Posted by Steven Novella on October 26, 2016
Balloon dilation of a stenosed jugular vein, the “liberation procedure” wrongly promoted as treating multiple sclerosis.
In 2009 CCSVI was proposed by Italian vascular surgeon, Dr. Paolo Zamboni – that multiple sclerosis (MS) is caused by chronic blockage of the veins that drain the brain. Since that time we have seen the evolution of a medical pseudoscience. It has been a fascinating case study in how science sorts out what works and what doesn’t, and how patients, believers, and the public react to this information. The story is ongoing and there are some interesting updates.
Background on CCSVI
CCSVI stands for chronic cerebrospinal venous insufficiency. Zamboni believes that blockages in the veins that drain blood from the brain cause back pressure in the brain, decreasing blood flow and leading to secondary inflammation, and further that this results in the clinical diseases we collectively known as MS. Zamboni’s interest in MS is not random. His wife has MS, and it is interesting that he is a vascular surgeon and found what he believes is a cause of MS that can be treated by vascular surgeons. This does not mean his ideas are wrong, it just means he has a clear bias and his data needs to be looked at carefully and independently replicated.
His initial study found that 100% of the patients he examined with MS had cranial venous blockage. That is also curious. We rarely find 100% correlations in medicine, even for solid theories. It is a huge red flag for systematic bias.
The MS community was appropriately skeptical. While the exact cause of MS remains unknown, we have been studying it for decades and there is a lot we do know. We know, for example, that MS is primarily an autoimmune disease, and the pathology is largely caused by inflammation. We now, in fact, have a long list of effective treatments for some types of MS that suppress the immune system and inflammation. There are still some types, such as chronic progressive MS, that do not respond to the best treatments.
The idea that MS was caused by vascular blockage was therefore a radical idea that flew in the face of existing research. Occasionally, however, radical ideas turn out to be true, and so some MS researchers set out to test Zamboni’s hypothesis.
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Positive Psychology and Health
Posted by Michael Booth on November 7, 2016[Editor’s Note: Dr. Gorski is on a brief vacation this week; in his place we offer new guest contributor Michael Booth’s inaugural post. Enjoy!]
Will this help me live longer?
The belief that positivity can prolong life or improve health seems ubiquitous. It is a claim that is repeated often in popular media, and fills countless pages of self-help books on happiness, thriving, optimism, and so on. But is there evidence to support optimism and the right attitude being positively correlated with health and longevity? Do personal beliefs actually matter in determining whether or not a chronic disease progresses or remits?
Popular generalizations
Consider this statement by Dr. Oz and Dr. Roizen in the Healthy Living section of the Huffington Post:
This latter conclusion is drawn from a study of 607 heart disease patients in Denmark that according to Dr. Oz and Dr. Roizen “found that patients whose moods were overall more positive were 58 percent more likely to live at least another five years.” Dr. Oz and Dr. Roizen continue, “the scientists can’t say for sure if positivity led to exercise or if exercise improved mood, but we say that the important message is the same either way: Positive thinking and regular physical activity are really important for life (and beauty, too).”
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Tags: positive psychology
Posted in: Commentary, Science and the Media
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