Tom Cruise on Today Show

[DemonDeac]

holy crap. did anyone see that? he ripped Matt Laer a new one cuz apparently Matt doesnt know everything there is to know about ridalin.

this is pretty ridiculous. i dont know where to find it, but try and watch it.

[jakethebake]

Tom Cruise is an ass.

[Shajen]

[ QUOTE ]

Tom Cruise is an ass.

[/ QUOTE ]

Wait, I thought he was the man. Oh, yeah, never mind, that's only on wednesdays.

So, if I have it correct, on mondays he's an ass, tuesdays and wednesdays the man, and then the rest of the week an ass?

Got it.

[jakethebake]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]

Tom Cruise is an ass.

[/ QUOTE ]

Wait, I thought he was the man. Oh, yeah, never mind, that's only on wednesdays.

So, if I have it correct, on mondays he's an ass, tuesdays and wednesdays the man, and then the rest of the week an ass?

Got it.

[/ QUOTE ]

No he's pretty much always an ass when I'm polled.

[sam h]

[ QUOTE ]
''Matt, Matt, you don't even -- you're glib,'' Cruise responded. ''You don't even know what Ritalin is. If you start talking about chemical imbalance, you have to evaluate and read the research papers on how they came up with these theories, Matt, OK. That's what I've done.''

[/ QUOTE ]

[DemonDeac]

he's boning Holmes. so hes aight in my book.
but on the show he looked coked out. something was up his ass.


big steve???





j/k

[Shajen]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]

Tom Cruise is an ass.

[/ QUOTE ]

Wait, I thought he was the man. Oh, yeah, never mind, that's only on wednesdays.

So, if I have it correct, on mondays he's an ass, tuesdays and wednesdays the man, and then the rest of the week an ass?

Got it.

[/ QUOTE ]

No he's pretty much always an ass when I'm polled.

[/ QUOTE ]

[censored]. Now I'm confused. How can I form an opinion without OOT telling me what it is? /images/graemlins/confused.gif /images/graemlins/confused.gif /images/graemlins/confused.gif /images/graemlins/confused.gif /images/graemlins/confused.gif /images/graemlins/confused.gif /images/graemlins/confused.gif /images/graemlins/confused.gif /images/graemlins/confused.gif /images/graemlins/confused.gif /images/graemlins/confused.gif /images/graemlins/confused.gif

[SpearsBritney]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]

Tom Cruise is an ass.

[/ QUOTE ]

Wait, I thought he was the man. Oh, yeah, never mind, that's only on wednesdays.

So, if I have it correct, on mondays he's an ass, tuesdays and wednesdays the man, and then the rest of the week an ass?

Got it.

[/ QUOTE ]

No he's pretty much always an ass when I'm polled.

[/ QUOTE ]

What is so funny about that?

You're a jerk!

YOU'RE A JERK!!!!

[jakethebake]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
No he's pretty much always an ass when I'm polled.

[/ QUOTE ]
What is so funny about that?

You're a jerk!

YOU'RE A JERK!!!!

[/ QUOTE ]

Wow. You feelin' o.k.?

[SpearsBritney]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
No he's pretty much always an ass when I'm polled.

[/ QUOTE ]
What is so funny about that?

You're a jerk!

YOU'RE A JERK!!!!

[/ QUOTE ]

Wow. You feelin' o.k.?

[/ QUOTE ]

[quote form T.C.]What is so funny about that?

You're a jerk!

YOU'RE A JERK!!!![/quote form T.C.]

[jakethebake]

[ QUOTE ]
''Matt, Matt, you don't even -- you're glib,'' Cruise responded. ''You don't even know what Ritalin is. If you start talking about chemical imbalance, you have to evaluate and read the research papers on how they came up with these theories, Matt, OK. That's what I've done.''

[/ QUOTE ]

Well of course. Clearly being an action star, boning Katie and getting squirted by a phony microhone makes him an expert. Oh wait, I forgot scientology. Nevermind, those people are experts in everything. /images/graemlins/grin.gif

[Jerkass333]

Here (http://www.gawker.com/news/culture/today-show/today-on-today-tom-cruise-takes-on-matt-lauers-thetans-109869.php) is a transcript I stole from Fark. He's my new favorite celebrity.

[jakethebake]

[ QUOTE ]
[quote form T.C.]What is so funny about that?

You're a jerk!

YOU'RE A JERK!!!![/quote form T.C.]

[/ QUOTE ]

I have no idea what this even is? /images/graemlins/confused.gif

[SpearsBritney]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[quote form T.C.]What is so funny about that?

You're a jerk!

YOU'RE A JERK!!!![/quote form T.C.]

[/ QUOTE ]

I have no idea what this even is? /images/graemlins/confused.gif

[/ QUOTE ]

Ok, now I know you're just fcukin with me.

