"Take fever as an example. For 150 years, doctors have routinely prescribed antipyretics like ibuprofen to help reduce fever. But in 2005, researchers at the University of Miami, Florida, ran a study of 82 intensive care patients. The patients were randomly assigned to receive antipyretics either if their temperature rose beyond 101.3°F ("standard treatment") or only if their temperature reached 104°F. As the trial progressed, seven people getting the standard treatment died, while there was only one death in the group of patients allowed to have a higher fever. At this point, the trial was stopped because the team felt it would be unethical to allow any more patients to get the standard treatment.
"So when something as basic as fever reduction is a hallmark of the "practice of medicine" and hasn't been challenged for 100+ years, we have to ask: What else might be practiced due to tradition rather than science?"
http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2012/12/04/technology-doctors-khosla/
Other issues that science will eventually shed light on include:
The effect of fat on health, the impact on health of wheat and other dense carbs, the positive impact of sunlight and vitamin D even relative to the damage from sunlight, and what type of vitamin supplementation strategies are effective optimize health, vice just eliminating critical deficiencies.
"So when something as basic as fever reduction is a hallmark of the "practice of medicine" and hasn't been challenged for 100+ years, we have to ask: What else might be practiced due to tradition rather than science?"
http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2012/12/04/technology-doctors-khosla/
Other issues that science will eventually shed light on include:
The effect of fat on health, the impact on health of wheat and other dense carbs, the positive impact of sunlight and vitamin D even relative to the damage from sunlight, and what type of vitamin supplementation strategies are effective optimize health, vice just eliminating critical deficiencies.
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