We al know the mind can directly affect what the body chemistry does (transfer of blood to certain parts of the body when eye-candy comes along, triggering of fight/flee adrenalines, release of endorphins in certain circumstances, even widening of the pupils when we see something we like). It seems a not-unreasonable leap to think that a "positive mental attitude" might well help speeding of recovery from injury, and there have been numerous tales of it doing just that - although unproven scientifically (and how one would double-blind trial that would be interesting!)
Quackery or the real deal?
- Thread starter Andy BB
- Start date
Then I suggest you don't start it in the first place Hoodoo. Until your interjections this has been a relatively polite list, considering the topic.
Quis custodiet ipsos custodies?
I don't do debates (to beat) it's just an excuse for people to roll out their favourite thinking as fact and have fun seeing who can come up with the best justifications and look right. I thought science was about questions
What hit rate does a treatment have to have to be the real deal?
What hit rate does it have to have to be quackery?
Is a logical theory as relevant at the hit rate?
Does evidence mean a damn thing if it doesn't lead directly to good results?
What is a good result?
Is a good result an entirely personal thing?
Is someone who dies on their own terms (that applies to both the "sides" set up here) a prisoner of their own thinking or free to be themselves?
If something works for you is the hit rate 100% in relative terms?
If something doesn't work for you is the hit rate 0% in relative terms?
What relevance has what works for you got for someone else?
What hit rate does a treatment have to have to be the real deal?
What hit rate does it have to have to be quackery?
Is a logical theory as relevant at the hit rate?
Does evidence mean a damn thing if it doesn't lead directly to good results?
What is a good result?
Is a good result an entirely personal thing?
Is someone who dies on their own terms (that applies to both the "sides" set up here) a prisoner of their own thinking or free to be themselves?
If something works for you is the hit rate 100% in relative terms?
If something doesn't work for you is the hit rate 0% in relative terms?
What relevance has what works for you got for someone else?
Better than chance odds.
Even chance odds. If it's less then it's doing harm :yikes:
Theory is just that, but it's the best we have to work on unless disproven by subsequent research. Then, logically, a new theory is proposed.
Of course it does, it's evidence that the process isn't effective as a cure.
Cure of disease, extending viable life, giving quality of life.
No. It matters to family, friends and to some extent to the society that supports those unable through ill health to support themselves.
Oh, they're free, but sometimes undue, and sometimes unbalanced, or supersitious, opinion sways their judgement to the detriment of their life..........that's not taking account of religious issues I hasten to add; that's a whole discussion in itself.
Relative to me, yes. To others ? we can only truthfully report our own testimony.
Not to sure tbh. The previous response applies I think.
We are one species; relevant medical responses to treatment have proven to be applicable to others of our species in the past. There's no reason to suppose that still isn't true for medical advances now.
cheers,
Toddy
Even chance odds. If it's less then it's doing harm :yikes:
Theory is just that, but it's the best we have to work on unless disproven by subsequent research. Then, logically, a new theory is proposed.
Of course it does, it's evidence that the process isn't effective as a cure.
Cure of disease, extending viable life, giving quality of life.
No. It matters to family, friends and to some extent to the society that supports those unable through ill health to support themselves.
Oh, they're free, but sometimes undue, and sometimes unbalanced, or supersitious, opinion sways their judgement to the detriment of their life..........that's not taking account of religious issues I hasten to add; that's a whole discussion in itself.
Relative to me, yes. To others ? we can only truthfully report our own testimony.
Not to sure tbh. The previous response applies I think.
We are one species; relevant medical responses to treatment have proven to be applicable to others of our species in the past. There's no reason to suppose that still isn't true for medical advances now.
cheers,
Toddy
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I would be dead from TB two years ago without modern, clinically trialled, peer reviewed and proven medication (and I had been inoculated). The intense pain from another problem was only controlled with morphine, a naturally sourced medication clinically refined to a level that is makes it safe to use.
My son was very poorly with asthma his first few years, without modern drugs I've little doubt he too would be dead.
My wife also has asthma broadly speaking controlled with an inhaler...not stopped her ending up in hospital twice these last ten years after an attack she would have died from had it not been for direct medical help.
I worked in hemodialysis and am happy to say that I saw dozens of people live a long long time via a combination of medication and dialysis whereby without treatment they would have been long past their live by date.
A good friend had his left kidney removed on Monday, the cancer was caught in time to save his life due to modern medicine.
I've lost count of the amount of people I saw live after treatment with proven medication.
Imagine if all our modern drugs vanished, how many millions of people would simply die from things like a cut finger, how many would scream from the pain of an abscess of the tooth or ear, how many children under the age of five would simply die from something simple.
