In "Still no good evidence that most complementary medicine works" Ian Musgrave, Senior lecturer in Pharmacology at University of Adelaide, Australia, summarises the lack of evidence for many complementary medicines:
"The real problem with alternative medicine is that once any treatment is shown beyond doubt to be effective, it ceases to be 'alternative' and becomes just like any other part of medical knowledge. That means that 'alternative medicine' must consist entirely of unproven treatments."
Neil
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I haven't read the links yet... But everything that is now proven, was at one point unproven. That does not mean it was not effective when it was still unproven.
We all know about the EGCG studies at the Mayo Clinic that have helped some CLL-ers. And there are many other ongoing studies with other alternative treatments that may, in time, prove to be helpful.
Dr. Neil Kay (who ran the EGCG studies at the Mayo) recently responded to the following question:
"How feasible do you think natural/homeopathic options are for prevention/cure?"
Dr. Kay's response:
"The tendency is to dismiss these options because they are routinely never tested in clinical trials. However in my opinion we should be paying attention to any anecdotal reports, because there are many documented instances where patients are taking certain alternative therapies and get better. Some of it seems hard to believe, but if these compounds are available for safe testing and you can validate these through appropriate clinical trials, it seems to me that it is something we should be thinking about."
Dr. Neil Kay one of the principle investigators of the Mayo Clinic EGCG, does not recommend the use of commercial grade OTC extracts...
'How do you respond to patients that want to take EGCG for CLL?
I cannot recommend this because I do not know what is in the over the counter products they are buying. On the other hand if they want to just drink green tea instead we would estimate that they would have to drink more than 15 cups a day to reach an effective dose level of EGCG.
What we do recommend is vitamin D. We have found that vitamin D insufficiency is associated with a faster time to need for therapy and overall survival in CLL patients. We are now conducting a phase III clinical trial normalizing vitamin D levels in deficient CLL patients to see if this will truly improve their clinical outcome.'
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