This is sooo vital to point out. Especially in the West (a Judeo/Christian society), we are taught and culturally have a very specific notion of what "evil" is, such that we have trouble seeing it when it actually is staring us in the face. I think of serial killer neighbors "He was such a good neighbor" or as mentioned in the book about those who perpetrated the Holocaust. "How could they seem so normal". Because many were imaging pitchforks and tails and hooves and got company men who were "doing his job" and "following the law" and "serving their country" etc....
I am not drawing any conclusions about anyone in particular here, just noting that evil is often missed and not what we think it is....
Apple released iOS 11.3 at the end of March, and the update is killing touch functionality in iPhone 8s repaired with some aftermarket screens that worked prior to the update. “Customers are annoyed and it seems like Apple is doing this to prevent customers from doing 3rd party repair.”
I added the emphasis on some. If you really thought Apple was doing this, because as the article also points out "they can", why wouldn't they just kill all third party parts? Would be more efficient.
Oh, they take it into account. You really think they don't try to break this stuff with their updates?
Do you really think I have time to write code to fix problems/bugs/features as part of my daily job *AND* evilly scheme to write extra code just to break random bits of hardware that may or may not be present in a phone?
The same company that got caught slowing down old hardware to make you buy a new phone?
You mean the company that didn't want their phone randomly shutting down with a battery meter at say 25%. They absolutely should have thrown up an alert that said - "Your battery needs replacement. Please call us or visit an Apple Store for more information. Your phone will now run in "energy saver" mode (or some such) to protect against unexpected shutdowns." But not likely to be some conspiracy.
It does make me wonder though...I bought an iPhone 6 when it came out and use it every day until it is almost dead. 11.3 upgrade said my battery is still 86% "good". Pretty shocking.
Yes, because you always hear of various android phones bricking after updates because they didn't test every possible combination except you don't because that's not what's happening, apple are telling it to look for a flag only they can set and if its not there then no iphone for you because even though you bought it, it's still theirs and they can and will fuck you over for not using their overpriced repair scheme, this isn't even the first time they've done this.
Is the code for hardware fingerprint sensors in the Android OS core code or is it written and supplied as moduled for each phone manufacturer? I suspect it is the latter, but I'm not sure.
Also, I would imagine most android phones, especially not from the big 3 are using pretty standard/generic fingerprint sensors. I doubt the same is true from Apple.
All of this complicates the picture and could lead to unintended consequences, especially involving part of the crypto scheme on the phone.
For me, security and privacy is a concern however I would honestly be surprised if that is ever adequately tackled. The main reason for me is the cost, most of these gadgets are fantastically expensive for what they are. The value just isn't in it for me.
Nicotine addicts are much better off not using nicotine and if they vape to get there that is fine, but many are just permanently swapping which is not ideal.
I would not rely on an op-ed from Forbes. The effects and risks of nicotine, especially to the cardiovascular system are well known. The nicotine patch for Alzheimer's in that op-ed has been in and out of the news since 1999, but so far nothing has come of it.
The tittle had me excited because I thought they'd been studying the suicide risk of depressed people on anti-depressants vs. depressed people not on anti-depressants. There have been studies done, such as this one (open access, published in the journal of the Royal Society of Medicine) found that when selective serotonin and serotonin-norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors are given to adult healthy volunteers with no signs of a mental disorder, the suicide risk is doubled. Whether this doubling also occurs in depressed individuals is the real question, but this is hard to study ethically.
Anti-depressants are far more controversial than most people seem to think, and the medical field has slowly begun to admit it. Note that I'm not saying the study I mentioned or this study prove that their usage should be stopped, but at the very least they're clear indicators that more research is needed into their efficacy and potential alternatives.
Indeed you are right! Antidepressants are far more controversial than most people seem to think. The reasons some doctors in the medical community are beginning to admit it (embarrassingly after 20+ years) is that the data for their effectiveness is really thin. Essentially, they don't work outside of patients with (maybe) really severe depression, and even in those cases the effect is largely minimal.
What's worse, like all good/new things once the first bits of data started to show they "helped" (mood in many people is a fluctuating thing, you could argue they would have felt better in a few weeks anyway), the prescriptions started flowing, and it is now hard to reverse the expectations that one of the prior commenters note - pill to cure or treat depression. According to a 2015 study, more than two-thirds (69%) of those prescribed an antidepressant do not actually meet the criteria for the diagnosis of major depressive disorder.
