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My partner and I plan to edit the page on "Adrenal Fatigue" for our class project. We plan to add more options of medications and supplements for those with adrenal fatigue symptoms. Here is the link to my sandbox: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Jmagas/sandbox

Jmagas (talk) 14:55, 13 March 2016 (UTC)jmagas[reply]

Welcome!

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Hello, Jmagas, and welcome to Wikipedia! My name is Ian and I work with the Wiki Education Foundation; I help support students who are editing as part of a class assignment.

I hope you enjoy editing here. If you haven't already done so, please check out the student training library, which introduces you to editing and Wikipedia's core principles. You may also want to check out the Teahouse, a community of Wikipedia editors dedicated to helping new users. Below are some resources to help you get started editing.

Handouts
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  • You can find answers to many student questions on our Q&A site, ask.wikiedu.org

If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact me on my talk page. Ian (Wiki Ed) (talk) 23:32, 13 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

April 2016

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Information icon Hello, and welcome to Wikipedia. You appear to be engaged in an edit war with one or more editors according to your reverts at Adrenal fatigue. Although repeatedly reverting or undoing another editor's contributions may seem necessary to protect your preferred version of a page, on Wikipedia this is usually seen as obstructing the normal editing process, and often creates animosity between editors. Instead of edit warring, please discuss the situation with the editor(s) involved and try to reach a consensus on the talk page.

If editors continue to revert to their preferred version they are likely to lose editing privileges. This isn't done to punish an editor, but to prevent the disruption caused by edit warring. In particular, editors should be aware of the three-revert rule, which says that an editor must not perform more than three reverts on a single page within a 24-hour period. Edit warring on Wikipedia is not acceptable in any amount, and violating the three-revert rule is very likely to lead to a loss of editing privileges. Thank you. Alexbrn (talk) 04:58, 19 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

we told you that the content was not acceptable. what the heck are you doing Jmagas? Jytdog (talk) 17:42, 19 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Adrenal fatigue

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Hi Jmagas. I see you have run into some problems with your contributions to the adrenal fatigue articles, and I wanted to give you some feedback and advice. First thing I want to remind you of is how to respond when others revert your additions to articles. When that happens, you should never re-insert the content without discussing it first. Given your edits to that article, you could easily have been blocked for edit-warring.

The second thing to bear in mind is that you are editing medical-related content. As such, you need to pay very careful attention to the sources that you are using. Please go back and review the training for editing medical topics. This is important.

The third thing to do is to make sure that what you are adding is written in the proper format for a Wikipedia article. The introduction to the article clearly states that

Adrenal fatigue or hypoadrenia are terms used in alternative medicine to describe the unscientific belief that the adrenal glands are exhausted and unable to produce adequate quantities of hormones, primarily the glucocorticoid cortisol, due to chronic stress or infections.

If the article says that, you can't then say

Stress is a major concern in the United States, and it is a contributing factor to adrenal fatigue.

If the article says that adrenal fatigue isn't a real medical condition, you can't then say it is. The article needs to be consistent, and it needs to give priority to higher-quality sources. Alternative medicine is, by definition, not a mainstream discipline; you can't present alt med claims as if they were. As a result, you can't discuss causes, although you can discuss reported causes - as long as the couch the claims in a mainstream context.

It's very important to keep on topic. Adding uncontroversial information about stress to an article about a controversial disease creates a misleading impression.

It is estimated that 75-90 percent of visits to the doctor occur because of stress-related problems [5]. Stress can cause the immune system to lose normal functioning, which is augmented when a patient is in times of chronic stress [5]. Immediately following a stressful event, norepinephrine and epinephrine are released from the adrenal glands [5]. This stimulates the fight or flight response [5]. The adrenal glands then release cortisol into circulation [5]. Cortisol is a stress hormone that is released after psychologically stressful events or conditions occur, such as calorie restriction, surgery, sleep deprivation, excessive exercise, and various mental states [5]. Cortisol plays a vital role in the regular functioning of the human body and aids in regulating blood pressure, metabolism, food digestion, and energy production [6]. All of these factors contribute to elevated cortisol levels [5].

In addition, if you want to add content about stress and cortisol, it should be from a review article about stress and cortisol, not one about botanicals (which are, of course, not recognized treatments).

You need to be very careful about how you use sources. This is a serious problem:

When people are faced with long-term stress in their lives, the adrenal glands oftentimes cannot keep up with the body's necessity for hormones like cortisol that help deal with stress [7]. This can result in adrenal fatigue.

since the source being used is debunking the idea that adrenal fatigue is a real thing. You cannot, under any circumstances, use a source that argues "not X" to make a case for "X".

Another thing - it's very important not to give medical advise in an article. This is a very important, very hard and fast rule when it comes to Wikipedia. For example:

Although adrenal fatigue is not a widely-recognized medical condition, several treatment options exist for helping alleviate adrenal fatigue. One treatment option is to use nutritional supplements to help combat the effects of adrenal fatigue.

It is important to consult a doctor or medical professional if one is experiencing any of the symptoms of adrenal fatigue. This is because the symptoms one may be experiencing could potentially be related to a more serious medical condition.

Thus, it is highly recommended that one schedules a visit with a medical professional if experiencing adrenal fatigue symptoms in order to receive an accurate medical diagnosis.

In both of those cases you're giving medical advice, especially in the first case (the part I highlighted). If you give medical advice, you're responsible for anything that goes wrong, and potentially so is Wikipedia. Unless you carry medical malpractice insurance, it's a risky thing to do. There's a world of difference between describing the way diseases are treated and giving people advice on how to self-medicate. But again, it's very tricky to describe how to treat diseases that aren't recognized, because there's no standard way to treat, there's no mainstream drug protocol.

Adhering to WP:MEDRS is crucial. The training you took talks about this. {[talkquote|Studies have shown that following three weeks of taking fish oil supplements contributed to a reduction of stress and lower cortisol spikes during stressful events [9]. In addition, vitamin B1 and B6 supplements have been shown to regulate adrenal gland function and activity, helping reduce cortisol spikes [9].}} "Studies have shown" is one of those phrases that you should rarely find yourself using in a Wikipedia article.

Here again you are giving treatment advice; this isn't factual information about the disease, this is a warning to people who might take your medical advice.

However, it is important to note that the United States Food and Drug Administration does not regulate vitamin and nutritional supplements [10]. One reason why pharmaceutical companies rarely license a vitamin or supplement is because these vitamins, herbs, or minerals have been used for generations, so they cannot be patented easily [11]. Thus, if a patent cannot be created, a pharmaceutical company cannot make much of a financial gain from the product [11]. Due to the lack of FDA regulation, a consumer should be cognizant that there is no guarantee that the vitamin and nutritional supplements actually contain the ingredients on the label [10]. Supplements can be dangerous if taken at too high of a dosage and when not advised by a doctor or medical professional [10].

Moreover, you are making a persuasive argument. The fact that "dietary supplements" aren't regulated by the FDA has little to do with the fact that they can't be patented and everything to do with the fact that the law was written to exclude them. The rationale behind the law might have been that they are difficult to patent, but claims made in bills aren't really factual statements.

I'm really sorry that you ended up down this path; the simple reality is that articles about medical topics in general, and about alternative medicine in particular, need to conform to certain standards on Wikipedia. Ian (Wiki Ed) (talk) 20:55, 20 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]