It is pretty pathetic when the medical profession considers "vitamins and minerals" "complementary Health approaches". Trust your instincts, parents. Remember when doctors would empower you?
Pathetic indeed if the pills are substitutes for needed treatment of serious disease, as opposed to being just a routine dietary supplement.
The NIH had or has a group that studies the effectiveness of alternative therapies using blinded, randomized, controlled studies to determine if they actually work. We know that physicians can allow their biases to influence their interpretation of studies and have adopted blinded radomized studies for evaluating drugs, procedures, etc. This method of study is the gold standard for determining the efficacy of any tratment modality.
Many "C.H.A." treatments have been shown to have no benefit versus a placebo and are a waste of avaliable resources.
I know of very few physicians that would refuse to utilize a form of therapy that had been shown to work using these study methods. I can't imagine why a physician or otherr health care provider would be in favor of using a treatment that is ineffective.
2
I believe that when these treatments are used instead of traditional medical approaches they are called alternative health approaches, and when they are used along side of traditional medical approaches they are called complementary. This is an important distinction that I think is mis-stated in this article.
3
When I meet a person who takes the theories underlying any of the various so-called alternative medicines seriously, my first reaction is "I'm talking to a person who is educationally and/or intellectually impaired." That's the more polite rendering, anyway.
l appreciate that whether that is fair or reasonable is open to debate. And, of course, I try my best to be polite and diplomatic, and to hide my snap judgement, as basic civility demands. But it might be worth considering, before volunteering such opinions, that I would not be alone in that reaction -- particularly among people with university-level scientific training.
Such as your doctor. Something to take into consideration, perhaps.
7
There is no such thing as alternative medicine, it is snake oil in a different guise. It isn’t just that you waste your money; you also do not get proper care in a timely fashion. Chiropractors have killed patients manipulating spines and tearing major arteries. There are court cases. There is such a thing as science and scientific method. Medicine uses both.
8
Why aren't the "parents" who gave their baby lead in jail?
2
here are a few indisputable facts: medicine is not about 'belief' since it's a science and not a religion. treatments that are shown to be effective (typically in a clinical trial) are considered 'conventional' medicine, treatments that have not been shown to work are by definition 'alternative' or 'unconventional' since as soon as it is shown to work they become conventional. do some unconventional/alternative treatments work? maybe but there's no way to know unless they are rigorously tested and certainly the odds are not in their favor
10
I’m a medical oncologist working with integrative naturopaths. We collaborate in the care of cancer patients and the line is very clear. I’m the cancer specialist and the naturopath provides supportive , symptom related care beyond my scope. People that seek so called alternative treatment represent the failure of our narrow minded, paternalistic medical system.
7
Supportive, symptomatic related care should be part of standard treatment, not an “alternative” one. If such treatment makes the lives of patients better, even if the outcomes are not different, then they deserve rigorous evaluation. Even if the result is all placebo effect, as long as no other harm is done, it’s still that many people who feel better while going through a difficult experience.
3
I have found the NCCIH to be a good public resource. Its aim is to fairly assess the value and the possible dangers of a whole range of CHAs. It also does a good job of describing the semantic differences between "Alternative", "Complementary" and "Integrative" Health.
There's a huge array of approaches out there, and NCCIH does a decent job in trying to suss them out. CHA's have not much consistency in their regulation. And why would there be? The inconsistency is because of its very nature. Among the pragmatic CHA remedies out there, there are gazillion remedies under that same umbrella term which can't even come close to be proven. We can't regulate something that has no evidence behind it. But we can't exactly regulate against it either–unless it's provably destructive or a scam (but then that's evidence).
The inconsistency is our own doing. We as a society have decided that we will regulate those things which need regulating, while those things considered benign (except maybe on the pocketbook) needn't be regulated too hard. With freedom comes responsibility, right folks? Everyone say it now...
Alternative medicine that actually works becomes medicine. The placebo effect works too but there's a limit to how elaborate and expensive its provision can be without being unethical.
4
The placebo effect does not, in fact, work.
If I begin to saw off your leg through your thigh, you will likely feel immense pain. You will scream and cry in horror.
If I then remove the top of your skull and modify your neural pathways so that you feel no pain, and then blindfold you, and tell you I am fixing your leg, you you will likely begin to calm down. However, what I actually do is saw the rest of your leg off and you bleed out from your femoral artery and die.
But you didn’t perceive pain after I modified your neural pathways. That is how the placebo effect “works”: you do not perceive the pain, regardless if whether or not your life is still in danger.
The split between supposed "Complementary Health Approaches" and western medicine is really a profound misunderstanding of the scientific process. The first step of the scientific process is to develop a hypothesis. C.H.A.s are not fundamentally different than western medicine. They are merely unproven hypotheses. As soon as a treatment is scientifically proven to be effective, it becomes part of western medicine.
Tu Youyou became the first Chinese woman to win a noble prize. She used the power of science to screen ancient Chinese remedies for malaria to isolate and discover one that actually worked. The hypothesis came from ancient folk treatments, the scientific method weeded out the worthless treatments, and the product was a drug discovery worthy of a nobel prize.
