The Effects of Alternative Medicines on Society

There is no difference. While giving a useless treatment, you could be giving one that works

 

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According to the TCM way of looking at things two people with different constitutions require different treatments. Ayurveda also has more of this approach than western medicine.

 

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Actually, they would say, and it is also my experience, that they are treating the source, which is imbalances that create opportunities for infections and other problems, where the western approach is merely treating the opportunist infections. If you have stomach ulcers, for example, this is now considered simply pylori bacteria and antibiotics are prescribed. Sure antacids and some dietary changes may be suggested but the basic view is that the illness is caused by the bacteria. Why Joe gets it and not Sam, why Jenny's goes away with one antibiotic series and Joe must come back every few years are questions that do not get answered. TCM would have opinions based not just on diet but on resting state constitution about why these people have different experiences and would also treat them rather differently, most likely. TCM also has 'herbs' that, for example, treat weaknesses in the immune system and they were doing this long before these things were tried in Western meds. There is a sense of taking the individual and seeing what imbalances such a person has and dealing with these long term. TCM would often see people as being 'sick' where western medicine would have nothing to offer. TCM would have a wide range of tonics to strengthen different body systems and prevent chronic problems from occurring.

There is a reason people keep buying the same symptom treating remedies over the counter in the west. They are not dealing with constitutional problems.

If you are really interested there are books out on the market and there are online resources also about how they diagnose, etc. One note however: I mentioned the healthy constitution of the person. Two points I will mention. Most illnesses will not get a broad range of testing. It's strep, we do this. Its a stomach ulcer we do this. The illness is treated and not the patient. The tests you mention above do not cover the range of areas that are covered by TCM. Nor does TCM cover all the areas covered by western med. They are different approaches with some overlap, but focusing on different patterns. They each try to adjust these patterns toward what they consider healthier levels or qualities.

And we have no reason to throw out either one. They work well together in some instances. I saw one study where TCM, Western Med and a combination were used on patients with one kind of cancer. The group that got the combined approach fared the best. The chemo was aggressive against the cancers and the TCM herbs strenghtened the immune systems of the patients in this case.

Sure, you have to find good people. On the other hand I find the treatments are less likely to just deal with symptoms or put off problems until later. I find the attack and destroy approach of much western medicine to have drawbacks.

I don't know how you 'know' TC;, but those terms do not mean what we mean when we use them. It is easy to mock things we do not understand.

 

Baloney. What if NO treatment exists? For example name one for anorexia...

Also if the illness isn't serious and causing only discomfort what one can live with for years, why one shouldn't try different methods that might work? If there is no harm....

There is no 100%, works for everyone treatment for herniated discs either. Surgery might work for some, physical therapy might work for others, the only way to know is to TRY them....

So you might try a few pills before you lie under a very expensive knife.

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Probably because it had some positive effect somewhere along the way, whether real or imagined. And in some cases it doesn't make a difference whether the effect is real or a placebo.

 

Well, first off "allopathic" is a pejorative term coined by the founder of homeopathy. It was invented to point out that scientific medicine does not follow the long since disproven homeopathic "Law of similars". Technically, this means that any practice that is not homeopathy is allopathic. Proper terms would be scientific or evidence based medicine.

Immediately we have a problem by placing all alternative practices into the same category. There are significant differences that need to be addressed in any meaningful discussion. There are quite a few that cross over and touch more than one area and I won't go into that for the moment as it would get too complex. I'm also going to leave the placebo effect alone as it can apply to anything. Here’s my take on alternative therapies:

Some are simply farcical, not only are their fundamental hypotheses false, they are demonstrably ineffective. Homeopathy, medical dowsing, and biofield therapies fall into this category. Both the practice and the underlying hypotheses have failed trial after trial.

Some are fundamentally false but may still have some effect. These may contain some useful techniques or information that can be proven and understood. Acupuncture is one of these. Qi has never been detected and there is no scientific basis for it. However, there may be some anatomical principles underlying it and inserting needles in the skin can have measurable effects.

Some contain useful techniques borrowed from other practices or from science. Chiropracty is one of these. There is no validity to underlying chiropractic theory or practice. However, chiropractors often incorporate massage, electronic nerve stimulation, and other such practices borrowed from proven physical therapies that are effective.


Some have demonstrable psychological effects... meditation, guided imagery, healing intention... These are a bit complicated because psychological changes can have a physiological impact. These can be very effective for some illnesses, not so much for others. The main problem with these is that their results are erratic and typically only help the body to heal what it could heal anyway, just a bit faster. On the upside, one can practice these while simultaneously using other treatments.


