Tag: SAMJ

Conventional medical treatment to beat obesity and diabetes clearly isn’t working. Both conditions are pandemic, so much so that doctors now call them diabesity. Conventional ‘wisdom’ about the reasons for diabesity isn’t proving very helpful or very clever.

Now, a radical, ‘rag tag’  group of Canadian and South African doctors and data ‘geeks’ has thrown out the research ‘rule book’ in their small but ground-breaking study just published in the South African Journal of Medicine (SAMJ). They say the staunch faith most doctors still have in classic randomized trials is misplaced. So-called  ‘evidence-based medicine’ that doctors are supposed to rely on isn’t working to treat or beat the diabesity pandemics. 

Their inspiration is Prof John Ioannidis, Professor of Medicine and of Health Research and Policy at Stanford University School of Medicine. Ioannidis says powerful vested interests have “hijacked” evidence-based medicine and made medicine a ‘threat to public health’. The group knows they are up against doctors who are not ready to face some inconvenient truths.  Jerome Burne is an award-winning British journalist who has been specialising in medicine and health for the last 10 years. Here, Burne looks at why these ‘research mavericks’ are ushering in a research revolution and why they will need all the help they can get. It’s a vital read for anyone concerned with health. – Marika Sboros