Category Archives: Medicine

Weight Loss Lies, Redux (for the jillionth time)

Posted on by The Old Wolf

We’ve all seen the spam. Weight loss, sexual enhancers, body part enlargers… it’s a never-ending stream. Spam is so cheap to send out and requires such a small percentage of turnover relative to how much is blasted out that it will always be profitable for goons and drones and paid affiliates to engage in this shady enterprise.

But it always surprises me when hqiz like this goes mainstream.

If you’re not convinced yet, let me show you one that showed up in my email this morning.

Lies

Wow! Wouldn’t you like results that amazing? Wow! Based on the images, the happy lady in those pictures up there has lost at least 30 pounds, and likely more – all in the brief space of 30 days.

Never mind that healthy weight loss takes place at the rate of 1 to 2 pounds per week… whatever this weight loss secret is, I gotta get me some of that! And Dr. Oz is happy to hawk it, right alongside last year’s green coffee extract, or the confusum combobulosum he was hawking before that.

At least the ad above didn’t use the “one weird old trick” line, even though that’s still being used everywhere. But it’s still 100% pure, unadulterated camel ejecta. Snake Oil. Garbage.

What is it? Well, let’s dig a bit.

Doing the “show source” dance from my email client, we find that this ad will direct you to

http://rincomplex.com/UQWbhbuS/ObXtnsJa_ApdXupIv/r-MjIwZTAxOWMhYzZw
OTBwOTRwNzMhZmRiMjchNDIyIXBhZDAxfGNvbSFydHB1cmVnYW5pYWNwYz
EwNThjbWRmcmohZHRidDdkZCEw/X9iBg

Ain’t that a mouthful? These dynamically-generated URL’s are one of the first clues that a particular website is illicit, shady, or otherwise disreputable. What’s more, if you reverse-hack the URL to just “rincomplex.com”, you find a placeholder website full of dummy text and randomly-scraped news articles. They might as well have filled it with lorem ipsum.

But never mind that… I toddled over to the website and found this:

Garcinia

Ok, so this “miracle product” is garcinia cambogia. Along with the typical shameless infomercial/show by Oz, the Great and Powerful. But pay no attention to the little man behind that screen, folks – if you plunk down your money in the hopes of losing weight fast, fast, fast, you’re going to be disappointed.  But before we get into the substance itself, let’s look at how insistent and immoral the marketing practice is.

If you scroll down the page above and express interest, you’ll need to provide your contact information in full – information which will be immediately sold on to other scam companies by this disreputable marketing outfit. If you try to leave the page by using your “back” button or closing your browser, you’ll get this:

confirm

Wow, 60% discount. Maybe I’d better stick around. But both options (expressing interest or trying to leave) take you to the same “special discount” page anyway. Now, notice that you got promised a 60% discount plus free shipping, but the page below says it’s “Over 30%”. But on top of that, I’ve mentioned it before – any website that employs this tactic to try to get you to buy is immediately flagged as both spammy and scammy in my book, and the fact that they’re still doing it shows me that it’s effective. Please, don’t fall victim to these snake-oil vendors.

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So, depending on how gullible you are, you’ll spend between $148.00 and $48.00 for some herbs of questionable effectiveness (more about that later) and spurious quality.

If you’re still not convinced, you get another popup:

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Now it’s a BOGO offer – buy one, get one free. But you’re still spending that 48.00, which was the minimum purchase level on the previous screen.

Nah, I think I’ll pass… but WAIT! WAIT! WAIT! We don’t have your money yet, and by all that’s holy we want some of it.

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So now you’re up to an 80% discount…

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Just give us your information, send us a double sawbuck, and we’ll consider ourselves winners (and you a loser.) But really, who could turn down such an amazing offer, with free shipping no less?

Some people can, but there’s one final hook for them:

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Only fi’dollars. Just a fin. That’s hardly nuttin’, mister. So if you click “Stay on this page,” you get their rock-bottom offer:

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Click on this to claim your offer, and see what you’ve won!

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So you greedily fill out the form, thinking you’ve sure pulled one over on these boobs… but you’ve failed to notice that tiny, tiny print up there that says “terms apply.” What in the world could those terms be?

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So if you read the fine print down there at the bottom of the page, you discover that you need to call them within 14 days to get that $4.99 price. If you don’t, they’ll gleefully charge your credit card for $29.95, ten bucks more than their previous offer, and you find yourself enrolled in an “autoship” program whereby they’ll send you a new bottle every 30 days, for the low low price of only $29.95.

Great Mogg’s tufted ears, folks – why in the name of all that’s holy would you do business with a checkered-suit operation like this? They get you coming, they get you going, and if they get their hooks into you, they’ll never let go.

So before we sign off for today, let’s have a quick look at this garcinia cambogia and see what it’s really all about.

