Have you had your colonoscopy recently?

"The real hopeless victims of mental illness are to be found among those who appear to be most normal.  Many of them are so normal because they are so well adjusted to our mode of existence, because their human voice has been silenced so early in their lives that they do not even struggle or suffer or develop symptoms as the neurotic does.  They are normal not in what may be called the absolute sense of the word; they are normal only in relation to a profoundly abnormal society." - Aldous Huxley

The New England Journal of Medicine recently published a startling study about colonoscopy screening - a distasteful subject that I never imagined I'd post anything about.  However... I have a much greater distaste for corruption in society.  As everyone should understand, there is a great deal wrong with modern medicine and the loathsome bureaucracy that free rides on top of it.   

The news media is screaming that this study is "being misinterpreted".  If you are reading Yahoo! News for your information, you get what you deserve.  The doctors who performed the study probably aren't making money by performing unnecessary procedures, and it appears that they may be unnecessary - but they are definitely a cash cow for someone.  

I'm just going to block quote a few choice paragraphs from the study.  

Background

Although colonoscopy is widely used as a screening test to detect colorectal cancer, its effect on the risks of colorectal cancer and related death is unclear.

Methods

We performed a pragmatic, randomized trial involving presumptively healthy men and women 55 to 64 years of age drawn from population registries in Poland, Norway, Sweden, and the Netherlands between 2009 and 2014. The participants were randomly assigned in a 1:2 ratio to either receive an invitation to undergo a single screening colonoscopy (the invited group) or to receive no invitation or screening (the usual-care group). The primary end points were the risks of colorectal cancer and related death, and the secondary end point was death from any cause.

Results

Follow-up data were available for 84,585 participants in Poland, Norway, and Sweden — 28,220 in the invited group, 11,843 of whom (42.0%) underwent screening, and 56,365 in the usual-care group. A total of 15 participants had major bleeding after polyp removal. No perforations or screening-related deaths occurred within 30 days after colonoscopy. During a median follow-up of 10 years, 259 cases of colorectal cancer were diagnosed in the invited group as compared with 622 cases in the usual-care group. In intention-to-screen analyses, the risk of colorectal cancer at 10 years was 0.98% in the invited group and 1.20% in the usual-care group, a risk reduction of 18% (risk ratio, 0.82; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.70 to 0.93). The risk of death from colorectal cancer was 0.28% in the invited group and 0.31% in the usual-care group (risk ratio, 0.90; 95% CI, 0.64 to 1.16). The number needed to invite to undergo screening to prevent one case of colorectal cancer was 455 (95% CI, 270 to 1429). The risk of death from any cause was 11.03% in the invited group and 11.04% in the usual-care group (risk ratio, 0.99; 95% CI, 0.96 to 1.04).

Yep, they found more cancerous polyps than the group that didn't get the screening done, yet the risk of death from colorectal cancer was 0.28% in the screening group and 0.31% in the non-screening group.  Not much difference.  

Check out that bold underlined bit.  The risk for All-Cause death was nearly identical for both groups - which means this procedure is quite possibly pointless.  It's certainly invasive, annoying, and time consuming for the patient.  

I had a co-worker whose intestine was punctured in the process of his first (and last) colonoscopy.  They had to take his intestines out, wash them, and put them all back into him again afterwards.  He was never OK again, certainly not from the standpoint of the function of his digestive system.  

It's just another one of those things that everyone says you have to do - like drinking 8 quarts of water daily - that I really don't want to do, and won't be doing.  Seriously, these people need to stop being busybodies and telling everyone how to live their lives.

 Here is how it ought to work: I tell you what works for me - Keto, Intermittent fasting, and exercise - but I don't tell you that "you ought to be doing this".  That's for you to decide for yourself after gathering information and weighing the options.