On the other hand your GP examined you and has an actual medical degree while you just read some articles on the internet...
I don't think one can actually "read the original research" (with the all the prerequisite and pressupossed knowledge that entails) without either having been to medical school and have similar training of his own to such a level.
Having access to said research and being able to read it (in the nominal sense) is not the same as actually being able to "read it" (e.g. understand all that it entails, even things that are not explicitly said).
Even less so for "well referenced and balanced synopses of said research from people one's trust" unless said people are doctors AND have examined you personally. Some well respected pop science journalist's online synopses won't cut it.
In case you doubt your doctor's results, which can of course be not up to par (doctors are fallible too) the prudent thing to do would be to seek counsel with another doctor(s) for a second opinion.
Research is written at a peer level and most doctors are not trained or don't care to know how to interpret the results of research. Not to mention that the vast majority of research is extremely specific.
Most research (the vast majority) is also bogus too. Until it's distilled to common practice, people shouldn't really touch it with a bargepole.
See my other lengthier comment on this.
This though:
> Until it's distilled to common practice, people shouldn't really touch it with a bargepole.
I can agree with. Most research if it's not done in the clinic and proven, has parameters so specific that it is impossible to apply to a single member of a population without that member having the exact parameters that the original research had.
Even then, the original research was probably done on some animal and not a human.
Then we do translational testing/research which gets done on a more human like animal and if we're lucky some human samples (given a disease). Then the clinical trials etc.
Though a review of the current literature can be beneficial. But you'd still need to have training to be able to interpret what you're reading.
WRT to my examination though: it didn't go beyond having bloods done. There was no other investigation other than, wow your LDL is really high.
My go to source for understanding this stuff is Peter Attia [1], and a few other independent researchers.
[1] http://eatingacademy.com/nutrition/the-straight-dope-on-chol...
I have been advised that if I (or a family member) ever gets some medical condition, that if I do a few hours of reading up on the latest research on that condition, chances are that I will be better informed on that condition than my GP.
I kept having bouts of extreme pain with really strange symptoms, Doc's said Reflux but I kept saying it didn't fit the pattern, a dozen AE (ER) visits later and I got a Doc who told me to insist on an MRI.
Turns out I have Syringomyelia, a serious and rare spinal condition which the radiologist spotted by accident as it was on the edge of the scan, he then did a bunch more images and they saw the syrinx.
The next doc I saw I needed an endoscopy and they said the results where abnormal, so I looked into the condition, when I went to see the gastro doc I asked him if the cells where "high" or "low" grade dysplasia and his snarled response "Oh, trying to be a doctor eh", "no, just trying to be an informed patient".
I requested a different gastro doc after that, I read everything I could get my hands on and I'm not stupid, I understand my condition well enough to ask good questions at least.
So yeah, not a massive fan of Docs at the moment.
I feel that the chasm between the lay person and the MD has widened tremendously in our lifetimes (I'm in my 30s).
This also, unfortunately has made the average patient be almost completely uninformed. They demand medication to cure their, self-inflicted, ills, or try to diagnose through Web MD.
I for one will educate my children and will continue to educate myself to not require an MD on every occasion.
But I know that I'm not an MD and I was not trained to diagnose. I'm glad you found doctors who could give you a correct diagnosis that you can lean on to help you through your own search for the truth. I feel this is the best solution at the end of the day, for patients and doctors to be partners.
* My dad is an MD and my wife is a biological scientist which really puts me at an advantage.
That's a good thing too.
Unless the "latest research" actual distills down to common practice, it's usually unproven junk, even if it managed to get published in "peer reviewed journals".
In fact several meta-studies have found over 80% of the papers that are published in such journals are wrong and/or non-reproducible. As for research results that made it to Nature or similar pop science magazines those are usually even more journalistic than scientific.
Think of a research "getting into the hands of the doctors actually practicing medicine" as a filtering process to weed out the BS.
Here's how it works:
A team of some inexperienced postgraduates hastily follow some idea tossed around by a professor who doesn't really follow their progress or care that much, but who'll gladly slap his/hers name on the final paper. If there's a need to secure grants, the paper will tackle some important topic and better have good results.
In the way, they make one or more methodological errors, and finally send their paper to some journal. The journal editor might be friends or exchange favors to the professor, and will do what he cans to get favorable reviewers, anonymous or "anonymous".
Not that the reviewers will go into much bother checking it out, unless the paper is evidently crap. After its published, some pop science journalistic hack will cover it in the cliched "breakthrough story" format, also giving a full portrait of the professor as a restless scientific maverick (even though he merely signed the paper). The editor will then slap a blockbuster-like title to the story, and readers will enthuse about the possibilities.
Several months/years later, 3-4 other papers will tear down that one, and the cycle continues. Though sometimes wrong papers manage to get cited for decades without anyone bothering to redo and verify the original research.
And are you able to interpret these studies to see their flaws? What I would focus on more is to look at something called Retraction Watch.
> As for research results that made it to Nature or similar pop science magazines those are usually even more journalistic than scientific.
I'm excluding the articles written by journalists here. But I don't think you know how hard it is to get a paper published in Nature.
> Think of a research "getting into the hands of the doctors actually practicing medicine" as a filtering process to weed out the BS.
Rather, weed out the danger. And this control, though also flawed to a degree, is very good in my opinion.
> Here's how it works:
There are many things wrong with the whole process, but your view described here is a little too patronizing to actually get your point across.
> Not that the reviewers will go into much bother checking it out, unless the paper is evidently crap.
The reviewers, depending on the quality of the publication, should be experts in the field that the paper is being published from.
And finally:
> Several months/years later, 3-4 other papers will tear down that one, and the cycle continues.
Yes, this is called scientific progress.
E.g., while at med school, they are warned against Zebras[0] so much that while practicing they will often ignore anything with a 1-in-a-million-chance unless the false-positive rate is zero. It does minimize the overall error rate, but for the person who has the 1-in-a-million condition, this is no comfort -- and that person is often in a position to evaluate that condition better than the GP (if they are scientifically literate).
I have been told by a senior doctor at one of the leading US hospitals to "cut the internet cord so that I don't confuse myself as I am not trained to understand the articles I find". Turned out said doctor did not understand the statistical inference criterion, and I did -- unsurprisingly, since I have the mathematical background, and they do not.
There is a difference between reading something on WebMD and reading something on Google Scholar.