Bad doctor visits

I'll go first. This is from a friend who took my advice to add supplementation, but he did not take my advice when he asked his physician about it. For his age and state of health I recommended taking ALA/ALC combination, which I've written about elsewhere. As mentioned he asked his GP about this, who stuck his face up close and said "There's no scientific evidence for this and the supplement industry is is unnnnn-regulated". I tried to capture the nuance, he said it forcefully and melodramatically (at least according to my friend as he mimicked the response). Result of my friend isn't taking ALA/ALC, and now has continuing weird health problems as he ages. I'm not saying the supplements would have prevented them, but if he would have done those and all the rest of it that I told him yes I think it's likely he'd be doing better. 

Now the rebuttal is that this GP is a moron. An utter fool, he doesn't know what he's talking about. Dr Bruce Ames has done much of the research on ALA/ALC and it's fully peer-reviewed and published. Ames is one of the most respected researchers in the field. Millions of people are taking ALA/ALC and are experiencing the benefits. So this chucklehead, who took an oath to help people and prevent disease, is actually a promoter of it due to his own insistence on his ignorance. 

Second story. Even age adjusted my hormones were off, enough so that my Urologist was willing to prescribe HRT. Unfortunately, not really knowing what he was doing I guess, he gave me the dose you'd prescribe for a woman (for Testosterone) and then was mystified when my blood levels didn't improve. I didn't know either as it's hard to find reliable information on this. So he referred me to an Endocrinologist in his office, which sounded great because Now I'd Have an Expert. 

So this guy starts off by gesturing at my Life Extension blood work and says "I don't believe in this". To this day I'm not sure what he meant, the Life Extension part? He believes in life shortening? I just pointed out that it was all Lab Corp and I bought it from LE because it was cheaper than a MD visit. He grumped around that some more, but finally settled down to take a lot of info. Unfortunately for me he was really just building up ammunition to get me off any hormone replacement. 

After all this, during which he never once asked me what I wanted (which is the primary job of the physician, to help the patient), he tried a bunch of tactics. One was that he didn't believe much of it. The blood tests were just a snapshot, the ranges were just a statistic, genetic tests were meaningless, etc. I just nicely countered that I was a measurement scientist, had advanced degrees and had worked in it for 30 years, so he didn't need to tell me about the meaning of data. 

Failing that he pivoted to what I came to realize was the real motivation for what he was doing. He told me that he worked with some young weight lifters who boosted their hormones and then later couldn't get pregnant. I couldn't get much of a word in, but just stared at him like "do I LOOK like I'm planning on having any more children?". Seeing my reaction, he said "well what are you going to do, be on Testosterone FOREVER?". I was flabbergasted at this point, and so snowed over from his power trip that I just shrugged and thought to myself "Well will my hormones ever come back as I age?"

To his small credit, since I didn't back down he admitted that we don't know much about hormones, but that he hopes he can convince me to go off of them in a year. I thanked him (shouldn't have, I should have left at the beginning), I paid my $450 (OUCH) and then spent the next month de-stressing from the visit and never went back. Oh and he ordered a few tests, basically to prove I didn't need anything, which included cortisol. Never seemed to consider that low Testosterone might raise your cortisol, hmmm. 

I think he's a good MD, but a bad doctor because he too closely is going from his previous experience, and is unable to put it in context (an older man who has had his children and is past that age anyhow with declining hormones is actually a good candidate.).