The 'Holistic' nursing model has been in use for well over a decade and its a valid nursing model and can work so long as the teams involved support it.
I've no issue with herbal remedies so long as its for the simple things they may work well with. What does really annoy me is when I see cancer being dismissed as some sort of fungal growth et al, not only inaccurate but it could lead the gullible down a track of treatment that will kill them. Thousands die from poor interaction with modern drugs...millions live to lead a healthy life after taking the same drugs and I suspect thousands die without need from following a 'natural' course of treatment.
I really don't care how much the drug companies make from drugs, its worth it for the lives saved.
My son was very poorly with asthma his first few years, without modern drugs I've little doubt he too would be dead.
My wife also has asthma broadly speaking controlled with an inhaler...not stopped her ending up in hospital twice these last ten years after an attack she would have died from had it not been for direct medical help.
I worked in hemodialysis and am happy to say that I saw dozens of people live a long long time via a combination of medication and dialysis whereby without treatment they would have been long past their live by date.
A good friend had his left kidney removed on Monday, the cancer was caught in time to save his life due to modern medicine.
I've lost count of the amount of people I saw live after treatment with proven medication.
Imagine if all our modern drugs vanished, how many millions of people would simply die from things like a cut finger, how many would scream from the pain of an abscess of the tooth or ear, how many children under the age of five would simply die from something simple.
The 'Holistic' nursing model has been in use for well over a decade and its a valid nursing model and can work so long as the teams involved support it.
I've no issue with herbal remedies so long as its for the simple things they may work well with. What does really annoy me is when I see cancer being dismissed as some sort of fungal growth et al, not only inaccurate but it could lead the gullible down a track of treatment that will kill them. Thousands die from poor interaction with modern drugs...millions live to lead a healthy life after taking the same drugs and I suspect thousands die without need from following a 'natural' course of treatment.
I really don't care how much the drug companies make from drugs, its worth it for the lives saved.
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The huge advances in human medicine have also directly contributed to those in veterinary medicine. Our four legged friends can now benefit from more or less identical care & treatment that are available to us. Some veterinary surgeons practice certain alternative medicines too, such as herbal, acupuncture & hydro-therapy along side traditional methods, often with amazing beneficial results.
I think there is place for both & can't really see the reason for the antagonism that exists between them. Many of the traditional medicines used today have molecules derived from plants & a good number of researchers in the scientific community believe that the ultimate cure for cancer will probably be found in the tropical rain forests. Isn't that herbalism ?
I think there is place for both & can't really see the reason for the antagonism that exists between them. Many of the traditional medicines used today have molecules derived from plants & a good number of researchers in the scientific community believe that the ultimate cure for cancer will probably be found in the tropical rain forests. Isn't that herbalism ?
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rik_uk3's last post +1
True, but this isn't what the OP was about, but about the hokey stuff that makes no rational sense (crystals, reiki, homeopathy etc).
True, but this isn't what the OP was about, but about the hokey stuff that makes no rational sense (crystals, reiki, homeopathy etc).
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I would say it's ethnobotany. There seems to be this misunderstanding that some people have that medicine must be derived from synthetic sources and if it's derived from natural sources it's alternative. THis is looking at it from the wrong POV, it's medicine if it's backed up by a body of peer reviewed studies and has been tested according to a set standard of tests. If it hasn't been through this process it's alternative.
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My partner is a forensic psychologist and she is into crystals...there is a large purple one sat next to the computer to absorb things it emits...I am not allowed to have an opinion about it...
Re-reading a lot of the thread, I wonder about some of the treatments mentioned as strategies for taking charge of your illness and returning the focus of control to yourself, is it like keeping a person busy and doing something, during an illness? In our practice, we give drugs, we recommend light massage, ie feet and relaxation (there are some issues with deeper massage and people with metastatic cancer in lymph nodes) and we suggest strategies like, if a drug is knpwn to cause hair loss, that the person decides in advance of the hair loss (usually a couple of weeks after dosing) to cut their hair short or shave their head. The idea is *you* are deciding when your hair comes off, not the drug. People have reported that this helps to feel 'in charge'.
We frequently ask people not to take alternative remedies as they may interfere with the action of a drug they are being given, this can come across as being anti-alternative.
We frequently ask people not to take alternative remedies as they may interfere with the action of a drug they are being given, this can come across as being anti-alternative.
Absolutely. A classical example of how medical science examines a deadly item and extracts potentially beneficial products from it.
Why, thats almost as clever as taking onions - which make your nose and eyes run - chopping it up, diluting it until not a single onion-related molecule exists in the water, and then selling it as a cure for the common cold (because the common cold makes your eyes and nose run, so its bound to work because the Law of Similarities says it will..........)
