Originally posted by DigiMark007The mind is a most powerful medicine. 🙂
Placebo affects are documented and both causal and biological, as well as small enough to (usually) be a medicinal non-factor. They don't reinforce the claim that we can alter matter (because that's what it is) with our thoughts. I'd love to be proven wrong, I really would. There's a lot of intuitive appeal to what you're saying. But it's just not reasonable without some justification.
BTW valium is made from valerian..I.E., natural alternative.
Originally posted by Deja~vu
The mind is a most powerful medicine. 🙂BTW valium is made from valerian..I.E., natural alternative.
I don't think you're quite getting the point. Anything could have been considered alternative at one point, because all medicines at one time lacked the empirical results needed to validate them as legitimate medicines for specific purposes. But as soon as you get those results, and those results are duplicated, a product ceases to be alternative. Thus, something like valium, which the realm of "alternative" cannot claim as its own.
In the meantime, people will jump at any hair-brained idea regardless of its rational validity. Those that remain on the fringes of medical practice are alternative because they don't have evidence to support themselves beyond chance or mild placebo. So they are not validated by the accrediting bodies within our country, and must present themselves with a host of propoganda and misleading terms: "natural, herbal, vibrational healing, quantum, etc.". And please note, when I say that placebos have small affects, it means small. It is biological (chemical production), testable, in no way mystical, and is not medicine, or a cure for anything, or a preventative cause from diseases. It's a small benefit to personal health, not medicine.
If you believe you will be perfectly healthy and are, you are lucky. Or you're young enough that statistically speaking you have about as good a chance of being healthy as unhealthy (or a better chance). If you have an illness (major or minor) and attempt to "think" yourself to health, it won't work. At best it will speed the body's natural recovery by imperceptible amounts, but more likely won't do anything. If you recover, it will either be from medicinal treatments or your body's own immune system.
Loathe as I am to make the comparison, I feel like I'm debating against ID here. Show some evidence for what you're saying. Otherwise, you're deluding yourself, however pleasing the thought is to you. Fortunately, alternative medicine is (usually) not as harmful. But can be. Therein lies the danger, and it's why I speak out against it when possible.
Originally posted by DigiMark007
Thanks Storm:Anyway, religion doesn't contribute to health. Being healthy and doing healthy things does. This includes low stress and happiness, which religion can and does provide for some people, but it is far from the sole cause of such emotions.
And to summarize my earlier post: Alternative medicines are placebos, at best, and at worst are unsupported with evidence and potentially harmful to those who use them. The minute they are corroborated with empirical evidence, they no longer need the "alternative" tag and can be considered mainstream medicine, without the need to set up an alternative anything.
Thoughts or comments?
I kind of really disagree with you there...
Chinese Medicine and practices such as Acupuncture are still considered "alternative medicine" even though they have reaped considerable benefits for a variety of conditions.
I actually know first hand how well an "alternative" solution can work. My best freind went to Poland with her family last summer, and her brother suffers from Asthma as well as chronic fatigue. They met someone there who prescribed them herbs and told them to take them for months. I know her brother very well and he's no longer using his inhaler.
His Asthma isn't "cured" by medical standards, but it has certainly improved in one year. He hasn't had an attack since, and he has been hitting the gym, losing weight and doing a lot of cardio without a problem.
Nothing given to him by our mainstream American medical professionals helped him anywhere to that degree.
And you can doubt it all you want, but I know what I've seen here. I've known him for years, and I know how bad his condition has been. And to see it dramatically improve in one year because of this one alternate therapy he underwent is just mind boggling.
Now, I am not outright advocating Alternative Medicine. You should always do your research before getting involved in any sort of therapy. However, you can't just let your doctor make all your decisions for you. Most doctors will simply prescribe this and that, and there you go...with the risk of allergic reactions and sometimes fatal side effects.
And please don't get me started with the FDA and thier approval standards...there's more involved than health when it comes to thier making decisions on how to label or classify a product.
I thnk if you are sick, you should do all your own research. I beleive very few doctors actually care how well you get, and ultimately the medical profession is a business first.
Anecdotes don't make an argument, and they actually showcase the lack of legitimate evidence in most cases. In your example, my response is simple: I've stated that many herbal supplements are potentially harmful. Implied in such a statement is that they are potentially helpful as well. The problem comes with a lack of repeatable results. You are just as likely, perhaps moreso, to take something that will worsen your condition, or have no affect whatsoever on your condition. Anecdotes don't equal repeated evidence, they equal case studies. And even if you're right, one successful herb doesn't validate all others....it just means your friend got lucky with which illness/herb he/she took.
Also lost is the investigation of such case studies. If this happened over a period of months and years, there are numerous interpretations of the "cure." The illness went into recession, responding to the changing physiology of the changing body, climate change, eating or exercise patterns, an overstatement of the initial illness, placebo affects from the medicine, etc. We can't know these because no evidence exists on these alternative methods. If they are legitimate, they soon produce results. If not, they continue to swim in the "alternative" muck.
Acupuncture is a placebo. A potentially powerful placebo, but nothing more. It might have small affects, but nothing beyond the affects that, say, a massage would produce, though people are far more likely to report greater success because of the expectancy of positive results. I know I can cite numerous scientific studies to back up my opinion. So instead of bothering with that at the moment, I'm curious to see if you have just heard that there's a benefit to it, or if you're basing your claim on something more substantial.
As for your dismissal of the FDA and similar accrediting organizations, it's clear you're familiar with some alternative medicine advocates, because a gigantic part of the promotion and propoganda for their products is to discredit the competition by speaking to the ills of such institutions. In fact, without such propoganda they would have practically no argument to stand on, so most serious alternative medicine advocates are as manipulative as they are vindictive toward the FDA. Occasionally they are right about the beaurocracy of such groups, though it is necessarily overstated to strengthen their cause. But the flip side of that coin is the FDA, despite some flaws, actually has a process by which medicine become accredited. Alternative solutions do not, because they have no accountability whatsoever. I'm not going to say it's perfect (it's not), but it's an accrediting system that places the emphasis on empirical results that can be seen to be above chance and placebo, can be repeated, and have low risk of side affects. It's easy to shine a bright light on the competition, but when one turns the same light on the world of alternative medicine, one finds a scary lack of accountability and rational backing. It's ok to see the FDA as an evil, but it's certainly the lesser of the two.
Also lost is the fact that if most alternative cures had empirical and repeatable positive results, they'd find a financial backer and get accredited almost immediately, since there's more money to be made in mainstream medicine more often than not. The fact that they don't speaks volumes.
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As for doctors, I'd say that it's one thing to say that medical institutions or insurance companies don't care, but individual doctors, by and large, do. If you have something other than a vague apprehension toward them, please explain why, because otherwise I fail to see how the vast majority of doctors wouldn't have your best interests in mind or present the most logical options to their patients.
I know I said I'd stray from name-dropping, but a great place to start with such ideas is John Diamond's Snake Oil and Other Preoccupations, which includes touching and tragic personal anecdotes but also focuses on hard data (and lack thereof) from the world of alternative cures.
Originally posted by Deja~vu
Why? Is someone trying to sell you snake oil? 😑
Snake Oil is a well-known term that refers to anything that is somehow disreputable, shady, or dishonest. It alludes to the old cliche of the "cure all" that would be peddled in centuries past by hucksters who played upon the credulity and lack of knowledge among the general public. Often such "medicines" were reputed to contain snake venom or oils from a snake body. Whether they did or not is uncertain, but that is the myth surrounding it.
In modern times, many homeopathic remedies also contain negligible amounts of snake venom, thus lending the allusion a modern poignancy.