Medicine's Dirty Little Secret


	Medicine's Dirty Little Secret

murieleileen

5-9-2008 12:25 PM

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medicine, drugs, health, secret, statistics, cholesterol

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<div style="margin: 12px 0px; font-family: arial; color: #333333; background: #ffffff; border: solid 4px #e5e5e5; width: 100%; clear: left;"><div class="CM_CTB_Content_Wrap" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;background-color: #ffffff;"><div style="border-bottom: solid 1px #dcdcdc; white-space: nowrap; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: #eeeeee ;background-image: url(http://www.clipmarks.com/images/source-bg.gif); background-repeat: repeat-x; height: 24px; line-height: 24px; vertical-align: middle; padding-bottom: 4px; color: #666666; font-size: 10px;" ><a href="http://clipmarks.com/clip-to-blog/" title="see clips that are hot right now"><img src="http://content.clipmarks.com/blog_embed/a6ccb868-a58f-4fda-8294-5ebf5acb39f1/5C17807A-BB0B-4A6D-8E30-ED870953A0A1/" alt="" width="19" height="19" border="0" style="vertical-align: middle; margin: 0px 4px; display: inline; border: none; float:none;" /></a>clipped from <a title="http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2008/05/08/medicine-s-dirty-little-secret.aspx?source=nl" href="http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2008/05/08/medicine-s-dirty-little-secret.aspx?source=nl" style="font-size: 11px;">articles.mercola.com</a></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2008/05/08/medicine-s-dirty-little-secret.aspx?source=nl"><DIV id="body" class="word-wrap BlogPostContentMercola"><DIV>
<IMG align="right" src="http://articles.mercola.com/ImageServer/public/2008/May/5.8secret.jpg" alt="doctor, secret" />There's one medical statistic doctors don't much talk about despite its importance. It's called number needed to treat, or NNT. It’s a measure developed in the past 20 years, and it’s one of the best-kept statistical secrets in medicine.</DIV><BR /><DIV>The idea of NNT is simple enough. Most clinical trials look at how much better people do on a particular medicine. NNT answers the question: How many people have to take a particular drug to avoid one incidence of a medical issue (such as a heart attack, or recurrence of cancer)? For example, if a drug had an NNT of 50 for heart attacks, then 50 people have to take the drug in order to prevent one heart attack.</DIV><BR />That doesn’t sound like a lot, so pharmaceutical companies tend to keep the number quiet and focus on broader, U.S. population-based statistics. But that could be changed if you ask for the NNT up front the next time you're handed a prescription.
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<DIV class="VPNSKRACHI">Sources:</DIV><UL class="SourcesbulletArrow"><li style="margin-left:16px;padding-left: 0px;"><A href="http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1590464,00.html?iid=sphere-inline-bottom" class="SourcesLnkAdmin" target="_blank">Time February 15, 2007</A></LI></UL>
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</DIV></blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2008/05/08/medicine-s-dirty-little-secret.aspx?source=nl"><SPAN>Many Drugs are “Worse Than a Lottery Ticket”</SPAN></blockquote></div><div style="margin: 0px 6px 6px 4px;"><table style="font-size: 11px;border-spacing: 0px;padding: 0px;" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="100%"><tr><td style="background:transparent;border-width:0px;padding:0px;">&nbsp;</td><td align="right" style="background:transparent;border-width:0px;padding:0px;width:107px" width="107"><a href="http://clipmarks.com/share/5C17807A-BB0B-4A6D-8E30-ED870953A0A1/blog/" title="blog or email this clip"><img src="http://content9.clipmarks.com/images/c2b-foot.png" border="0" alt="blog it" width="107" height="17" style="border-width:0px;padding:0px;margin:0px;" /></a></td></tr></table></div></div>