It also shows the business of medicine - showing "statistically significant" results that may or may not contribute to clinical significance. Here's what I mean. For trials that examined depression that was mild to moderate in severity, the benefit was just 1.29 points on the 53-point Hamilton Depression Rating Scale (HDRS). The difference for trials that studied severe depression was 2.69 points on the HDRS. Previous researchers suggested/used a 3-point difference which corresponded to “no clinical change”—that is, neither a doctor nor a patient would notice that change. Other researchers showed that at least a 7-point difference was necessary for “minimal improvement.” As you see, many studies don't come close.Then there is publication bias. If you look closely you find that 49% of the total studies had negative results,
It is a mess. It is a problem. People who are clinically depressed and suffer depression need treatment, and they need effective medications that afford them a clinically significant improvement in their condition, not just statistically. This is true for all branches of medicine - I'm looking at you cardiology and oncology.
There is more to research, no offense, than to try random stuff to see if it helps. Or to use your technique at various problems until it works. Remember p=0.05 is probably pretty terrible (many people say it should be abandoned)
IF this study had some degree of veracity the next question would be (and again in the proper scientific method it would be the first question) "what is the biological plausibility that adjusting your spine would lead to a significant reduction in BP"
(without hand waving about "parasympathetic nervous system response")
There might be something to be said for therapeutic touch, strectching, pain induced pain relief (one of the theories about how acupuncture works) but the notion of subluxation theory was put to rest decades ago.
(Mayo Trained M.D.)
This gets into the definition of healthy. Whole grains are universally accepted as healthy. However, while full fat might not have the cardiovascular risk that was one believed, more fat = more calories (also as I am sure you know the source of fat is pretty important) and we are not doing so great with obesity. Also pretty much everyone agrees the western diet contains to much sodium.
Bottom line, heart healthy, growth health, weight healthy do not necessarily line up squarely.
You mean the uranium deal regarding Russia’s nuclear power agency when it bought a controlling interest in a Toronto-based company? Which owns mines, mills and tracts of land in Wyoming, Utah and other U.S. states equal to about 20 percent of U.S. uranium production capacity (not produced uranium)? When Clinton was secretary of state, but didn’t have the power to approve or reject the deal and the State Department was only one of nine federal agencies that signed off on the deal, and only President Barack Obama had the power to veto it? That uranium "scandal"?
I tried to look up "Clinton campaign contributions". But mostly got Breitbart and FoxNews.....oh! and the ever accurate "shadowproof.com"
Of course Trump doesn't have annnny connections to Russia except "ornate gold" - I think in particular he FBI, NSA, CIA and both House and Senate Intelligence committees are investigating this love, in fact. Nothing at all there....probably
and only care about profits. This is more proof of that.
Doctors = legalized crack dealers
You wouldn't say most patients then are "legalized crackheads", would you? So why then, since most doctors don't give pain medicine to make money (see below) like a crack dealer, nor do doctors give pain medications because they know a large portion (most don't) will become addicts like crack dealers, would you say that about doctors?
There is also a bit of cultural shift - some of it driven by the pharmaceutical industry pushing "pain free" and away from the thought process of our grandparents that some aches and pains were just associated with "growing old". I see many elderly patients with "plain" old osteoarthritis because they tell their docs their knees hurt or hips hurt. Some of it driven by the 5th vital since, Joint Commission, and your doctors "patient satisfaction survey" (HCAHPS):
(1) Did you need medicine for pain?
(2) How often was your pain well-controlled?
(3) How often did the hospital staff do everything they could to help with your pain?
It's a perverse goal. I probably can get your pain to zero. You might end up a drooling heap of drowsiness, but it will be an incoherent zero when I ask what your pain score is....This perverse goal has incentivized over treatment and allowed for much abuse by a small number of patients, some of whom are abusing the system for profit or to get high, and by those with, essentially unrealistic expectations - for some people pain is not zero even when they are in a drooling heap of slumber. Any docs will tell you stories of patients admitted for "pain crisis" who are seriously sawing some logs, dead asleep, literally need to be shaken to be awoken and when asked will still claim their pain score is 10/10 or, even better 20/10 or 50/10......*sigh*
Most of us come to work everyday to alleviate some suffering and misery. Cure, treat or ameliorate disease. There is no nefarious conspiracy to turn people into addicts. Here are the real factors....and this is by no means an exhaustive list
Full disclosure, I am a critical care physician (4 yrs college, 4yrs med school, 3 yrs IM residency, 3 years critical care)
How much do you think the average doctor gets for prescribing an opioid? Doctors aren't pharmacies. Doctors aren't pharmaceutical companies. Doctors aren't insurance companies.
