I often hear from people who believe a cardiologist is some kind of saint, providing only expert, science-backed advice.
But I’ve always regarded the advice doled out by cardiologists with a healthy dose of skepticism. For one, most of them know next-to-nothing about basic biology and nutrition, as I discussed in the April 2018 issue of my Insiders’ Cures newsletter (“Why an alarming number of doctors know nothing about nutrition”).
And a new study found that a staggering percentage of their recommendations aren’t, in fact, backed by solid scientific evidence.
Which means you might as well be asking your neighbor for heart advice…because chances are, their recommendations will be just as “evidence-based” as your cardiologist’s. And probably far less harmful!
I’ll tell you all about this alarming study in a moment. But first, let’s back up and discuss how we arrived at this low point in treating the No. 1 cause of chronic disease, disability, and death in the U.S.
Cardiologists not held to their own “gold standards” of research
For decades, I’ve been amazed and dismayed by the mainstream’s management of heart disease—which includes prescribing dangerous and ineffective cholesterol-lowering statin drugs and stent procedures.
It’s especially troubling when you consider the tens of billions of dollars spent each year on heart disease research.
And of course, they put the most stock in the supposed “gold standard” of studies—randomized, blinded, and controlled clinical trials.
In these kinds of trials, researchers randomly select study participants to represent a sample of the general population. Then, a treatment is compared to a placebo control group in the same study. Both researchers and participants are blinded as to who gets the treatment and who gets the placebo. And researchers must be able to replicate their findings in subsequent studies.
Mainstream minions demand that any natural approach to treating disease must first undergo these same repeated, controlled clinical trials before even considering using it on patients. But most natural approaches aren’t as well suited for this kind of research.
On the other hand, this kind of research is ideally suited to studying drugs, which are the go-to “treatments” cardiologists prescribe for heart disease. So, cardiologists should have no trouble prescribing treatments backed by strong, randomized, blinded, controlled clinical trials…right?
Wrong!
As I mentioned at the beginning of this Dispatch, a staggering percentage of cardiologists’ recommendations aren’t backed by this kind of solid science.
Cardiologists’ recommendations lag decades behind the science
The new study published in the Journal of the American Heart Association looked at the cardiology guidelines recommended by the American Heart Association (AHA) and the American College of Cardiology (ACC) between 2008 and 2018.
I often refer to these groups as co-dependents of the crony corporatist mainstream medical system. And I put no stock in their recommendations for reducing the risk of heart disease.
So, it comes as no surprise to me that their recommendations for how cardiologists should manage people who have heart disease are full of malarkey.
For the new study, researchers examined 51 current guideline documents that included a whopping 6,329 recommendations. They found that only a measly 7.9 percent of recommendations made by the AHA/ACC in 2018 were supported by research from multiple, randomized, clinical trials.
Let me put this another way….
If only 7.9 percent of what cardiologists recommend is actually supported by real science, then you’re probably better off without them 92.1 percent of the time—if not always!
Plus, the proportion of well-supported recommendations for heart care has actually declined over the last 10 years. In fact, in 2008, 11 percent of the AHA/ACA’s recommendations were based on high-quality, randomized, clinical trials.
That’s still a woefully low percentage…and they’re clearly going in the wrong direction!
In the so-called world of “evidence-based” medicine, this situation is a travesty.
No wonder studies in the U.S. and Canada show that patients with heart disease are healthier if they live in a town with fewer cardiologists—and when they make fewer visits to cardiologists! Other studies even show you’re much more likely to survive a heart attack if the cardiologist is “off-duty” when you show up at the hospital!
What’s even worse is that the vast majority of people with heart disease are older Americans. Yet there’s even less scientific research done on this portion of the population, as I’ll explain in the upcoming June 2019 issue of my Insiders’ Cures newsletter. If you’re not a subscriber, now is the perfect time to get started.
In the meantime, you can learn more about how to address the REAL factors behind heart disease—without resorting to dangerous drugs or procedures—by referring to my online learning tool, the Heart Attack Prevention & Repair Protocol. Click here to learn more, or sign up today!
Source:
“Levels of Evidence Supporting American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association and European Society of Cardiology Guidelines, 2008-2018.” Journal of the American Medical Association 2019; 321(11): 1069-1080. https://doi:org/10.1001/jama.2019.1122