If patients and doctors understood this, they could see that C.H.A.s are a reasonable option when they are safe, affordable, and are not used instead of scientifically proven medical treatments. Smearing herbs on a lymphoma while avoiding a curative regimen of chemotherapy is probably a bad thing. Using massage rather than oxycodone as a way to deal with back pain is probably a good thing.
5
Your argument for CHAs contains circular reasoning. You argue that CHAs should be used when they are safe; knowing something is “safe” in the medical community is relatively improbable - most human bodies react to different volumes of different solutions of different ingredients in different ways.
To make CHAs “safe”, they must be tested and the results of those tests should contain statistically-significant values that support the hypotheses presented. When this process occurs, however, it is found that most CHA remedies are inefficient, no different than placebo, or harmful.
Therefore, you will likely never have a CHA that is “safe.” Once it is “safe”, it will likely be adopted into mainstream medical practice, no longer making it a CHA.
3
The greatest danger of choosing alternative therapies is that an effective treatment may be passed over for one that is all hype and placebo effect. Anyone considering the use of homeopathy and Back Flower should do just half an hour of research and learn that these "remedies" contain no active ingredients, as proper solutions are diluted until there is only the "memory" of the "energy" that remains.
It's startling how many people are taken in by modern day snake oil salesmen. But the placebo effect is very real. So real that the FDA years ago approved a medication called Obecalp. (Spell it backwards.)
3
This article somewhat advocates for a collaboration between medicine and alternative treatments. But it still holds onto an outmoded view that medical doctors hold the keys to overall health. This cannot be further from the truth as most medical doctors until very recently have been “late adopters”of almost all remedies that don’t involve medication or surgery. In the past they were late to the game on smoking, exercise, healthy eating and the mind/body relationship. It has only been in the last few decades that they have given any credence to chiropractors, massage therapists and acupuncture, let alone fish oil, Co-Q 10, or pro biotic which started as alternatives FOR YEARS before they were mainstream. Doctors are coming around but they are skeptics before they are even willing to give things a chance. They are great for acute conditions like heart attacks, broken bones, etc but NOT for chronic issues like allergies, headaches or stomach problems that respond better to diet, vitamins, relaxation techniques, etc. As such, people need to be responsible for their own health and use both doctors and alternatives to take care of themselves.
9
Evidence-based medicine is the standard for healthcare. Statistically significant results are the standard in all legitimate science.
Alternative remedies are a billion dollar industry based on anecdotes and feed on the innate desire of some to appear as standing up to an “establishment.”
6
Congratulations Well! Once again you have published an article that exposes your ignorance of alternative medicines. If you truly want to do honest reporting on CHA, check your "facts", consult a trained, licensed provider and edit your articles for misleading statements.
Take your use of the phrase "medical treatment." which implies the remedy was recommended or administered by al licensed healthcare provider. Were parents to consult a professional, the provider would steer patients away from practices that are unproven (not time-tested empirical- or evidence-based) or potentially dangerous, like sucking on a magnetic bracelet! They'd also learn that— just as with any medicine—natural medicines have side effects. Consider the harmful effects of self-prescribing OTC or pharmaceutical medicines: it's important to consult a licensed provider!
Where did you get your information that alternative care providers are poorly informed to recognize signs of serious illness? Please consult an accredited college of natural medicine's Academic Dean for information on rigorous training in diagnosis based on signs and symptoms, lab analysis, pathophysiology, pharmacology, supervised clinical training as well as proper referral.
On one point I do agree: patients need to communicate their healthcare choices to their providers. You made excellent recommendations. Collaboration is essential, especially as the vast majority of Western medicine providers have little more than a clue about CHA.
4
You mis-read the sentence, they are referring to caregivers or alternative care providers, in regards to caring for children. Parents/guardians/teachers do not have the training to use these alternative treatments, they do not have the training to recognize the signs of illness or severe side effects of the treatments.
This article lumps together a very wide range of "alternative" therapies. There's a big difference between giving a sick child chamomile tea with honey and taking them to the doctor when it's appropriate, and trying to use homeopathic compounds of questionable purity and efficacy as the sole therapy for serious illness.
CHA treatments include
1) things that probably work (honey has found to be as effective as dextromethorphan in some studies) and are certainly safe (in the case of honey, safe for anyone older than 12 mo)
2) things that may not work but definitely won't hurt (for most people, normal doses of multivitamins)
3) things that may be dangerous, even if they may work in some cases (supplements that may contain heavy metal contaminants, herbs that interact with essential medications)
Categories 1 and 2 include a lot of things many of us do regularly - coffee anyone? As long as they aren't used as substitutes for evidence-based medicine, i.e. they are indeed "complementary", there's no reason to be alarmed.
2
Homeopathic remedies can be of questionable purity but not of questionable efficacy.
Their efficacy is precisely that of a placebo. They contain exactly zero active ingredients, only the solutions "memory" of a mystical "vibrational energy."
5
The first paragraph of this article is misleading. The FDA report that is linked states, "The child wore the bracelet for teething related discomfort and was sometimes noted to chew on it."
The parents did not directly give the child the bracelet to teeth with, it just says he chewed on it sometimes.