[AngryCola]

[ QUOTE ]
boning Katie

[/ QUOTE ]

Yeah... well... you believe that?

How silly.

[asofel]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[quote form T.C.]What is so funny about that?

You're a jerk!

YOU'RE A JERK!!!![/quote form T.C.]

[/ QUOTE ]

I have no idea what this even is? /images/graemlins/confused.gif

[/ QUOTE ]

Ok, now I know you're just fcukin with me.

[/ QUOTE ]

lmao, jake wouldn't do that. its not in his nature...

[MoreWineII]

I think his mind is slipping. He's pretty cool when he's crazy though.

[oreogod]

Matt Lauer is the man!!!

Seriously, I thought he handled that situation well. That crap tom cruise was talking about, sounds like something from a Sciencetology pep rally. Dunno...I think ritalin helps people.

[DemonDeac]

[ QUOTE ]
That crap tom cruise was talking about, sounds like something from a Sciencetology pep rally.

[/ QUOTE ]

thats exactly what i said.

DOWN WITH THE SCIENTOLOGY CULT. DIE RON HUBBARD!! (although he may already be dead, but i dont think so)

[oreogod]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
That crap tom cruise was talking about, sounds like something from a Sciencetology pep rally.

[/ QUOTE ]

thats exactly what i said.

DOWN WITH THE SCIENTOLOGY CULT. DIE RON HUBBARD!! (although he may already be dead, but i dont think so)

[/ QUOTE ]

If dead is cryogenetically frozen, than yeah sure, he's dead.

"He'll be back alright...oh he'll be back. You all shall RUE THE DAY, that HE comes back! Ever last mutha-[censored] one of you ritilian poppers will pay for your psychiatirc sins. " --Tom Cruise

okay, off my soapbox.

[DemonDeac]

cruise didnt really say that, did he?

thats insane

[Deftoner]

Cruise is the man...do your thing pimp.

[Uglyowl]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8343367

There is a link to a video. As a person who was helped at one time with an anti-depressent, I must say Cruise is an ass. Maybe when he has a real problem to deal with he will change his tune.

[PassiveCaller]

As much as you'd like to attribute this to Tom totally being crack ass he does have a point here and isn't as far off the rocker as many of you guys would believe.

While Adderall, or Ritalin may help, it treats the symptoms of the problem as opposed to the imbalances that create the problem. That is what in essence he is saying.

It's the old Western Medicine vs Eastern Medicine. Some believe you try and find what causes the imbalances to fix the problem.

I'm not a scientologist. While he has a point, he explained it in a rather contentious mannerism that makes people less likely to accept it and not in anyway more likely to understand it.

Sortof a I know it all you don't and that never bodes well for presenting a case.

[PassiveCaller]

Yes it can help people in the right situations but that doesn't make it the best way to tackle the problem, see my other response.

You can play a hand many different ways and still get a good result, but that doesn't mean it was the "best way".

[oreogod]

[ QUOTE ]
cruise didnt really say that, did he?

thats insane

[/ QUOTE ]

No. But he probably would. ( I made it up)

[wonderwes]

1 out of every 4 americans get some type of psychiatry help.

[jakethebake]

[ QUOTE ]
1 out of every 4 americans get some type of psychiatry help.

[/ QUOTE ]

this is so depressing i may have to seek psychiatric help.

[wacki]

[ QUOTE ]
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8343367

There is a link to a video. As a person who was helped at one time with an anti-depressent, I must say Cruise is an ass. Maybe when he has a real problem to deal with he will change his tune.

[/ QUOTE ]

"There is no such thing as a chemical imbalance in the human body.

.... There's ways through vitamins, exercise, and various things."

-tom cruise

wow

[RicktheRuler]

Ritalin does help people when prescribed properly. Unfortunately, many doctors pass it out like candy.

I thought Mat Lauer did a good job as well--"Im not prescribing ritalin here Tom".

[jakethebake]

[ QUOTE ]
I thought Mat Lauer did a good job as well--"Im not prescribing ritalin here Tom".

[/ QUOTE ]

Yea. He shoulda squirted him with a gag microphone though.

[DemonDeac]

yea, Lauer was a professional through the whole thing

[PassiveCaller]

[ QUOTE ]
1 out of every 4 americans get some type of psychiatry help.

[/ QUOTE ]

Point being?

[jakethebake]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
1 out of every 4 americans get some type of psychiatry help.

[/ QUOTE ]

Point being?

[/ QUOTE ]

A large portion of the general American public is pathetic.
<font color="white"> No. i'm not saying everyone that goes to a psychiatrist is pathetic, just most of them. </font>

[PassiveCaller]

[ QUOTE ]


A large portion of the general American public is pathetic.
<font color="white"> No. i'm not saying everyone that goes to a psychiatrist is pathetic, just most of them. </font>

[/ QUOTE ]

This I won't disagree with.

