Health & Nutrition by Michael R. Eades, M.D.

The day before yesterday a group of doctors from the nutrition committee of the American Academy of Pediatrics came out with a couple of the most absurd recommendations imaginable. Not only were these recommendations silly beyond belief, one was downright dangerous to boot. I’m talking, of course, about the recommendations that children as young as 8 years old who have LDL concentrations ≥ 190 mg/dL be prescribed statins. (The other one marinated in idiocy is the recommendation that low-fat dairy products be be used in overweight children between the ages of 12 months and 2 years. These two are among 7 recommendations published in the July issue of the journal Pediatrics. All 7 recommendations are listed below*)

Drs. Stephen R. Daniels, Frank R. Greer and the rest of those on the nutrition committee are nominees for the Reckless Award. In fact, their recommendations are so egregious that had they come before the eponymous Dr. John Reckless’s suggestion that statins be put in the drinking water the award would be named after them instead.

Why is the recommendation to give statins to children aged 8 and greater so dangerous? Because no drug therapy is without risk. When as a physician you give drugs to patients, you know there are risks involved, but you balance these risks with the rewards to the patient from taking the drug. In the case of statins, there is absolutely no evidence whatsoever that statins will reduce the incidence of early heart disease and/or death in these children as they reach adulthood. And there is no evidence whatsoever that years of statin therapy in these kids as they age won’t cause disastrous problems later on.

Read more »

Hello! This is Dr. Mike - If you're new here and you've enjoyed my posts, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

.

George L. Blackburn, M.D.

A reader commented on yesterday’s post guessing that I was going after Dr. Blackburn for his advocacy of weight-loss surgery. I’m not. He gets the award named after him for much worse. Advocacy for weight-loss surgery is boneheaded to be sure, but Dr. Blackburn is a surgeon, so we can kind of forgive him his tendencies in that direction. Plus, there have been a number of papers published lately promoting bariatric surgery as a treatment for not just obesity but for diabetes as well, so he at least has some - misguided, in my view - rationale for his surgical advocacy.

No, what I am presenting here is his latest medical writing. He wrote a commentary piece for the debut of the new journal Obesity that is mind numbing in its insipidity. I have never read so many totally stupid statements in such a short (one page without references) paper in my life. It makes me wonder if there is an editorial staff for this journal, and if so, were they off the day this dreck came through.

Read more »

.

George L. Blackburn, M.D.

This is going to be a two-part post. Today’s post will be the history. Tomorrow’s post will be the outrage.

Last year I initiated the Reckless Award named for Dr. John Reckless, the British physician who suggested that statins should be put in the drinking water. The award goes to the person who makes the most outrageous recommendations for statin drug use. Now comes the second such award, the Blackburn Award given to the person who makes the most feckless, stupid, dogmatic nutritional statement imaginable. The award is named after Harvard associate professor George L. Blackburn, M.D. Dr. Blackburn is the Chief of the Nutritional/Metabolism Laboratory, and Director of the Center for the Study of Nutrition Medicine, which are affiliated with the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, Massachusetts.

Read more »