It seems that more and more these days people are turning to alternative medicine like homeopathy, herbs, energy healing, ancupuncture and other forms of alternative medicine. In my city I've seen a whole bunch of homeopathic places popping up in the last few years. As a biology student I think the majority of it is a total sham. There's really no evidence that homeopathy is any better then a placebo and yet all the time there's people claiming it healed them from chronic disease. Then there's other things like reflexology which supposedly can tell which of your organs are diseased by massaging your feet.
I'm interested in hearing your opinions on the matter.
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I learned a little bit of acupuncture and Eastern Medicine in Korea on a 1 month away rotation, during my American rehab residency, and I do believe that there is some value in Easter Medicine.
The problem is that the signal/noise, gold/**** ratio is very low when it comes to practitioners in this country of "Alternative medicine". For every person who actually knows what they're doing, you have 20 snake oil salesmen. Same for the "supplements" and "alternative herbal" treatments. Its so poorly regulated that I believe you're just taking your life into your own hands...
...and I don't believe that the upside is usually huge, even if it does help you a little, the downside is far bigger.
If something truly works, it gets incorporated into mainstream medicine, after controlled studies are done.
More miraculous (cure cancer) alternative medicine claims remind me a lot of the "stem cell clinic in the Dominican republic" claims. Hand over $30,000 cash, and they tell a desperate person they can cure them. Because Western Oncology Doctors "don't want to help, they just want your money" or are "closed minded", or "the FDA is too slow".
Some of it does, some of it doesnt. Just because something works on 1 person, doesnt mean it will work on the next. Western medicine is too hung up on medicines that effect everyone the same way. Western medicine is trying to make the 'practice' of medicine a concrete science. Until everyones DNA is the same and react the same to all substances that will never happen. Eastern medicine treats the problem according to the person who has the ailment.
I do agree there are alot of snake oil salesmen out there experimenting and just plain trying to rip people off. People need to be more proactive about how they are treated and what goes into their bodies.
Alternative medicine is dangerous nonsense that preys on the vulnerable and those who lack critical thinking skills. Invariably, whenever these methods are tested, we get the same result; some study shows some minor effect, but further, better designed studies have the minor effect disappearing.
Alternative medicine is dangerous nonsense that preys on the vulnerable and those who lack critical thinking skills. Invariably, whenever these methods are tested, we get the same result; some study shows some minor effect, but further, better designed studies have the minor effect disappearing.
Some times all a person needs is a minor effect to become better. Western medicine is like killing a fly with a sledge hammer some times. Over kill to the max!
I think the placebo effect is powerful, and that if people think they are being healed by something (like prayer for instance), that their body has a response. I do not think most of these alternate therapies are truly effective, though.
Be careful how you describe these things. Homeopathy, herbs, energy healing, acupuncture and not all in the same boat. Homeopathy and Energy healing are complete nonsense, and are just new age fads. Herbal healing and acupuncture have at least some merit, as many modern day drugs came from herbal remidies, and acupuncture has been proven to relieve certain kinds of pain (although the ancient theoretical framework has little scientific value).
I also actually work in public health, and can tell you nothing works better on disease that scientifically proven medicines. The same trend towards alternate 'medicine' is the one that is leading to the growing anti-vaccine movement, which is also complete junk.
'Scientifically proven' doesnt mean it will work on everyone, just the accepted percent the FDA thinks it should.
Also, where do people think drugs they take came from? Some medicine man crushing up roots and herbs and mixing them into a potion that made people better. Granted, once the scientists figure out the active portion of the potion..they mass produce it in unnatural ways.
Also, where do people think drugs they take came from? Some medicine man crushing up roots and herbs and mixing them into a potion that made people better.
I said that much myself, the difference is that the drugs themselves are much more potent, while with the plain herbs you aren't getting as pronounced an effect. For instance, chewing a poppy leaf might have some pain-releaving effects, but not as much as morphine.
'Scientifically proven' doesnt mean it will work on everyone, just the accepted percent the FDA thinks it should.