This is a really rough estimate......
Look long and hard look at this reimbursement schedule (also look at how poorly Medicaid pays). Pay attention to these 2:
Office Visit, Initial, New Patient Level 2 - $75 for ~20 minutes
Offiice Visit, Established Patient Level 2 - $45 or ~20 minutes
So 3 patients/hour x 8 hours//day
Lets say half the patients you see are these types of visits, and of those, half are a mix of new and establishes (never is, most are established)
1.5 patients/hour x 8 hours = 12 patients daily
6 will be established 6*75= $450
6 will be new. 6*45= $270
The other 12 patients? Maybe you can see 12 really sick (6 established, 6 new)
6 * 200 = $1200
6 * 150 = $900
Hopefully your day would be filled with more complex patients, but it doesn't really matter. A new "complex" patient that you spend 60 minutes with will get you $200 reimbursement. So this person, for internal medicine, who went to college for 4 years, medical school for 4 years, then 3 years for residency is getting patient by Medicare (and likely your insurance company) $200 to spend an hour with you. Unless you like in rural America, you probably wont get a lawyer to sit with you for that price (I put that link in there because I did all my training at the #1 hospital in the US, but docs aren't reimbursed like that) for an hour.
So a really good day you can make $2820. Or about $700,000 revenue/yr. Now start to subtract your staff, and the time writing notes and billing queries (insurance companies are always trying to undersell how sick someone is, docs are trying to make their patients look sicker etc..), rent, EMR costs, malpractice (about 15000/yr), blah blah.....
For me, I do critical care. I bill a "99291" code for spending up to 74 minutes bringing your nearly dead loved one pack to life. The reimbursement is $239. Really? It is pretty much the same amount as sitting and talking to your elderly loved on who has 4 or 5 outpatient medical problems.
The dirty secret in medicine is right now if you want to make money as a doctor you need to specialize and do procedures. Even with volume, the numbers still add up 1 60 minute visit gets you the same reimbursement as 3 20 minute visits. That is the only way to "make money" in the ways that are often thought about in the sense of doctors make money.
If anything I hope this shows you that after 11+ (minimum) years of training, doctors are definitely not overcompensated and if anything you can make the argument that compared to other, essentially lesser trainer specialities (lawyer, engineers etc...) their "hourly" rate is undervalued. That is not even taking into account that most doctors are graduating with $200,000 or $300,000 of student loan debt.
This has been my philosophy since the early 2000s. I have essentially a junk gmail account for low priority junk authentication systems. semi important (base with permutations of a 10-15 char password, mixed case, symbols etc..) and super important (2 step auth, password manager 30 char random etc..)
Part of the problem with TRT is the definition of low tester one is somewhat nebulous. I am not sure there has been a lab range accepted age-adjusted testosterone levels. Typically the most commonly accepted medical reason is when a man comes in with a non-typical fracture (hip, vertebral body etc...) then we tend to look at testosterone levels.
Other than that...indications for use are sketchy.
In addition, anyone who has been around and doesn't have an agenda or bias would be wise to remember the fiasco with ERT in women. Made them feel good, but ended up being more harm than benefit. It is likely, outside of a few indications, that TRT will end up being the same.
Pooled effects showed that vitamin B supplementation (including B6, B8 and B12) reduced psychiatric symptoms significantly more than control conditions [g = 0.508, 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.01–1.01, p = 0.047, I2 = 72.3%]. Similar effects were observed among vitamin B RCTs which used intention-to-treat analyses (g = 0.734, 95% CI 0.00–1.49, p = 0.051).
The confidence interval indicates the level of uncertainty around the measure of effect (precision of the effect estimate). Confidence intervals are used because a study recruits only a small sample of the overall population so by having an upper and lower confidence limit we can infer that the true population effect lies between these two points. Most studies report the 95% confidence interval (95%CI).
If the confidence interval crosses 1 that implies there is no difference between arms of the study.
As far as I can remember.
Slashdot Mirror
This is sooo vital to point out. Especially in the West (a Judeo/Christian society), we are taught and culturally have a very specific notion of what "evil" is, such that we have trouble seeing it when it actually is staring us in the face. I think of serial killer neighbors "He was such a good neighbor" or as mentioned in the book about those who perpetrated the Holocaust. "How could they seem so normal". Because many were imaging pitchforks and tails and hooves and got company men who were "doing his job" and "following the law" and "serving their country" etc....
