Need supplement advice as a vegan

[undeather]

13 hours ago, integral said:

Guys I'm not saying your practice has no value, of course you've helped people, but that guy prescribes a statin a day and tells me his patients all have fantastic results. I'm more interested in a more balanced view that some improved, most made no progress and some got worse. So from there I'm saying he's trying to prove he's right instead of the truth by cherry picking results. Most doctors focus on the things they have a good track record of success and ignore the areas they don't have much success and point to "we are doing the best we can with the data with have" with out questioning there epistemology.

@undeather Explain why these studies don't change how you feel about statins? 

It's really a textbook example of what's wrong with online health culture and how it leads people with superficial knowledge towards certain "truths". When you are not equipped to deal with the complexity of research and basic human pathophysiology, this is exactly where you will end up at. Do you really think a 10 minute video from a fringe online MD (who spouts all kind of nonsense on his channel) will give you an adequate representation of statin evidence we have gathered in the last 50 years? Also, cherry picking  - who just picked the one ambivalent meta analysis out of dozens to support his own bias? That's YOU, my friend! Did you even read the analysis and the inclusion citeria/statistical analysis that lead to such outcome? My guess would be that you watched the video and read that blog post. As if this has anything to do with doing the real work. 

Why not go through all the data ever released on statins? Wouldn't that be the real integral thing to do? But, right - that requires work, knowledge and time - things you are not willing to invest I guess. 

Ugh, I have seen this JAMA-study being discussed all over the internet when it came out.
I am happy to help you through that analysis and why it "did nto change my mind on statins". It's not even that complicated to understand ...
Let me first check where we have to start:
1) Do you know the difference between absolute/relative risk and how follow up periods tend to influence both?
2) Do you know how age and health conditions influence effect sizes in statin trials?
3) Have you looked at the studies included/inclusion criteria?

[integral]

The video covered it. With most of these studies they show a risk reduction in one decease like coronary heart disease vs placebo group but both groups had a similar risk of death from all causes. Meaning it did not improve the quality of there life or health, they avoided one disease and suffered another. 

2 hours ago, undeather said:

Do you really think a 10 minute video from a fringe online MD (who spouts all kind of nonsense on his channel) will give you an adequate representation of statin evidence we have gathered in the last 50 years?

No, he's not the only one talking about this and if that study became popular then you must have a good reason to reject it, id like to understand that.

I'm getting the impression your closed off to most perspectives that are "obviously" wrong from a pure data oriented approach. The trick would be the data is misleading and counter-intuitive, it logically all checks out and its not obvious why its wrong.

Instead of focusing on data, look at the results practitioners are getting. What are your results, how is that data being tracked?

[undeather]

Bro, I asked if YOU understand it - not if the video covered it. 
So again, since you obviously know everything, please explain to me the simple connection between follow up period, age distribution and absolute/relative risk. It can't be that difficult to explain, right? Any medical student who passed his basic statistic course can answer that question.

Either you know the answer - then you need to explain to me why you would ignore it in your argument.
Or you dont - in which case, let me at least explain it to you.

Funnily enough, the tabacco industry used the same AR/RR-game to "prove" that smoking isn't really that bad.
But you didn't know that, did you?

Statin AR/RR-reduction arguments have been around since the 90's - but of course, you dont know that either.
Nor what the most likely explanation for that is.

You posted the video - you just posted the bar chart.
Now back it up with some knowledge how to interpret the data. Without knowing that, you are just running on a 24/7 confirmation bias.

Iam not closed off to most perspectives. In fact, I have been highly critical of our medical system before - publically with my colleagues and also here on the forum. I have had debates about alternative healing paradigms and defended even stuff like homeopathy and energy healing. The big difference is that you need to have those discussions on eye level. You know way less than my the medical students I teach, yet you act like can show some sort of expertise, which is not the case. It's pseudo-knowledge based on youtube videos you just referred to. 

If you want to criticise statins and the pharma-drug complex in general, I am all on your side.
But AT LEAST do the work to know what the fuck you are talking about. 


 

Edited May 9, 2023 by undeather

[Michael569]

3 hours ago, integral said:

The video covered it. With most of these studies they show a risk reduction in one decease like coronary heart disease vs placebo group but both groups had a similar risk of death from all causes. Meaning it did not improve the quality of there life or health, they avoided one disease and suffered another. 