Moreover, this does not even suggest that it is an alternative medicine practice, the parents just gave the kid a bracelet which he happened to chew on.
Western medicine has its limitations too, let's not forget that pharmaceuticals is a billion dollar industry with its own issues....
Regardless whether your doctor opts for alternative medicine or western medicine, all medicine should be subject to the same scrutiny and questioning listed in this article.
3
Your comment of Western medicine as a billion dollar industry does nothing to substantiate your previous statement that Western medicine has limitations.
1
Alternate solutions are derided by the main stream medical community because they're cheap compared to conventional treatments.
Healthy people aren't paying for all the hospitals that look like resorts, just like winners didn't build the Las Vegas Strip.
When my daughter was very young she had chronic ear infections, always a trip to the doctor and always antibiotics, and they always came back. And now, as an adult, she's allergic to many antibiotics.
She had a playmate whose father was a chiropractor and he learned of her infections, did a small adjustment to her eustachian tube (it was kinked) and she never had another ear infection.
Ever since that time, regular chiropractic care has been a park of my self care. Is it covered by insurance? Heck no, it's too cheap.
7
Anecdotes are not equal to statistically-relevant evidence.
3
Observation: liberals tend to ridicule (western) religion and tout their love of science, but have a soft spot for alternative therapies—homeopathy, naturopathy, etc.—that are utterly unscientific.
8
I didn’t think of that one! Excellent....
A homeopath in Germany nearly killed my mother by recommending an herbal remedy which was completely contraindicated for her heart condition. In my opinion, if I were to use homeopathic medicine, if at all, I would do a lot of my own research before taking it. I'm pretty skeptical of the whole thing, because if these compounds worked, I'm sure the drug companies would waste no time selling them.
3
Try those other treatments on yourself as an adult, but don’t subject your child to it.
3
I currently live in a place where an Albino person is at risk of being murdered so that body parts can be used in traditional medicine. Can you prove it doesn't work? Google "Muti albino".
1
I can’t remember the source but once read a joke/comment about this.
“You know why they call it alternative medicine? Because if it really worked it would just be called medicine .”
3
A big reason for such adverse outcomes is that the conventional doctors have none or little information about alternative or integrative medicine. To make matters worse, integrative and alternative medicine have become voodoo words to be hushed and not mentioned to conventional doctors for the fear of invoking their fury at such remedies. The more conventional docs open themselves to such discussions with respect towards patient choices the more they will be able to open the doors of communication with patients using such remedies to give informed advice on how to make safe decisions. But to do so they will have to learn alternative remedies themselves first.
Medicine has to make patients healthy. There shouldn’t be any restrictions to contain self in one box or the other. There is fear of the unknown box, alternative medicine, in public as well as the self righteous “scientific” community which hasn’t left no stone unturned to delegitimize alternative medicine to advance its agenda of commercializing pharma industry.
We fear what we don’t know. Increasingly people are leaning towards natural and alternative remedies and it will be in best interest of the medical community and the general public that all are informed enough to make safe decisions.
1
What's the reason for doctors to inform themselves of quack medicine except to anticipate fake therapies their patients might try?
1
Children do not need alternative medicine. The majority rarely need conventional western medicine beyond minor acute illnesses and vaccines. They need real food, stable families, good schools, time to play and safe environments with clean air and green space. Twenty years of practicing Pediatrics and the treatment for the common cold and viral infections is the same--rest, fluids. Essential oils, herbs and vitamins are as unnecessary as cough syrup and Tylenol. Maybe if our collective energies fixed the basics we wouldn't be wasting our time and money on modern day placebos.
12
At Denise Somsak
A voice of reason in this vale of quack nonsense!
2
I believe the Tylenol and cough syrup are to assist with suppressing symptoms and not providing a cure for the illness.
As a doctor, you should well know the difference between symptoms of an illness and an illness itself. That medicine is to help make the experience of the illness less painful. Rest and fluids are always a great way to get through the illness - the medicine is there to assist.
2
...because children rarely ever contract bacterial infections, right?
I have a friend that is into homeopathy. Whenever she tries to get me to try something I always tell her to show me the double-blind studies showing its' efficacy first. She doesn't like that, but we're still friends.
3
Just out of curiosity, has she ever asked to see the double-blinded studies showing lack of efficacy?
1
Just out of curiosity, have you ever looked into the concept of why avg how homeopathy is supposed to work?
It's as reasonable as the the basis for Scientology (or, let's face it, any other religion).
2
That is not how the scientific process works.
You can’t prove that something doesn’t work. You can only prove hypotheses that state it does or you must null said hypotheses.
1
Decades ago a teacher told my class that no two snowflakes were the same. I was sceptical because who could possibly compare one snow flake with every other snowflake. Allopathic physicians practice evidence based medicine, and no two patients are the same. Recently there have been multiple TV adds selling DNA testing and advertising how genetically different people are from what they had believed to be. When a mechanic repairs a plane there is a correct place for every part and an exact match for the part that's failing. When we're dealing with the human genome we are closer to the snow flake than to an airplane part. We are all different in so many micro and macro ways, some of which we can handle and some of which we cannot. Allopathic medicine is based upon reproducable evidence and documented results. Successes as well as failures are documented and research is ongoing. If you think your doctor is mainly looking to take your money, you certainly need another doctor or an alternative health care provider of your choice.
