It's Like Deja Vu All Over Again
Well, that didn't take long. A new study published in Lancet Oncology titled "Angiotensis-Receptor Blockade and Risk of Cancer: Meta-Analysis of Randomized Controlled Trials" is the result of yet another ex post assessment of mountains of data from trials of pharmaceuticals. This one found a piddling 1.08 risk ratio based on a 95% CI of 1.01 to 1.15. Run for your lives sort of stuff this ain't.
But of course that didn't stop some from exploiting the study; immediately. In something called "People's Pharmacy" the Houston Chronicle on-line led with the following story on the front page: "Cancer Link Feared With Blood-Pressure Medicine." In response to a letter allegedly from a stressed out reader the People's Pharmacy uncritically notes that the paper found "a modestly increased risk of new cancer" and helpfully suggests 8.5 ounces of beetroot juice as an alternative remedy for high blood pressure.
Presumably they're referring to "Inorganic Nitrate Supplementation Lowers Blood Pressure in Humans. Role for Nitrite-Derived NO". Nowhere in the paper do the authors suggest that patients abandon their blood pressure medications in favor of an unknown number of cans of "beetroot juice". Yet that's almost certainly what many will do.
After decades of effort heart disease, which felled my grandfather at 49, is at last receding as a cause of premature death in Americans. It would be tragic indeed if the product of a data-mining expedition or two reversed the habits of those who have benefited so much from that effort.