Some have demonstrable physiological effects. Herbal remedies, including both TCM and parts of Ayurveda are included here. These can be effective, but there are some problems:

The primary one is that diagnosis and treatment are based upon disproven strategies. The bodily humors and elemental balance were once both a part of "Western" medicine. They were disproven and discarded as unfounded and ineffective. Some reflection of them is still visible in how doctors go about diagnosing illnesses however (fever, dry hacking cough, cold-sweats, etc). But science has identified such things as bacteria as the cause of whooping cough, for instance, and goes about treating the infection directly instead of trying to adjust the phlegm and bile of the body.

The second and third apply to all herbal remedies, these being the problems of dosage and side effects. Contrary to popular and traditional wisdom, just because something is relatively unprocessed "natural" does not mean it is safe. Herbs contain a vast array of chemical compounds some of which are biologically active. The problem is that there is no way to tell how much of these chemicals you are getting with any given measurement of herbs.

Presuming the herbs you are taking actually contain active compounds that may relieve an illness you’re still left with a problem: One batch of leaves or roots may give you just what you need, the next may over or under-dose you. Add a second and a third herb (as with many herbal medicines) and you may wind up with dangerous interactions as you ingest a cornucopia of chemicals.


Scientific medicines does have a solution for these last two problems, however. First active compounds are identified. Then they are manufactured. Their chemical and biological effects are studied so we know as much as we possibly can about what exactly these chemicals do, how they work to treat the illness, what their side-effects and interactions are, and what dosages and durations of treatment are most effective and least dangerous. Then they are made into batches of specific dosage so that the doctor knows exactly how much he is giving you.


Finally there are also practices that aren't really what they say they are. Naturopathic, and Holistic medicine for example. These are both, at a basic level, sound principles used by scientific medicine. Modern medicine does not disagree with the idea that the body has natural healing ability or that lifestyle, psychology, diet, and exercise effect ones health or that one must look at all these things when diagnosing and treating illness? But typically, these "practices" are merely a cover for other types of treatments we've already mentioned... using herbs or homeopathic or meditative treatments or combining them.


Do alternative medicines have anything to offer? Of course. First of all they offer new areas of discovery. Science is open ended and just because most medical alternatives do not seem to have much potential does not mean there isn’t anything of value there. One of the things that recommends scientific medicine the most is that demonstrably effective treatments are almost certain of being adopted into mainstream practice. Perhaps more importantly, however, the practitioners of alternative methods have something to teach the medical community. And that is how important it is to treat patients as people instead of as case studies. That compassion, communication, and cooperation are even more important than the science that makes medicine effective.

~Raithere

 

incorrect, "Evidence based med" is a specific BRANCH of WESTEN med which aims to bring only practices based on scientific resurch into westen med. Alot of things done in westen med have no resurch behind them, for instance there isnt any studies i know of which compare use of Adrenilin in cardiac arest to no use of adrenilin. In fact for cardiac arests the ONLY things which have any evidence to back them up are CPR (FINALLY) and Defibulation. Acording to the Australian resus council all of the medications (Adrenilin, atropine, lignicane, Bicarb ect) have no evidence either way but are still recomended for use

 

I'm afraid you are wrong.

Epinephrine has proven use in myocardial resuscitation and there are studies that demonstrate an effect upon coronary perfusion pressure in animals. There is limited research upon humans (for obvious reasons) and there may be some more recently discovered contraindications to its use.
http://icvts.ctsnetjournals.org/cgi/content/full/7/3/457

Atropine has demonstrated effect:
http://www.circ.ahajournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/52/4/627
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC487888/?page=5

Lidocaine has a demonstrable effect on ventricular fibrillation. There may be some complications resulting from it's use and it could become contraindicated but it looks like the jury is out yet.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10220627

Bicarb is used to treat hyperkalemia
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1413606/


Science is not perfect there is still an enormous amount we have yet to learn. These are intensely complicated medical issues that do not resolve simply and easily. Additionally, treatments that have benefits almost always also have side effects so the answers are not always easy as to what is the best treatment option. It's often an issue of balancing benefits with risks.

But state flatly that there is no supporting research or evidence for the use of these medications is simply incorrect. Next time I suggest you research your assertions.

~Raithere

 

I fail to see how wasting $15 billion a year on ineffective treatments can possibly reduce health care costs.

Not to mention if you go over to the herbal supplements section of the pharmacy you're not likely to see lower prices. They're quite happy to sell you crap in a capsule at the going rate or higher for any other over-the-counter medication. The practitioners charge as much as doctors do as well, and they're generally trained in nonsense.

http://www.homeopathic.com/articles/view,3

Any "cost savings" you might see would be in the reduction of diagnostic tests. The reasons for this are twofold. One, because they wouldn't know what the results mean (having no medical training). And two, because they have no need to actually diagnose the affliction... guessing is just as good since the remedies are worthless. Since pretty much the only benefit one can get from them is the placebo effect they don't need to know what they're doing... they just need to con you into believing they know what they're doing.

