Junk Science

Lately, in my facebook group, there's been a lot of discussion of "miracle cures" which amount to nothing but junk science. I find this kind of post one of the most insidious and, frankly, mean ways people can post on the boards.

Why do I say that? Where do I get off saying something is junk science? Well, if it has existed for 50+ years and doctors aren't doing it for their patients, there aren't any really solid evidence-based studies... it qualifies, in my book. Especially if there's no logical reason it SHOULD work and do what it says. For example, Ozone Therapy. It's been around for ages and it supposedly super oxygenates your blood and kills all sort of viruses in the body. Ozone does that outside the body, but it certainly seems like a stretch that the ozination of your blood would be particularly helpful.

Here's why, from what I've read: Basically, your blood can carry so much oxygen. The de-oxygenated blood goes to the lungs for a "refill" and is gets something like 95% saturated. If extraordinarily oxygenated blood goes in, it just stays saturated, your body doesn't add more oxygen to it; the lungs don't work that way. So it doesn't go into the veins, it goes into the arteries. So you want to put little airbubbles in your blood stream? The kind of thing that causes those IV pumps to go crazy because it's risky? Yes. That's what these people do. They put thousands of tiny airbubbles straight into your arteries. These bubbles can remain for 30 minutes or more and cause an increased risk for such sunny things as pulmonary embolism.

I understand that people think that the FDA is a racket. In some ways, I agree, but I can get into that more later. The ozone process is not a single manufacturer that is being blocked by big money, though. It's a process. A process which the FDA says is dangerous, and I tend to agree.

There has also been this issue raised of GC-Maf, which is some sort of macrophage activation drug. This I believe that this is a possibility, but the fact that it's obscure and not really active since 2008 tells me it must not have been that productive a breakthrough. I'm sure there will be developments in this area, but right now, I'm not seeing anything particularly convincing. Besides that, my macrophages are fine and having more active ones don't seem like they'd help me all that much. Who knows, though? It remains to be seen.