[astroglide]

scientology does appear to be a load of horseshit, but i too take task with the 'chemical imbalance' asssertions that are bandied about by the psychiatric community (and have become accepted by the general populous).

namely, when people speak of 'chemical imbalances' they refer to somebody being off mentally in some way: depressed, sociopathic, whatever. they declare that they are 'imbalanced', but would generally be unable to declare in what way, or maybe not even define what 'balance' is in actual measurements. it's not as if people are taking drug X which will correct their exact 13% deficiency in dopamine which was determined by objective chemical measurement.

i haven't been assessed for these sorts of problems, nor have i taken any meds along those lines. i know many people that have though, and regardless of the name or prescription it always seems like the result of the drug is to make them numb. if they have anxiety, they become numb to it. ditto depression, ditto violence, etc. and also the rest of life. it doesn't look like hard science is being applied, just script-writing stuff along the lines of, "if you take this the bad symptoms will be mitigated and you'll also have all sorts of emotional and sexual desensitization."

despite my lack of knowledge about them, i do generally see scientology as a cult. but i'm glad that, unlike other more popular things i see as cults like mormonism, there are certain 'challenging' aspects like the anti-med sentiments which are being forced onto the public. whether you agree with it or not, it certainly can't hurt to evaluate why positions are held. as long as it's not going to send people into "it's all my fault!" spirals, i think it would only behoove people have more accountability with regard to their mental condition (even if we're not in complete control).

[maryfield48]

[ QUOTE ]
Ritalin does help people when prescribed properly. Unfortunately, many doctors pass it out like candy.

I thought Mat Lauer did a good job as well--"Im not prescribing ritalin here Tom".

[/ QUOTE ]

I watched the clip with an anti-Cruise disposition. I don't like his work, or his persona. But I think he nailed Lauer with the "glib" comment. Yeah I know, he's a morning TV guy - a milieu in which affability is a more important quality than most traditional journalistic skills. But he knew he was going to ask Tom about the issue - don't you think he had a professional responsibility to arm himself with a better line of argument than "I know people who've been helped by [whatever]"?

I think that if you had come upon the discussion with no prior knowledge of the issue, you'd conclude that Cruise owned Lauer.

[jakethebake]

[ QUOTE ]
I think that if you had come upon the discussion with no prior knowledge of the issue, you'd conclude that Cruise owned Lauer.

[/ QUOTE ]

This is only true if you're an idiot that completely ignores the complete lack of rationale in Tom's arguments or the fact that all he did was keep saying his opinion over and over w/o any real evidence.

EDIT: Not that I completely disagree with what he was trying to say.

[PassiveCaller]

Excellent post, astro

[PassiveCaller]

The only reason I'm even defending Cruise at all is because I did have prior knowledge and have done the research on Adderall, and Ritalin.

Cruise did an awful job of defending his point and came off contentious and made his point "easy to dismiss". That along with the whole image from the Scientology, and the fact that the Scientology [censored] is mostly a loud of bullshit and weird at best.

I also would argue he didn't really feel the need to present evidence here when talking to a "talk show host" that hadn't done the research and he felt the whole thing was pretty futile.

Do your own research on adderall, ritalin, and other cures to the problem and maybe it'll be enlightening towards medicine and health in general, I implore you.

[Blarg]

[ QUOTE ]
scientology does appear to be a load of horseshit, but i too take task with the 'chemical imbalance' asssertions that are bandied about by the psychiatric community (and have become accepted by the general populous).

namely, when people speak of 'chemical imbalances' they refer to somebody being off mentally in some way: depressed, sociopathic, whatever. they declare that they are 'imbalanced', but would generally be unable to declare in what way, or maybe not even define what 'balance' is in actual measurements. it's not as if people are taking drug X which will correct their exact 13% deficiency in dopamine which was determined by objective chemical measurement.

i haven't been assessed for these sorts of problems, nor have i taken any meds along those lines. i know many people that have though, and regardless of the name or prescription it always seems like the result of the drug is to make them numb. if they have anxiety, they become numb to it. ditto depression, ditto violence, etc. and also the rest of life. it doesn't look like hard science is being applied, just script-writing stuff along the lines of, "if you take this the bad symptoms will be mitigated and you'll also have all sorts of emotional and sexual desensitization."

despite my lack of knowledge about them, i do generally see scientology as a cult. but i'm glad that, unlike other more popular things i see as cults like mormonism, there are certain 'challenging' aspects like the anti-med sentiments which are being forced onto the public. whether you agree with it or not, it certainly can't hurt to evaluate why positions are held. as long as it's not going to send people into "it's all my fault!" spirals, i think it would only behoove people have more accountability with regard to their mental condition (even if we're not in complete control).

[/ QUOTE ]

I wish I remembered the name of the standard psychiatric diagnostic manual.