I am not drawing any conclusions about anyone in particular here, just noting that evil is often missed and not what we think it is....
I have had good experience with OpenDNS with their Web Content Filtering. I am sure it isn't 100% but it is a decent start.
Would like to see a performance test with feature off and on to quantify, on modern hardware, the speed benefits.
One final thought from the article:
Apple released iOS 11.3 at the end of March, and the update is killing touch functionality in iPhone 8s repaired with some aftermarket screens that worked prior to the update. “Customers are annoyed and it seems like Apple is doing this to prevent customers from doing 3rd party repair.”
I added the emphasis on some. If you really thought Apple was doing this, because as the article also points out "they can", why wouldn't they just kill all third party parts? Would be more efficient.
Oh, they take it into account. You really think they don't try to break this stuff with their updates?
Do you really think I have time to write code to fix problems/bugs/features as part of my daily job *AND* evilly scheme to write extra code just to break random bits of hardware that may or may not be present in a phone?
The same company that got caught slowing down old hardware to make you buy a new phone?
You mean the company that didn't want their phone randomly shutting down with a battery meter at say 25%. They absolutely should have thrown up an alert that said - "Your battery needs replacement. Please call us or visit an Apple Store for more information. Your phone will now run in "energy saver" mode (or some such) to protect against unexpected shutdowns." But not likely to be some conspiracy.
It does make me wonder though...I bought an iPhone 6 when it came out and use it every day until it is almost dead. 11.3 upgrade said my battery is still 86% "good". Pretty shocking.
Yes, because you always hear of various android phones bricking after updates because they didn't test every possible combination except you don't because that's not what's happening, apple are telling it to look for a flag only they can set and if its not there then no iphone for you because even though you bought it, it's still theirs and they can and will fuck you over for not using their overpriced repair scheme, this isn't even the first time they've done this.
Is the code for hardware fingerprint sensors in the Android OS core code or is it written and supplied as moduled for each phone manufacturer? I suspect it is the latter, but I'm not sure. Also, I would imagine most android phones, especially not from the big 3 are using pretty standard/generic fingerprint sensors. I doubt the same is true from Apple. All of this complicates the picture and could lead to unintended consequences, especially involving part of the crypto scheme on the phone.
Are we still Slashdotters?
For me, security and privacy is a concern however I would honestly be surprised if that is ever adequately tackled. The main reason for me is the cost, most of these gadgets are fantastically expensive for what they are. The value just isn't in it for me.
Nicotine is addictive.
... but not particulary harmful. Nicotine addicts are way better off vaping than smoking.
Nicotine addicts are much better off not using nicotine and if they vape to get there that is fine, but many are just permanently swapping which is not ideal.
I would not rely on an op-ed from Forbes. The effects and risks of nicotine, especially to the cardiovascular system are well known. The nicotine patch for Alzheimer's in that op-ed has been in and out of the news since 1999, but so far nothing has come of it.
The tittle had me excited because I thought they'd been studying the suicide risk of depressed people on anti-depressants vs. depressed people not on anti-depressants. There have been studies done, such as this one (open access, published in the journal of the Royal Society of Medicine) found that when selective serotonin and serotonin-norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors are given to adult healthy volunteers with no signs of a mental disorder, the suicide risk is doubled. Whether this doubling also occurs in depressed individuals is the real question, but this is hard to study ethically.
Anti-depressants are far more controversial than most people seem to think, and the medical field has slowly begun to admit it. Note that I'm not saying the study I mentioned or this study prove that their usage should be stopped, but at the very least they're clear indicators that more research is needed into their efficacy and potential alternatives.
Indeed you are right! Antidepressants are far more controversial than most people seem to think. The reasons some doctors in the medical community are beginning to admit it (embarrassingly after 20+ years) is that the data for their effectiveness is really thin. Essentially, they don't work outside of patients with (maybe) really severe depression, and even in those cases the effect is largely minimal.
What's worse, like all good/new things once the first bits of data started to show they "helped" (mood in many people is a fluctuating thing, you could argue they would have felt better in a few weeks anyway), the prescriptions started flowing, and it is now hard to reverse the expectations that one of the prior commenters note - pill to cure or treat depression. According to a 2015 study, more than two-thirds (69%) of those prescribed an antidepressant do not actually meet the criteria for the diagnosis of major depressive disorder.
