Lisa & Ian Murray wrote:
>
> PARIS - Low-fat, high-fiber cereals trumpeted as health aids in fact appear
> to encourage growths in the colon and rectum, according to research in the
> Saturday issue of The Lancet.
The "full article" is not very full, but the relevant paragraph is as follows:
"Of the 552 patients who completed a follow-up colonoscopy three years later, at least one adenoma had developed in 16 percent of patients in the calcium group; the rate was 29 percent in the fiber group and 20 percent in the placebo group."
Does anyone on this list have the remotest idea of whether, in reference to the occurrence of adenomas, the difference between 16 percent and 29 percent is significant?
Does anyone know whether adenomas are more or less apt to become malignant with this or that diet?
Does anyone on this list want to seriously claim that they know one fucking more *usable* fact about malignancies after reading this report?
I wonder how many people die, commit suicide, ruin their lives, lose their health in one way or another because intelligent persons with no medical training have passed on bits and pieces of "research" into phyisical or mental health to them?
Before the recent exchanges on depression this post would not have caught my attention. But I am beginning to think that one of the most dangerous superstitions among radical intellectuals is that their radical politics make them experts on medical matters. "Challenge Authority" fat-headed new radicals proclaim with buttons. It is perhaps the most dangerous political slogan ever coined.
Which authorities??????
Carrol