The Roulette Wheel of Health

I was interested to read that after decades of prescriptions for anti-depressant drugs, one study has now claimed this approach to be largely unfounded. Apparently, the neurochemical imbalances which have long been assumed to underly serious depression have not been confirmed by the research.

But is such a reverse unusual in medicine?

Many drugs have been withdrawn after side effects have been later discovered. Advice that alcohol should be restricted to x units, has been followed by advice that a small amount is actually good  for you, followed by the conclusion that all alcohol should be avoided, followed by the recent permutation that it is bad for the young and good in small amounts for older people. The same sort of vacillation has occurred with coffee intake, low dose aspirin treatment for heart problems, HRT, statins, jogging, alternative therapies, vegetable intake (5 a day? 7 a day? Certain veg linked to cancer?) and many more.

The internet is bulging with advice on treatment for every ailment under the sun, much of it inconsistent or directly contradictory. Perhaps the inescapable truth is that some things work for some people and not others, most interventions have side effects of one form or another, and nothing will safeguard health ultimately.

We look back on the medicine of a hundred years ago as though it's a cruel joke.

The same is likely to occur in a hundred years time.....