Ep 310: Abby Philips Fights for Science and Medicine
The Seen and the Unseen - hosted by Amit Varma
Why Do People Believe in Medicine?
In the past before science evolves, we make sense of the world by telling ourselves stories about it. People begin to believe in some of this medicine because of the following reasons: a placebo effect and reversion to the mean. If you have a belief that something works for me, you will notice the times it works, but you will ignore the times it doesn't work. And I think alternative medicine, to some extent, has been studied in randomized control trials and has failed them.
Known online as The Liver Doctor, he's a crusader against quackery of all sorts. Cyriac Abby Philips joins Amit Varma in episode 310 of The Seen and the Unseen to describe his journey to becoming a doctor-scientist, the breakthroughs in his field, what he has learnt as a physician -- and the dangers of 'alternative medicine.' (For full linked show notes, go to SeenUnseen.in.) Also check out: 1. Abby Philips on Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, Google Scholar, Rajagiri Hospital and The Morning Context. 2. The Dark Side of Indian Pharma -- Episode 245 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Dinesh Thakur). 3. The Practice of Medicine -- Episode 229 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Lancelot Pinto). 4. Understanding Indian Healthcare -- Episode 225 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Karthik Muralidharan). 5. Beware of Quacks. Alternative Medicine is Injurious to Health -- Amit Varma. 6. Homeopathic Faith -- Amit Varma. 7. Bad Science -- Ben Goldacre. 8. Trick or Treatment?: Alternative Medicine on Trial -- Simon Singh and Edzard Ernst. 9. Homeopathy, quackery and fraud -- James Randi. 10. Why We Sleep — Matthew Walker. 11. Doctor, heal thyself -- Suresh K Pandey and Vidushi Sharma on the shorter life expectancy of doctors in India. 12. Simple Heuristics That Make Us Smart — Gerd Gigerenzer, Peter M Todd and the ABC Research Group on ‘fast and frugal heuristics’). 13. The Medical Council of India -- Episode 8 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Pavan Srinath). 14. Abby Philips's tweet about how cirrhosis can be reversed. 15. A Phase 3 Trial of Pirfenidone in Patients with Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis -- Various authors for the ASCEND study group. 16. Repurposing Pirfenidone for Nonalcoholic Steatohepatitis-related Cirrhosis: A Case Series -- Cyriac Abby Philips and others. 17. Regression of Human Cirrhosis: Morphologic Features and the Genesis of Incomplete Septal Cirrhosis -- Ian R Wanless, Eisuke Nakashima and Morris Sherman. 18. Reversal of Liver Cirrhosis: A Desirable Clinical Outcome and Its Pathogenic Background -- Flavia Bortolotti and Maria Guido. 19. Ignaz Semmelweis on Britannica and Wikipedia. 20. The Diabetes Code -- Jason Fung. 21. The perfect treatment for diabetes and weight loss -- Interview of Jason Fung. 22. Intestinal microbiota contributes to individual susceptibility to alcoholic liver disease -- M Llopis and others. 23. Fecal microbiota manipulation prevents dysbiosis and alcohol-induced liver injury in mice -- Gladys Ferrere and others. 24. Some of Abby Philips's papers on stool transplants: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. 25. Episodes of The Seen and the Unseen with Karthik Muralidharan: 1, 2, 3. 26. Episodes of The Seen and the Unseen with Ajay Shah: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. 27. Fecal enema as an adjunct in the treatment of pseudomembranous enterocolitis -- Ben Eiseman and others. 28. Duodenal Infusion of Donor Feces for Recurrent Clostridium difficile -- Els van Nood and others. 29. There is no safe level of alcohol consumption -- Abby Philips. 30. The Case Against Sugar — Gary Taubes. 31. The Big Fat Surprise — Nina Teicholz. 32. The Obesity Code — Jason Fung. 33. Priyanka Pulla on Twitter and LinkedIn. 34. Abby Philips and Krish Ashok's Instagram post on Ayurveda. 35. Edzard Ernst on Twitter and his own website. 36. The studies on nanoparticles in homeopathy from IIT Bombay and Belgium. 37. Parents guilty of manslaughter over daughter's eczema death -- Harriet Alexander. 38. Never Talk About TURMERIC on Social Media -- Abby Philips. 39. Abby Philips's video on Arsenic Album. 40. Clinical outcomes, histopathological patterns, and chemical analysis of Ayurveda and herbal medicine associated with severe liver injury -- Abby Philips and others. 41. Abby Philips's paper on Herbalife products causing fatal acute liver failure. 42. Paper about Herbalife®-related patient death removed after company threatens to sue the journal -- Elizabeth Bik. (Also, her tweets: 1, 2.) 43. Retraction Watch on the controversy. 44. The Jaslok study on the harmful effects of Giloy, commonly used in Ayurveda. 45. Subsequent studies on the harm that Giloy does from New Delhi, Ahmedabad, Delhi again, Delhi one more time, Lucknow, Mumbai and a large multicenter study. 46. As COVID Surged, India Had a Silent Outbreak of Giloy-Induced Liver Injury -- Banjot Kaur. 47. Blankets -- Craig Thompson. 48. Rosalie Lightning: A Graphic Memoir -- Tom Hart. 49. Robot Dreams -- Sara Varon. 50. The Complete Maus -- Art Spiegelman. 51. Bone -- Jeff Smith. 52. V For Vendetta -- Alan Moore and David Lloyd. 53. Cinema Paradiso -- Giuseppe Tornatore. 54. Tigertail -- Alan Yang. 55. The Town -- Ben Affleck. 56. I Saw the Devil -- Jee-woon Kim. 57. The Roundup -- Lee Sang-yong. 58. Memories of Murder -- Bong Joon-ho. 59. The Night Of and True Detective. 60. Pink Floyd, Def Leppard and Metallica on Spotify. 61. Bon Jovi, Manowar and Savatage on Spotify. 62. Sleep -- Savatage. 63. The Police, Sting, Cyndi Lauper and Imagine Dragons on Spotify. 64. The master thread by Abby Philips of his Twitter mega threads. This episode is sponsored by MapMyGenome. Use the code UNSEEN to get 25% off all their products, especially MedicaMap. Check out Amit’s online course, The Art of Clear Writing. And subscribe to The India Uncut Newsletter. It’s free! Episode art: ‘The Good Doctor’ by Simahina.
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