Journals

A vigorous five mile walk will do more for an unhappy but otherwise healthy adult than all the medicine and psychology in the world - Paul Dudley White

HWN Suggests

Editor In Chief Of World’s Best Known Medical Journal: Half Of All The Literature Is False

In the past few years more professionals have come forward to share a truth that, for many people, proves difficult to swallow. One such authority is Dr. Richard Horton, the current editor-in-chief of the Lancet – considered to be one of the most well respected peer-reviewed medical journals in the world.

Dr. Horton recently published a statement declaring that a lot of published research is in fact unreliable at best, if not completely false.

“The case against science is straightforward: much of the scientific literature, perhaps half, may simply be untrue. Afflicted by studies with small sample sizes, tiny effects, invalid exploratory analyses, and flagrant conflicts…

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Featured

When Evidence Says No, but Doctors Say Yes

Long after research contradicts common medical practices, patients continue to demand them and physicians continue to deliver. The result is an epidemic of unnecessary and unhelpful treatments.

Articles of Interest

Beware! Academics are getting reeled in by scam journals

The number of predatory publishers is skyrocketing – and they’re eager to pounce on unsuspecting scholars.

Do prestigious science journals attract bad science?

Björn Brembs, a neurogenetics researcher at the University of Regensburg in Germany, recently took a look at research on the reliability of studies, focusing in particular on which journals published flawed papers that were later debunked or retracted. Surprisingly, he found that these erroneous papers were more likely to appear in more prestigious journals.

Fake Medical Journals Are Spreading, And They Are Filled With Bad Science

One might think that medical literature is immune to this kind of fakery, but it's not. Recent years have seen the appearance of journals from mainstream publishers that are based entirely on pseudoscience.

Is the staggeringly profitable business of scientific publishing bad for science?

It is an industry like no other, with profit margins to rival Google – and it was created by one of Britain’s most notorious tycoons: Robert Maxwell.

Medical Blogs: The Good, the Bad, and the Dangerous

I have just spent an interesting hour perusing various medical blogs. I think they fall into three categories. The first category I would like to call “propaganda blogs”. These are trying to get patient referrals or sell some medically related product. One of them I felt was particularly dangerous–it featured a no-holds-barred endorsement and access to EDTA chelation therapy for vascular disease. This form of therapy is a hoax and has been totally and completely discredited. So, I would watch out for this pernicious blog.

The trouble with medical journals

Medical journals, which many imagine to be as dull as telephone directories and twice as obscure, influence the lives of everybody—and not always for the better. Not only do they affect how doctors treat patients and the actions taken by public health authorities, they also influence how we think about birth, death, pain, and sickness. It may therefore make sense for you—the thoughtful but not necessarily expert reader—to pay attention to the ways of medical journals, particularly as many of those ways are deficient and need reform.

Why Writing Your Feelings In A Journal Isn't Always Good For You

Your body says yes, but your head says no. Sound familiar? Our head and our bodies are often at odds with each other, like when you choose a salad at lunch even though you're salivating at the thought of a burger. Researchers at the University of Arizona have found this to be true when it comes to the health benefits of journaling.

Resources

Cardiology

Cardiology features first reports on original clinical, preclinical and fundamental research as well as ‘Novel Insights from Clinical Experience‘ and topical comprehensive reviews in selected areas of cardiovascular disease.