It's much more likely it increases the total cost of health care. People waste time and money on ineffective treatments and don't seek medical help until their condition is much worse and thus more expensive to treat.

http://whatstheharm.net/homeopathy.html

~Raithere

 

"The term allopathic was used throughout the 19th Century as a derogatory term for the practitioners of heroic medicine, a precursor to modern medicine that did not rely on evidence. The meaning and controversy surrounding the term can be traced to its original usage during a heated 19th-century debate between practitioners of homeopathy, and those they derisively referred to as "allopaths." The meaning implied by the label has never been accepted by conventional medicine, and is still be considered pejorative by some."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homeopathy_and_allopathy
http://www.lumrix.net/health/Allopathic_medicine.html
http://www.search.com/reference/Allopathic

Unless you have some contrary evidence, I'm sticking with it's conventional use as pejorative. Though the word has come to use more recently as referring to the medical science industry. But you should know by now I'm not a stickler when it comes to terminology.

My main point, and one that still holds is that by definition anything that is not homeopathy is allopathy and that includes pretty much every other alternative treatment.

~Raithere

 

Unfortunatly this post is going to require some effort on your part because i can nither copy the portions i want nor link directly to the guidelines

http://www.resus.org.au/

Click on the button which says "guidelines", scroll down to section 11 (the red section) and click on "
Guideline 11.6 Medications in Adult Advanced Life Support February 2006"

Now scroll down through all the drugs

"Vassopresson: Despite the lack of human trials it is reasonable to continue to use vasopresson on a regular basis"

"Anti-Arrhythmics: there is no evidence to suggest giving Anti-Arrhythmics during human cardiac arest increases hospital survival rates...reasonable to continue to use"

"Other drugs and fluids: there is no evidence to suggest giving calcium chanel blockers, buffers, atropine in human cardiac arest increases survival to hospital discharge..."

"Adrenilin: despitcoue the lack of placibo controled trials adrenilin continues to be used as the standed vasopresson in cardiac arest..."

i could go on but concidering the number of drugs listed it would take me a year. I didnt just pull this out of my ass, its something i came across while doing background reading for cardiac last year and pointed out to the lecturer who admited that it was compleatly correct, there IS no evidence to indicate there use. CPR and Defib on the other hand have good clinical trials done world wide to back them up

Further more this is only ONE area of med where the evidence is lacking and treatment is still given. I didnt argue that its unethical to do this or wrong, i simply stated that it is NOT EVIDENCE BASED MEDICINE, its WESTEN medicine and it irritates me when people assume that all med is evidence based when in reality Evidence base med is a specific movement WITHIN the medical and allied health proffessions to move TOWARDS implementing a) guidlines in ALL medical settings (some hospitals are still relying on doctors discression) and b) good quality clincial trials to surport all the treatments used

 

You are missing the point. That there aren't comprehensive, outcome based studies available for every treatment option for every situation does not mean there is no evidence substantiating their use.

The anti-arrhythmics are a good example. They demonstrably suppress fibrillation. This evidence would suggest that their use would be indicated in such an event. More recent findings are showing that they may not be indicated for every type of fibrillation and may, in fact, be contraindicated where the risk is greater than the benefit.

The standard you are indicating is one of clinical proof for every treatment option and every scenario, which I agree would be preferable. But that will take time and medical science is still quite young. In the meantime, to state that there is no evidence behind most of medical science is inaccurate. It also suggests to the layperson that it is on an even level with alternatives such as acupuncture which have been studied and found wanting.

~Raithere

 

your right, there is generally a higher level of science behind westen med however that doesnt mean that its all science. take lygnocane for example, acording to the Ressus council its use in cardiac arest is based on "historical precident" not evidence. I disagree that med is young, its one of the oldest sciences however EVIDENCE based med is only quite recent (dates around about the same time as the begining of cochrane and the 2 are related). Before that it was more of a trade than a science inspite of the university education behind it, ie things were done that way because thats how things were done. Take CPR for example, the evidence for CPR came from one study done on monkeys 20 (or more) years ago, no trials were carried out on it until about 5 years ago when randomised trials were finally carried out to check the ratios and we find that the 15:2 ratio is not the most effective, a 30:2 ratio is more effective. Your remarks make it seem like we are talking about rare conditions here that have little ability to evaluate treatments but thats not the case, there are way to many quite common conditions with what cochrane grades as 4th grade evidence (ie apeals to autority rather than any clincial studies). If we were talking about new diseases or treatments that might be acceptable as doctors try new treatments or use drugs "off lable" because they "might work and we have nothing else" but this isnt the case. If you do a bit of resurch on how CPR developed its facinating to see how it has changed and where it came from, for instance there was a one time frame where the treatment was to blow tobaco smoke up peoples anus and when you think about it that MIGHT work a little. Ie if they have any residual circulation and they were in a bradicardic (slow heart rate) arest then nicotine admistered peri-rectum MIGHT speed up the heart rate a bit. However these "might works" and "its a good theory" are the lowest grade of evidence and ARE on the same level as some CAMs because thats what the CAMs are basing there treatments on, ie that "this is a good theory and there for it should work".

