Talk:Betahistine

Controversy

There has been controversy about the effectiveness of betahistine in the treatment of vertigo and many doctors will not prescribe it, believing it to cause only a placebo effect; this should be mentioned in the article. There are many examples on the web, but I cannot speak to the reliability of them and am uncomfortable adding the section based solely on my own Internet research. One such article can be found here, search for "Betahistine" within the document and the first hit you get mentions some of the issues. --Rob (talk) 22:40, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

-- I agree. However the fact that betahistine makes people lose weight offers an alternative reason why this works for Menieres disease. Many people who suffer this disease have a lifestyle of low exercise combined with poor diet or excesses in one or more aspects of diet such as alcohol, chocolate or salt. So it makes sense that a drug which reduces ones appetite would indeed work in the treatment of meniere's disease. I too am not qualified to edit this article ! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.33.178.184 (talk) 15:44, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

What makes you believe you that "many people who suffer from this disease" don't get enough exercise and have a poor diet? Is that just a wild guess, or do you have any evidence to support it? It is very generous of you to blame the victim for the disease that is ruining their lives. MisterSpike (talk) 20:39, 4 September 2023 (UTC)

-- Fully controlled double-blind studies are extremely difficult to do in the real world, and it is neither kind nor ethical to expect that people suffering from a debilitating disease be expected to suffer through a long period being in a control group.

Where the meta-studies fail is in considering all doses equal. In the absence of a placebo control group, you can still effectively measure the impact of a treatment by examining the DOSE of that treatment. If you find that increasing doses of that treatment provide increasing benefits, then a carefully designed experiment can be just as revealing.

This bias towards only the most impractical of all studies ignores the huge amount that we can learn from fractional-factorial designs.

In clinical practice, some physicians start patients at 16mg/day, which is 1/3 of the recommended starting dose of 48mg. But at 48mg, the Number Needed to Treat has not been accurately measured, but it is probably at 20. No drug with that high a NNT will ever be fairly assessed, no matter how much benefit the 20th person gets.

However, at higher doses, the NNT drops rapidly. Studies comparing different doses, starting at 144mg up to 480mg show that most patients report an improvement in their symptoms.

The fact that dizziness, nausea, and even vertigo in the absence of nystagmus are all subjective experiences means that measuring them is impossible. We have no choice but to go by subjective ratings.

And that is why so many practitioners continue to use betahistine in the absence of rigorous double-blind studies: those studies will always fail to be an accurate benchmark for medications that treat subjective experiences. MisterSpike (talk) 21:04, 4 September 2023 (UTC)

References

Disambiguation

When searching for "Serc", you get redirected to Schützen_am_Gebirge. The redirect page should probably be changed to a disambiguation page, but I'm uncertain how to go about that. If anybody's looking for a probably 5-minute project, here you go! --Rob (talk) 22:42, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

Abbott Laboratories

Please accept the edits to this page (February 15, 2013). My name is Scott Stoffel, and I work at Abbott Laboratories in Corporate Public Affairs, and the edits I am providing are all factual, based upon review of the page with Abbott scientists with expertise in this area. If you have questions, please do not hesitate to access my contact information, found here: http://abbott.com/news-media/contacts.htm ScottStoffelAbbott (talk) 21:07, 15 February 2013 (UTC)

Allegedly, it is not available in the USA.

If true, should be added to the article, methinks. -- Wesha (talk) 14:50, 27 December 2020 (UTC)

That is described in the "Society and culture" section. Fvasconcellos (t·c) 17:09, 27 December 2020 (UTC)

ADHD

I removed the paragraph that said:

Betahistine is also under clinical trials for Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD).

It's inaccurate to say that betahistine "is" under clinical trials for ADHD. The pre-registration record on clinicaltrials.gov that the original editor linked to clearly says that the study completion date was December 2009. The results of the study were never published. So: The only clinical trial was over a decade ago. It failed. The end.

References