Tag : neurotransmitter

Are clinical trials using animal studies always valid for humans? Consider me a skeptic.

I frequently see advertisements and newsletters (even some written by physicians) that promote lab tests and treatments based entirely on studies done using rodents. These “experts” frequently draw conclusions from these studies that their lab test or product is a breakthrough of vital importance to humanity. While it may be true, all too often it’s not.

Let me give you a recent example of a study done in mice that could lead to the conclusion that every woman with breast cancer should be taking very robust doses of the adrenal hormone DHEA. This study should serve both as an encouragement and as a caution, an example of the care we must exercise when we use animal studies to draw conclusions about humans.

I came across a news item the other day that irritated me. It was another one of those stories about how dangerous estrogen therapy is for post-menopausal women. It contained the usual tsking and finger-wagging over doctors who felt it necessary to interfere with the ‘natural process of aging and menopause’ and the horrible risks of cancer they cause while doing it.

There’s so much wrong with that position I scarcely know where to begin. First off, we scarcely need to discuss my opinion of the ‘the natural process of aging’. Suffice it to say, the natural process of aging is one of slow decline into a pitiable, crippled, wretched shell of a human being. My opinion: we don’t have to just give up like that.

The medical community started giving estrogen to post-menopausal women nearly 50 years ago for excellent reasons. Without it the health and quality of life of post-menopausal women was declining so precipitously, it became apparent that