1
Why don't we stop using the term " allopathic medicine". It is a clever invention by quacks, who need to set themselves apart from the scientifically trained 'establishment'.
If something has been proven to work beyond placebo, it should be called simply 'medicine'.
3
Hmm this article shows how little understanding there is in the US medical community about alternative or complimentary therapies in vogue today. This is a serious lapse in education where doctors in the US are way behind the rest of the world. In Europe and Asia, herbal and accessory therapies are better understood by doctors, maybe not through scientific studies, but more due to an awareness of the cultural practices prevalent over many years.
As a parent and a researcher, I can tell you that over the years allopathic medicine for chronic and simple illnesses is becoming more and more disillusioning and disappointing. More because clinical practice seems decades behind medical research. I get that there is no time for doctors to continue to advance their education as their time is better spent catering to the increasing populations of folks who fall sick. But there is no excuse for medical practices to not evolve and include biochemist or ethnobiologists amongst their practice to be aware of potential other therapies and to keep pace with research. It's all about concentrating money in few hands that makes for this sad situation.
I use a lot of alternate therapies for my kids, and as a biochemist, it's fantastic to read laterally as there is much information already available. It's just not collated or analyzed well....start up anyone :-)))?
And yes I am not against vaccines, just some like the useless flu vaccine...show me the real data not evangelizing doctors.
2
I am familiar with the European medical and "alternative" environment. What has changed over the last twenty years is the invasion of quackery into medical practices and pharmacies. Doctors have been squeezed by insurers and governments, just a little bit earlier than in the US. Building on the trust in traditional herbal remedies (some of them of established value, some of them useless, some downright dangerous), a vast moneymaking machine of more or less dubious practices and remedies created another layer of income for pharmacies, 'alternative' providers, gyms and unfortunately even doctors. After an elderly relative returned from an eye exam at her ophthalmologist, I found out that this 'physician' had sold her a magnetic bracelet against rheumatism!
As to disillusionment about regular treatment of chronic illnesses, you are committing the classical fallacy:
Since "allopathic" treatment often doesn't work, "alternative" treatment works. There is no such logical consequence.
I have high regard for ethnobotanists. But they are the first ones to acknowledge the vast differences in the concentration and composition of active ingredients in plants of the same species often just a few feet apart.
I do not understand the value of a biochemist and an ethnobiologist in a doctor's office. Are they supposed to prescribe the remedies? Are they supposed to compound them?
As to the flu vaccine: How do you find out in advance whether it is useless?
1
It's called "alternative medicine" because it relies on "alternative facts", e.g., the 'flu vaccine is "useless". Well done.
Why the scorn for homeopathic remedies? Asserting they are promulgated for profit (a course of therapy costs on average $6 US) is absurd. Profit incentive seems more likely with hideous, ineffective pharmaceuticals like Embrel (and other mabs, which wreck the immune system) and Amiodorone (theoretically to control arrhythmia but more likely to cause cataracts and vertigo). These drugs, and many others, cost thousands of dollars per year. Is that what makes them “real medicine?” “Evidence based” actually means “insurance reimbursable” because research is expensive and the bottom-line is what’s really important in our health-care industry. It is utterly shocking that our great country subsidizes noxious food (GMO corn, milk from sick CAFO bred cows, hybridized wheat corrupted with Roundup) yet denigrates healthcare providers who take the time to coach patients in judicious food choices. It is shocking that dialysis centers are a “growth industry.” It is shocking that we park our elders in grubby institutions hooked up to machines to squeeze out the last bit of their wealth and dignity. It is shocking we cannot contain narcotic over-production and diversion because of pharmaceutical lobbyists. The only way to stay healthy in this upside-down charade of healthcare delivery is to eat well, organic whenever possible, avoid chemicals like the plague (plastics, most cleaning and beauty products, sick building materials), exercise daily, sleep enough and mostly drink water.
2
Anyone speaking in favor of homeopathy is either ignorant of how it's supposed to work, or a believer in fairy tales.
As for the use of biologic immunosuppressors, they are serious drugs that have serious side effects that also work wonders with a great many people. I know two people who's lives have been turned around because of them.
2
The words "integrative" "complementary" and "alternative" should be forbidden.
Stick with proven, hypothesized based on x,y and z, and disproven, never investigated.
20
What about things that aren't investigated but not disproven?
Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, and pharmaceutical companies aren't going to spend money to study things they can't monetize.
Last I checked, nobody has done a double-blinded randomized, placebo-controlled study on morning coffee, but I'm not planning to stop drinking it.
3
Your argument is slyly implying the “Big Pharma” fallacy, while also ignoring the fact that “alternative” remedies are a billion dollar industry.
I promise you: if one of these alternative remedies actually worked for a statistically-significant set of people, the medical companies would sell it.
1
it was a nine-month-old baby girl who developed lead poisoning in Connecticut, not because of the hematite, but because of the spacer beads, which contained lead, between the hematite beads.
5
Still crazy to put that on your infant’s wrist.