I read an article on it in Harpers or The New Yorker or something, about how the latest iteration was quite controversial because it seemed to be a full employment act for mental health professionals, and categorized nearly every type of unease, unhappiness, or less than optimum performance or positive outlook as a symptom or an outright disease condition, and one which should often be paired with an expensive drug treatment. Feeling miffed? There's a drug for it, and yes, you DO have a condition, and it should be treated right away.

The manual, the article said, seemed to be making an argument for a single personality, anything outside of which was unhealthy, and probably to the point of needing to be drugged. The idea, say, that some people are merely more melancholy than others, and that that's okay and merely a mark of a perfectly normal temperament, seemed to have vaporized. Perfectly normal conditions and personalities, the article argued, were being medicalized and turn into a fit arena for drug intervention, and an attempt was being made to literally drug them out of existence.

The negatives of such an approach are clear. Even sticking to a couple of the most obvious reveal a few. Drugs are often quite expensive, putting greater burdens on people and an already overbudened healthcare and insurance system; drugs often have side effects and some interfere with other medications; medicalizing normal personality traits could interfere with one's own ability to develop problem solving and life skills on one's own which would eventually eliminate any "need" for drugs helping to do the same in the first place.

It was an interesting article. The natural tendency of any form of power or organization is to grow and increase over time, and only when carefully controlled does that growth necessarily have to be benign. The drug industry is one of the very biggest and most profitable in the world, and its influence on doctors and mental health professionals can be sizeable. The idea that there is a drug for everything and that virtually all of human life is a treatable condition of one sort or another isn't one that doesn't bear careful watching lest it get out of hand. And when there is so much power and money to be gained by things getting out of hand, keeping them in line is a tough battle to keep winning and one we should probably put more thought into.

Scientology has HUGE beefs with psychiatry going back to its founding, so Tom's not doing a lot of original thinking here. He's being spoonfed just as much as anyone else he might be criticizing.

But psychiatry has done quite a few scary and terrible things, and been used as a justification for others. The idea that we should take everything psychiatric authorities propose at face value does seem a pretty poor one. Red China and the USSR both used psychiatry freely as a form of political control, claiming dissidents, journalists, political opponents of various stripes, or even less than productive workers suffered mental illness that could be cured by either hard labor and imprisonment, seizure of their children, surgery, or a more careful study of Marx or The Little Red Book. Doctors have employed electro-shock so severe that broken legs were not uncommon on patients, and many have been left with lasting memory and other mental problems. Doctors have performed great numbers of pre-frontal lobotomies to "cure" depression and almost every imaginable mental disease or mental state under the sun, sometimes without consent of the patient or his family. Doctors have sent patients into insulin shock and provoked seizures to "cure" them. Doctors have drugged epileptics and an ever-increasing number of people falling under the loose diagnosis of "manic depression" to within an inch of uselessness, prescribing what for some is a virtual twilight world of passive indifference. Doctors have tranquilized the humanity out of prisoners, mental patients, and nursing home retirees to keep them complacent shadows of themselves.

Have some of these treatments been successful? It depends how you define success. Doctors have had a pretty free hand in making those definitions, yet they are far from disinterested parties. Their abilities to make those definitions and diagnoses can be enforced by law and imposed upon people without their consent.

That's not always done the wrong way, for merely selfish reward, or with bad intent. But it is done with little oversight but self-regulation, which is not the way to keep a clean house or a transparent process.

The truth is, like our plumbing or our handling of prisons, mental health care is something we would probably prefer just be handled by someone else, out of sight. That unfortunately lets many things go unquestioned and undiscussed that deserve to be examined and not taken for granted.

Would you, for instance, agree with your child being forced to take Ritalin?

Scientology is too much of a cult to ever get its questioning of the psychiatric profession taken seriously, thought it has the financial resources to do a lot of publicity and, apparently, perpetually file lawsuits about anything and everything non-stop. But though Tom may not be an original thinker or know as much as he thinks he does, his parrotting of the Scientology party line on psychiatry could actually be somewhat useful if it makes people think a little more about how the business and science of health and psychiatry are conducted.

Probably not, though, if he's trying to do it using the foundation of Scientology as if it were a high horse, which actually tends to discredit any points he might be making or at least render them suspect.

[Skipbidder]

[ QUOTE ]
Cruise did an awful job of defending his point

[/ QUOTE ]
Cruise did as well as he could. His point is indefensible.

[ QUOTE ]
and came off contentious and made his point "easy to dismiss".

[/ QUOTE ]
His point is easy to dismiss without reference to Cruise's personality or comportment.
[ QUOTE ]
That along with the whole image from the Scientology, and the fact that the Scientology [censored] is mostly a loud of bullshit and weird at best.

[/ QUOTE ]
This is overly kind to Scientology.
[ QUOTE ]
I also would argue he didn't really feel the need to present evidence here when talking to a "talk show host"

[/ QUOTE ]
An actor felt like he didn't need to present and evidence because he was talking to a talk show host? I don't understand how acting provides one with a better basis for discussions of physiology and pharmacology than a talk show host.

