More Harm Than Good: What Your Doctor May Not Tell You About Common Treatments and Procedures

Patients today expect their every last ache and pain to be immediately cataloged and cured. They want the pill they just saw advertised, or the latest, greatest procedure. Many doctors, reluctant to tell patients that waiting or doing nothing is often better, are all too willing to accommodate. As a result, we are becoming a nation of over-diagnosed and over-treated people. But how can we know how much medicine is good medicine? And how do we know which treatments might actually work? In "More Harm Than Good", Michael Bellomo and Dr. Alan Zelicoff offer a compelling look at medical care today and explore how common conditions like prostate cancer, heart disease, and diabetes are being over-treated, wasting billions of healthcare dollars and producing less than ideal, if not detrimental results.The authors arm readers with the facts and questions they need to better discuss options with their doctors, and examine the way doctors select treatments in the first place. Based on solid scientific and medical research as well as interviews with surgeons, internists, and general practitioners, "More Harm Than Good" will empower readers to make better health decisions. Revealing and impeccably researched, this is a revolutionary book that will change how we look at being sick.

Table of Contents:
C O N T E N T S F O R E W O R D i x I N T R O D U C T I O N 1 The Medical Prognosis-Why More Is Not Necessarily Better 1 Taking the Data to Heart 2 The Modern Doctor's Dilemma 5 A Deadly Intersection: Soft Medicine and Hard Technology 6 Understanding the Odds Can Even Them 7 The Evolution of Medical Knowledge 8 The Difference Between Trends and Individuals 10 2 Dissecting the Practice of Medicine 13 The No-Sum Game 16 The Value You're Getting 25 Painting by Numbers 29 Flipping a Coin on a Heart Attack 30 A Stroke in the Eye 32 Under Pressure 34 Beyond Medicare 35 Is It as Bad Among Younger Populations? 36 3 Nothing Exceeds Like Excess 41 More Room at the Inn Means More Treatment 47 The Dollar Cost of Variability in the Latter Years of Life 51 Many Captains, One Ship 51 Following the Money 53 What Is to Be Done? 55 ... And the Patient's Preferences 58 ... And the Doctor's Preferences 59 4 Are You Past Your Expiration Date? 63 The Price of Living Past Your Expiration Date 64 The Body's Expiration Date 65 Deadly Turnover 70 5 Screening Out Common Sense 75 How Doctors Make Decisions During Checkups 76 What "Sensitive" and "Specific" Mean 79 The Gold Standard in Strep 80 Good Test, Bad Test: Same Test 82 The Popularity of Screening-Uncle Ivan and the CT Scan 83 Terrorized by Technology 86 Screening Gone Awry 88 Pitfalls and Promises in Cancer Screening Tests 91 Length- and Lead-Time Bias 91 Testing For Prostate Cancer 96 What Makes Sense? 104 6 News from the Front: The War on Prostate and Other Cancers 109 How Cancers Cause Problems 112 A Closer Look at Cancer: Incidence and Impact 113 The Rise in the Rates of Prostate Cancer 115 What About Other Cancer's Incidence Rates and Prognoses? 119 Some Hopeful News from the Front on the War on Cancer: What Might Be Around the Corner 121 7 Diabetes: Things You May Not Know 125 What Is Diabetes? 126 The Use and Abuse of Glucose 127 Two Types of Diabetes 129 Glucose: The Small Molecule That's a Big Deal 132 Should High Glucose Levels Be Fixed? 134 So What Makes Sense for Patients with Type II Diabetes? 138 8 Why Some Think Threading the Artery Is Easier Than Threading the Needle in Cardiovascular Disease 143 Putting a Price on Quality of Life 144 What Interventions Are Available to Prevent CVD? 147 9 Degenerative, Infectious, and Autoimmune Diseases 155 The First Line of Defense 157 Recent Breakthroughs in Understanding the Immune System 158 The Autoimmune Diseases 161 Do We Really Knee-d This? 165 Making a Pain in the Neck Even Worse 169 Infection More on Degenerative Diseases 175 10 Making the Best Medical Decisions for You 179 The "All You Should Eat" Special 180 Oils from the Sea and the Tree 181 All That Is Sweet Isn't Good 184 A Hard Look at Supplements 186 An Aspirin a Day ... 187 The Wages of Sweat 188 Additional Benefits of Exercise 191 But Doctor, Why Is My Attempt at Weight Loss Taking So Long? 192 Watch Your Mouth, Young Man (and Woman) 193 Examining the Physical Exam 196 A Pocket Summary 198 11 How to Do More Good than Harm 203 Turning Things Around: The Payers and Players 000 Revamping Medical Education: Undergraduate and Post- Graduate Studies 216 Providing Medical Care Based on Scientific Evidence 219 The Need for Universal Coverage 222 Electronic Medical Records and the Internet 224 Bringing It All Together: A Comprehensive Unified System of Payment ("CUSP") 225 I N D E X

About the Author :
Alan Zelicoff, M. D. (Albuquerque, NM) is a physician and physicist. He has testified before Congress on public health issues and published op-eds in The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal. Michael Bellomo (Burlingame, CA) is the author of The Stem Cell Divide (978-0-8144-0881-0). Together, they are the authors of Microbe (978-0-8144-0865-0).

Review :
""More Harm Than Good" is important to the national dialogue and to understanding our ailing system." --"ForeWord Magazine" ""More Harm Than Good" is important to the national dialogue and to understanding our ailing system." --"ForeWord Magazine" .,."Zelicoff and Bellomo provide some startling insights that will give readers questions worth asking at the next checkup." Publishers Weekly ..".Zelicoff and Bellomo provide some startling insights that will give readers questions worth asking at the next checkup." Publishers Weekly "More Harm Than Good is important to the national dialogue and to understanding our ailing system." --ForeWord Magazine ..".Zelicoff and Bellomo provide some startling insights that will give readers questions worth asking at the next checkup." Publishers Weekly ."..Zelicoff and Bellomo provide some startling insights that will give readers questions worth asking at the next checkup." Publishers Weekly “…Zelicoff and Bellomo provide some startling insights that will give readers questions worth asking at the next checkup.” Publishers Weekly