2
Many forms of alternative or made medicine because often times the person practicing them become their own doctor. For a sick child this is a terrible idea.
Which a parent is agonizing over how to treat the child more proven and effective treatment is ignored.
2
Too bad (but kind of typical) this helpful article is not being clear about weather the more than half of parents, who felt that homeopathy or special jewelry was not helpful, actually tried it or simply were not interested in trying it.
Because for me and my three children as well as my husband, homeopathy has helped in more than approximately 90% of the medical issues we have had over the last 30 years or so.
14
Everything works, if you take it at the height of some of the non chronic maladies, since the crisis is just about over and you are on the way to recovery. You are experiencing the typical placebo effect. Off course, it is up to you to pay for expensive water in some capsule!
Several well designed double blinded studies have been done proving no benefits of homeopathic concoctions beyond placebo and they were not financed by big bad Pharma. The whole concept of homeopathy is fraudulent to the hilt. By the way, in Germany big bad Pharma is fully involved in producing and selling homeopathics.
12
I highly doubted homeopathy when I first tried it. I am allergic to NSAIDS and am not fond of pain. I found an arnica homeopathy that worked well and worked quickly.
I was having a hard time getting to sleep... I would lie in bed awake for hours. I tried homeopathy coffea cruda. Worked fast and well....needed to be in bed when I took it! A few days later I no longer needed support, getting to sleep quickly.
I rarely use pharmaceutical drugs since I am allergic to most. Swelling of my lips, hives, constantly leaking nose, etc. I am thriving despite fibromyalgia/ chronic fatigue due to alternative medicine.
I like that the article recommends documenting the affects of alternative medicine. That should be done for all medicines/treatments to record effectiveness and side affects!
1
@dm
I can accept that the placebo effect may be operating in humans. But what about animals?
Our dog clearly benefited from homeopathic treatment. In one case he was treated for a life-threatening tick bite with homeopathic remedies. Our vet said he didn't think that he would survive, but to give it a try anyway. Nothing to lose. He survived, recovered very quickly, and went on to live a long life.
Somehow I don't think it was the result of the placebo effect.
I'm not suggesting that one anecdotal case is sufficient to prove the efficacy of homeopathy, but I could cite many more. Of course, some of them would be cases involving suggestible humans.
4
My granddaughter developed horrifying eczema. Dermatologist said autoimmune problem, 100% sure it had nothing to do with food, use this steroid. D.O. said, cut out eggs, then try dairy, then try wheat. Turns out, eggs. No eggs, no eczema. So now my daughter doesn't trust M.D.s. I wish these folks would all work together to build trust. There's room, and need, for many different modalities.
37
What you are describing is not exactly alternative medicine (cutting out food groups), just trial and error. That never hurts.
7
An osteopath (DO.) is likely not an MD. Much more emphasis on treating whole person, which, is rather a quaint way of saying that it's alternative medicine.
4
D.O. only refers to medical school training. There's residency after that, which is where medical students learn to practice medicine. There's really no meaningful distinction between D.O and M.D unless you want osteopathic manipulation.
19
I wish the author doctors had provided more examples of what they classify as "Alternative Medicine" .. the illustrations seem to imply acupuncture and chiropractic but the lead is about a magnetic bracelet.
I am hard nosed enough about science to have become an atheist (no evidence for God and all that). But I have an interesting anecdote about alternative medicine.
When our daughter was 9 she developed a months long, almost continuous headache. Several visits to pediatricians, neurologists, emergency rooms, and two top children's hospitals in the Northeast were of no help. In the end, her pediatrician heartlessly asked us why we had gone to see her.
After exhausting these channels of mainstream medicine, we decided to try the alternatives, one by one. We were at the end of the line. We were not willing to give up nor did we wish to continue with strong painkillers which had started showing side effects.
The first and only one was a chiropractic. The same evening, she said her pain level had come down. The next morning, her headache was gone.
I always have this sense that "mainstream" doctors are out to protect their turf and income.
46
Thank you! After 38 years of practice there are still medical doctors who think of us as quacks. It I think you hit the nail...protecting their turf and income, especially with the current state of insurance.
I don’t profess to be able to cure all. IF the cause of a condition is a pinched nerve, then chiropractic can help. If not, we can’t. Simple, scientific, research based.
Just ask my three children, ages 33, 30, and 28 if chiropractic has improved their health!
So happy for your daughter. Maybe she’ll become a chiropractor!
9
Anecdote does not equal useful evidence.
Reviews and studies have consistently shown chiropractic therapy is more-often dangerous for the patient; the cost/benefit is too high with effects being at best no better than physical therapy and at worst extremely dangerous.
1
It is just as possible that your daughter experienced a coincidence. That’s the trouble with anecdotes--they can be a starting point for scientific investigation, but they they are not evidence in and of themselves. There is, however, in the human brain, a strong tendency to perceive correlation as cause. Only reason can overcome this flaw.
