Comments on: A Complement to Medicine

By: s1

s1 — Sat, 24 Jan 2009 16:50:08 +0000

All medicine, both CAM and conventional, are being held hostage by the dollar. There are some homeopathic doctor’s that will give you some herbal powder that makes your stomach feel better, while there are allopathic physicians that will give you some pill to solve that same problem. What’s the common denominator between these two? They are both prescribing you something and making money to do so. That makes iHerb.com happy and that makes Merck happy. They lobby government to make sure NIH research is funded in such a way that supports their industry. Nothing wrong with making some profit to do a good thing. However, the industry–as it is in the nature of industry–has made profit the primary goal, not curing the sick.

Within any industry there will always be quackery–so long as there is money to be made. CAM and conventional medicine are not immune to it. Chemotherapy and dream-therapy to eliminate cancer are both quackery. Both may help treat symptoms slightly, both don’t cure. The key is to sift through the maze to find truth. That requires that you don’t hold to one belief. In essence, there is no CAM or no conventional medicine, only medicine.

With that said, each system has its strengths:

Allopathic medicine is good for:
-rare genetic diseases
-emergency medicine

CAM is good for:
-preventative medicine
-healthy diet and lifestyle

Being a student of both schools of thought is probably a good idea…

By: phoenix

phoenix — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 17:56:42 +0000

i really loved that SDN gave some acknowledgment of alternative medicine. I was considering medical school and naturopathic medical school and ended up decided to go DO pathway. I want to follow the ideals of naturopathy/preventative medicines to complement the treatments i will give as a physician. There is still so much we don’t know about how the body works-

GREAT ARTICLE!

By: Therapist4Chnge

Therapist4Chnge — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 19:33:17 +0000

There has been research supporting certain homeopathic techniques (above the placebo effect, with meaningful significance #’s), and I think these should be taken into consideration as a valid treatment alternative. With that being said, there are many methods that have no proof what so ever (the hand waving Reiki comment was classic, btw), and those should be questioned. If research cannot be produced to show effectiveness, then it should be at least questioned. There are some things that are hard to quantify, so it isn’t a perfect system, though I’m hesitant to put too much faith in something that can’t be proved.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 20:03:37 +0000

“Second the placebo does not just involve the human mind. Many diseases and conditions get better on their own over time and to attribute that to “mind healing” is deceiving.”

Many studies show that the magnitude of the placebo effect is larger than the therapeutic value of many medicines above and beyond the placebo. What I mean is that if you divide patients into 3 groups: no tx, placebo, tx. You would in most cases find that the no tx group is a lot worse off than the placebo group, and the tx group is (hopefully) even better yet. If the placebo effect were based upon the condition getting better on its own, there would be no difference between no tx and placebo. The expectations of patients really do affect their outcomes, so in a sense, the placebo effect is proof that mind healing does occur, to some extent.

What we can conclude based upon this is that even if the CAM is “ineffective” (essentially a placebo if the client believes it is effective), it is still better than nothing so long as it does not harm in the patient in other ways. Contrast that with some drugs, which sometimes have a marginal improvement over a placebo in many patients (like SSRIs), yet introduce side-effects.

By: Justskipee

Justskipee — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 17:37:16 +0000

I see your argument Xerxes. The tricky thing about evidence is that it is merely a suggestion for how to treat a patient. Just because the evidence saying a drug or therapy is effective does not mean you can predict it will help your patient. So many studies are done of populations of 50 year old men… efficacy for them does not mean efficacy for your patient. And on the flip side, if all the research evidence in the world says a therapy has no efficacy, but if for your n of 1 patient the therapy is really helping them, thats all that matters.

As far as violating the fundamental laws of physics, that is a testy subject. You should read about quantum mechanics, and watch the extended version of the movie “what the bleep.” Its really intersting, that laws of physics that work in the physical world break down when you deal with atoms and electrons.

Another problem is with efficacy, and saying things like “those therapies that work.” Where is the end point, what is efficacy? So many things in western medicine are looked at as mortality, and decreased in this or that type of event. Why? Because they are easy data to measure. How do you measure the process of healing? It is about quality of life, about not a decrease in depression for example on a beck depression survey, but that they are able to begin enjoying living again. How do you measure that?

I guess the goal is not to prove all CAM is effective, or to figure out why prayer helps people heal, it is about keeping an open mind, and humility about how little we actually know about our life, existance, healing…

Listen to your patients, ask about their healing, spiritual practices, CAM use, learn from them. There is a reason why so many patients graviate toward CAM and integrative medicine, the more open minded you are the earlier you will figure out why…

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 00:34:18 +0000

here’s a good response to those that claim quackery use is increasing.

http://www.quackwatch.org/11Ind/eisenberg.html

When you include things such as exercise or massage as alternative therapy, of course it’s going to appear that lots of people are using it. The study that showed 36% of people use CAM is a gross misrepresentation to prop up bs.

By: Xerxes1729

Xerxes1729 — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 21:44:14 +0000

Optimal patient care includes practicing Evidence Based Medicine. That means that we don’t have our patients pay money for “therapies” that have been shown to have no benefit and could not possibly work without violating the fundamental physical laws of the universe. Whether or not patients want “integrative therapies” has no bearing on whether or not those therapies work. It has nothing to do with which hemisphere the ideas come from; it’s about whether there’s any evidence.

By: Justskipee

Justskipee — Sun, 24 Feb 2008 14:46:32 +0000

Thank you for posting this article. It is not enough for a western trained physician to just be aware of and non-judgmental about their patients use of non-western therapies. They should actively seek out literature and information to find out how they can use CAM therapies, in conjunction with their own western therapies, to provide the most optimal patient care.

With that said, the medical student forum has some real fanatical anti-CAM poster, so it won’t be long for their ridiculous dismissal posts of the above article. Fact is, integrative medicine is what people want, it is where medicine is heading. Anyone who dismisses all non-western therapies is both naive and not working in the best interest of their patients (and themselves).

By: Anon

Anon — Sun, 24 Feb 2008 03:48:10 +0000

If we “aren’t doing any good” and you’re doing all the good, then why do your patient’s come to us? (with great results?)

By: Xerxes1729

Xerxes1729 — Sun, 24 Feb 2008 01:32:02 +0000

I’m worried that there’s going to be a generation of physicians trained to believe that water and hand-waving are legitimate forms of treatment (that’s homeopathy and reiki, respectively).