[ QUOTE ]
Do your own research on adderall, ritalin...

[/ QUOTE ]
It is extremely difficult to do good research on health issues. Very few people possess the necessary prerequisite skills and resources. You need a basic scientific understanding. You need a level of statistical expertise that most people don't have. You need good search skills. You need time. You need the resources to conduct the search in the first place. I would not be comfortable in conducting a research search on a medical question without use of subscription-only services. (With some exceptions. There are questions that I would be comfortable answering based on the books on my shelves, but they represent a distinct minority of the questions I ask.)

The internet is filled with extremely bad information. It's the nature of the beast. In health areas, any topic you plug into google or yahoo is going to give you websites that are filled with crap. You have to have the knowledge to sort the wheat from the chaff, and most people don't have that knowledge.

[PassiveCaller]

Cruise's position here is defensible. I've even found comparasion of Vitamin/Supplement treatment and Ritalin/Adderall via Harvard Medical not just some "quack" on the internet. And before you get back to the "bad information on the internet" Let me leave you with this...

Do you believe all the advice you read on the poker sections of these forums? No. You learn to evaluate the people's opinion and sift through it all. You evaluate the source of the opinion, and the value of the given opinion.

There's plenty of reputable research that can be found even on the Internet and doing so can be done in a similiar mannerism as to how many of you have learned to use these poker forums to get better at poker.

The presence of bad information or the fact that you have to evaluate the information before believing it is not a deal breaker to being able to do so.

I'm not a medical major, I'm a math major but that doesn't mean I can't take a keen interest as to the health of my body and what goes into it and what it does. I'm looking out for #1 here, knowing that even if a Doctor is doing an excellent job for me that just due to the nature of health care he has to take care of so many patients and rely upon information and drugs provided to him by outside sources that often are more interested in a profit then your long term health or the best available solution.

Blarg made a really nice post below on the topic of these drugs as well.

[Skipbidder]

[ QUOTE ]
Cruise's position here is defensible. I've even found comparasion of Vitamin/Supplement treatment and Ritalin/Adderall via Harvard Medical not just some "quack" on the internet.

[/ QUOTE ]

Any chance that you are talking about something written by Peter Breggin? He wrote some shockingly bad information about ADHD, sometimes emphasizing his Harvard degree. Multiple quacks sport a Harvard degree.

[ QUOTE ]
And before you get back to the "bad information on the internet" Let me leave you with this...

Do you believe all the advice you read on the poker sections of these forums?

[/ QUOTE ]
Not at all.

[ QUOTE ]
No. You learn to evaluate the people's opinion and sift through it all. You evaluate the source of the opinion, and the value of the given opinion.

[/ QUOTE ]
I don't think that the situations are entirely comparable. There are times when the correct play is not clear in poker. There are reasonably good arguments to be made for different choices. These situations come up in medicine as well, but it will harder for a layperson to sort it out for medicine compared to poker. Also, a poker hand is much less complex than the human body. It is very easy for otherwise intelligent people to get bamboozled. My feeling is that the patients I see who have been fooled tend to be better-educated on average than those who haven't.

[ QUOTE ]
There's plenty of reputable research that can be found even on the Internet

[/ QUOTE ]
It is well-camoflaged. You will usually get much more bad information than good.

[ QUOTE ]
and doing so can be done in a similiar mannerism as to how many of you have learned to use these poker forums to get better at poker.

[/ QUOTE ]
I don't believe this to be true. I do medical research (nearly) every day. I simply could not conduct it without resources that are subscription only.

I don't want to project an opinion on to you that you don't actually hold. If you want to continue the discussion, would you be willing to tell me which of the following views most closely matches your view? (I've picked these out because they are positions that people I've argued with have held.)
A) ADHD is not a real diagnosis. Doctors have simply medicalized normal childhood behavior.
B) ADHD is (or may be) a real diagnosis, but Ritalin is not an effective treatment.
C) Ritalin has side effects that outweigh the benefits.
D) Doctors are grossly overprescribing Ritalin.
E) The total number of Ritalin prescriptions are not too high, but docs are giving to the wrong kids.
F) Combination of the above, or something else entirely (please explain) /images/graemlins/smile.gif

Also, if you wouldn't mind telling me what you've read, I'd appreciate it.

Cheers,
Skip

[PassiveCaller]

I'm not going to nitpick every point but the study wasn't done by Breggin. I'd have to dig further since it's been awhile since I did this research but if I remember correctly Harding, Karen PHD &amp; Richard Judah PHD were two of the publishers. It was an alternative medicine study but it took a look at Ritalin as well.



