Osteoporosis has been part of the human condition since there was a human condition. It doesn’t fit into the characteristics of a disease or an illness. It’s not an infection, nor yet a cellular mutation like cancer. It’s not caused by trauma of any kind. It’s a condition that goes along with aging. The essentials […]
Author Bio
I have been a medical writer for about 25 years; before that I was a documentary film maker, and some of my films were about medical subjects. I am not a physician, but I have a pretty good scientific background. I wouldn’t dream of recommending any kind of treatment to anyone, and I cannot give medical advice. However, I understand the medical literature and the data and evidence behind it, and I have an inquiring and skeptical turn of mind.I scrutinize and question and, sometimes, challenge the positions of some of the established health-care organizations as well as the marketers of health information. Eternal vigilance is a small price to pay for health. — Michael Jorrin (aka DocGumshoe)Michael Jorrin is a paid contributor to Stock Gumshoe, he has agreed to our trading restrictions but he chooses his own topics and his words and opinions are his own.
Author Archives
January 17, 2023
Getting Back to You on Anavex, Cassava, metformin and more
Here are some responses to your recent questions and comments. As I’ve said before, I’m very appreciative of your questions and comments – they keep me connected to a real world that is not so focused on theoretical, far-off potential treatments and cures. However, my responses to some of your questions do often rely on […]
December 27, 2022
Relevant Updates – December 2022
I’m guessing that news about possible Alzheimer’s disease treatments is still relevant to most of us, so I’ll start with that. The results of the lecanemab trial are published. The reaction is mixed. In the October “Odd & Ends” piece, I discussed in considerable detail the clinical trial of lecanemab in advance of publication of […]
December 13, 2022
An End of Life Narrative – December 2022
The current New Yorker (12/05/22) contains a long, thorough exposé of the hospice care industry. The conclusion of the article is that, although hospice care is supposed to be a responsible, caring alternative for people who are close to the end of their lives, the reality for many patients is that in many cases hospice […]
November 30, 2022
Short Bits for November
We’ll start out with the COVID-19 news. Yes, we’re all sick and tired of all COVID-related matters, but it doesn’t much lift our spirits to ignore COVID and pretend that it’s well and truly gone. We know better. It still lurks, and even though case rates and hospitalization rates are way down, people we know […]
November 15, 2022
Another Look at Heart Disease
These days, if you ask people what diseases they are most concerned about, you’ll likely get a pretty wide range of answers. In spite of the tapering down of the pandemic, some people will certainly pick COVID 19 as their bugaboo. But there are lots of competitors for the top spot on the list. Flu […]
October 27, 2022
Odd & Ends – October 2022
Most of us would like to think that medical news – new drugs, new treatments – just concerns health care, but again and again we find that other areas of concern intrude. Politics and economics are very much part of the picture, and although Doc Gumshoe, like just about everybody, has his opinions on these […]
October 4, 2022
Parkinson’s Disease Today
The last Doc Gumshoe piece about Parkinson’s disease was about two-and-a-half years ago, just when the COVID-19 pandemic was getting going. The piece covered the usual ground, and the focus was on how people with Parkinson’s disease (PD) could deal most effectively with the disease and preserve their quality of life as much as possible. […]
September 26, 2022
Following Up on Your Suggestions – September 2022
No surprise, the first comment to Doc Gumshoe’s piece on inflammation was this simple statement: “Next, I would like to read about anti-inflammatories.” It probably would have made sense to follow up the inflammation piece with a piece about anti-inflammatories, but COVID and monkeypox summoned me to the battle lines. Let me make up for […]
August 24, 2022
Catching Up on COVID and Keeping Up to Date on Monkeypox
I’m not quite old enough to remember what the view was on influenza after the 1918 pandemic eased off, but my general impression is that a lot of people – physicians and ordinary folks alike – thought that it would more or less be around forever, not raging and slaughtering millions, but certainly not dimming […]
August 9, 2022
Inflammation – What It Does for Us & What It Does to Us
It should not come as a surprise that inflammation has been recognized for quite a long time. When the troglodyte banged his noggin against the low entrance to his cave home, he (or she, if we’re talking about a lady troglodyte) would develop a bump on his/her head. That bump was characterized by swelling, pain, […]
As an introduction to this piece, I’ll repeat that what Doc Gumshoe is looking for is credible information about the effectiveness and safety of medical treatment options, mostly drugs, but sometimes other forms of treatment as well. There is an implicit assumption that good news about the safety/efficacy of a drug equals good news about […]
June 29, 2022
Midsummer 2022 Morsels
We’ll start out talking about COVID-19 just to get it over with. The way it looks now, we’ll be needing to stay on top of that tiresome subject for a good long time, even after all of us are fed up with hearing about it. As you know, that particular snake keeps changing its spots, […]
My previous posting on Alzheimer’s focused on ways to avoid the most dire consequences of the disease in the absence of proven pharmaceutical interventions. The common assumption about disease management is that treatment begins when we develop symptoms. Then we go to the doctor, who most likely prescribes a course of treatment which probably includes […]
