I just read a great article that ran with the title “The truth about back pain“. It was a breakdown of the success (or otherwise) of various treatment approaches for low back pain, and it’s well worth a read. It outlines the risks associated with injections, painkillers, unnecessary medical scans and surgery. But if you’re short on time, here are a few choice quotes:
“In 2012, an outbreak of fungal meningitis in the US was traced to contaminated epidural steroid injections administered for back pain – more than 700 people had …

The use of paracetamol, such as Panadol, for conditions like arthritis, has come under fire after a panel of medical experts “said they were ‘extremely concerned’ about the links of higher doses to cardiovascular, gastrointestinal and renal adverse events.
An article on Pulse.co.uk outlined the panel’s findings, which included:

warnings about the potential side effects of paracetamol
findings that paracetamol only provides ‘limited benefit’
when used, it should be the ‘lowest effective dose’ for the ‘shortest possible time’
clinicians should be particularly cautious of using it in combination with an oral NSAID (anti-inflammatory)
‘There is more evidence of …

Heya, I was recently asked to write an article for the Michelle Bridges 12WBT website. They asked me to write a piece responding to concerns from some of their members about being pushed too hard by personal trainers. The article is about learning when to tell if the pain you are feeling is a sign that you’ve hurt yourself, or if it’s just that deep burn you get from a good workout? Want the answers – Click here…

Howdy,
I was lucky enough to be able to get out of town on the weekend and head down to Canberra. A short trip but long enough to remind me that there are some do’s and don’t’s when it comes to driving:
When you first hop in the car, sit up nice and straight and set your rear view mirror and side mirrors. If you notice after a while that the mirror position is no longer suitable, you must have either shifted in your seat or started slumping. Either sit up straight …

Kevin MD recently posted an article where he reviewed the effectiveness of various injections commonly used for low back pain. These consist of  local anesthetics, steroids like cortisone, and pain meds. The article included a summary of an article in the Journal of the American Medical Association, as well as notes from a couple of other reviews previously done on whether injections work well for low back pain. The news wasn’t good:

In a review of 18 trials, only 6 found that the injections had a positive effect. The authors of this review concluded …

You can’t win, can you. A new study has suggested that ” males with high blood concentrations of omega-3 fatty acids are at a higher risk of developing prostate cancer.” Everything I’ve ever read on fish oils suggests that they help with inflammation and that omega 3 fatty acids are great for your brain. In fact I posted something on it not that long ago…
Luckily, sanity prevailed:
Dr. Iain Frame, director of research at Prostate Cancer UK, says men reading about the results of this research should not panic about their omega-3 intake. Dr. …

It was quite an alarming series of headlines last week as news broke of a large scale analysis of the risks associated with the use of common over the counter anti-inflammatory medications. “Common painkillers linked to heart disease” reported The Australian, along with “The findings confirm that drugs such as Nurofen and Voltaren can significantly increase the risk of heart attack and stroke.”
Previous studies have examined these medications mostly on an individual basis, but this study tried to compare their relative risks, in short it asked the question “which NSAID is …

I recently read a review of “the adverse events” associated with manual therapy. That is to say, the bad things that can happen when you get a hands on treatment. An adverse event included both ‘minor’ events like feeling sore after a treatment, as well as ‘major’ side effects like nerve injury, paralysis, and stroke. I have listed the definitions at the bottom of this page.
Here is a summary of the data they collected:

The risk for adverse events after manual therapy were about the same as for doing exercise,
The risk …

A couple of articles have surfaced recently which raise more questions on the usefulness of medical scans. Now, don’t get me wrong, they are useful. What we’re talking about here is whether they are used too often (knowing the radiation risk), and whether the findings on scans are as important as they’re made out to be.
I’ve written on this before when I talked about
A couple of articles have surfaced recently which raise more questions on the usefulness of medical scans. Now, don’t get me wrong, they are useful. What we’re …

In this study the investigators tried to assess which characteristics are related to the risk of being hospitalised in “older adults”. It has been established that as people get older they lose strength, but it is unclear whether having less muscle tissue necessarily means you are weaker per se, and it has also previously been unclear whether there are better ways to assess whether someone is at risk of being hospitalised. This study has answered those questions.
The goal of this study was to look at the link between “strength, function, …