Eyes Glaze Over
I was in two minds about whether to call this essay ‘The Latest Breakthrough Since Lunchtime’ or ‘Should One Stop Reading Newspapers?’
Browsing through the electronic Telegraph (Telegraph.co.uk) 22 April 2010 in an idle moment, I came across this intriguing, if slightly puzzling, alliterative headline: ‘Red Wine Bolsters Brain Against Strokes’. Sounds like good news! Not quite sure about the ‘Bolsters’ but maybe drinking red wine helps to prevent one getting a stroke.
But wait a minute – the sub-heading is a bit of a come down: ‘Red wine protects the brain from damage after a stroke, new research suggests.’ Oh dear, the main headline is misleading, then. It seems red wine can protect the brain from damage only after you’ve already had a stoke, and this is not proven: the ‘new research’ only suggests this happens. Better than nothing, I suppose.
Let’s read on:
‘Researchers discovered that a compound found in red grape skins and seeds lessens the effect of a blood clot on the brain and aids recovery. It could be so effective that the substance, known as resveratrol, reduces the long-term brain damage by as much as 40 per cent.’
My hopes rise again. But what does it mean ‘[R]educes the long-term brain damage by as much as 40 per cent.’? Without knowing what is being compared with what, and whether this refers to relative or absolute damage reduction, such a statement is meaningless.
Never mind. Drinkers of red wine, it seems, will or may suffer less brain damage if they are unfortunate enough to have a stroke, compared with teetotallers. Better than nothing.
Hopes slightly buoyed up. Lets plough on.
Oh, oh, I knew it. Here we go again:
‘Two hours after feeding mice a single modest dose of resveratrol the scientists induced a blood clot or ischemic stroke by essentially cutting off blood supply to the animals’ brains.’
My eyes glaze over. Mice.
Can someone – anyone – please enlighten me about what inducing a stroke artificially in mice has got to do with naturally occurring strokes in humans.
There are enormous and obvious anatomical, physiological, and behavioural differences between mice and men (or women) so that such experiments – if the object is to discover something useful to the human race – are pointless and a waste of time.
To put it another way, I challenge – not for the first time – anyone who does these sorts of experiments to answer this simple question: what is the scientific basis for believing that the results of experiments on animals can be extrapolated to humans? There is none.
It has been estimated that in no more that 50% of animals experiments are the results useful in predicting what will happen in humans. In other words, you may just as well toss a coin. Apparently, pre-feeding resveratrol results in less brain damage in induced strokes in mice. Does this mean it will apply to strokes occurring in humans? We don’t know. Suppose pre-feeding resveratrol to mice resulted in the same amount or more brain damage in induced strokes in mice. Would this mean the same would apply in humans? We don’t know.
Significantly, Professor Sylvain Doré at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore who conducted these stupid experiments, has not tested resveratrol in clinical trials. Clinical trials are the only way one can find out whether resveratrol is useful or not in limiting brain damage following strokes in humans.
Furthermore, it should be noted that: ‘The scientists induced a…stroke by…cutting off [the] blood supply to the animals’ brains.’
Charming. Mice are sentient beings. What right does Professor Doré, or anyone else, have to cause pain and suffering in these creatures?
It is no wonder that such experiments have been called crude, cruel, and useless.
©Gabriel Symonds 2010