It also shows the business of medicine - showing "statistically significant" results that may or may not contribute to clinical significance. Here's what I mean. For trials that examined depression that was mild to moderate in severity, the benefit was just 1.29 points on the 53-point Hamilton Depression Rating Scale (HDRS). The difference for trials that studied severe depression was 2.69 points on the HDRS. Previous researchers suggested/used a 3-point difference which corresponded to “no clinical change”—that is, neither a doctor nor a patient would notice that change. Other researchers showed that at least a 7-point difference was necessary for “minimal improvement.” As you see, many studies don't come close.Then there is publication bias. If you look closely you find that 49% of the total studies had negative results,
It is a mess. It is a problem. People who are clinically depressed and suffer depression need treatment, and they need effective medications that afford them a clinically significant improvement in their condition, not just statistically. This is true for all branches of medicine - I'm looking at you cardiology and oncology.
There are already AI processors that are many times faster than a traditional microprocessor.
Google rattles the tech world with a new AI chip for all
and
Intel’s AI Chip Available in a USB Stick
We can start with The Big Myth
*ding* - correct!
^^^ this too......blinding is hard in this case.
There is more to research, no offense, than to try random stuff to see if it helps. Or to use your technique at various problems until it works. Remember p=0.05 is probably pretty terrible (many people say it should be abandoned)
IF this study had some degree of veracity the next question would be (and again in the proper scientific method it would be the first question) "what is the biological plausibility that adjusting your spine would lead to a significant reduction in BP"
(without hand waving about "parasympathetic nervous system response")
There might be something to be said for therapeutic touch, strectching, pain induced pain relief (one of the theories about how acupuncture works) but the notion of subluxation theory was put to rest decades ago. (Mayo Trained M.D.)
Maybe they will wake up and serve up some a la carte channels.
This gets into the definition of healthy. Whole grains are universally accepted as healthy. However, while full fat might not have the cardiovascular risk that was one believed, more fat = more calories (also as I am sure you know the source of fat is pretty important) and we are not doing so great with obesity. Also pretty much everyone agrees the western diet contains to much sodium. Bottom line, heart healthy, growth health, weight healthy do not necessarily line up squarely.
You mean the uranium deal regarding Russia’s nuclear power agency when it bought a controlling interest in a Toronto-based company? Which owns mines, mills and tracts of land in Wyoming, Utah and other U.S. states equal to about 20 percent of U.S. uranium production capacity (not produced uranium)? When Clinton was secretary of state, but didn’t have the power to approve or reject the deal and the State Department was only one of nine federal agencies that signed off on the deal, and only President Barack Obama had the power to veto it? That uranium "scandal"?
I tried to look up "Clinton campaign contributions". But mostly got Breitbart and FoxNews.....oh! and the ever accurate "shadowproof.com"
Of course Trump doesn't have annnny connections to Russia except "ornate gold" - I think in particular he FBI, NSA, CIA and both House and Senate Intelligence committees are investigating this love, in fact. Nothing at all there....probably
Doctors Urge CMS, Joint Commission to Rethink Pain Treatment to Help Stem Opioid Epidemic
and only care about profits. This is more proof of that.
Doctors = legalized crack dealers
You wouldn't say most patients then are "legalized crackheads", would you? So why then, since most doctors don't give pain medicine to make money (see below) like a crack dealer, nor do doctors give pain medications because they know a large portion (most don't) will become addicts like crack dealers, would you say that about doctors?
There is also a bit of cultural shift - some of it driven by the pharmaceutical industry pushing "pain free" and away from the thought process of our grandparents that some aches and pains were just associated with "growing old". I see many elderly patients with "plain" old osteoarthritis because they tell their docs their knees hurt or hips hurt. Some of it driven by the 5th vital since, Joint Commission, and your doctors "patient satisfaction survey" (HCAHPS):
(1) Did you need medicine for pain?
(2) How often was your pain well-controlled?
(3) How often did the hospital staff do everything they could to help with your pain?
It's a perverse goal. I probably can get your pain to zero. You might end up a drooling heap of drowsiness, but it will be an incoherent zero when I ask what your pain score is....This perverse goal has incentivized over treatment and allowed for much abuse by a small number of patients, some of whom are abusing the system for profit or to get high, and by those with, essentially unrealistic expectations - for some people pain is not zero even when they are in a drooling heap of slumber. Any docs will tell you stories of patients admitted for "pain crisis" who are seriously sawing some logs, dead asleep, literally need to be shaken to be awoken and when asked will still claim their pain score is 10/10 or, even better 20/10 or 50/10...... *sigh*
Most of us come to work everyday to alleviate some suffering and misery. Cure, treat or ameliorate disease. There is no nefarious conspiracy to turn people into addicts. Here are the real factors....and this is by no means an exhaustive list
The association between chronic pain and obesity
Association of body mass index with symptom severity and quality of life in patients with fibromyalgia
Depression and chronic pain
Depression and pain
Pain and Depression: A Neurobiological Perspective of Their Relationship
Back Pain and Obesity
Full disclosure, I am a critical care physician (4 yrs college, 4yrs med school, 3 yrs IM residency, 3 years critical care)
How much do you think the average doctor gets for prescribing an opioid? Doctors aren't pharmacies. Doctors aren't pharmaceutical companies. Doctors aren't insurance companies.