[ QUOTE ]

A) ADHD is not a real diagnosis. Doctors have simply medicalized normal childhood behavior.
B) ADHD is (or may be) a real diagnosis, but Ritalin is not an effective treatment.
C) Ritalin has side effects that outweigh the benefits.
D) Doctors are grossly overprescribing Ritalin.
E) The total number of Ritalin prescriptions are not too high, but docs are giving to the wrong kids.
F) Combination of the above, or something else entirely (please explain)


[/ QUOTE ]

A) I believe there is an ADD or AD/HD but at times we do tend to medicalize normal behavior so that it falls into both ranges.
B) In everything I've read Ritalin is an effective treatment for these symptoms but that does not exclude (C).
C) I do believe that the side effects of ritalin outweight the benefits and in essence that we are tackling the wrong problem. Sure Ritalin effectively reduces ADD, but long term what does it do for you? I think in essence we are treating the symptoms and not aiming for the "imbalance" that causes it. Our bodies do a damn good job of taking care of themselves when all is right but in todays day and age how many people provide their bodies with the essential nutrients, and minerals, and what it needs to operate and take care of itself? Very few. I'm more of the Eastern Medicine spirit (which is often looked upon as rather quacky by many) of trying to find the imbalance and treat the underlying causes as opposed to use debatedly dangerous chemicals to treat it. In essence I believe if our body is treated well and given what it needs then it'll handle itself and these problems.
D) Probably the case.


The human body is intensely complex and Medical Research can be limitless. I've only touched the tip of the iceberg when it comes to it and that's been more or less a product of my own needs and others close to me. I like to know what my doctor is prescribing and what a wide variety of people say on it and it's effects. Luckily I haven't had to deal with many prescriptions or drugs and my attempts to stay one step ahead at this part and look out for my body have kept me healthy. I'm not going to claim to know more then someone like you that researches everyday but I'm also very careful and realize that 95% of what I read is crap and I wouldn't even dare listening to it or trying it. I have a keen interest in my health, diet, and vitamin/nutrient supplements in an effort to keep myself healthy to begin with.

I'm only 21 and I don't profess to know it all but I do know that I had serious acne problems in High School and the doctors wanted to put me on Accutane. There were debating opinions on the with danger of Accutane (and I didnt want to risk my health on a clear face), I did some research of my own and came across an alternative medical study that was actually translated and published in China about treating Acne with vitamins. It happened to be a water soluable &amp; cheap (which was important at the time) vitamin (B-5) and so I decided to give it a try for personal reasons and it ended up eliminating the problem. The whole study made a lot of sense. I figured I had nothing to lose since everything confirmed it was at the very least safe and the source didn't seem to have anything to gain by me using this treatment (they werent selling anything, etc) This has left me with more of an open mind towards how the body works and it's imbalances and making it work optimally. B-5 isn't a profitable substance for a drug company to sell as a treatment but it worked wonders for me. The study I listed above was a similiar look at ADD &amp; AD/HD.

I find the whole topic of medical health, alternative medicine, prescription drugs, nutrition, vitamins, and everything very fascinating and I will admit I'm probably alittle fanatical about it. It's a constant process of re-evaluating things and thus far it has kept me in excellent health.

[Skipbidder]

[ QUOTE ]
if I remember correctly Harding, Karen PHD &amp; Richard Judah PHD were two of the publishers

[/ QUOTE ]

Punching Harding and Judah into Pubmed gets this citation:
Altern Med Rev. 2003 Aug;8(3):319-30.
Outcome-based comparison of Ritalin versus food-supplement treated children with AD/HD
Harding KL, Judah RD, Gant C.

I pulled the study up. It is of very poor quality. There are good reasons why it wasn't published in a real journal. Were I peer reviewing it for a journal, I would reject, and it isn't close. There were 20 patients enrolled in the study. They were not randomized. No blinding was reported. There was no control group. The authors claimed efficacy of both interventions without reference to a placebo control. They then compared the two interventions and claimed that they were statistically equivalent, which is not appropriate based on the study design.

This one belongs in the trash bin.

Was this the research that you had read, or is there something else?

[wacki]

Astro, I have had all of the same thoughts myself. The numbness you speak of is often a transition period. Many of these people aren't numb at all. They are simply lacking the extreme swings that unstable people have. Many people miss these swings and stop taking the medication. The mood swings are addictive just like heroin is to a junky. They can also destroy lives. Many doctors and shrinks are incompetent which causes a multitude of problems. These people make money off of repeat business so there is tendency for abuse. Also, my personal opinion that a lot of people who are in psychology field are trying to solve their own problems.

The problem with this field is you can't really test the brain and see what isn't working properly. All of the "testing" is done through conversation. If the patient can't properly assess the situation he/she is in, the treatment can often go awry. Even if the patient can assess the situation and only suffers from a communication barrier problems will still occur.

As for chemical imbalances existing.... Well, we are random mutations after all. Add ontop of that the removal of natural selection and things get even worse. I would be amazed if half this country wouldn't be better off with some kind of psychotic drug whether it be a mood stabilizer, ADD, anything really. Just think about how complex our system is and then insert randomness into the equation.

