Why the hatred towards Alternative Healing?

A review of life expectancy over time does indeed vouch for the value of western medicine. Any other conclusion is reached by an ignorance of science. A course of basic pharmacology is beyond the scope of this board.


Humans by Era Average Lifespan at Birth

Upper Paleolithic 33
Neolithic 20
Bronze Age 18
Bronze age, Sweden 40-60
Classical Greece 20-30
Classical Rome 20-30
Pre-Columbian North America 25-35
Medieval Islamic Caliphate 35+
Medieval Britain 20-30
Early 20th Century 30-40
Current world average 70 (2008 est.)

reply to post by AlphaTier

A review of life expectancy over time does indeed vouch for the value of western medicine. Any other conclusion is reached by an ignorance of science. A course of basic pharmacology is beyond the scope of this board.

Life expectancy has indeed improved. Medical knowledge has progressed, so to has technology-nobody can deny that; yet its applications could be so much greater.
I think you will agree though, it does not serve governments economically to have an over-proportionate number of aging population-hence why they have increased the age of retirement from the workforce.
The idea is that every house-hold is viewed as a "micro-economy"; parts of the whole. Once this "micro-economy" no longer serves the Macro; it is deemed worthless and thus, becomes a hindrence.
The powers that be have worked out that it serves them to keep their slaves healthy, to a point where they get a return!

Originally posted by Gawdzilla

And the hit-or-miss shamans' bag of trick is still of interest to researchers. However, the 21 Century has more to offer than home remedies and "wonder weeds", yes?

being sceptical works both ways. i'd like to see any and every medical practices to be held to the same standard (have you read the link about chemotherapy?). i don't know what this century will offer, but i know that pharmaceuticals are now a cash cow and have been for a while. do you know what the inevitable next step will be?


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Originally posted by AlphaTier
A review of life expectancy over time does indeed vouch for the value of western medicine. Any other conclusion is reached by an ignorance of science. A course of basic pharmacology is beyond the scope of this board.

What?

everything changed during that time, the devlopment of modern medicine is just one aspect. i don't believe that people question the effectiveness of, say, antibiotics, but they do look for other options when they (feel they) aren't offered solutions, which is typically the case with degenerative diseases. stereotypically telling them to exercise more and insistence on certain cholesterol and blood pressure values won't do much to alleviate this trend.

[edit on 2009.5.14 by Long Lance]

reply to post by Long Lance


"i don't know what this century will offer, but i know that pharmaceuticals are now a cash cow and have been for a while. do you know what the inevitable next step will be?"

"Cash cows"? How about the holistic medicine scam? "Medicine" diluted to the point where it's statically likely that there isn't a single molecule of the medicine in a bottle. Selling bottled water to sick people as a cure? That's the most expensive medicine I can think of.

Once again we see that the best acupuncture clinical trials show that it does not matter where or if you place the needles. Since these are the two interventions specific to acupuncture, we can conclude (confidently, at this point) that acupuncture does not work and that any perceived benefit from acupuncture is due to placebo or nonspecific effects. The acupuncture industry needs to be called on their continued promotion of a medical modality which has already been shown to be ineffective by clinical research. The mainstream media needs to be criticized for uncritically accepting the propaganda of the acupuncture industry.

For example, here's a study published May 11 concluding that acupuncture is no better than placebo for treating back pain.

Acupuncture Does Not Work for Back Pain

Here's the actual abstract from the study:

A randomized trial comparing acupuncture, simulated acupuncture, and usual care for chronic low back pain.

My main point is that research, controlled trials and therefore, published evidence of the efficacy of many alternative treatments are not there.

I have nothing against alternative healing IF it is shown to be effective. The regulations and licensing of practitioners of alternative med are no where near as strict as those in traditional medicine. I personally would not want to give money to someone advertising unproven treatments.

There is also limited recourse in the event an alternative practitioner causes you injury. With traditional methods, there is a standard of care and if a physician deviates from that and causes you injury, there's plenty of evidence for a malpractice suit.

What?

everything changed during that time, the devlopment of modern medicine is just one aspect. i don't believe that people question the effectiveness of, say, antibiotics, but they do look for other options when they (feel they) aren't offered solutions, which is typically the case with degenerative diseases. stereotypically telling them to exercise more and insistence on certain cholesterol and blood pressure values won't do much to alleviate this trend.

Very true, modern medicine isn't the only thing contributing to this.

Generally, we are much less active now and apparently need reminders that we need to exercise.

Having a healthy lifestyle, including a balanced diet, regular exercise and not smoking is the best medicine. This type of lifestyle has been correlated with lower blood pressure and cholesterol values, which is actually one of the few things shown to actually prolong life expectancy, and not just relieve symptoms. That's why it's pushed so much.

I do agree with you that when traditional methods fail, alternative medicine is there, hence it's name.

[edit on 14-5-2009 by AlphaTier]

reply to post by AlphaTier

For example, here's a study published May 11 concluding that acupuncture is no better than placebo for treating back pain.

Acupuncture Does Not Work for Back Pain

That is a sweeping statement (dishonest?), if ever I see one. Where does the conclusion below give rise to the conclusion above? I read it as inconclusive at worst.

CONCLUSIONS: Although acupuncture was found effective for chronic low back pain, tailoring needling sites to each patient and penetration of the skin appear to be unimportant in eliciting therapeutic benefits. These findings raise questions about acupuncture's purported mechanisms of action. It remains unclear whether acupuncture or our simulated method of acupuncture provide physiologically important stimulation or represent placebo or nonspecific effects.

What about these studies from the same site?