The last time Doc Gumshoe surveyed the Alzheimer’s landscape, the most prominent feature was the FDA’s approval – misguided, I thought – of Biogen’s Aduhelm (aducanumab) and the consequences this would have for everybody’s Medicare B premium. Sure enough, on November 12, 2021, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) confirmed the prediction that […]
April 12, 2022
Medical Devices: An Eye on Safety
In past times, what surgeons did was basically removing infected body parts and things that didn’t belong in our bodies, like tumors and foreign bodies. For most of the history of the practice of medicine, surgeons were admired for their manual dexterity rather than for their skill and intelligence in diagnosing and treating disease. The […]
March 29, 2022
March 2022 Bulletins — Brief, but Relevant
On balance, these bits tend more to the positive than the negative, including a few positive items about COVID-19. (But then, it seems that most of the news about COVID-19 is on the positive side these days.) We’ll get to COVID at the end of this piece, but first I will report on a recent […]
March 3, 2022
Vaccines – Past, Present, and Future
This is not going to be a sermon in which Doc Gumshoe once again attempts to convert the vaccine skeptics. Instead, we’ll be considering the evolution of vaccines, dating from the time when they weren’t called vaccines, and what the evolutionary process of vaccines points to, which, in the opinion of many eminent scientists, is […]
February 9, 2022
What Stress Does to Your Heart – Plus Some COVID-19 Catch-Up
What put me on to this scary topic was an excellent piece by Jane Brody in Science Times on January 4th. Jane Brody’s weekly column “Personal Health” appears on the inside back page of Science Times every week. (For the non-NYTimes subscribers, Science Times is a section of the Times published every Tuesday.) Jane writes […]
January 19, 2022
Are Psychedelics Starting to Emerge as Legitimate Therapies?
As an undergraduate, many years ago when I was young and daring, I volunteered to take part in a psychological test. “Volunteered” may not be the correct term, since the deal was that I would get paid ten bucks for about two hours of my time, which was a princely wage when most jobs that […]
Recent Author Comments
Posted on April 13, 2024
Posted on April 10, 2024
Thanks for that fix! I don't like making dumb goofs & appreciate corrections.[...]
Posted on March 20, 2024
I'm overwhelmed by the flood of comments! I need to acknowledge my ignorance about CPAP and related devices to compensate for sleep apnea problems. I did a bit of poking around when I was researching the article & will do some additional sleuthing to t[...]
Posted on September 6, 2023
Thanks very much, but sorry, I know absolutely nothing about Jimmy Buffet.[...]
Posted on July 19, 2023
Can't think why the deaths total should exceed the cases total. Good catch. I'll have to look at other data sources.[...]
Posted on March 6, 2023
Regarding the evidence about the COVID-19 mRNA vaccine entering the human liver cell line in vitro, I'll do a bit of digging around, but my opinion is far, far from expert. Thanks for the hint.[...]
Posted on November 16, 2022
In many previous Doc Gumshoe postings, I have clearly stated that indeed we do make cholesterol from whatever food we eat, and also that we require cholesterol, since it is an essential component of many bodily functions. And, by the way, I have pointed [...]
Posted on November 2, 2022
I've been keeping an eye on TauRX for a couple of years & will not let it out of my sight.[...]
Posted on October 27, 2022
I've discussed Anavex several times & will do so again.[...]
Posted on October 5, 2022
Parkinson's disease is not caused by a virus, although it's not impossible that a viral illness such as flu could have some movement disorders as a side effect.[...]
Posted on September 26, 2022
Here’s the source of the statement about the increase in metastatic prostate cancer since the USPSTF came out against regular PSA screenings in 2012:“In men 45 to 75 years old, there was no statistically significant change in the incidence rate of [...]
Posted on September 23, 2022
No question that MYMD-1 has an interesting mechanism of action - different than Humira or Enbrel, both of which block the TNF. MYMD-1 prevents the formation of TNF by the CD4 cells. But it will be years before they demonstrate efficacy. And I can't [...]
Posted on August 12, 2022
On my agenda - thanks![...]
Posted on August 12, 2022
ALS - amyotrophic lateral sclerosis - is an extreme challenge. A friend of a close friend tried to enroll in a clinical trial that was taking place fairly close to where he lived, but unfortunately he died before the trial got started. That trial, w[...]
Posted on August 11, 2022
I know almost nothing about CBD o CBDA, and I have serious doubts about the reliability of the information that's out there about them. Sorry![...]
Posted on August 11, 2022
Thanks for the blush-making compliment! As for cholesterol, it does get deposited in arterial walls, leading to serious problems. Inflammation may partly be what causes that to happen, but cholesterol itself is at least partly a cause, if not THE caus[...]
Posted on July 21, 2022
What I wrote about Anavex was based on the best information I could get from outside sources - not Anavex's own releases. If you have any accurate information sources, please let me know.[...]
Posted on July 19, 2022
No thoughts as of yet - I'll need to do some sleuthing.[...]
Posted on July 19, 2022
No need to apologize!! Doc Gumshoe likes questions![...]
Posted on July 19, 2022
Why don't you read what I wrote?[...]
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I have a hard time figuring how gene sequencing is actually going to turn into a money-making venture. No doubt it's interesting, but who's going to pay for putting it to work?[...]