I am not an expert in statistical methods by any stretch and would not presume any expertise here, however I believe the JAMA review has been coming under a lot of scrutiny and criticism the way they presented their data and for sorta under-evaluating the ARR and and that mean trial durations were relatively low,  this is a common issue in CVD prevention trials, if the study is too short, too few people experience the event and your risk ratio is skewed (as dark as that sounds) 

ARR in general is a relatively low number because you are taking the risk reduction ratio of two different groups and dividing the risk so even very small ARR are very much clinically meaningful. So even if the prevalence is very high (e.g. a lot of people in your cohorts are sick) ARR may remain low - @undeatheris that so or am I talking out of my ass here?  

This was a good debate that went deep into this one for anyone interested in geeking out 

 

Edited May 9, 2023 by Michael569

[integral]

7 hours ago, Michael569 said:

 

Thank you that was the answer I was waiting to get. Its very convincing logic and I see no reason why there criticism isn't valid. Its perfectly clear now how data focused approaches construct there paradigm.

8 hours ago, undeather said:

Bro, I asked if YOU understand it - not if the video covered it. 
So again, since you obviously know everything, please explain to me the simple connection between follow up period, age distribution and absolute/relative risk. It can't be that difficult to explain, right? Any medical student who passed his basic statistic course can answer that question.

Either you know the answer - then you need to explain to me why you would ignore it in your argument.
Or you dont - in which case, let me at least explain it to you.

Funnily enough, the tabacco industry used the same AR/RR-game to "prove" that smoking isn't really that bad.
But you didn't know that, did you?

Statin AR/RR-reduction arguments have been around since the 90's - but of course, you dont know that either.
Nor what the most likely explanation for that is.

You posted the video - you just posted the bar chart.
Now back it up with some knowledge how to interpret the data. Without knowing that, you are just running on a 24/7 confirmation bias.

Iam not closed off to most perspectives. In fact, I have been highly critical of our medical system before - publically with my colleagues and also here on the forum. I have had debates about alternative healing paradigms and defended even stuff like homeopathy and energy healing. The big difference is that you need to have those discussions on eye level. You know way less than my the medical students I teach, yet you act like can show some sort of expertise, which is not the case. It's pseudo-knowledge based on youtube videos you just referred to. 

If you want to criticise statins and the pharma-drug complex in general, I am all on your side.
But AT LEAST do the work to know what the fuck you are talking about. 

I'm obviously not going to play this game. I was not using that video to prove I was right, I linked the video to see what you had to say about and I personally don't think prescribing a statin to everyone at risk is what these studies should be used to justify and that opinion has nothing to do with studies or the paradigm of evidence derived from studies. I see studies as one possible perspective and not evidence and not a treatment strategy. I think the logic sequence in the debunking video is highly convincing and therefor that thinking process is a massive blind spot, I have no idea what that blind spot is its just intuition.

Edited May 9, 2023 by integral

[ZenAlex]

On 5/7/2023 at 8:57 PM, integral said:

I'm not seeing why eating an egg and drinking milk once a week isn't good enough.

It beats all supplementation and meets the moral requirements. 

If we learn from the experiences of other vegans, they always go back to some sort of animal product after years of issues.

Fools never learn, the smart learn from there mistakes and the wise learn from the mistakes of others. 

This is a person that doesn't care about what's accurate and just wants to reinforce pre-existing convictions. And this guy has told me to be mindful of my own biases and paradigms many times in the past, yet doesn't follow his own advice, so take anything @integral says on this subject with a pinch of salt, he knows nothing about veganism. He just wants to keep finding excuses to stay as he is because he's too used to his current lifestyle.

@The Caretaker I've been vegan for over 7 years. Bloods tests fine, feel fine. Have met plenty of people the same.

I'm open to the possibility it may not work for everyone though. People's bodies are complicated.

The best advice I could give op is to use a website like Chronometer and input your daily diet into it, and should show you what you're getting enough of and what you're not. Try to mix things up, get blood tests if you can to see if you are deficient. I don't know where OP lives, so maybe his options aren't so great, so tbh eating some animal products may be necessary for some people.

I supplement Omega 3, but that's about it. I used fortified Milks for B12 and Vit D.

The reality is it's a fact that you can meet your needs if the environment allows it.

[integral]

1 hour ago, ZenAlex said:

I used fortified Milks for B12 and Vit D.

Did you just disagree with me then accidentally agreed with me? 

[ZenAlex]

2 hours ago, integral said:

Did you just disagree with me then accidentally agreed with me? 

non-dairy milks I mean.