Also, where do people think drugs they take came from? Some medicine man crushing up roots and herbs and mixing them into a potion that made people better. Granted, once the scientists figure out the active portion of the potion..they mass produce it in unnatural ways.
Yes, I prefer it when scientists figure out what in the root causes the desired effect and can purify and synthesize it. When you take an herbal supplement, you may not know what the active portion is, and you certainly don't know the kind of dosage you are getting. The amount of active ingredient in an herbal remedy can vary wildly, and it can have all sorts of contaminants that haven't been studied. And despite being "all natural," there is no reason to believe those contaminants are at all helpful. Hemlock is natural.
Overall, I trust repeated and carefully controlled scientific trials to what some shaman thinks.
Be careful how you describe these things. Homeopathy, herbs, energy healing, acupuncture and not all in the same boat. Homeopathy and Energy healing are complete nonsense, and are just new age fads. Herbal healing and acupuncture have at least some merit, as many modern day drugs came from herbal remidies, and acupuncture has been proven to relieve certain kinds of pain (although the ancient theoretical framework has little scientific value).
To my knowledge, acupuncture has never been shown to be effective in treating pain in well controlled studies.
Yes, I prefer it when scientists figure out what in the root causes the desired effect and can purify and synthesize it. When you take an herbal supplement, you may not know what the active portion is, and you certainly don't know the kind of dosage you are getting. The amount of active ingredient in an herbal remedy can vary wildly, and it can have all sorts of contaminants that haven't been studied. And despite being "all natural," there is no reason to believe those contaminants are at all helpful. Hemlock is natural.
Overall, I trust repeated and carefully controlled scientific trials to what some shaman thinks.
To my knowledge, acupuncture has never been shown to be effective in treating pain in well controlled studies.
You sure would be S.O.L. if you were not living at this time. controlled and measured doses of medicines are relatively new to man. If it wasnt for those medicine men crushing up the roots we wouldnt have what we have now.
Your use of the word 'unnatural' confuses me. Are you putting the mass production in a negative context?
Ever see the side effects on some of the man made medicines? Unnatural means just that. Man tries to force generalized medicines for everyone. Like I stated earlier, Western medicine focus's on the ailment, Eastern medicines focus's on the person. Western medicine wants the same pill to work the same way for everyone who takes it ( which doesnt and probably never will work that way ) Eastern medicine customizes treatment on a per person basis.
Its called a practice for a reason, because it really isnt an exact science.
You sure would be S.O.L. if you were not living at this time. controlled and measured doses of medicines are relatively new to man. If it wasnt for those medicine men crushing up the roots we wouldnt have what we have now.
I didn't say crushing up roots didn't produce an effect, even a desirable effect. I said that modern methods are better.
You need to stop being hung up on "tradition" and "nature." Just because people did something in the past through natural means doesn't mean that we should as well. In case you didn't notice, we have a better quality of life and longevity than those shamans.
This is what I think is a common problem with modern medicine. It's a victim of its own success. It's done such a great job of improving our lives and eradicating horrible ailments that people don't recognize how awful these ailments are and come up with nonsense like homeopathy and antivax.
One unfortunate trend within institutions that have an entrenched “ivory tower” philosophy is that they tend to see their way as the correct way and anything different as incorrect.
It’s also very unfortunate that all alternative medicines are lumped together when they really shouldn’t be.
It doesn’t help that often, alternative medicine salesmen over-sell the benefits of their product. For example, chiropractics was for a long time and, in some cases still is, considered an alternative medicine. Most people who go to a chiropractor for a condition that can be treated by chiropractic care see improvements. However, last time I went to a chiropractor I was told that it could cure everything from heartburn to runny nose. Whether that’s true or not, it doesn’t sit well in the mind of someone concerned that they’re being sold snake oil.
Another example of alternative medicine is medical marijuana. While, for decades the established medical community denied medical marijuana benefits, it is becoming more and more clear that the established medical community was being both willfully ignorant of and deliberately deceptive about marijuana.
