Health is full of “trendy” words or things that sound good until you look at it more closely and try to decipher what will be the real impact. For example, much is written about the need for evidence-based medicine. Sounds like a good idea but the implication is that either, before, medicine was not based on evidence, or that now we have a better way to analyze the evidence. Unfortunately, much of what is discussed today is evidence based on studies that are over a decade old and are based on research on non-Hispanic white males.
It is not surprising that existing evidence-based protocols fail us as individuals. Too often the data that define the evidence do not include the other 2/3 of the population that is female or something other than non-Hispanic white. The evidence fails to acknowledge what we have documented during the first part of the 21st century, i.e., that there are gender differences and that there are differences in how individuals metabolize medicines and everything else we ingest or absorb. The challenge remains to acknowledge that there are persons excluded from our current models of evidenced based medicine.
It is no wonder I shudder when I hear that future treatments, and of course the reimbursements to which they will be linked, will be based on the existing evidence.
