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Study Validates Benefits of 'Lorenzo's Oil'

Posted by timothy on from the regular-oil-changes dept.

Torvek writes "New Scientist has an article that discusses the medicinal oil from the Lorenzo movie. Apparently it's been proved to actually prevent the onset of symptoms when taken early enough."

2 of 21 comments (clear)

  1. That movie was excellent , Lorenzo's oil. by Zeio · · Score: 4, Informative

    Lorenzo's oil was about a father whose son contracts a debilitating degenerative disease. (Potential spoiler in this synopsis, if you trust this movie is good, do not read further, go rent it now.) The disease is one that degenerates the myelin sheathing on the nerves in the body. The father is deeply trouble by his son's increasing inability to function at the most basic levels and in a race against time he basically becomes a doctor. This, from what I can remember, is a true story. Anyways, after studying like crazy, and studying everything known about his son's diseases, he comes up with an idea that a long hydrocarbon [I believe the length was 26 e.g. CH3-(CH2)24-CH3), but with lots of other functional groups here and there.] oil is somehow going to protect the myelin from further denigration. He finds a natural substance that is similar to the protected oil he theorized about, and apparently it works and stops the never degenerations. Sadly, it is too late for his son, as it only stops the damage, but does not restore it. The movie ends kind of somberly, but inspiring, as the father helped many others with his incessant and furious research in a mad dash to save his son. Anyways, it was a moving movie, and quite well done and an inspiration to us all.

    --
    Legalize the constitution. Think for yourself question authority.
  2. Reasons not to believe by Peter+T+Ermit · · Score: 5, Insightful
    1) The study doesn't appear to have been blinded.

    2) The study is performed by the guy who has the most to lose if it fails. Unavoidable sometimes, but it makes a study less credible.

    3) It looks like he's already had some failed trials with people who've shown an onset of symptoms. This affects the probability of having a false positive effect in your corpus of research -- a false positive that is sure to get headlines.

    4) Reading between the lines, it seems that their protocol was poor. "By the end of the study 76 per cent of the 68 boys getting the oil were still healthy and producing normal brain MRI scans. The same was true of no more than about one in three of the 36 boys who did not regularly get the oil."

    This sounds like everyone got the oil at the outset. 66% of those who stopped taking the oil had degeneration while 24% of those who continued did. But, of course, parents are much more likely to stop giving their children oil if they think it's not working, so the placebo group will be artificially enriched with failures and the oil group will be artificially enriched with successes. But I can't say for sure because...

    5) The study hasn't been peer-reviewed or even published.