Why, thats almost as clever as taking onions - which make your nose and eyes run - chopping it up, diluting it until not a single onion-related molecule exists in the water, and then selling it as a cure for the common cold (because the common cold makes your eyes and nose run, so its bound to work because the Law of Similarities says it will..........)
No, it's agriculture
As with the black mamba venom, science identifies potential active ingredients in plants, tests it for side-effects and contra-indications, identifies safe dosages, then provides it as medicine after jumping through all the regulatory hoops (which it will fail to pass over 90% of the time). Herbalists say "chew this leaf to help your toothache"...In the old days before modern scientific method, herbalism was pretty much all the general population had, and no doubt it was much better than nothing. But that was then, and this is now. Antibiotics, vaccinations, statins, alpha and beta-blockers, birth-control medication - the list of modern treatments is huge, and many - if not most - are taking one or more medications. But look at all the things St Johns Wort, for example, should not be taken with in the modern world - not something the population had to worry about 300 years ago.
The trouble is, that many people - out of some exaggerated sense of fair play - seem to think that alternative medicine should be given a level playing field with modern medicine ("I think there is a place for both", for example) And they clearly shouldn't. (Its a bit like science teachers in some schools in the US being told to give equal time and weight to teaching new-age Creationism - ie the Earth is less than 10,000 years old - as to Evolution, in Science/biology classes........)
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-19798824
There was a consultation recently in Scotland on this....
There was a consultation recently in Scotland on this....
I must agree with Andy BB's last post, especially regarding the totally misplaced sense of fair play that some people have. Substances to be used as MEDICINE must be trialled, tested and standardised before they can be used (even when evil pharma companies throw money at trials!!), while stuff like herbs, folk remedies etc do not go through this process. I mean hom many 'remedies' are there which were used because they LOOK like the thing they're meant to cure? Or "oh, mrs jones rubbed a cat on her head, then went to bed and the next morning hear headache was gone!".
On another note, if my daughters school (a CofE school) gave equal cadence to Creationism, we would be finding another school. It's just plain stupid. Who honestly believes that a heavily edited book of cautionary anecdotes is a relevant and true account if history?? Dinosaur fossils were put there by god to test us!!! Hahaha.
On another note, if my daughters school (a CofE school) gave equal cadence to Creationism, we would be finding another school. It's just plain stupid. Who honestly believes that a heavily edited book of cautionary anecdotes is a relevant and true account if history?? Dinosaur fossils were put there by god to test us!!! Hahaha.
No I don't think they should have equal importance or status & traditional scientific medicine should always be your first port of call should you need treatment but when it fails, as it sometimes does, then why not try alternative methods, if only to relieve the symtoms.
No I don't think they should have equal importance or status & traditional scientific medicine should always be your first port of call should you need treatment but when it fails, as it sometimes does, then why not try alternative methods, if only to relieve the symtoms.
Which is a very fair point. I'm sure that if I had a terminal illness, which the medical profession had concluded was untreatable, I'd be game for anything and everything- no matter how absurd - that might give me a better chance of survival.
Actually, tthat last sentence was meant sincerely. However, as soon as I wrote it, I realised that, by doing so, I'd be at the mercy of every quack on the planet with his own snake-oil panacea! Which is why the quacks get rich...
Let's distinguish the real quacks that create absurd products they can market and sell (not forgetting big pharma) as apposed to the real healers such as the Gerson therapy protocol that deals with simple and natural vegetables, fruit and coffee. There are many Gerson therapy qualified clinics around the world and you can even practice it at home, all you need is a quality twin gear juicer like an Angel or GreenStar, and a few cheap bits and bobs like an enema kit you can get off Amazon for £10. Then all you need is organized regular access to organic fruit and vegetables and a supply of organic coffee.
I'd also like to mention that the survival rates for people receiving conventional cancer treatment are, like all statistics, total bullsh*t. They do not factor-in the overwhelming numbers of people who have recurring tumours not long after they go down in the statistic books as "cured".
Also let me make clear that conventional cancer treatment does more damage to the body than the cancer itself, so is it any wonder they have some "success"? Sure the Gerson therapy often does not work for patients whose cancer has progressed too far, but one can argue these poor people could get better with such aggressive conventional cancer therapies, but it's a double-edged sword.
Gerson therapy has thousands of fully documented success stories, with full medical records to back it all up, why don't you look them up?
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Not according to the cancer charities - who say there is no medical evidence whatsoever
http://cancerhelp.cancerresearchuk....ementary-alternative/therapies/gerson-therapy
http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/pdq/cam/gerson/healthprofessional/page1/AllPages
Of course, you'll tell me they're in on the conspiracy...
Feel free to link me up with a creditable medical organisation whose opinion differs.
