Alternative Therapies.

[MikePollard]

I was about to write a piece on another subject, but having recently joined this forum I have noticed that there is a low key murmuring re the efficacy of ‘alternative’ therapies such as Ayurvedic and Homeopathic treatments.

Now, before I continue, I want it to be made clear that what follows is not a personal attack on anyone who believes these treatments to be effective. I am sure such folk are sincere in their beliefs and wish others to benefit as they believe they have.

In my previous post I have said that personal belief in any protocol not based on cold, hard, scientific data is nothing but anecdote. You might feel better after a treatment, but unless the numbers, independently verified, confirm that, then the warm fuzzy feeling you have towards that treatment will put your life in danger. And the gold standard of any clinical intervention is the Randomised Double Blind Placebo Control Study. Unless your treatment has undergone and passed the white heat of scientific scrutiny you might as well turn the clock back a thousand years and keep your fingers crossed.

There are any number of so called alternative medical practices that have no scientific basis and are often coloured by culture. In India it might be Ayurvedic in China, Acupuncture. The two methodologies are not interchangeable as, for example antibiotics are. If they were, the whole world would be familiar with, and be embracing them.

There will be lots of spluttering here, but let’s look at the bigger picture. Here’s a Wikipedia list of other healing strategies, often claiming mysterious ‘energies’ that cannot be detected by any means, let alone a sensitive galvanometer:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_...

You pays your money(!) and takes your choice!

I’ll draw a line here but finish by giving an example or two.

Let’s say your baby or child has been born with a congenital heart defect. Who are you going to trust to cure her or him? A surgeon or a reflexologist who will rub their feet? Or you’ll put you diabetic neuropathy and gangrene in the hands of someone who will give you a reassuring listening ear and send you on your way with a head massage or sugar pill with a lighter purse or wallet.

Edit:

I’ve edited this post as there may be people who would hold that Allopathic medicines are often not much better that the so called ‘alternative’ medicines, and on the whole I would agree.

Here’s a list of drugs that have been withdrawn because of side effects and killing people wholesale (often you couldn’t get a cigarette paper between the two descriptions):

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_...

I am generally extremely sceptical of any medicines that hold out the promise of eternal life and do not believe that the road to health is paved with them. However, the one thing that is indisputable is that any allopathic medicine will definitely have an effect that can be measured for good or evil. That is not the case with alternative therapies as measurement of the philosophy behind it is anathema (unless of course you consider chiropractic where this definitely can have an effect, when manipulation of the neck to ‘release adhesion’ can result in dissection of the vertebral artery and death).

I certainly am not against all Allopathic remedies, as on the whole they are effective. Immunisation for example. Or just today I hear that treating cattle to combat sleeping sickness has resulted in a 90% reduction of this terrible disease in the human population. And were I diagnosed with a serious disease such as prostate cancer I would not put my future in the hands of someone dangling a ‘healing crystal’ over my nethers!

[MikePollard]

I'm fairly sure this is the Lorenzo's Oil thing.

Attractive subject for a dramatised film which leads to the conclusion that the little man with a cause will out think the wicked, intransigent establishment. Sorry, but I don't buy it.

Lorenzo's oil is controversial and of very limited value at best. Discovered in 1986 by the father of a child suffering from a genetic disease and touted as a miracle cure for ADLD.

It wasnt; but if it were, hasn't enough water passed under the bridge for it to have been thoroughly investigated, passed the clinical trials to now be mainstream treatment?

[MikePollard]

For Heaven's sake!

Just point me to your clinical data.

This is merely woo!

[klgksharma]

We can't just brush-aside the fact that if properly aministrated Ayurvedic medicines are best alternative therapy. Unfortunately it has not been properly documented. My friends father, who was a doctor by himself in military suffered of knee pain and was advocated total knee replacement. An Ayurvedic doctor in Kerala from traditional doctor family treated him and he died at the age of 85 of Alzheimer's, survived 15 years with out knee pain. when a patient of mad dog bite was taken to him, he made it clear that patient can' t be saved, but assured that he will have peaceful death. Accordingly the effects bite did not manifest. In today's world it is difficult find such doctors who are all not after money.