{"id":35683,"date":"2020-11-13T03:59:44","date_gmt":"2020-11-13T11:59:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/?p=35683"},"modified":"2020-11-12T20:17:02","modified_gmt":"2020-11-13T04:17:02","slug":"medical-myth-busting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/2020\/11\/13\/medical-myth-busting\/","title":{"rendered":"Medical myth-busting"},"content":{"rendered":"

Medical myth-buster Dr. James McCormack speaks Nov. 22 via Zoom. (photo from too-much-medicine.com<\/a>)<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Dr. James McCormack is a bit of an anomaly as a voice in today\u2019s medical debates. In a politically driven climate where most people tend to stand as either \u201call in\u201d or \u201call out\u201d with regards to their belief in science and research, McCormack\u2019s approach is more pragmatic.<\/p>\n

McCormack, a tenured professor in the faculty of pharmaceutical sciences at the University of British Columbia, a podcast host and a YouTube content creator, is a strong believer in evidence-based medicine. Well-known as a medical myth-buster, he dispels misinformation that often prevents doctors and their patients from making the most informed decisions possible. He will present some of his many thoughts and findings at the Jewish Seniors Alliance Virtual Fall Symposium Nov. 22, 2 p.m., which will be held on Zoom.<\/p>\n

McCormack\u2019s presentation will highlight some of the more common myths around what medications are actually effective and how doctors and patients can better work together to make evidence-based decisions. In a phone interview with the Jewish Independent<\/em>, the doctor said his ultimate objective is to find out what the best available existing evidence is in healthcare to help doctors and patients make shared decisions on treatment plans.<\/p>\n

This process is often \u201ctricky,\u201d he said, because of the many false conclusions and deceptive statistics that surround the medical field. For example, there are hundreds of clinical trials showing that statins, one of the most popular drugs in the world, help patients with high cholesterol, reducing the risk of heart attacks among 50-to-60-year-old patients from five percent to four percent.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you take a statin you can reduce your chance of a heart attack by about one percent,\u201d he explained. \u201cBut what you will hear is that this is a 20% reduction in heart attacks \u2013 20% is not a lie, but it\u2019s misleading.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf I come to you and say, \u2018You have high blood pressure. That\u2019s a silent killer. Do you want it to be treated?\u2019 That\u2019s not shared decision-making,\u201d he argued. \u201cIf I said, \u2018Your blood pressure is this number and your chance of a heart attack is 10% over the next 10 years and we can reduce it from 10% down to eight percent, what do you think of that?\u2019 If that two percent seems like something you might want to consider, then we can try the drug, start with a low dose, make sure we don\u2019t blow you away with any side effects, and then go from there.\u201d<\/p>\n

McCormack hinted at the large amount of medical misunderstanding around the world by noting his belief that at least half of all medical prescriptions are either wrong, unnecessary or the incorrect dose \u2013 a problem he says is driven by the challenges pharmaceutical companies face in getting their products to market.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen a new drug comes onto the market, almost for sure the recommended dose is too high,\u201d he said. \u201c[Pharmaceutical companies] have to show that the medicine works. To show that it works, they have to recommend a dose that everybody responds to because, if you choose lower doses, you might not show enough people responding.\u201d<\/p>\n

He likened this process to attempting to estimate how much alcohol any specific person would need to drink in order to get drunk \u2013 a question for which there would be almost as many answers as there are people.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a fundamental flaw in how we get a drug onto the market,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

McCormack also brought up the alarming lack of evidence-based research on some of the most popular ideas in modern medicine and nutrition. Some of these myths include what we think about vitamins, the lack of evidence showing the health benefits of green vegetables like broccoli, and even our daily water intake.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou see the same things with nutrition, where there are so many recommendations that are BS \u2013 like the idea of [needing to drink] eight glasses of water a day,\u201d he noted. \u201cAlmost everyone in the world knows that\u2019s the number of glasses of water you\u2019re supposed to have every day, but there is not a single study that\u2019s ever looked at that. It\u2019s a made-up number mentioned by someone maybe 50 years ago, but it becomes incredibly powerful when everyone assumes it to be true. The evidence is pretty clear when it comes to water \u2013 you drink when you\u2019re thirsty.\u201d<\/p>\n

McCormack became a myth-buster when, earlier in his career, he discovered a lack of evidence backing up the so-called facts that many of his mentors presented to him.<\/p>\n

\u201cI went looking for the evidence and I wondered why they were telling me this if [there was a lack of] evidence. It didn\u2019t make any sense,\u201d he said. \u201cIf good, smart people who are trying to do a good thing are telling me unintentional BS, why is that? So, ever since then, I\u2019ve been very inquisitive.\u201d<\/p>\n

While he does his best to provide as much myth-busting content as possible to the public, McCormack warned that there\u2019s no simple solution to helping patients understand the great nuances surrounding medical options.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s very tricky,\u201d he said. \u201cPatients don\u2019t feel empowered to make a decision because that\u2019s not part of the ethos of how we do medicine. There are people who would say to their doctor, \u2018Just tell me what to do.\u2019 And that\u2019s totally fine as long as the doctor or the pharmacist knows the best available evidence.\u201d<\/p>\n

While McCormack will share some of his key discoveries at the symposium, fans of his work can also listen to any of the 460-plus episodes of his podcast, The Best Science Medicine Podcast<\/em>, which he has nicknamed The BS Medicine Podcast<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe take the BS out of the BS,\u201d he laughed, before emphasizing that he and co-host Michael Allan approach their shows with a sense of humour.<\/p>\n

McCormack also produces various music video parodies on his YouTube channel under his own name. The videos, he said, are a labour of love. \u201cI do [them] because I\u2019m a tenured professor and I can do whatever I want,\u201d he said, tongue-in-cheek. \u201cWhich is kind of nice.\u201d<\/p>\n

JSA members\/supporters will receive an email with the Zoom link to join the virtual symposium. For more information on and to register for the JSA symposium, contact the\u00a0JSA office at office@jsalliance.org<\/a>\u00a0or 604-732-1555.<\/p>\n

Kyle Berger<\/strong> is Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver sports coordinator, and a freelance writer living in Richmond.<\/em><\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

Editor\u2019s note: This article has been amended from the print version to include more detailed information on how to access the event on Zoom.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Medical myth-buster Dr. James McCormack speaks Nov. 22 via Zoom. (photo from too-much-medicine.com) Dr. James McCormack is a bit of an anomaly as a voice in today\u2019s medical debates. In a politically driven climate where most people tend to stand as either \u201call in\u201d or \u201call out\u201d with regards to their belief in science and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":35684,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[19953,2864,19954,2406,614,6175,2225,3714],"class_list":["post-35683","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local","tag-bs-medicine-podcast","tag-health","tag-james-mccormack","tag-jewish-seniors-alliance","tag-jsa","tag-medicine","tag-science","tag-seniors"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":8}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35683","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35683"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35683\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35684"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35683"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35683"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35683"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}