Some alternative medicines work, some don’t. Some have been lost to history, others are being rediscovered. Some are oversold and some are undersold. One thing’s for certain though, if you are experiencing a health issue and find a treatment that works, go for it whether it’s alternative or main stream.
some alternative medicine works well, and some is just quackry. it's important that anyone considering an alternative cure need to do their research and make an informed decision.
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sure, there may be some 'alternative medicines' that have a significant psychological impact on the patient (placebo effect, etc). But the vast majority are no good.
My favorite quackery is homeopathy. most people don't know what this means - they think it's synonymous with alternative medicine or herbal remedies. this is false. homeopathy is the practice of diluting medicine so much that it's no longer present, and believing that somehow the water is imbued with the essence of the medicine. this is fraudulent crap for obvious reasons.
Cliché but true: If alternative medicine were proven to work, we wouldn't call it "alternative medicine", we'd just call it "medicine". The whole point of science is to figure out what things work, then do those things. It's not like doctors think, "Oh, homeopathy may work, but it's just the wrong kind of medicine for me to offer." They're not picky. If homeopathy worked, then there would be a homeopathy department in every major hospital.
Now, some traditional therapies have been proven to work, and the medical community has adopted them. The standard example here being aspirin. Because willow-bark extract actually is a fantastically effective low-strength painkiller, its active ingredient has been isolated and is now available in every drugstore in the world. If it didn't work, that's when it would be shelved in the "alternative" aisles and we'd all be annoyed by hippies without doctorates prescribing their willow-bark tea for every ailment from gas to cancer.
"Upon hearing him extol the medicinal virtues of Gingko bilboa in the treatment of migraines, I recommended to his attention a far more potent herbal remedy: an extract of the nut of the Amygdalus dulcis tree, which is capable of ending all his headache-inducing disorders of the brain with a most satisfactory finality, and is known in the vernacular as 'cyanide'."
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Cliché but true: If alternative medicine were proven to work, we wouldn't call it "alternative medicine", we'd just call it "medicine". The whole point of science is to figure out what things work, then do those things. It's not like doctors think, "Oh, homeopathy may work, but it's just the wrong kind of medicine for me to offer." They're not picky. If homeopathy worked, then there would be a homeopathy department in every major hospital.
Now, some traditional therapies have been proven to work, and the medical community has adopted them. The standard example here being aspirin. Because willow-bark extract actually is a fantastically effective low-strength painkiller, its active ingredient has been isolated and is now available in every drugstore in the world. If it didn't work, that's when it would be shelved in the "alternative" aisles and we'd all be annoyed by hippies without doctorates prescribing their willow-bark tea for every ailment from gas to cancer.
"Upon hearing him extol the medicinal virtues of Gingko bilboa in the treatment of migraines, I recommended to his attention a far more potent herbal remedy: an extract of the nut of the Amygdalus dulcis tree, which is capable of ending all his headache-inducing disorders of the brain with a most satisfactory finality, and is known in the vernacular as 'cyanide'."
Not 100% true. The hoops and testing a 'new' drug has to go thru the FDA to be used in America is ridiculous. Thats why some prefer to go out of country for their meds. Better selection and in some cases better strength.
Not 100% true. The hoops and testing a 'new' drug has to go thru the FDA to be used in America is ridiculous.
"Ridiculous"? No. Unfortunately, even FDA-approved drugs are sometimes afterwards discovered to slowly kill you. Real science, especially real science dealing with a subject as fantastically complicated as the human body, is a long and involved process. Ideally, scientists would observe a test group for an entire generation to make sure the drug didn't have some unexpected long-term effect. Even the FDA's lengthy process is cutting corners, really.
But everybody wants a quick and easy cure for what ails them, so they reach for alternatives. It's the same impulse that has allowed quackery to prosper since before the walls of Uruk rose over the Fertile Crescent.
