Post: #1

http://science.slashdot.org/story/14/04/...l-research

Quote:"Scientists have found that mice feel 36% less pain when a male researcher is in the room, versus a female researcher. The rodents are also less stressed out. The effect appears to be due to scent molecules that male mammals (including humans, dogs, and cats) have been emitting for eons.

The finding could help explain why some labs have trouble replicating the results of others, and it could cause a reevaluation of decades of animal experiments: everything from the effectiveness of experimental drugs to the ability of monkeys to do math. Male odor could even influence human clinical trials."

Post: #2

oh no. The obvious conclusion is to ban men from all medical research...obviously.

Post: #3

Yeah right - only female staff from now on! 90% of scientists are male.

A more deciding factor would be the favoring of medical treatments which absolutely must be patentable, must not be too effective (lest eliminate the market - cancer cure would wipe out 400 bio. $ of revenue worldwide), must take care of follow-up business - truly improving general health is just bad for business.

Thus the medical mafia is not interested in the cure, but just in treatment. They only do trauma treatment quite well.

Anything else can be done better via orthomolecular methods:

http://www.mercola.com
http://www.doctoryourself.com

And never forget vibrational medicine via Dr. Rife's frequency machine which was field-tested in the presence of top-notch doctors in the 1940s. Confiscated by the FBI. There are likely many more patents out there, which simply are unprofitable.

In future times we will laugh about the current profit-based system just as we laugh about medical knowledge centuries ago. (BTW - I don't mind the profit aspect of medicine itself, just the fact that ANYTHING that endangers further profit is instantly suppressed, villified, ridiculed or confiscated.)

Post: #4

This is why I laugh when aspie science nerds demand hard evidence for everything. There are too many fucking unknown variables in science and you need to take a stand based on imperfect evidence and your intuition. I mean in things like finding the best diet, the benefits of alternative health practices, and the realities of the mating game.

Post: #5

There has been other threads discussing the various problems involving medical research.

But this is a whole new one - and one which could undercut everything we think we know.

Post: #6

Terrible thread title. Already a dupe.

Post: #7

I was first.

And - yeah the title is pretty bad. It is just that the issue involving mice and pain is not the main story here.

It goes much deeper! :-)

Post: #8

(04-28-2014 06:35 PM)cardguy Wrote:  http://science.slashdot.org/story/14/04/...l-research

Quote:"Scientists have found that mice feel 36% less pain when a male researcher is in the room, versus a female researcher. The rodents are also less stressed out. The effect appears to be due to scent molecules that male mammals (including humans, dogs, and cats) have been emitting for eons.

The finding could help explain why some labs have trouble replicating the results of others, and it could cause a reevaluation of decades of animal experiments: everything from the effectiveness of experimental drugs to the ability of monkeys to do math. Male odor could even influence human clinical trials."

Wait, the article said the male scent caused an increase in stress, which had the pain dulling effect. Theoretically because a male hu-nam is likely to be trying to catch and eat whatever is smelling him, thus dulling pain to enable better fight or flight is the cause.

Post: #9

This whole issue could throw out all medical research.

In a worse case scenario.

It reminds me of when the cancer cells of Henrietta Lacks contaminated all the cells used for cancer research.

Post: #10

(04-28-2014 07:55 PM)cardguy Wrote:  This whole issue could throw out all medical research.

In a worse case scenario.

LOL. Even the research that led to drugs that are already being used successfully in humans? Just because one "study" on one group of some fucked up mice who were probably pre-conditioned by listening to Rick James' Superfreak on an endless loop showed some probably worthless difference in one measurement of "pain"? Glad you're not running the NIH dude.

Post: #11

Looks like they got to you too.

I'm throwing all my medicine in the trash.

Post: #12

Valid conclusion: women bring more stress & pain to every living being, including mice. Men just make everything calm the fuck down.

Post: #13

Maybe MGTOW guys are chemically predisposed to feeling stressed and annoyed around women.

Probably the same chemical that causes high IQ! :-)

Post: #14

(04-28-2014 06:35 PM)cardguy Wrote:  http://science.slashdot.org/story/14/04/...l-research

Quote:"Scientists have found that mice feel 36% less pain when a male researcher is in the room, versus a female researcher. The rodents are also less stressed out. The effect appears to be due to scent molecules that male mammals (including humans, dogs, and cats) have been emitting for eons.

The finding could help explain why some labs have trouble replicating the results of others, and it could cause a reevaluation of decades of animal experiments: everything from the effectiveness of experimental drugs to the ability of monkeys to do math. Male odor could even influence human clinical trials."

Brother, why are you acting so surprised? The medical world has known about observer-based alterations in results for years.

It's called the placebo effect. The opposite is the nocebo effect.

