Steve Jordan wrote:
> On Independence Day, Just wrote:
>
>> http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/106859.php
>>
>> I quote from the article:
>> Men who
>> were both obese and ate a HSF diets had the shortest biochemical
>> failure-free survival (19 months) and non-obese men on a LSF diet had
>> the longest (46 months). The data from the model were not altered by
>> the inclusion of amount of physical activity performed by the
>> subjects".
>
> Once more, I caution that depending upon press articles on medical
> subject can be hazardous to our health.
Amazing. Once more Steve Jordan - like in his comments about the Kolata
article in the Times about
proscar (see below) - tells us a journalist
does a sloppy job, but if you read the scientific source it turns out
Steve Jordan himself may be dangerous to your health.
>
> Here is the actual abstract, with a link to the full article:
>
> Strom SS, "Saturated fat intake predicts biochemical failure after
> prostatectomy." Int J Cancer. 2008 Jun 1;122(11):2581-5.
>
> Conclusion: "Understanding the interplay between modifiable factors,
> such as diet and obesity, and disease characteristics may lead to the
> development of behavioral and/or targeted interventions for patients at
> increased risk of progression."
>
>
> IMO, the careless reader could be misled, especially by the title, to
> believing that a HSF (high saturated fat) diet would/could result in
> earlier recurrence than a LSF (low) diet. It is necessary to understand
> that, as the authors state but do not emphasize, those results are based
> upon diet *plus* obesity or lack thereof. Thus, it is the obese man who
> eats a HSF diet who is at risk, per the article.
Here's the part of the abstract that Steve left out: "Men who consumed
high- saturated fat (HSF) diets were more likely to experience
biochemical failure (p = 0.006) and had significantly shorter
biochemical-failure-free-survival than men with low saturated fat (LSF)
diets (26.6 vs. 44.7 months, respectively, p = 0.002). ***After
adjusting for obesity*** and clinical variables, HSF-diet patients were
almost twice as likely to experience biochemical failure (hazard ratio =
1.95, p = 0.008) compared to LSF diet patients. ***Men who were both
obese*** and consumed HSF diets had the shortest
biochemical-failure-free-survival (19 months), and ***nonobese men***
who consumed LSF diets had the longest biochemical-failure-free-survival
(46 months, p < 0.001).
>
================
Steve Jordan wrote:
> On June 16, Kadafi wrote:
>
>> Article in 6/15 NY Times titled
>>
>> "New Take on a Prostate Drug, and a New Debate"
>
> (snip)
>
> The reporter gives little notice to the widespread approval among
clinicians, concentrating instead upon one person who claims that not
enough lives would be saved to -- to -- well, to what? Make it worth the
$2.00 per day cost? Side effects? Deaths of the untreated? What, exactly?
Little notice? The article mentions six specialists essentially
"approving", and - only in the thirteenth paragraph - one specialist
putting the matter in perspective by pointing out the death rate
reduction from 2.5% to 1.8%. The picture shows Scardino saying he
probably will use the drug himself. Who's the biased person here?
>
>
> A PDF can be downloaded from this portal: http://cancerpreventionresearch.aacr...CAPR-08-0092v1
> or
> http://tinyurl.com/43n6d3
>
> Note the title: "Finasteride Does Not Increase the Risk of High-Grade
Prostate Cancer:
> A Bias-Adjusted Modeling Approach."
That point is extensively discussed in the article. BTW: what happened
to footnote 16?
>
> There are large discrepancies between the reporter's article and what
the study actually says.
>
> For example, from the study abstract, "....the observed, unadjusted
higher risk of high-grade disease with finasteride
> seems to have been due to facilitated diagnosis resulting primarily
from increased biopsy
> sensitivity with finasteride." I don't recall anything like that in
the NYT article.
That clearly shows your prejudice when you started reading the article.
Read it again. Note the following paragraphs:
"... Maybe, [the researchers] thought, by shrinking the prostate, the
drug was just making it easier to find aggressive tumors.
When doctors do a biopsy for prostate cancer, they probe the gland with
a needle, hoping to find cancer cells. But prostate cancer grows as
little nests and an aggressive cancer will appear as dangerous-looking
cells in some clusters and less dangerous in others. A smaller prostate
means a doctor is more likely to hit upon cancer nests and more likely
to find aggressive-looking cells."
Facilitated diagnosis. Get it?
What are the other "large discrepancies" between the article and the
study that you found? You're accusing Kolata of a bias, but your bias is
that she's biased. You see a large discrepancy because your bias
prevents you from reading the article objectively.
Study: Saturated Fat Intake Predicts Biochemical Failure After Prostatectomy 
Linear Mode