I can't speak to alternative medicine in children, but I do know that. as an adult with MS, I have benefited from both hypnosis (for neuropathy), strenuous exercise, and a strict anti-inflammatory diet. I also take Avonex, a beta-interferon. though I initially had multiple lesions in my brain, cervical spine, and thoracic spine, after 15 years I am running, doing martial arts, and working full time. Studies are just this past year being conducted on the effects of diet on the progression of MS, and when I first was diagnosed I was told to do light exercise only. Now aerobic exercise is recommended. Things that were once "alternative" often become integrated into mainstream medicine in time. Incidentally, I did not think the hypnosis for pain would work, and only tried it as a last resort after no medications helped. It took a few months of practice, but now, though my legs are still numb, I have no pain.
15
I am impressed!
Do you have any suggestions to find a good hypnotist? Getting a qualified practitioner is essential for alternative (and regular) treatments.
3
Things that were once "alternative" often become integrated into mainstream
Yes--when they work and are proven to do so.
The VA medical centers do a much better job treating veterans with various psychological problems. Your primary MD will quickly send you to a social worker or a psychologist, then to a psychiatrist for a prescription, and they continue to do followup
to help the veteran. If you cooperate with them, you will get your problem under control and function in society. Granted, there some vets who do not trust the "system." Sadly they tend to get in trouble more serious.
The VA medical centers also have beds in a psych ward if the vet needs more serious help and meds.
2
You should keep in mind that all the supplements in the United States are not regulated as well as prescription medicines are.
I think many people who are well off are always wanting to try something new and different. Also many people who are not as well off probably can't afford acupuncture or any of the other complementary practices.
A few days ago I visited my internist because of hip pain. I felt better when I got home because someone listenend to me and showed concern. If I had tried some "woo-woo" treatment, I would have thought that the "woo-woo" worked.
13
If it works, it would not be called alternative.
15
Its different in Canada. None of the authors work in the American health care system.
5
I would be very careful about using an unproven complementary practice on a child, but I have and will continue to do so with myself, after appropriate research. Doctors don’t have all the answers; more than one has prescribed medicine or testing that turned out no longer to be recommended or which cost me a considerable amount of money I couldn’t spare. I read multiple scientific studies before I try something like intermittent fasting or melatonin, etc., and comments by people who have already tried it. And yes, I tell my doctor what I have done and why. I am my own test subject, but parents need to be cautious about doing the same with kids.
4
My healthcare consists of good nutrition, regular exercise, regular medical checkups, and routine "alternative" care such as acupuncture. I have figured out what works through research, trial and error, and critical thinking. whether it is nutrition, exercise, or acupuncture, the health benefits are slow acting and require discipline and patient involvement.
I absolutely take a scientific approach to what I do. It is hard to find good research on alternatives, including nutrition. As a result I often am my own test subject - a very small sample size but meaningful to me! If one looks at the studies done on alternatives, they are often poorly designed and understandably so. It is difficult to design an effective study for some of these treatments. It is also a challenge to get "outside the box" enough to design effective studies.
What caused me to originally consider alternatives is that physicians had no answers or their recommendations caused more problems than they solved. Without studies that prove efficacy beyond a doubt, it is understandable that a physician would not recommend trying a treatment. Too much risk. Yet as a patient, my choice appears to be 'Do nothing" or do my own research and test things. I am not content to wait until something gets so out of balance that a "treatable" disease results. I would rather seek actions to prevent minor imbalances from becoming major ones.
21
You don’t state your age so it’s hard to evaluate your claim. Genes also have a lot to do with health. Good nutrition is not complicated. Eat good food, not too much, mostly plants. Thank you Michael Pollan.
You are correct in stating that an sample of one does not prove much.
A "complementary health approach" that actually WORKS is referred to as "standard medical treatment." Everything that gets dumped in the category "C.H.A." is there because it doesn't work. Homeopathy, the use of plain water as medicine, is a C.H.A. (unless the disorder is dehydration).
If the patient believes that a remedy works, and it does work, what we have in that case is the placebo effect. Nothing to sneer at, placebos usually work without side effects (especially if they are inert substances, as with homeopathy) and if they are effective I'm all for it. It is important not to confuse these treatments with actual medicine however.
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So, if you believe that your chemo works and it does work, then it's the placebo effect? "Actual medicine" as you term it, has a habit of disparaging the alternatives then co-opting them. Most thinking people do not want to wait for the day "actual medicine" will deliver its stamp of approval.
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You should always disclose all of your health practices, from medications to supplements, with your Dr. Hopefully everyone has access to a Dr within means who is opening to really listening to each patient and his/her health concerns.
Thanks for pointing out that there are a wide variety and levels of real world results within CHAs. Things like; drinking ginger tea for a mildly upset stomach and taking iron supplements are quite different from magnetic "healing" bracelets, are quite different and don't deserve to be always lumped together. That being said even taking iron supplements can have side effects or potential interactions with medications, which is why it's always important discuss everything with your Dr and it's even more important for Drs to listen.
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Except for infections & fractures, pharmaceutical drugs are dangerously powerful and just quiet symptoms while maintaining illness. These drugs carry a large number of side effects which compromise health rather than heal. Conventional medical error, drug side effects and overdoses come at # 3 in causes of death in this country. I don't see alternative medicine on this list. Sticking to what nature so perfectly created for humans and animals is where I would go for most illnesses. Keeping healthy by eating whole plant foods will ensure staying away from the MD and hospitals for as long as this mad world allows.
