In episode 477, James and Mike invite Jen Potter to the podcast for the first time to talk about the important topic of what to do around vaccine hesitancy. We find out the evidence suggests discussion should focus on the disease-prevention benefits for the individual rather than talking about misinformation around the harm or the benefits to society.

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In episode 475, Mike and James invite Tina to talk about treatments for restless legs syndrome. in particular pramipexole. We find that pramipexole improves symptoms in ~20% of people over and above placebo and that low doses are just as good as higher doses. Who knew?

In episode 474, Mike and James discuss the evidence around intermittent iron dosing for people with anemia. We find that once daily dosing of iron yields similar or slightly better hemoglobin versus twice weekly or alternate day over ~3 months but low dose is still the place to start. We also discuss the amount of iron in supplements and in food and try to put all that into context.

In episode 473, Mike and James invite Samantha Moe yet again to talk about a recent Tools for Practice that looked at treatments for osteoporosis. Sam helps us put all the evidence into perspective for bisphosphonates and denosumab when it comes to fractures. We discuss the numbers and help explain why secondary prevention in osteoporosis is not really secondary prevention.

In episode 472, Mike and James invite Samantha Moe in to talk about a recent Tools for Practice that looks at the evidence for glucosamine and chondroitin in osteoarthritis. Sam does a great job of showing why you have to look at publicly funded trials and responder analyses to really get the whole picture of the evidence around these products.

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In episode 470, Mike and James finish their discussion about misinterpretation and misdirection in medicine by looking at some of the evidence about how we incorporate new information and whether or not we change our minds. We also talk about competence versus experience vs knowledge.

In episode 469, Mike and James continue their discussion about misinterpretation and misdirection and how much of it starts with a narrative/story. We bring up a number of specific “stories” that are examples of how we were initially mislead into making bad treatment decisions.

In episode 468, Mike and James start on a multi-podcast rant and talk about how misinterpretation and misdirection can lead us all down rabbit holes in many ways, not just in medicine.

In episode 467, Mike and James finish off talking with Jamie Falk about COPD/inhalers. We go over the some of the latest trials for the triple therapies and then wrap up all the evidence into a nice package and put a bow on it.

At the end we finally get to the issue of eosinophils and let you know if you need to know this number.

Show notes

In episode 466, Mike and James continue talking with Jamie Falk about everything COPD/inhalers. We go over the evidence for the steroid component of inhalers and then we start going over the triple therapies. But all Mike really wants to talk about are eosinophils – but that is PART III.

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