The E-Life Podcasts from E-Life, the Open Access Journal for Outstanding Research in the Life and

Biomedical Sciences, online at e-Life Sciences.org.

Hello, welcome to episode 60 of the E-Life Podcast.

I'm Chris Smith from the Naked Scientists.

This month, the adaptations that enable Geese to fly over Everest, how mating makes bees go blind,

and what does an astronaut get up to aboard the International Space Station?

First though, when you go to see the doctor and they advise a course of treatment, do you ask them for the evidence behind their advice?

Or do you just swallow it alongside the pills they prescribe?

Most of us inherently trust the medical profession and we are... it, alongside the pills they prescribe.

Most of us inherently trust the medical profession

and we assume that the therapy we receive

has been rigorously evaluated.

Well, I'm sorry to burst that bubble,

but it's just not the case. The vast majority of medical treatments are not supported

by a high quality evidence at all, just a good story and a smattering of biological plausibility,

which is why this man managed to find nearly 400 examples of doctors doing

U-turns when some routine and mainstream therapies were actually subjected to

proper scrutiny. I'm Dr. Vaniprasad. I'm an associate professor of medicine here at the

organ health and science university and in this paper I'm on a mission to

identify low value and no value medical practices. Those are medical practices that offer no

benefit to patients and only risks and costs. So why would we dish out treatments

like that for people? I think doctors have long been seduced by

...