote:*  Continue reading “Reliable health info from the ‘medically unqualified’?”

Doctors on the take: a patient’s guide to fine print in research

by Carolyn Thomas @HeartSisters

I was doing a little light reading in the Archives of Internal Medicine the other day. A study reported there looked at what researchers have dubbed the Eco-Atkins Diet, which replaces the low-carb, high-saturated fat meat protein of the old Atkins Diet with low-carb, low saturated fat vegetable-based protein – such as soybeans, legumes and nuts.(1)

The more I read, the better I liked what I was reading. The study showed that the vegetable-based protein-eating participants not only successfully lost weight on this new Eco-Atkins Diet, but they showed greater reductions in their LDL (bad) cholesterol levels than the control group.

Isn’t this fabulous news for those of us wanting to lose weight as well as improve our heart health?

Well, maybe not.   Read more