The same effect on mice works on humans too. Some patients prefer to see female doctors, some prefer to see males; it's placebo, but it's real enough to have a measurable effect.

Even a doctor's demeanor can change the results of treatment. A pleasant bedside manner boosts a doctor's cure rate. An unpleasant doctor has more treatment failures. Even with exactly the same diseases using the exact same treatment.

Placebo also boosts the effect of medication. If you like me as a doctor, and I give you pain meds, then there is a boost in the power of the medications by about 30%. If you dislike me, then even if I give you the right treatment, the medication won't work as well, and may even fail.

You speak of this mice story like it's some sort of new, medical science destroying revelation, but we already know about it. This is why the medical world tries to keep itself informed by doing randomised double-blind trials - to try to minimise observer-induced alterations in the results. (Note that in medical research trials, a consistent finding is that about 30% of the subjects in the placebo group still have active improvement in their disease).

One quick and amazing example - I read a paper on an experiment done with a powerful painkiller. Basically the researchers gave this painkiller to a bunch of anaesthetists, but told them that it was a placebo drug, and that it had no active ingredient, but could they give it anyway as they were collecting research data for a trial. So the anaesthetists gave this painkiller, thinking it was a placebo, and the stuff consistently failed to work, despite being a good medication. Then the researchers repeated the experiment, this time giving a placebo but lying about it and telling the anaesthetists that it was a painkiller drug - and it worked about 30% of the time! For the worst kind of pain imaginable - the pain of being operated on!

The reason I'm giving you the above example is that it was good evidence and also a good example of the existence of observer-induced alterations in medical results. Just the beliefs and confidence of the doctors giving the medication was enough to alter the outcome.

Medicine is not a science, rather it is an art informed by science; as such a good doctor, in my opinion, must constantly be aware of the limits of science and must work to develop the artistic side of medicine: good bedside manner, good listening skills, uplifting conversational skills, calm and happy manner, negotiation skills, clinical intuition, clinical examination, brainstorming, thinking out of the box, and various other soft skills I've so internalised that I've forgotten I have them.

Post: #15

I know all about the placebo (and the even more interesting nocebo) effect.

But this isn't about that. Since - as far as I'm aware - the placebo effect is not something that affects animals. Since you need a belief system which can be subtly shaped in order to be affected by the placebo effect.

Which is not something that animals have.

As far as I am aware.

I could be wrong.

I usually am.

Post: #16

Are all the medical advances of the last century not working because mice are capable of recognizing male and female humans?

Are there hip implants exploding within patients?
Are antibiotics suddenly ineffective in destroying common pathogens?
Are teeth crowns rotting away at an alarming rate?
Are blood pressure control medicines failing to lower blood pressure?
Are NSAIDS causing inflammation instead of reducing it?
Are cancer treatments failing to delay or stop cancerous growth?
Are massive numbers of people dying from smallpox?

No, they're not. If "all medical research is flawed" was even remotely accurate, then surely we would have surely witnessed some of these things. But instead, all sorts of medical treatments are getting better and better.

Post: #17

Also - ala the nocebo effect - I think the reason depression rates have rocketed over the past century - is because the concept of depression has become more widely known.

And as such - more and more people convince themselves they have depression. And it is that belief which then triggers it.

As medical care and standards of living increase in the third world - I predict a similar thing will happen. As psychological concepts become widely shared in those countries (for the first time). You will see a massive increase in people saying they were depressed.

Let me chuck in a thought experiment.

Imagine doctors spent the past century promoting the concept of farganstan. Farganstan does not exist - it is just a word I have made up.

But if farganstan was promoted as serious medical condition which was aused by a 'chemical imbalance' in the brain and if it had subtle symptons which could only be self-diagnosed - millions of people would convince themselves they had it.

Imagine the symptons of farganstan were an inability to fall in love. But it could be cured by taking a pill.

Even though the pill was made up of random chemicals and did absolutely nothing to treat farganstan (since it is a made up word for a made up condition). Millions of people who take the medicine would suddenly found it improved their ability to experience love and to fall in love.

It is a circle jerk of bullshit belief systems propping each other up.

Yet strangely - even though it is bullshit it would still feel just as real as something that actually was real.

Since - as Shakespeare said - "There is nothing is either good or bad, but thinking makes it so".

And when you chuck in the trillions of dollars that drug companies can make from treating farganstan you can be sure it would be in a lot of people's interests for it to become a condition that affects a lot of people.

Post: #18

There are undeniably some conditions that are either bullshit (mostly in the field of psychiatry) or some that are strongly influenced by placebo effects. But most conditions are objectively measurable and are not improved by placebos or nocebos.

Go handle a book covered in smallpox scabs or get bitten by a rabid dog or a flea carrying bubonic plague and see if placebo effect will protect you.