It gets pretty bad pretty quickly.

[PassiveCaller]

This is going to be an exercise in futility, even if I were to quote you more research which I don't have since I don't have archives of bookmarks for this topic. Though my reading wasn't limited to this particular article, Most of the articles focused on the risks of Ritalin &amp; Adderall and not on alternative methods to deal with the problem. This was a more radical article and there often is a reason why things are in Alternative Medical Journals as opposed to a Medical journal and you spelled it out. Good work. This does not dispprove that there is other ways or whether it's effective. There's probably other reasons why this was a small study like no one stands to gain profit from this research.


You're welcome to do your own homework and draw your own conclusions beyond that I don't see what your goal is here.
My goal was simply to say there's often more then it seems and these drugs aren't that great for you even if they seem like a magical solution. That much you can find legitmate studies on. The rest you have to pick together and piece for various reasons including the ones you stated as to why this was "garbage".

But to throw away the whole concept for that reason is just as silly.

[Blarg]

Any particular drug or theory just adds another layer to the randomness, though. And there's a tendency in all things to let someone's credentials exempt them from scrutiny. That's especially dangerous when we're talking about psychiatric medications and treatments, since messing up a foot is a damn shame, but messing up a mind can be catastrophic.

[Skipbidder]

[ QUOTE ]
This is going to be an exercise in futility,

[/ QUOTE ]
It doesn't need to be.
[ QUOTE ]
even if I were to quote you more research

[/ QUOTE ]
If you provide another study, I will look at it.
[ QUOTE ]
which I don't have since I don't have archives of bookmarks for this topic.

[/ QUOTE ]
I suggested that researching this topic would be difficult for most people. You don't think it is. If you are right, it shouldn't be tough for you to find the information again. You don't need to provide comprehensive research on the subject. (I've already done a large amount of reading on the subject. I'm well-appraised of the relevant scientific literature.) I'd just like you to show that your claim was justified. So far, what you have done by providing that awful study is provide a tiny additional amount of confirmatory evidence for my position.

[ QUOTE ]
Though my reading wasn't limited to this particular article, Most of the articles focused on the risks of Ritalin &amp; Adderall

[/ QUOTE ]
By all means, please give me info on this subject. Based on my reading of the available evidence, I would say that the benefits of use of Ritalin significantly outweigh the risks in most patients. If you have information to the contrary, I'd like to hear it. Understand that there exists a fair amount of misinformation about the subject. (You said that Breggin wasn't one of your source, though. He is probably most responsible for the public misconceptions about the drug.)

[ QUOTE ]
This was a more radical article

[/ QUOTE ]
An opinion article is not useful. Evidence of risk is useful.
[ QUOTE ]
and there often is a reason why things are in Alternative Medical Journals as opposed to a Medical journal and you spelled it out.

[/ QUOTE ]
The particular study that you gave was in the journal it was in because it was a crappy study. It wasn't good enough to publish anywhere credible. Well-conducted studies about dietary supplements get published in real journals.

[ QUOTE ]
Good work.

[/ QUOTE ]
Can I take this to be your response to my critique? You aren't going to address any of the points I raised?

[ QUOTE ]
This does not dispprove that there is other ways or whether it's effective.

[/ QUOTE ]
I can't figure out what this sentence means.

[ QUOTE ]
There's probably other reasons why this was a small study like no one stands to gain profit from this research.

[/ QUOTE ]
This is an extremely common and weak argument. I read well-designed s

[Skipbidder]

continued:

[ QUOTE ]
There's probably other reasons why this was a small study like no one stands to gain profit from this research.

[/ QUOTE ]
This is an extremely common and weak argument. I read well-designed studies all the time for extremely cheap generic medications. I've probably read more well-designed studies about aspirin than any other drug. Nobody is getting rich because of aspirin research. I just read a study about the proper way to conduct an examination for an enlarged spleen. It was well-designed and conducted, and shows that techniques that have been in use (and taught) for years are not really very good for this purpose. Nobody at all stands to profit from this study. The study you gave me COULD have been turned into a well-designed study without costing much (if any) more money. It should have been conducted as an efficacy study for the supplement regimen compared to placebo. (A comparison between the supplement regimen and Ritalin is not appropriate until the regimen itself has been shown to be effective.) An ethically designed study coud have been conducted with the inclusion criterion of parents who have already decided that they do not wish

[Skipbidder]

The Scientologists appear to be sabotaging my internet access.

continued:

...An ethically designed study coud have been conducted with the inclusion criterion of parents who have already decided that they do not wish to use Ritalin. The patients would have been randomly placed into groups of either the supplement regimen or a placebo regimen. The patients and the investigators need to be blinded as to which group they are in.

