The point being it’s a very easy hypothesis to test. Like Banting and Best’s treatment for diabetes, it either works or it doesn’t.
Early adopters should be cured. Latecomers should probably stop any further deterioration and hopefully recover. Easy to test. Does not require any million-dollar-per-dose peach-pit extract or other magic solutions that are the usual realm of quack cures; it’s just a 180-degree different way of looking at things.
What scares me about the situation was that reaction to the show in Canada was doctors saying their patients should not undergo the treatment or even participate in the study. (Some doc in Hamilton Ont. is looking to do scans of as many patients as he can find). That closed-mind attitude suggests “quack” more than a public but unorthodox cause/treatment suggestion.
This isn’t the first time that a claim of defective venous plumbing has been made as the cause of disease. Below is a pubmed article by Dr. Gat in 2008:
“The prostate is an androgen-regulated exocrine gland producing over 30% of the noncellular components of the semen and promoting optimal conditions for survival and motility of sperm in the vagina. Benign prostate hyperplasia (BPH) is the most common benign neoplasm in men. Its aetiology is not clear, and therefore, current medical treatments are directed towards the symptoms. Though testosterone is known to be the promoter of prostate cell proliferation, no causal relation between serum testosterone levels and BPH has been found. In this study, we propose a novel and tested pathophysiological mechanism for the evolution of BPH and suggest a tested and effective treatment. We found that in all BPH patients, the one-way valves in the vertically oriented internal spermatic veins are destroyed (clinically manifested as varicocele), causing elevated hydrostatic pressure, some 6-fold greater than normal, in the venous drainage of the male reproductive system. The elevated pressure propagates to all interconnected vessels leading to a unique biological phenomenon: venous blood flows retrograde from the higher pressure in the testicular venous drainage system to the low pressure in the prostatic drainage system directly to the prostate (law of communicating vessels). We have found that free testosterone levels in this blood are markedly elevated, with a concentration of some 130-fold above serum level. Consequently, the prostate is exposed to: (i) increased venous pressure that causes hypertrophy; (ii) elevated concentration of free testosterone causing hyperplasia. We have treated 28 BPH patients using a technique that restores normal pressure in the venous drainage in the male reproductive system. The back-pressure and the back-flow of blood from the testicular to the prostate drainage system were eliminated and, consequently, a rapid reduction in prostate volume and a regression of prostate symptoms took place.”
A more recent paper in Oct 2009 details how the same procedure may reverse early stage prostate cancer before it can spread.
If both the MS and prostate claims are correct it just shows that our scientific researchers have to think outside the box sometimes and get around to fixing the cause and effect of disease instead of patenting drugs or procedures that only treat symptoms, are expensive and have side effects.
What’s likely key here, again, is whether the venous abnormality found is a cause or a consequence of the disease, and whether vascular surgery has any better short and long-term results than current treatment.
Benign prostatic hyperplasia is an extremely common condition found in older men (about half demonstrate it by the age of 60, and close to 90% by age 85), and it’s long been viewed as part of the normal aging process. Another researcher in the field notes that venous abnormalities occur after aging-related changes take place:
“…aging and obesity related states have long been associated with BPH and diminished testosterone concentrations, which by itself, predisposes and allows for the preferential deposition of abdominal/visceral fat. The increasing abdominal obesity leads to elevated intra-abdominal pressure, which over time, causes increased venous pressure. Chronically elevated intra-abdominal venous pressure eventually causes progressive failure of the one way valves in the internal spermatic veins and venous insufficiency that leads to prostate damage. All of these factors promote conditions that cause chronic progressive prostatic disease and eventually BPH.”
Medicine would love to be able to find underlying causes for all chronic, troublesome ailments and halt or reverse the underlying factors before they manifest as disease. Increasingly this will become possible, but we will also need to ask (in addition to whether the treatments work) if they are less troublesome in terms of cost and side effects than the therapies they are supposed to replace.
In this particular case, since the great majority of men will get prostatic BPH if they live long enough, is it really a good idea to promote a vascular surgery procedure for all of them, or is symptomatic relief through medication (for a condition that’s often no more than annoying) a better idea?