Post: #19

I think there is a lot of bullshit about the treatment of cancer.

/thread-22985-...87052.html

But yeah - I agree that science made a lot of progress in medicine over the past century.

Although - science has never actually cured a single disease. Instead - it discovers vaccines - and waits for the people with the disease to die off - whilst simultaneously vaccinating everyone else. As such - nobody with smallpox was ever actually cured of it. So even today - if I was to handle a book covered in smallpox scabs - there is nothing modern medicine would be able to do for me.

Still - we did cure it in a manner of speaking. Since nobody suffers from the disease anymore. But - only because we get to to bury the ones who could not be cured - and vaccinate everybody else.

It is literally a case of 'out of sight, out of mind'. 300 million people died of smallpox in the 20th century - and if 300 million people had smallpox today, they would all die as well. Since science has no way of curing smallpox. Only of preventing its spread.

It would be like if I said I had a cure for world hunger. I just go round shooting all the people who are starving. And voila - no more hungry people! Nobel prize please! :-)

As for the article above. I am not sure how big a concern it will be. But it is interesting since it potentially exposes such a fundamental weakness in all medical experiments. And it is quite an interesting example of a potential Black Swan.

Post: #20

PS I'm off to the airport - to go to crappy ol' Malta for a week.

So - I am not ignoring you if you respond to what I wrote.

I will report back in a week! :-)

Post: #21

I strongly disagree with that as well. Ever more detailed knowledge of how the human organism and pathogens interact allows medicine to reduce the disease's effects in critical areas of infection, or to provide life support to the person until the body can mount an effective defense (whereas the disease would have killed almost everyone before that could happen). Consider this for example:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cholera

Quote:If people with cholera are treated quickly and properly, the mortality rate is less than 1%; however, with untreated cholera, the mortality rate rises to 50–60%

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Measles

Quote:In developed countries,death occurs about 1 in 1,000 cases (0.1%). In populations with high levels of malnutrition and a lack of adequate healthcare, mortality can be as high as 10%.

Even diseases with a 100% mortality rate (once contracted, if not previously vaccinated) like Rabies can be curbed by advances in medical science, a previously impossible feat:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milwaukee_protocol

Quote:Two of 25 patients treated under the first protocol survived. A further 10 patients have been treated under the revised protocol, with a further two survivors.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meningitis

Quote:Meningitis is potentially life-threatening and has a high mortality rate if untreated; delay in treatment has been associated with a poorer outcome. Thus, treatment with wide-spectrum antibiotics should not be delayed while confirmatory tests are being conducted. Untreated, bacterial meningitis is almost always fatal. Of newborns, 20–30% may die from an episode of bacterial meningitis. This risk is much lower in older children, whose mortality is about 2%, but rises again to about 19–37% in adults.

A person getting infected with any of these diseases has a significantly (or even vastly) higher chance of survival than in the previous milennium. This is not to mention the effects of modern medicine on dealing with mechanical traumas like broken appendages or animal and weapon wounds. Someone getting stabbed in the stomach was almost guaranteed to die before, whereas today there is all sorts of aid available, both from preventing death from internal bleeding, bleeding out and in the weeks following the injury by preventing sepsis.

Again, if you get infected by one of these things and don't apply for any sort of IV drip, ventilation, hemodialysis, antibiotics, antiviral medicines or other products of modern medicine, your chance of survival will be vastly lower. This is something that can be objectively measured, not speculation. There is no mystery in it.

p.s. have fun at Malta

Post: #22

(04-29-2014 06:12 AM)cardguy Wrote:  I know all about the placebo (and the even more interesting nocebo) effect.

But this isn't about that. Since - as far as I'm aware - the placebo effect is not something that affects animals. Since you need a belief system which can be subtly shaped in order to be affected by the placebo effect.

Which is not something that animals have.

As far as I am aware.

I could be wrong.

I usually am.

Define belief?

The Pavlov experiment managed to get dogs to salivate by ringing a bell - was it just a pure conditional reflex or did the dogs believe they were about to get a meal?

Also, your understanding of placebo effect is not in keeping with the latest discussion on the topic, which is starting to look into the conditioned placebo response (where you experience a placebo effect because your body has developed a physical reflex to a stimulus) versus expectant placebo response (where you experience a placebo due to a belief that the placebo will help you), for example.

Interestingly, women are more susceptible to conditioned placebo responses, while men are more susceptible to expectant placebo responses.

Post: #23

cardguy, you need a girlfriend.

Post: #24

(04-29-2014 09:34 AM)Menace Wrote:  cardguy, you need a girlfriend.

Yeah Cardguy, come back with a datasheet on Malta.

Post: #25

This guy.