If you look up garcinia at WebMD, you find that it’s marketed under various names:

Acide Hydroxycitrique, AHC, Brindal Berry, Brindle Berry, Cambogia gummi-guta, Garcinia Cambogi, Garcinia cambogia, Garcinia gummi-guta, Garcinia quaesita, Gorikapuli, Hydroxycitrate, Hydroxycitric Acid, HCA, Kankusta, Malabar Tamarind, Mangostana cambogia, Tamarinier de Malabar, Vrikshamla.

As well as this insightful description:

Garcinia is a plant. The fruit rind is used to make medicine. Don’t confuse garcinia with Garcinia hanburyi (gamboge resin).
How does it work?
Developing research suggests that garcinia might prevent fat storage and control appetite; however, whether these effects occur in humans is unclear.

But as I have mentioned before, a single scientific study or even some preliminary research is enough to get the media to latch on to those results and get some advertising clicks out of it – and if that starts to happen, the marketeers come from the voodvork out.

Click a little further into WebMD and you find the User Ratings page for the product – reviews which look a whole lot different from the shill-written reviews on the marketing pages:

  • Been taking it for 3 weeks. Have not lost one pound. Have been sleeping more soundly, though. Biggest problem is that my whole body has started to ache. And my joints hurt. I thought at first it was because of my workouts, which I had increased- but I stopped for a week and the pain is still there. I just read on another website that is you are taking stati. Drugs for high cholesterol – which I do – it can exacerbate the negative effects of those drugs and cause muscle degeneration and joint pain. Guess I will be stopping this supplement.
  • Didn’t lose any weight, often had GI upset
  • I have been using this product for one week. Yes it suppresses your appetite but I have had a migraine for the entire week. Stopped taking it…..no headache. Not worth it.

Check the reviews yourself. Oh, and side effects?

  • Garcinia is POSSIBLY SAFE for most people when used for 12 weeks or less. Long-term safety is unknown. Garcinia can cause nausea, digestive tract discomfort, and headache.
  • Special Precautions & Warnings:
  • Pregnancy and breast-feeding: Not enough is known about the use of garcinia during pregnancy and breast-feeding. Stay on the safe side and avoid use.

“Possibly safe?” Wow, that means it might not hurt me. The bottom line is that sufficient scientific research on this and most other herbal supplements is woefully inadequate – randomized, double-blind, placebo-based studies over decades are usually required to give a clear picture of how safe and effective any substance is to take into your body.

But the salespeople don’t want you to know that, and they pay people like Dr. Oz big bucks to hawk these products, which nets them millions of dollars from poor yutzes like you and me, if we’re foolish enough to pay attention to their pestilential marketing campaigns.

One last point: be careful not to assume that I’m saying all natural remedies are worthless or dangerous. That’s not the case. But the vast majority of the things you see hawked on the internet or on these infomercial-style media advertisements are there for only one reason – to get your money based on false promises and false hope. If you’re interested in releasing weight, my recommendations can be found here – scroll to the bottom of the page and find the section entitled “So if you’re interested in releasing weight, what can you do?”

If you’re wanting to be lighter and thinner, the odds are you can be – but as I’ve said before and often and don’t care who hears it: there’s no magic bullet. Save your money.

The Old Wolf has spoken.

Oh, and who’s sending this garbage email out?

Pure Garcinia Cambogia
530 Lake Avenue #501 (Appears to be the Pasadena Rug Mart)
Pasadena, CA 91101

and their spam affiliate,

“Multispecialty Medical Groups”
1231 Northern Lights Blvd, #569 (A post office box at a UPS Store)
Anchorage, AK 99503

Should I Get a Flu Shot?

Posted on by The Old Wolf

Flu_Vaccine_copy

Over at reddit, a physician writing under the pseudonym of /u/crucifoxes (a throwaway account which will not be used again) provides a concise summary about the medical reality of flu shots. This is a crucial read for anyone who has questions, and – from where I sit – helps clear up a lot of the tinfoil-hat nonsense that swirls around vaccinations in general. It deserves to be shared; I have bowdlerized it only slightly, and any emphasis is mine. The answer arose to the following question in /r/Vancouver: “I have never gotten a flu shot before, this year I have the option of getting one for free but I’ve heard both negative and positive things about getting them. Do you get one? Why or why not?”

————-

Physician here. If I were you, I’d jump at the chance for a free flu shot.

The reason there are so many misconceptions about the flu shot is largely due to the lay public’s understanding of Influenza.

We have taken to calling any stomach bug or upper respiratory infection “a flu.” Stomach flu. 24 hour flu. Et cetera. It’s all nonsense. There are hundreds of mild viruses that cause these symptoms, none of them are Influenza, and none of them are meant to be reduced by getting the flu shot. So when your aunt Kathy complains that her flu shot didn’t work because she threw up for two days in February, slap her gently across the face. That wasn’t flu, Kathy.

I’ve had Influenza A once in my life, and once was enough. Two weeks of headache, myalgia, nausea, vomiting. Every day it felt like I had just woke up after being hit by a bus. I will never, EVER call any cold-with-some-squirts a “flu” anymore.

