Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Biotech / Medical : Biotech Valuation -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Clarksterh who wrote (16131)	3/13/2005 12:00:34 PM
From: Biomaven	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 52153

Good post. You would have thought doctors would have learned from stomach ulcers - they went from being caused by "inner anger eating away at your stomach lining" to being caused by a bacteria (or NSAIDs). I'm not dismissing the brain-body link at all - just the notion that because there is one it also means there is also no underlying physiology. If fibromyalgia was indeed "fabricated" then no randomized clinical trial for it could ever be successful - the fact that we have now had trials with highly statistically significant results must mean the disease is real. To my mind if you look at some diseases with female predominance - depression, migraine, fibromyalgia and perhaps some types of irritable bowel, you can see a common underlying thread of serotonin malfunction, perhaps modulated by estrogen. Peter

To: Clarksterh who wrote (16131)	3/13/2005 12:10:38 PM
From: Michael Young	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 52153

I found it interesting the opinion came from a highly regarded female DR. Her actual comments were a bit too blunt and crass for me to quote verbatim on this forum. Mike

To: Clarksterh who wrote (16131)	3/14/2005 9:19:16 AM
From: scott_jiminez	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 52153

Insofar as the 'psycho-' (i.e. brain) aspect of the problem, there may indeed be components of the etiology of certain reported 'diseases' - female or not - that will never be wedged into the dominant reductionist approach of current advanced medical diagnosis. Neuroscience is in desperate need of a grand theory of brain function...and I see nothing approaching this on the horizon. I perceive the difficulty as a need for a quantum-theory-type foundation to support the very uncomputer-like network (neurons can work forward, backward, sideways, digitally, analogue-like, etc.) that defines the CNS. Just as quantum theory shattered many preconceptions of logic/time/bias, the 'whole' of the brain is very likely to be a vastly different animal than the summation, at any level, of its component parts. Einstein was never able to accept this non-deterministic view of the physical world 75 years ago and current neuroscience has yet to produce an individual whose prior research doesn't wholly skew their view of the gestalt. This is a pathetically drawn out way of saying that on the one hand many of the problems of diagnosis you note ('female' in this case) may indeed be entirely 'psychological' in the sense that 'measurable sequelae' may not 'exist' by current standards. Perhaps in the future, I suspect centuries from now, 'measurable sequelae' may include 'paradigm shifts' (the vocabulary here is non-existent) of global (within an individual) CNS function, shifts that have been correlated to perceived physical/mental distress by solid science, and this diagnosis will lead to treatment based on the new underlying 'paradigm'. In other words, in the distant future a diagnosis of 'psychological' will no longer be interpreted as a condescending dismissal but rather an empowering appreciation for a course of action. And the word 'psychosomatic' will be largely remembered as a relic of the crude approach to these maladies in the 21st century.