In one of my meetings , I told a small gathering , that regular exercise can shrink atherosclerotic plaques and regress CAD. I also quoted , a recent large study which has proven this fact convincingly !
I concluded, simple exercise and other life style changes,risk factor correction may convert a 90% lesion to 70 or even 50 % . I stressed the importance of this study and asked my colleagues to avoid misuse of Angioplasties .
When many seemed to agree with me , one angry Interventional cardiologist questioned me, and asked the name of the study, and in which journal it came , What was quality of the paper ?
I told him , It is an Imaginary study done in my back yard . It never got published in print. You may call it as E-journal* , not exactly though.It is not available in any websites , but located in the biological servers, and neuronal circuits as digital imprints in learned brains !
*Journal of experience
You may call it , a scientific forgery , to quote a non-existent study,
“But this study benefits whole lot of my patients”.
He was amused , and became agitated !
He told over the mike , “You are making foolish statement. . . don’t corrupt young minds” !
May be , he is true !
I asked him to be calm and requested to listen to another study which I was about to quote . . .
He couldn’t sit any more and rushed out of the hall !
Final message
We are ready to believe all those rubbish stories about a fourth generation self disappearing BVS that is able to scaffold a coronary artery and maintain a MLD by 2.5mm and TVR by 20 % and prevent near MAZE at 30 days by 9 % and improve long term survival by 6 months at the cost of 100, 000 Rs per month .Only to realise, it may be a farce . . . 5 years down the lane !
How to cleanse the darkened face of science ?
When falsehoods come with evidence and harm people , Good deeds can be preached without evidence to save our fellow human beings !
Dr.S.Venkatesan MD 