I have zero chemistry education and I find it completely readable and easy to understand.
100% agreed that people should seek second and third opinions from medical "professionals" - from whom medical malpractice is one of the top 10 leading causes of death in the USA.
To be fair, A) medicine is complicated, B) lots of people like to talk out of their asses about stuff they don't really know too much about.
I'm very leery of medical advice coming from a non-medical professional. Heck, I even double check medical advice coming from doctors since I've gotten conflicting diagnoses and been prescribed drugs to take for months only to find out from the manufacture website (not the doctor of pharmacists) that a follow up exam is required after five consecutive days of medication to prevent a potentially disabling side-effect.
This is why I enjoy articles such as this one. It's the closest thing to peer-reviewed advice I'm likely to get. Getting to read multiple physicians discuss this topic in detail provides me with a more complete understanding of the topic at hand.
Just to riff in your point: while there are plenty of smart people on this site with a solid understanding of the underlying science, but at the end of the day everyone needs to find a trusted medical professional and take his or her advice that’s tailored for their specific circumstances.
We are in agreement. Doctors advice should definitely not be unquestionable. In fact, there are a number of studies which show iatrogenesis as being one of the leading causes of death in the US.
i don't they were attacking doctors or medical professionals, it was more of a statement to always get a second opinion because the first one could have been an incorrect one. there are shades here, we can do both, listen to our doctors and get a second opinion when it comes to more serious matters, people should honestly be doing that with any major issue or decision they are facing in life.
Jordan Peterson and his daughter don’t need to be experts in order to offer their anecdotes. Instead of relying on experts, who universally reject everything I’ve said, crack open a biochemistry textbook. But be careful, the most popular biochemistry textbook in the United States, the latest edition from 2017, states plainly that a ketogenic diet always leads to diabetic ketoacidodis. This is false, thousands of people have been in ketosis for months to years at a time without developing diabetic ketoacidosis.
If the textbooks that the doctors read don’t get all the details right then how are you supposed to trust doctors to get the details right?
And why should you trust them when they have nothing at stake? Meanwhile your life is at stake. Guess who is going to sweat all the details and consider every possibility, doctor or patient? Here’s a clue, when is the last time a doctor cracked open a textbook for your sake?
I had schizophrenia and the doctors told me I was peckish. They didn’t listen to me. And they certainly didn’t listen to me when I told them ketosis was curing my symptoms. Just wait until it’s your turn to have a medical problem that the doctors don’t believe is real. Then you’ll look back on this comment very differently.
I forgot to mention, the links are for YouTube because more people prefer that. You can find the relevant papers in their descriptions or by googling the relevant names.
I agree with studying the field to help you understand your own health, but I prefer sci hub or any peer reviewed source over an LLM. I'll revise this view as LLMs develop, but right now I'm seeing plausible bs as often as I see good advice.
That may be your opinion, but I think it speaks to the veracity of the article. If the author is so sloppy they don't get simple stuff right, I shouldn't trust your evaluation of complicated, subtle medical issues.
See here's the problem with the layman: Yahoo Answers.
I didn't have health insurance for years and to cure some maladies I would look it up online. Forums of laypeople just get bogged down multi-page threads full of speculation and misinformation. Sure, you get some real answers once in a while but for the most part its just all anecdotal suggestions, 'you have cancer' or 'drink some more tea' type comments.
Maybe the comment system for laypeople would have to be validated by some sort of 'buried until proven legitimate' type of user rating system.
And as far as malpractice goes, there are many medical advice sites there are out there with legitimate doctors. Usually they just preface everything with "consult your doctor first". I think the difference between this and that would be its objectiveness - the doctors wouldn't necessarily be offering up advice, just suggesting & voting on tests and treatments.
What the medical world would think of it, I don't know. That's up for the market to decide I'd think right?
That's fine. I just feel like there's a dangerous overtrust of doctors among intelligent and educated people, and I hate to see comments that encourage that.
If you're scientifically illiterate and generally uneducated, trusting doctors is a very good idea. If you have the cognitive tools to check their work, though, it is very smart to do so.
There are many consumers who think they can make an intelligent decision when it comes to anything medical, not that many actually can. I'm personally willing to trust doctors and scientists more than random people reviews.
The biochemist isn’t a doctor, but there’s a reason the old hippocratic oath begins with “First, do no harm. Then, do good.”
When you’re talking about your own health, you’re an adult and you’re free to do what you want. When you’re talking about other people’s health, a more cautious approach is appropriate.
You should trust expert opinion, unless you are expert in given area. To understand medicine you need many years of hard study. Several articles from wikipeida is not enough.
I think the commenters point was not about people reading articles on the internet and feeling that they've got a better understanding than doctors. It's about medical professionals thinking that they are infallible.
The accident sounds like an awful experience and really bad luck.
Regarding the enzymes, I'd caution against feeling too certain in "doing your own research" for medical diagnoses. I'm definitely NOT saying doctors are always right (or conscientious, or competent). But it's hard to just go off published papers because even if you can parse what they're saying and even if you're exhaustive in searching all papers (two big ifs), there is relevant / accepted / important medical knowledge NOT really captured in papers.
You'd need niche textbooks, trade reports/publications and (in some cases) a network of experienced practitioners to expose yourself to all the possible information you'd need to make the right call in certain cases. And, related to your point, even really GOOD doctors who've formally studied ALL the right sources, keep up to date on new developments and have long experience can't reliably make the right call on the first try.
Certainly educate yourself and do research on your specific situation if you're inclined, but I'd be extra wary because you don't know what information is invisible to you. Find a doc who's willing to talk about their reasoning -- there certainly is an old tendency in the profession to be authoritatively prescriptive without sharing the logic (unfortunately, if understandably).
I think brango's point is that it can be dangerous to give medical advice if you are not qualified / not a MD, & even then, it should be given only after proper examination
Advice from someone with minimal knowledge on a matter doesn't add to the discussion. You don't know enough to understand what you are passing on or know if its correct, to put it in useful context, to answer follow up questions.
Everyone has an uncle, brother, mother, friend whose a doctor/scientist/authority of some variety. They usually are as ill informed and wrong as the general populace but use their mother/brother/friend/second cousin for imagined and unwarranted borrowed authority.
Borrowed authority is actually such a fantastic sign of bad information that if someone said my brother the professor of mathmatics says 2+2 is 4 I would pull out my calculator to check if this was so.
Its also a logical fallacy to suppose that because I don't support your contribution to the discussion that I support the position that people should eat their kids meds. Someone can disagree with you or some detail of your discussion without acquiring the beliefs of whomever you are arguing against or imagine you are arguing against. Try to stick with what people actually say and argue that.
Lastly the idea that there is no middle ground between being educated enough on a matter to discuss it and consulting said professional before posting is disingenuous. You needn't be a doctor to discuss medicine on the internet just educate yourself on the matter rather than passing on slightly wrong anecdotes from prior conversations.
100% agreed that people should seek second and third opinions from medical "professionals" - from whom medical malpractice is one of the top 10 leading causes of death in the USA.
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