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Uffda. So you think just because something is natural, it is harmless? Belladonna is natural, yet deadly if ingested in high quantities. Products not regulated by the FDA are neither tested for efficacy nor active ingredients, dosage, etc. Just because something is "natural" does not mean they are harmless. If you believe that you may as well admit that you believe they are useless.
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Scientifically developed prescription medications are often a balancing act. For example, statin side effects can cause serious problems for a small minority of people. Most people don't have problems with them. (Don't believe the numerous internet forums where it sounds like everybody is dying from statins, or some other drug; the forums are not good statistical samples, and it is likely that some of them exist to encourage people to buy nutritional supplements.) If you are taking prescription medications, stay in touch with your doctor--and don't suffer needlessly.
Alternative medicine is full of risks you seem to be ignorant of. What about the patient who dies of undiagnosed cancer while being treated by a homeopath? What about people who suffer a debilitating--or deadly--stroke while getting a supposedly harmless "neck adjustment" from a chiropractor? What about the elderly woman who only takes "coral calcium" for osteoporosis, and suffers from a hip fracture? Do you really know what's in the supplements you're taking? Some have been found to contain potent drugs, or are adulterated.
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Spinal manipulation to the neck has a real but rare risk of causing blood vessel damage. In my 33 years, I have never had a catastrophic event occur to a patient. What I have observed in my 33 years are many children with torticollis (wry neck) respond to full recovery with one- three spinal adjustments.
In addition, spinal manipulation is not an alternative treatment but a frontline approach for spinal pain. Here is a link for you to read from the American College of Physicians:http://annals.org/aim/fullarticle/2603228/noninvasive-treatments-acute-s...
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85 years ago it was "alternative" to treat scurvy with fruits and vegetables (until vitamin C was synthesized in 1933, medical opinion held that all those anecdotes about fruits curing scurvy were ridiculous sailors' superstitions.)
Now an absurd variety of approaches get lumped together under the derisive term "alternative." Using exercise and meditation to help anxiety, or drinking ginger tea when queasy, are considered pretty much the same thing as giving a baby a lead-containing "healing bracelet" to chew on. Maybe someday in the distant future the medical world will take a wider, more comprehensive view of human health, but obviously we're not there yet.
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TT, you have gotten one of the classic stories of medical history completely backwards.
James Lind, a ship's doctor in the British navy, performed the first well-known controlled trial in 1747, to demonstrate that sailors who got citrus fruits were cured of their scurvey, while sailors who got regular rations were not cured. There were many "alternative" medicines, but they had to figure out which ones actually worked. In 1795 citrus fruits were adopted throughout the British navy. http://www.jameslindlibrary.org/articles/who-was-james-lind-and-what-exa...
That's the difference between real medicine and "alternative" medicine. The only way to be confident that a treatment works is with a controlled trial. Real medicine has been demonstrated to work in controlled trials. Alternative medicine has not.
Why would anyone want to use a medicine that doesn't work?
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Much of what is considered "real" medicine or standard medicine has never been demonstrated to work in controlled trials, and sometimes fails when subjected to controlled trials.
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Norman: While it's true that Lind did demonstrate the curative effects of vitamin C, by the time the 20th century arrived most of the prominent doctors of the time were skeptical of this 150-year-old claim, and viewed it as outdated and silly. Joseph Lister believed scurvy to be a form of ptomaine poisoning, and this became the most well-accepted theory of the early 20th century. Elmer McCollum, the most prominent nutritionist of the early 20th century, believed scurvy was caused by constipation. It was not until vitamin C was synthesized in a lab that scurvy was officially accepted by as a deficiency disease.
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This is a shocking revelation: "Our research found that parents with a university-level education were more likely to use a complementary treatment than those with less education."
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Why is this so shocking? Might it speak to the fact that educated people are informed people?
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CHA is quackery practiced by charlatans to line their pockets. For 30 out of 50 states homeopathic practice is un-licensed and not legal-for good reason.
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John,
Have you ever tried homeopathy? Are you so bitter because you tried it and it didn't work?
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Homeopathy is the biggest rubbish ever. And the homeopathy industry is as interested in profit as any other industry, or is that stuff handed out for free?
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It's interesting that the British Royal family has been increasingly turning to alternative practioners in recent years, and that includes homeopathy, which they have adhered to since its beginnings in the 1840s. It is also interesting to note the longevity of the Royals (Princess Margaret, like her father, the exceptions, dying relatively early due to the effects of smoking.)
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“Complementary health approaches” used to be known as folk remedies. The difference is that these were employed, prominently in Appalachia, for example, in lieu of medical treatment, whether unavailable or ineffective.
Or maybe it’s not so different after all.
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A misleading choice for the accompanying illustration to show acupuncture, a modality not even mentioned in the article. Acupuncture is a safe and effective treatment for children, and it is easy to find a qualified and licensed practitioner with proper credentials. I would expect a more thorough vetting of what constitutes potentially dangerous practices rather than lazily lumping all “alternative” practices together.