This is a really rough estimate......
Look long and hard look at this reimbursement schedule (also look at how poorly Medicaid pays). Pay attention to these 2:
Office Visit, Initial, New Patient Level 2 - $75 for ~20 minutes
Offiice Visit, Established Patient Level 2 - $45 or ~20 minutes
So 3 patients/hour x 8 hours//day
Lets say half the patients you see are these types of visits, and of those, half are a mix of new and establishes (never is, most are established) 1.5 patients/hour x 8 hours = 12 patients daily
6 will be established 6*75= $450
6 will be new. 6*45= $270
The other 12 patients? Maybe you can see 12 really sick (6 established, 6 new)
6 * 200 = $1200
6 * 150 = $900
Hopefully your day would be filled with more complex patients, but it doesn't really matter. A new "complex" patient that you spend 60 minutes with will get you $200 reimbursement. So this person, for internal medicine, who went to college for 4 years, medical school for 4 years, then 3 years for residency is getting patient by Medicare (and likely your insurance company) $200 to spend an hour with you. Unless you like in rural America, you probably wont get a lawyer to sit with you for that price (I put that link in there because I did all my training at the #1 hospital in the US, but docs aren't reimbursed like that) for an hour.
So a really good day you can make $2820. Or about $700,000 revenue /yr. Now start to subtract your staff, and the time writing notes and billing queries (insurance companies are always trying to undersell how sick someone is, docs are trying to make their patients look sicker etc..), rent, EMR costs, malpractice (about 15000/yr), blah blah.....
For me, I do critical care. I bill a "99291" code for spending up to 74 minutes bringing your nearly dead loved one pack to life. The reimbursement is $239. Really? It is pretty much the same amount as sitting and talking to your elderly loved on who has 4 or 5 outpatient medical problems.
The dirty secret in medicine is right now if you want to make money as a doctor you need to specialize and do procedures. Even with volume, the numbers still add up 1 60 minute visit gets you the same reimbursement as 3 20 minute visits. That is the only way to "make money" in the ways that are often thought about in the sense of doctors make money.
If anything I hope this shows you that after 11+ (minimum) years of training, doctors are definitely not overcompensated and if anything you can make the argument that compared to other, essentially lesser trainer specialities (lawyer, engineers etc...) their "hourly" rate is undervalued. That is not even taking into account that most doctors are graduating with $200,000 or $300,000 of student loan debt.
This has been my philosophy since the early 2000s. I have essentially a junk gmail account for low priority junk authentication systems. semi important (base with permutations of a 10-15 char password, mixed case, symbols etc..) and super important (2 step auth, password manager 30 char random etc..)
Part of the problem with TRT is the definition of low tester one is somewhat nebulous. I am not sure there has been a lab range accepted age-adjusted testosterone levels. Typically the most commonly accepted medical reason is when a man comes in with a non-typical fracture (hip, vertebral body etc...) then we tend to look at testosterone levels.
Other than that...indications for use are sketchy.
In addition, anyone who has been around and doesn't have an agenda or bias would be wise to remember the fiasco with ERT in women. Made them feel good, but ended up being more harm than benefit. It is likely, outside of a few indications, that TRT will end up being the same.
Pooled effects showed that vitamin B supplementation (including B6, B8 and B12) reduced psychiatric symptoms significantly more than control conditions [g = 0.508, 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.01–1.01, p = 0.047, I2 = 72.3%]. Similar effects were observed among vitamin B RCTs which used intention-to-treat analyses (g = 0.734, 95% CI 0.00–1.49, p = 0.051).
The confidence interval indicates the level of uncertainty around the measure of effect (precision of the effect estimate). Confidence intervals are used because a study recruits only a small sample of the overall population so by having an upper and lower confidence limit we can infer that the true population effect lies between these two points. Most studies report the 95% confidence interval (95%CI). If the confidence interval crosses 1 that implies there is no difference between arms of the study. As far as I can remember.