This week’s blog is about headlines. More specifically
about headlines in health and medical articles, and is a companion piece to the
article from last week.
We all know the press loves to sensationalise stories.
Remember the craze about superfoods I talked about last week? How pomegranates
and blueberries cure cancer, stop child abuse and fight fires, all while
rocking a James Dean slicked back hair do?
Maybe not in so many words, but in 2013 the world went a bit
doolally* over these unassuming constituent parts of muffins and smoothies. The studies so far failed to figure out why
exactly this was, especially regarding Blueberries, as they contain no
particularly high or dense quantities of nutrients or antioxidants. (http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/fruits-and-fruit-juices/1851/2)
Don’t just believe me though. (http://www.cancerresearchuk.org/cancer-info/healthyliving/cancercontroversies/superfoods/)
So while the media went a bit mad with articles like
“Superfoods Fight Cancer” really all that was happening was they wanted you to click
on their article or pick up the paper. Had you done so, you would have found
dubious sourcing and abbreviated quotes to sensationalise otherwise quite well
balanced opinions.
Of course it didn’t take long until people like yours truly
were shouting about the over hyping and misleading headlines, before we got
this from the Daily Mail (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2598694/Why-called-superfoods-BAD-Nutritionist-says-kale-send-thyroid-haywire-quinoa-irritates-gut.html)
Anyway, that’s quite enough links for one article, but I
think you get the idea. Linking to last weeks article, make sure you see
through the headline glare, and read what the article actually says, and who it
sources. Before you decide to cut Kale totally out of your diet in case your
Thyroid gets a bit antsy, consider looking in a bit more depth at what proof
the Daily Mail cares to provide you.
I lied about the last link. This one is. http://www.nhs.uk/news/2014/12December/Pages/your-guide-to-hitting-the-headlines.aspx
The reason I wrote this is because I wanted to bring this
one to your attention. It’s a light-hearted piece by the Behind the Headlines
team at NHS Choices, and I recommend giving it a read.
This is quite a short one this week, but if I went any
further I might be impinging on the intellectual property of NHS choices, and
woe betide he who does such a thing.
I hope these last two articles were a bit more enlightening,
and that you are now armed with the knowledge to think a bit more critically
about the headlines. And maybe not believe everything you read. Except this
blog. You should treat this as gospel.
*Interesting
fact about the expression Doolally. It originated in early 20th
centuryBritish India, and refers to Deolali Transit camp, where soldiers being
sent home would wait for a ship back to ol’ Blighty. The waiting times were
severe, and so stemmed the phrase Doolally Tap, to meaning crazy waiting. (Doolally
being a corruption of the name Deolali, and tap from the Sanskrit word “tápa”
meaning fever.) Don’t say I never teach you anything.
AMR- What, Who, When, Where and How?
What is AMR? Well, I’m glad you asked. If you hadn’t I
probably would have assumed I didn’t need to write this. AMR is fancy jargon
for AntiMicrobial
Resistance.
It may be something you have heard about in the news, and should you be
clinical staff, on the job. It refers to how the bugs are winning the fight.
Since the discovery of Penicillin, humans have used all
kinds of cultures to stave off infection by the trillions of little gribblies
all just waiting to force you to take a day off work. It is in fact a
hard-pressed conflict. As we go on using them, many bacteria will develop
an immunity or resistance to certain types of antibiotic, similar to how you
are likely immune to Smallpox. (Thanks Edward Jenner!)
This provides quite the challenge for the brainy folk who go
about their daily jobs trying to find new weapons in this ongoing struggle.
Miracle drugs don’t grow on trees! Or maybe they do, but there are a lot of
trees to check.
So is that it? Just wait for the inevitable tide of Bacteria
to come kick down your front door and abscond with your spouse, all while you
sit there blowing your nose? Ridiculous hypotheticals aside, there are several things you can do as an individual to curtail the spread. You never know, if everyone starts doing this, maybe it’ll have an impact!
Some decent guidelines to follow are:
·
Cover your mouth when you sneeze. For one, it’s
just polite. Second, logic dictates that if a strain of bacteria infects less
people, it will have less likelihood to be subjected to a gauntlet of
antibiotics, and will therefore have less of a chance to develop immunity.
·
Follow basic Infection Control guidelines. You
should be doing this already, I’m just pointing out there are reasons beyond
NHS officials having a thing for clean hands.
·
Do not save antibiotics prescribed to you by
your doctor as part of a course “for next time.” That isn’t how it works. If
you don’t finish the course, the antibiotics don’t do their job properly.
Antibiotics need to reach a certain level of saturation in your cells to have
any effect. Bacteria that survive the course because the levels of drug are too
low to kill them, have an opportunity to develop resistance to it. Don’t be
Patient Zero of the dreaded Hedgehog Flu Outbreak of 2015. By “saving it for
next time” you are undermining the whole reason to take the course in the first
place!
·
Do not use antibiotics without the advice of a
clinician. Those drugs you saved from last time may not be tailored in the
correct dosage and quantity to appropriately attack the particular infection
you have acquired. Let the doctor and pharmacist do their job. They probably
know better than you. They get paid to do it for a living. And if you are a
doctor? You should probably know better.
Right,
well that’s that bit done with. Believe it or not, that all came from reading a
couple of books on the topic, and consulting various publications by various
institutions rather more qualified to declaim on the matter than I. They can
all be found down at the library, as we are creating a display on the topic! I’ve
even marked the relevant sections in a number of books hand-picked by a
librarian for your convenience! We’re good like that.
Hope
to see you soon, and I leave you with this little joke on the history of
medicine.
2001 BC
|
Here, eat this root.
|
1000 AD
|
That root is heathen. Here, say this prayer.
|
1850 AD
|
That prayer is superstition. Here, drink this potion.
|
1920 AD
|
That potion is snake oil. Here, swallow this pill.
|
1945 AD
|
That pill is ineffective. Here, take this penicillin.
|
1955 AD
|
Oops... bugs mutated. Here, take this tetracycline.
|
1960-1999 AD
|
39 more “oops”... Here, take this more powerful antibiotic.
|
2000 AD
|
The bugs have won! Here, eat this root.
|
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