Now. With that established, we still haven’t really figured out if you should get the shot or not.

Advantages: Lower chance of acquiring Flu, maybe a less severe course if you do contract the infection.

Disadvantages: sore deltoid for a day or two, maybe a mild cold-like illness for a few days.

That’s essentially it. There’s a lot of polemic out there around vaccines, but most of it is hogwash, and the rest is mostly outdated concerns about chemicals that aren’t used any more.

The flu vaccine contains no “live” virus whatsoever, nor does it contain any flu DNA. You cannot “get the flu” from a flu shot. What you can get is some side effects of your body mounting its immune response, hence the cold-like symptoms listed above.

The flu vaccine does not contain thimerosal[1] (exception – if you’re a senior citizen, they’ll still give you the thimerosal-containing vaccine. This is because you’re old, your immune system isn’t exactly top-notch anymore, and the addition of thimerosal helps potentiate the immune response. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, don’t worry about it. Don’t even Google it. There’s about as much evidence for vaccine levels of thimerosal being harmful, as there is evidence for wifi signals being used to control your mind.)

Some haters will also bring up rare, 1:1 million complications, like Guillain-Barre Syndrome. This condition is ultra rare, can occur with any viral illness or immune response, and is actually MORE likely if you get the flu than if you get the vaccine. The risk of dying if you catch flu is 1/10000. The risk of Guillain-Barre if you get the vaccine is 1/1,000,000. So you do the math.

That said, if you’re a young adult who is immunocompetent and is not pregnant, your chances of serious disability or death from influenza are pretty low. We encourage vaccination of medical staff NOT because we’re worried about the health of our workers. We vaccinate medical workers so that they are less likely to contract flu, and then kill off half a geriatric ward when they spread it.

I don’t know why you have access to a flu shot, but if it’s because of your own health issues or health-related employment, it’s a no-brainer. Get it. If you’re not in a risk group, or around risky individuals, it’s less clear what your choice should be.

That’s all I got. Keep in mind that while I’m a medical professional, allergy/immunology is not my area. Now go do some decent Googling and then decide for yourself!

EDIT: Forgot about Flumist, thanks for all the reminders. I’m OBGYN so I never use it, my comments are valid only for the non-Flumist, injectable, protein-capsid-whatever types.

——————

At my previous job, I’d get a free flu shot every year, and never once had a negative reaction. I’ve only gotten one since I retired in 2006; I think my insurance covers one annually – I need to check. Now that I’m moving toward bona-fide “senior citizen” status, I think it behooves me to get back in the habit.

The Old Wolf has spoken.

[1] Thimerosal is a mercury-based preservative, and the biologically inactive form of mercury. It was added to vaccines to prevent the vaccine from spoiling, and to prevent cross-contamination. In the early days of vaccination the whole class was vaccinated from a single bottle with a single needle. Just a quick wipe with a cotton ball and some alcohol.
Thimerosal probably saved many, many lives.

Thank heaven one tube will do the trick…

Posted on by The Old Wolf

My wife has developed a contact dermatitis around her eyes. It makes her look like she’s got a bad sunburn under the area where a sleep mask would be, and it’s been getting worse for about a month. No idea yet what’s causing it. Her doc thought it was a fungal infection and gave her an antibiotic and a cream  to take, and things just got worse. (That’s why they call it a medical practice, you know? “Hmm, let’s try something else this time.”) Anyway, at least he wised up after the first visit and sent her to a dermatologist. He’s looking at it and saying “contact allergy,” scheduled a patch test for next week and put her on Desoximet 0.25%, a fairly strong topical cortisone cream.

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Now, pay attention – I have pretty good insurance as far as drugs go.

Patient pay for a 60mg tube: $132.94. And without insurance, it would have been $235.00.

Holy flapping scrith. Old_Wolf_OMHI’m of two minds about this.

First off, it took less than a day for this ointment to start bringing the inflammation under control, so It’s pretty effective. I’m not wild about cortisone in general, because it has some fairly ugly side effects when used over a long period of time – I have experience with eczema, and cortisone creams pretty much ruined the skin on my hands; my former partner is an independent Nurse Practitioner, and she’s seen some pretty grim results from long-term cortisone injections. That said, this stuff works and we’re hoping it’s a short term solution.

But Cushlamochree… how could a little bitty tube of mostly inactive base, about the size of a tube of Crest, cost that much? Yas, yas, I know – research, trials, development costs, marketing expenses, and yadda yadda ad infinitum, but I don’t see the justification. It seems all wrong. Thank Mogg’s Holy Grandmother that we don’t have to take Soliris™ at $409,500 per year, or any one of these other nightmare drugs. Prices like that are so wrong that philosophers weep at the thought… it’s just proof positive that our entire medical model is broken at its very foundation.

Like I said… I can’t complain too loudly because at the moment the Goodwoman of the House is getting some much-needed relief, but I think that’s the most expensive prescription I’ve ever encountered, and I’m pretty much gobsmacked.

The Old Wolf has spoken.