Blind Spots in Healthcare: What Every Patient Needs to Know
Dr. Marty Makary, a surgeon and professor at Johns Hopkins University, has released a book titled, Blind Spots: When Medicine Gets It Wrong and What It Means for Our Health.
Dr. Makary sheds light on outdated thinking, myths, and groupthink that still persist in the healthcare system, often at the expense of patient care.
He suggests that questioning the status quo in medicine may be key to advancing beyond outdated practices.
The good news is that change is happening. New doctors are more receptive to evolving practices, and patients are becoming better informed and more proactive about their health. Dr. Makary believes we are moving in the right direction, and as long as we remain open-minded and continue asking the right questions, improvement will follow.
At the heart of the problem is a health care system entrenched in convention, where long-held beliefs persist despite scientific advances
“Some medical practices are rooted in good data, while others become folklore,” Makary says.
Long-standing beliefs about cholesterol, antibiotics, or dietary advice have persisted despite mounting evidence that they’re no longer the best course of action.
Adding to the problem is “groupthink,” where widely accepted ideas are rarely questioned simply because they’ve become the norm. Makary argues that this collective mindset allows medical dogma—practices followed more out of habit than evidence—to survive unchallenged for far too long.
TRADITION VERSUS EVIDENCE
Many treatments in modern medicine are based more on tradition and established practices than on solid scientific evidence.
Makary suggests that the rise of centralized medical authority and an increasing intolerance for dissenting views have made it harder for doctors to question these long-held beliefs.
“Dogma may be more prevalent today than in the past,” he writes, as many health care professionals hesitate to deviate from accepted norms, even when the data no longer support them.
4 Medical Myths That Persist Despite Evidence
1. Peanut Allergies
For many years, experts thought that the best way to fight peanut allergy was to avoid peanut products in the first years of life—that’s why in 2000 the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) recommended that any child at high risk of peanut allergy (like those with a family history of it, or with other food allergies, or eczema) not eat any before they turned 3.
Peanut allergies, once rare, surged after the AAP’s advice became standard, with severe cases becoming common. Peanut allergies have more than tripled over the past two decades, affecting 1–2 percent of children, leading to widespread school bans on peanuts and a surge in EpiPen use.
Dr. Gideon Lack, a pediatric allergist, conducted a pivotal study showing that Israeli children—routinely exposed to peanut-based snacks in infancy—had far lower rates of peanut allergies than their UK counterparts. His research demonstrated that early exposure to peanuts could drastically cut the risk of allergies.
The AAP has changed their recommendations
CLICK HERE for AAP Clinical Report Highlights Early Introduction of Peanut-based Foods to Prevent Allergies
2. Hormone Replacement Therapy
For much of the 20th century, hormone replacement therapy (HRT) was hailed as a revolutionary treatment for menopausal women. It helped alleviate symptoms like hot flashes, brain fog, and sleep disturbances while also showing promise in reducing the risk of heart disease, osteoporosis, and Alzheimer’s.
However, in 2002, the National Institutes of Health published a study that appeared to link HRT with an increased risk of breast cancer, sparking widespread panic among doctors and patients. Prescriptions for HRT plummeted by 80 percent as the public believed the treatment to be dangerous.
Makary says that the study’s results were misinterpreted. “The study showing that HRT causes breast cancer does not show that HRT causes breast cancer,” he writes, noting that the findings were not statistically significant.
Despite this, many doctors still hesitate to prescribe HRT, adhering to the outdated 2002 study’s conclusions.
A book I recommend that delves into this more deeply is
“Estrogen Matters: Why Taking Hormones in Menopause Can Improve Women’s Well-Being and Lengthen Their Lives — Without Raising the Risk of Breast Cancer CLICK HERE to order
3. Antibiotic Overuse
Antibiotics have saved countless lives by treating bacterial infections, but overuse has led to unintended consequences. Makary says that antibiotics damage the body’s microbiome, the delicate ecosystem of bacteria in the gut that is vital for digestion, immune function, and even mental health.
In particular, overprescription in children has been linked to serious long-term health issues.
4. The Cholesterol Myth
For decades, Americans were told to avoid cholesterol-rich foods like eggs and butter, as doctors believed that dietary cholesterol was a direct cause of heart disease. The fear stemmed from the work of Dr. Ancel Keys, whose “Seven Countries Study” in the 1950s suggested a link between saturated fat consumption and heart disease.
Keys’ study was fundamentally flawed—he cherry-picked countries that supported his hypothesis and ignored others, such as France and Switzerland, where high-fat diets coincided with low rates of heart disease. Despite numerous follow-up studies, including the Minnesota Coronary Experiment and the Framingham Heart Study, failing to support Keys’ claims, the low-cholesterol message stuck.
In 2015, the American Heart Association revised its guidelines, acknowledging that dietary cholesterol isn’t the culprit it was once believed to be. Despite this, many people avoid foods like eggs and full-fat dairy, while the real problems—sugar and processed carbohydrates—are often overlooked.
Fortunately, it’s not all bad news.
Since gut microbes and hormones affect one another, women can improve their health and comfort during menopause by tending to both their hormonal health and their microbiome.
Lifestyle behaviors, including adding key nutrients to the diet, can influence the microbial makeup of the gut.
A large microbiome study in the United States, found that participants eating 30 unique plants weekly had more diverse microbiomes than those consuming 10 or fewer.