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Acupuncture is basically a placebo and alternative practices should be lumped together. The things that work (diet, exercise, rest, meditation) are not alternative treatments.
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Fenella: Most medical professionals absolutely do view nutrition, exercise, meditation, stress reduction, or any form of self-management of illness as "alternative" (and ineffective.) This seems to be especially true in the mental health field, where these types of approaches are actually likely to be quite beneficial. I used to run a mental health support group and heard from dozens of patients whose doctors scoffed at the idea that the "alternative" practices of improved diet, exercise, meditation or stress management would help them.
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TT, your claim that most medical professionals view nutrition, exercise, meditation, stress reduction, etc. as ineffective is nonsense. When was the last time you visited a doctor? When I was in the hospital a couple of years ago (for appendicitis), a nutritionist came to my bedside to give me nutritional advice. A friend of mine with risk factors for heart disease got extensive encouragement from his doctors to eliminate alcohol and reduce fats, sugar and salt. Major medical journals like JAMA regularly publish articles on nutrition, exercise, and stress reduction. The Veterans Affairs hospitals have published articles on how they're using relaxation methods to reduce opioid prescriptions. Here's a review that tries to give acupuncture the benefit of the doubt https://nccih.nih.gov/health/acupuncture/introduction
MDs certainly take acupuncture seriously, and the Cochrane Collaboration has many completed or ongoing studies http://www.cochrane.org/search/site/acupuncture Some studies have shown that acupuncture may be effective, however in most studies the effect is small, the studies are of poor quality, and fake acupuncture is as effective as real acupuncture. It's hard to tell how much of the effect is due to the acupuncture and how much is placebo. There are many doctors who are trying hard to demonstrate that acupuncture works, but they seldom get clear, convincing results.
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As a physician acupuncturist, I feel the illustration which includes acupuncture is misleading.
Acupuncture is a medical procedure and in many states including New York, even if one is a physician, he or she still must do specific training in acupuncture. This is not the same as being able to go into a store and buy so-called natural treatments.
And as acupuncture has been practiced in this country for almost two centuries and thus antedates virtually all the surgical procedures and medications we use today, I still don't understand how this is considered "alternative"or "complementary" and those are not. There is more literature supporting acupuncture than there are for surgical procedures for back pain.
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Do you have peer reviewed Level I or II evidence regarding any of acupuncture’s efficacy? I know some of our practice’s in medicine may not be completely evidence based, but so far I have seen no high quality research demonstrating Acupuncture’s as a viable treatment. Additionally, the supposed mechanisms behind it are nonsensical. As a Surgical Resident, we talk about the quality of research and place less emphasis on the quantity.
1
Rubbish. Acupunture is an elaborate placebo that does not work in properly controlled studies. Further, there is not even any demonstrated principle by which acupunture even COULD work. It “works” just as well when fake needles do not even penetrate the skin or when the supposed “points” are not used.
https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/can-we-finally-just-say-that-acupunctur...
As Canada has 50,000 avoidable deaths every year, it seems likely that the US has 500,000 deaths that could also be prevented with proper use of alternative therapies such as naturopathy which claim, with some credence, to be able to head off cataracts, heart disease by preventing cholesterol buildiups, kidney diseases, some cancers.
The wealthy already know that alternative therapies can lengthen their lives and improve their quality of life, while many still focus on the many and quirky alternative medicine horror stories of misused remedies.
I think we would do well to focus on what works and start using it as one out of four deaths can be prevented today. Thin back to the last four friends andfamily members who passed away recently. One in four should be with us still.
Alternate medicine should start with children, obviously, but first we have to get our science down pat. However wecannotwait for the medical lobby which has already read the tea leaves anddecided that any theraphy whch might threatenmedical dollars must be avoided. Not by me and mne!
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Think this through again. If therapies existed to prevent 25% of all deaths, would the medical establishment turn their back on them? If the medical lobby is as greedy as you say, wouldn't they instead start using them and collect the money themselves?
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I would love to see the true evidence of the effectiveness of such treatments (and by evidence, I do not mean anecdotes). Good luck!
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I just went through this argument with some people who should know better, so I looked up some references on naturopathy, just to make sure that there was nothing to it.
To the extent that you can define "naturopathy," it's a grab-bag of unproven and disproven treatments. If there were any "credence" to those naturopathic treatments you describe for preventing cataracts, etc., then either "naturopathic practitioners" or conventional doctors would have followed up with controlled trials and they would not be "alternative" medicine, they would be "medicine."
I used to sit in medical conferences and watch presentations on alternative medicine, after the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994 let anybody sell any unregulated drug he wanted by calling it a "dietary supplement." I saw that many doctors had done the research and we were all hoping that the alternative treatments would turn out to work. Then at the end of the talk the researcher would tell us that the alternative treatment had no benefit.
Either you believe in scientific medicine or you don't. If you don't believe in science, I'm wasting my time talking to you. But it would be a crime against science education to let your claims go unchallenged.
Aside from PubMed and Wikipedia, I would refer you to this convenient list of people killed or injured by naturopathy http://whatstheharm.net/naturopathy.html
BTW, isn't the alternative medicine lobby also funded by wealthy contributors?
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