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Not 100% true. The hoops and testing a 'new' drug has to go thru the FDA to be used in America is ridiculous. Thats why some prefer to go out of country for their meds. Better selection and in some cases better strength.
The FDA isn't even slow enough to be truly effective in telling whether or not a drug will kill you. Blinking Spirit has it right. I work in Public Health, and if you actually took some courses in how the FDA works, it isn't effective enough in weeding out bad drugs or long-term consequences. It's awful for businesses, true, but it also helps avoid stupid mistakes.
Many other countries play it fast and loose, and basically only determine whether or not it will kill you upon consumption or shortly thereafter. Long-term effects are rarely tested, except when an independent research discovers a correlation between a drug and a death.
I remember reading a study on acupuncture. where people were in cronic pain and had 3 groups. one with no acupuncture, one with a trained person and one with an untrained person (randomly sticking needels in you). Both the trained and untrained person showed significant improvement. Further study was recommend. I have also seen then use acupuncture in lue of ansetic in china.... This made me reevaluate my oppinion from "crack pot" to futher investigation required.
There's a problem with that control group. Better controlled studies also include what they call "sham acupuncture" group, in which neither the acupuncturist or the patient know whether or not they are getting "real" acupuncture and they use trick needles. It's important that neither the patient nor the tester know whether they are in the placebo group, otherwise you don't have a proper control. The study as you described it missed this.
Cliché but true: If alternative medicine were proven to work, we wouldn't call it "alternative medicine", we'd just call it "medicine". The whole point of science is to figure out what things work, then do those things. It's not like doctors think, "Oh, homeopathy may work, but it's just the wrong kind of medicine for me to offer." They're not picky. If homeopathy worked, then there would be a homeopathy department in every major hospital.
Sadly, this sentiment is incorrect. I hate to go back to this again but medical marijuana is a shining example of an effective medicine that has been rejected by mainstream medical community in spite of concrete scientific support. The reasons for this are pretty numerous; the illegal nature of the drug, the desire for government regulators to remain consistent with the drug-war agenda, etc.
We like to think that science, particularly medicine, is built upon objective facts. Sadly, it is not. Just recently a “scientific” study was released by organization funded in part be a white supremacist group that linked illegal immigration to greenhouse gases.
There was a time long ago when the scientific community was heavily influenced by the church and scientists were put to death or excommunicated if their findings contradicted the church in any way. We like to think we have left those days behind. We have perhaps in form, but not in function.
I also find it funny how the alternative health practiciners use scare tactics to convince you to take their medications and not the pharmecutical ones. They talk about how they're "toxic" and that they're "chemicals". Sure they can be toxic, water can too if you take enough of it. Many people associate chemical with something bad, not realizing that chemicals are both good and bad and most things are in fact chemicals, not just the stuff you clean your house with. There is a few stories in the news of people who stopped taking their prescriptions because the homeopath told them to and they died as a result.
And then there's the people that try to tell you how wheat and dairy are bad and that you should drink soy milk and eat gluten free bread.
Despite all the negatives i've said there are some herbs and alternative medicines that have shown some promise. St Johns wort and passionflower have shown that they can work for depression/anxiety. We also know that ginger can help people with stomach/abdominal cramps or other digestion related issues.
Overall people really need to just educate themselves. As one the posters above said if people really knew what homeopathy was they probbably wouldn't be using it.
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As Blinking spirit said: The thing about alternative medicine is that it has either not been proven to be work or has been proven not to work, because the thing we call alternative medicine which as been proven to work is medicine.
Of course, some AM has some truth claims worth looking at - acupunture, for instance, probably has *some* positive effects, but the effects it specifically claims are probably largely bull. Homeopathy, on the other hand, is the dumbest thing I've heard in a while
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I'm interested in hearing your opinions on the matter.
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The problem is that the signal/noise, gold/**** ratio is very low when it comes to practitioners in this country of "Alternative medicine". For every person who actually knows what they're doing, you have 20 snake oil salesmen. Same for the "supplements" and "alternative herbal" treatments. Its so poorly regulated that I believe you're just taking your life into your own hands...
