Potential cut in NIH funding

cstehansen

http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp1703734#t=article

This is an article from the New England Journal of Medicine regarding proposed cuts. I decided to add my comments to this with the subject "Time to target funding?":

I try to walk a fine line in terms of government funding as I believe the government is the least qualified to appropriately allocate money in MOST instances.

As a previous poster mentioned, the larger an organization is the more more prone it is to wasteful spending. I look at much of the research that is out there and feel it may not be targeted very well. We have an epidemic of obesity and diabetes (diabesity) which has exploded since about 1980. Curiously, that is around the same time the federal government started giving dietary advice.

I search and search for good research about the effects of diet on health - in particular diabesity, but there is very little other than some epidemiological studies which can show some correlation (like seeing that the current spike has correlated with the introduction of the federal guidelines), but is not able to show causation.

Rather than spending so much on drugs to treat, why not spend on preventing it? If we really want to save our healthcare system, we must prevent disease. Clearly, there are ways to prevent disease. The only research I have been able to find that even comes close is private at virtahealth.com

All comments get reviewed before being published. I wasn't sure if mine would make it since it doesn't tow the line of drugs for solving everything, but it made it through.

retirehappy

So only big ag and pharma companies are funding research. No wonder it is worthless.

Gallowmere1984

retirehappy wrote: »

So only big ag and pharma companies are funding research. No wonder it is worthless.

Except for the part where it isn't the research that's worthless. The problem is that most research just either A: doesn't tickle the public's "ohhh, shiny" button, or B: doesn't have the pharmaceutical industry's dollars for marketing.

For every good study done on how diet effects health profiles, there's 30 commercials for a new pill that has an auctioneer spouting side effects at the end, over a couple rubbing butts on a beach. Between that and pubmed searches, which do you think the average pubbie and their doctor will know about?

cstehansen

Gallowmere1984 wrote: »

retirehappy wrote: »

So only big ag and pharma companies are funding research. No wonder it is worthless.

Except for the part where it isn't the research that's worthless. The problem is that most research just either A: doesn't tickle the public's "ohhh, shiny" button, or B: doesn't have the pharmaceutical industry's dollars for marketing.

For every good study done on how diet effects health profiles, there's 30 commercials for a new pill that has an auctioneer spouting side effects at the end, over a couple rubbing butts on a beach. Between that and pubmed searches, which do you think the average pubbie and their doctor will know about?

One more problem is that nearly 80% of studies never get published. My guess is they didn't fit the hypothesis so the researchers and/or those funding the research don't want it out there. There have actually been far more studies trying to prove the diet Heart hypothesis that eating fat is bad than have been published. Since they showed either no correlation or an inverse one, they were viewed as failures.

GaleHawkins

I am finding OUT of the USA studies are the most helpful to my understanding of solutions to health issues especially if Oncology studies are part of the research. The MD from Finland works is one example. I had to use the translation feature of Google which is not perfect. Currently I am reading the fish oil thread and it's use in oncology outside of the USA. Berberine is a new to me supplement that I am drilling down on as well currently.

tritolonen.fi/artikkelit/227-berberiini-ja-syopa