Now i agree with you that there is alot of med which ISNT like this and DOES have at least the next grade up (longtitudional studies) to suggest it and it may well be that with-holding adrenilin (for example) to do a full double blind randomised controled trial (or even a single blind) is concidered unethical. That is a reasonable argument in some cases but it doesnt negate the fact that you cant then come along and say "this is evidenced based practice" because its not. Its theory based practice or its "authority" based but its not EVIDENCE based.

One of the primary focuses in med currently is pt autonomy, in order for the pt to make autonomous decisions they need to know the evidence behind it (thats one of the reasons the Australian federal goverment pays for cochrane to be avilable to ALL citizans, not just uni students and HCPs). I dont mean you need to give all the clincial resurch to a pt and say "here read this and tell me what treatment you want", i mean you need to be honest and say "look, this is your treatment choices" (and be honest about all of them) "i would recomend this but there ISNT any good studies on its effectivness, i recomend it because ...". The difference between westen med and SOME CAMs is surposed to be an openness about the evidence behind the treatments. If we cant be open about where evidence is lacking then a) we cant improve on it and b) we WILL be no better than the quack selling cancer cures for $1,000,000". Yes you can delibratly (or inadvertantly) bury someone in statistics and a pt might well say "dont give me the options, make the decision". That is there right, but it is also there right to have an honest assesment of the evidence for there situation.

BTW i never said there was no evidence to most of med is wrong. I have no idea because i dont know ALL of med and all the resurch to give that sort of assesment. What i said was that there are alot of areas where evidence is lacking. Where i was definite was in cardiac arests there is no evidence for all of the drugs listed in the guidelines by the ARC. Thats not a value judgement, thats a fact (and i proved it if you had read the link i gave you).

There is another really intresting area where evidence and theory disconect (as well as where cultureal aspects get in the way of med) can be shown clearly. This is in the use of MAST (millarty Anti-Shock Trouses) suits are concerned. If you read the artical on the in the US Journal of shock and trauma as well as the artical in cochrane you see a similar results in evidence and a HUGE difference in the recomendations atached.

Unfortunatly i dont have either artical to hand however its probably unessary concidering we arnt discussing efficasy here, but rather how evidence is used. Both articals find inconclusive evidence for there use in randomised controled trials, there is a small increase in some mortality stated in both articals when used. The difference is the conclusions drawn from this, the US artical dimisses this increase as being related to other factors such as the training given to the ambos ect, it further goes on to lement the decline in use of these suits and highly recomends bringing them back. Cochrane on the other hand is VERY critical of the suits all together and sugests far from saving lives that even with trained operators they increase mortality and goes on to suggest there compleate abolishment from all use. Yet they are still in use in some juristictions in the US.

Antidepressents are another example of a branch of med which has quite inconclusive evidence or strong evidence to suggest that they NOT be used in most cases yet they are still perscribed on a daily basis.

Further more there is a doctor ON HERE, who clearly stated to me once that he conistantly uses medications "off lable". This isnt nessarly a bad thing as long as the pt knows either there isnt any studies to indicate this particular use or that the studies are pending or whatever the case maybe

Im not against westen med, far from it im training to be a paramedic (and have a sister whos a physio) but nither do i belive that what is currently practiced is perfect or that there arnt areas which could be improved upon. Im also not going to say that there isnt ANY Complementry Alternitive Medicines which SHOULDNT get further resurch because they might actually be effective. The problem isnt there existance, its there marketing, laberling and SOME of there practices. Were westen med has the main advantage is in goverment regulation, for instance you CANT legally say to a pt that "this will cure your cancer", you can only say "this has about a 10% chance of working" or "this is likly to give you an extra 6 months". In other words you cant blatently lie to a pt, this goverment regulation doesnt exist for CAMs (though goverment is looking at how to introduce it). The other issue with CAMs also is one which effects westen med too, ie people dont concider CAMs, vitamen supliments and over the counter westen meds to be medications and there for when you ask "are you on any medication" they will say "no" inspite of the fact that they are taking st johns wart or are dosing themself up on 18 paracitamol tablets each day and hense there liver is ka-put.

 

http://www.cochrane.org/

HA HA, how amusing that you would critize the spelling of a correctly spelt word simply because your to lasy to google it, seems you dont know everything FR