...and I don't believe that the upside is usually huge, even if it does help you a little, the downside is far bigger.
If something truly works, it gets incorporated into mainstream medicine, after controlled studies are done.
More miraculous (cure cancer) alternative medicine claims remind me a lot of the "stem cell clinic in the Dominican republic" claims. Hand over $30,000 cash, and they tell a desperate person they can cure them. Because Western Oncology Doctors "don't want to help, they just want your money" or are "closed minded", or "the FDA is too slow".
That crap is just criminal.
I do agree there are alot of snake oil salesmen out there experimenting and just plain trying to rip people off. People need to be more proactive about how they are treated and what goes into their bodies.
Some times all a person needs is a minor effect to become better. Western medicine is like killing a fly with a sledge hammer some times. Over kill to the max!
Be careful how you describe these things. Homeopathy, herbs, energy healing, acupuncture and not all in the same boat. Homeopathy and Energy healing are complete nonsense, and are just new age fads. Herbal healing and acupuncture have at least some merit, as many modern day drugs came from herbal remidies, and acupuncture has been proven to relieve certain kinds of pain (although the ancient theoretical framework has little scientific value).
I also actually work in public health, and can tell you nothing works better on disease that scientifically proven medicines. The same trend towards alternate 'medicine' is the one that is leading to the growing anti-vaccine movement, which is also complete junk.
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Also, where do people think drugs they take came from? Some medicine man crushing up roots and herbs and mixing them into a potion that made people better. Granted, once the scientists figure out the active portion of the potion..they mass produce it in unnatural ways.
The difference is that 'scientifically proven' means it has been proven to have a medically significant effect.
I said that much myself, the difference is that the drugs themselves are much more potent, while with the plain herbs you aren't getting as pronounced an effect. For instance, chewing a poppy leaf might have some pain-releaving effects, but not as much as morphine.
Your use of the word 'unnatural' confuses me. Are you putting the mass production in a negative context?
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Overall, I trust repeated and carefully controlled scientific trials to what some shaman thinks.
To my knowledge, acupuncture has never been shown to be effective in treating pain in well controlled studies.
You sure would be S.O.L. if you were not living at this time. controlled and measured doses of medicines are relatively new to man. If it wasnt for those medicine men crushing up the roots we wouldnt have what we have now.
Ever see the side effects on some of the man made medicines? Unnatural means just that. Man tries to force generalized medicines for everyone. Like I stated earlier, Western medicine focus's on the ailment, Eastern medicines focus's on the person. Western medicine wants the same pill to work the same way for everyone who takes it ( which doesnt and probably never will work that way ) Eastern medicine customizes treatment on a per person basis.
Its called a practice for a reason, because it really isnt an exact science.
You need to stop being hung up on "tradition" and "nature." Just because people did something in the past through natural means doesn't mean that we should as well. In case you didn't notice, we have a better quality of life and longevity than those shamans.
This is what I think is a common problem with modern medicine. It's a victim of its own success. It's done such a great job of improving our lives and eradicating horrible ailments that people don't recognize how awful these ailments are and come up with nonsense like homeopathy and antivax.
It’s also very unfortunate that all alternative medicines are lumped together when they really shouldn’t be.
It doesn’t help that often, alternative medicine salesmen over-sell the benefits of their product. For example, chiropractics was for a long time and, in some cases still is, considered an alternative medicine. Most people who go to a chiropractor for a condition that can be treated by chiropractic care see improvements. However, last time I went to a chiropractor I was told that it could cure everything from heartburn to runny nose. Whether that’s true or not, it doesn’t sit well in the mind of someone concerned that they’re being sold snake oil.
Another example of alternative medicine is medical marijuana. While, for decades the established medical community denied medical marijuana benefits, it is becoming more and more clear that the established medical community was being both willfully ignorant of and deliberately deceptive about marijuana.