[ QUOTE ]
You're welcome to do your own homework and draw your own conclusions

[/ QUOTE ]
I've already done a great deal of reading on the subject. It is part of my job.
[ QUOTE ]
beyond that I don't see what your goal is here.

[/ QUOTE ]
Part of my goal is purely selfish. I routinely need to deal with patients who bring in their own research (which is usually crap). This gives me a heads-up on some of the things they are likely to bring in. It also gives me practice in dealing with it (without the strain of a doctor-patient relationship). This is also entertainment for me. I play poker for fun and surf 2+2 while I play. Despite being a comfortably winning player, I don't feel that I have the expertise to contribute to the poker forums, so I post in OOT instead. Also, every once in a while, I learn something useful from these sorts of exchanges. If I can get information that is helpful for my patients while I'm screwing off, all the better. Finally, sometimes somebody else learns something too. I don't expect this to happen, but maybe you will realize that you don't currently have the expertise required to critically evaluate health information. Perhaps you will stop encouraging others to do so. If you have an interest in the subject, you might choose to obtain the expertise. Perhaps you might redirect your efforts to more effective ways in which to participate in your own health care. They certainly exist.

[ QUOTE ]
My goal was simply to say there's often more then it seems and these drugs aren't that great for you even if they seem like a magical solution.

[/ QUOTE ]
That is not what you said, however. You were defending a cultist who is trying to hurt people. (Well, you were only defending him a little bit.) Encouraging people to quit their psych meds contributes to sickness and death. The Scientologists are responsible for a great deal of both, largely because Hubbard realized the power of celebrity, and the cult actively recruits celebrity members.

There are drugs that are very helpful. There are drugs that are marginally helpful. There are drugs that are not helpfu

[Skipbidder]

...They carry different degrees of risks. Non-medical information sources (and irresponsible medical sources) frequently overstate the helpfulness of drugs. They also frequently overstate the frequency or degree of side effects as well. Responsible reporting is less exciting than sensationalistic reporting.

You made a claim. I asked you to defend it. You were unable to do so. It now appears that you are changing the subject.

[ QUOTE ]
That much you can find legitmate studies on. The rest you have to pick together and piece for various reasons including the ones you stated as to why this was "garbage".

[/ QUOTE ]
Am I to take this as agreement that the study you provided was garbage? Will you stop making recommendations to others based on it in the future?

[ QUOTE ]
But to throw away the whole concept for that reason is just as silly.

[/ QUOTE ]
No it isn't. Well-designed studies exist to characterize the effectiveness and side effect profile of Ritalin. It would be foolish to disregard them because of poorly designed studies or opinion pieces. No well-designed studies exist to justify use of a regimen like the one in the study you recommended. It would be bad medicine to counsel someone to use that regimen instead of Ritalin. (I would consider it to be malpractice, but I'm have a very low threshold for such things...and I don't make those decisions anyway.) If a concept lacks both a physiologic basis and good evidence, then "throwing away the concept" is the only prudent course for a practioner to take.

[Blarg]

Dude, either I am seriously stoned, or you're on Netzero or something. Shouldn't a doctor be able to afford a better ISP?

[PassiveCaller]

See, my lack of interest here is because of how off topic it has veered. I made a point that what Tom said had more merit then people were giving credit and encouraged people to do their own research and look at how they can handle their own bodies. You as a medical doctor have taken offense because it relates directly to your work and let's not forget the million years of medical school. Not to mention the very thought of what Cruise says seems to give you utter disgust. Vitamins, exercise? "Ha ha ha ha" which shows a predisposition against the sort of methods and thinking that this whole "alternative medicine" concept is based upon so it isn't surprising. For this reason it is futile to even bother to continue this. If you want to know more, it's within your grasp to research it and while one should be discerning he should have also have an open mind.

This is why I've attempted to give up and not partake in arguments with you the Big Shot Doctor.

I've never made reccommendations to anyone based upon any of this research (nor do I ever intend to since I am not a medical professional) but I do implore people to read and do their own research regardless. Take interest in your body, and keep it in better shape so you don't have to go see the Big Shot Doctor often to begin with. Your body can do amazing things to take care of itself and its problems if it has the right resources..

[Skipbidder]

[ QUOTE ]
Dude, either I am seriously stoned, or you're on Netzero or something.

[/ QUOTE ]
Could easily be both, no? I think that it is more likely to be due to my near-complete computer illiteracy.
I use Comcast cable modem at home. It isn't cheap.
My poker games are unaffected. Viewing things on the internet is unaffected. Outgoing email or posts to message boards are hosed. Maybe I'll ask for help in the Computer forum.

[ QUOTE ]
Shouldn't a doctor be able to afford a better ISP?

[/ QUOTE ]
Yes, but many doctors are nits. /images/graemlins/smile.gif
I certainly didn't cheap out on my ISP. I just have very little computer knowledge and hate talking on the phone to service people (or anyone else for that matter).