Some alternative medicines work, some don’t. Some have been lost to history, others are being rediscovered. Some are oversold and some are undersold. One thing’s for certain though, if you are experiencing a health issue and find a treatment that works, go for it whether it’s alternative or main stream.
Now, are there herbal cures that work? Yes. Is there anything to these alternative medicines? Possibly.
But the level of mysticism employed in these things is definitely not something to be embraced.
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sure, there may be some 'alternative medicines' that have a significant psychological impact on the patient (placebo effect, etc). But the vast majority are no good.
My favorite quackery is homeopathy. most people don't know what this means - they think it's synonymous with alternative medicine or herbal remedies. this is false. homeopathy is the practice of diluting medicine so much that it's no longer present, and believing that somehow the water is imbued with the essence of the medicine. this is fraudulent crap for obvious reasons.
Now, some traditional therapies have been proven to work, and the medical community has adopted them. The standard example here being aspirin. Because willow-bark extract actually is a fantastically effective low-strength painkiller, its active ingredient has been isolated and is now available in every drugstore in the world. If it didn't work, that's when it would be shelved in the "alternative" aisles and we'd all be annoyed by hippies without doctorates prescribing their willow-bark tea for every ailment from gas to cancer.
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
Not 100% true. The hoops and testing a 'new' drug has to go thru the FDA to be used in America is ridiculous. Thats why some prefer to go out of country for their meds. Better selection and in some cases better strength.
"Ridiculous"? No. Unfortunately, even FDA-approved drugs are sometimes afterwards discovered to slowly kill you. Real science, especially real science dealing with a subject as fantastically complicated as the human body, is a long and involved process. Ideally, scientists would observe a test group for an entire generation to make sure the drug didn't have some unexpected long-term effect. Even the FDA's lengthy process is cutting corners, really.
But everybody wants a quick and easy cure for what ails them, so they reach for alternatives. It's the same impulse that has allowed quackery to prosper since before the walls of Uruk rose over the Fertile Crescent.
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
The FDA isn't even slow enough to be truly effective in telling whether or not a drug will kill you. Blinking Spirit has it right. I work in Public Health, and if you actually took some courses in how the FDA works, it isn't effective enough in weeding out bad drugs or long-term consequences. It's awful for businesses, true, but it also helps avoid stupid mistakes.
Many other countries play it fast and loose, and basically only determine whether or not it will kill you upon consumption or shortly thereafter. Long-term effects are rarely tested, except when an independent research discovers a correlation between a drug and a death.
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Sadly, this sentiment is incorrect. I hate to go back to this again but medical marijuana is a shining example of an effective medicine that has been rejected by mainstream medical community in spite of concrete scientific support. The reasons for this are pretty numerous; the illegal nature of the drug, the desire for government regulators to remain consistent with the drug-war agenda, etc.
We like to think that science, particularly medicine, is built upon objective facts. Sadly, it is not. Just recently a “scientific” study was released by organization funded in part be a white supremacist group that linked illegal immigration to greenhouse gases.
There was a time long ago when the scientific community was heavily influenced by the church and scientists were put to death or excommunicated if their findings contradicted the church in any way. We like to think we have left those days behind. We have perhaps in form, but not in function.
And then there's the people that try to tell you how wheat and dairy are bad and that you should drink soy milk and eat gluten free bread.
Despite all the negatives i've said there are some herbs and alternative medicines that have shown some promise. St Johns wort and passionflower have shown that they can work for depression/anxiety. We also know that ginger can help people with stomach/abdominal cramps or other digestion related issues.
Overall people really need to just educate themselves. As one the posters above said if people really knew what homeopathy was they probbably wouldn't be using it.
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As Blinking spirit said: The thing about alternative medicine is that it has either not been proven to be work or has been proven not to work, because the thing we call alternative medicine which as been proven to work is medicine.
Of course, some AM has some truth claims worth looking at - acupunture, for instance, probably has *some* positive effects, but the effects it specifically claims are probably largely bull. Homeopathy, on the other hand, is the dumbest thing I've heard in a while