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov... _RA&linkpos=1&log$=relatedarticles&logdbfrom=pubmed
Our conclusion is that acupuncture can be an important supplement of conservative orthopedic treatment in the management of chronic LBP.

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov... _RA&linkpos=2&log$=relatedarticles&logdbfrom=pubmed
CONCLUSIONS: Traditional acupuncture care delivered in a primary care setting was safe and acceptable to patients with non-specific low back pain. Acupuncture care and usual care were both associated with clinically significant improvement at 12- and 24-month follow-up. Acupuncture care was significantly more effective in reducing bodily pain than usual care at 24-month follow-up. No benefits relating to function or disability were identified. GP referral to a service providing traditional acupuncture care offers a cost-effective intervention for reducing low back pain over a 2-year period. Further research is needed to examine many aspects of this treatment including its impact compared with other possible short-term packages of care (such as massage, chiropractic or physiotherapy), various aspects of cost-effectiveness, value to patients and implementation protocols.

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov... _RA&linkpos=4&log$=relatedarticles&logdbfrom=pubmed
CONCLUSIONS: Low back pain improved after acupuncture treatment for at least 6 months. Effectiveness of acupuncture, either verum or sham, was almost twice that of conventional therapy.

I am not a medical person, nor I pretend to understand all the medical mumbo jumbo that are in all these studies. I don't see in all these reports the same damming criticism that the author of your linked article sees fit to throw up?

The medical establishment with its blinkered mentality seems to think that science is the be it and end all of everything. If medical science is what it is made out to be with its clinical studies, double blind tests, controlled groups etc. Why, then, are people dying from FDA approved drugs like Vioxx, Bextra, Cylert, Baycol, Palladone, Digoxin, just to name a very few from a very long list.

"Estimates based on hospital admission studies collected over many decades
calculated that 100,000 persons die annually from the complications of prescription drugs and 1 million or more may be hospitalized." (source: Incidence of Adverse Drug Reactions in Hospitalized Patients: A Meta-analysis of Prospective Studies. JAMA 1988)

With dismal records and stats like these, give me pseudo-science any day. At least my chance of dying will not be in the same league as medical science induced deaths.

Originally posted by Gawdzilla

"Cash cows"? How about the holistic medicine scam? "Medicine" diluted to the point where it's statically likely that there isn't a single molecule of the medicine in a bottle. Selling bottled water to sick people as a cure? That's the most expensive medicine I can think of.

pund for pound yes, dose for dose, no.

homeopathy really isn't taken all that seriously on this forum, is it? what does that tell you? why is homeopathy quite visible in the mainstream instead?

Originally posted by Long Lance
pund for pound yes, dose for dose, no.

Not quite sure what you mean by that?

homeopathy really isn't taken all that seriously on this forum, is it? what does that tell you? why is homeopathy quite visible in the mainstream instead?

Marketing, nothing more. The possibility of getting even a single atom of drug in a homeopathic medicine is vanishingly small, dose for dose.

I'll tell you how I feel about this subject.

To me, Western medicine is the "alternate" healing. Western medicine relies upon measurable things. I think it usually fails to take into account the link between mind, body and spirit, and I, for one, truly believe there is an absolute link there.

Western medicine is very young, compared with more traditional methods. I was surprised when we moved ot this island, that many of the elders seemed to be somewhat pill-oriented. I think that stemmed from a desire to embrace modern medicine in the early 1900s, and depart from the traditional medicines used when the original settlers immigrated here in the 1700s.

Interesting thread; enjoyed hearing all your thoughts.

reply to post by Gawdzilla


i mean that, while in exterme likelyhood worthless, a dose of homeopathc dextrose doesn't cost that much, if you calculated the price of the diluted agent, otoh, you'd probably reach trillions/lbs territory.


i'd agree it's marketing at its finest, but the real reason is probably that it's ineffective and therefore a good strawman to knock down.

Originally posted by Long Lance
reply to post by Gawdzilla

 

i mean that, while in exterme likelyhood worthless, a dose of homeopathc dextrose doesn't cost that much, if you calculated the price of the diluted agent, otoh, you'd probably reach trillions/lbs territory.

That's the "beauty" of homeopathy. You can say, and some people do so honestly if misguidedly, that you believe the medicine is being multiplied, not divided. But reality intrudes when you try to explain how plain water "remembers" it's contact with the medicine and passes that along to the majority of the water that was never in contact with the medicine at all.

i'd agree it's marketing at its finest, but the real reason is probably that it's ineffective and therefore a good strawman to knock down.

C.A.M. may have some slight benefits, but it's most often a scam, nothing more.

Originally posted by A Conscience
reply to post by AlphaTier

 

For example, here's a study published May 11 concluding that acupuncture is no better than placebo for treating back pain.

Acupuncture Does Not Work for Back Pain

That is a sweeping statement (dishonest?), if ever I see one. Where does the conclusion below give rise to the conclusion above? I read it as inconclusive at worst.

CONCLUSIONS: Although acupuncture was found effective for chronic low back pain, tailoring needling sites to each patient and penetration of the skin appear to be unimportant in eliciting therapeutic benefits. These findings raise questions about acupuncture's purported mechanisms of action. It remains unclear whether acupuncture or our simulated method of acupuncture provide physiologically important stimulation or represent placebo or nonspecific effects.

You got me on this. I read the whole study and you are correct. It found that acupuncture was effective, but it didn't matter where the needles were placed or if puncture was just simulated, thus calling into question what the actual mechanism of healing is. Could just be a placebo effect.

Regardless, if it works and even is something "in the mind," it works and is effective. I'd take acupuncture over a handful of pills any day.

Thanks for clearing this up.

It is funny how people saying that alternative practioners push their products for profit. When infact drug companies pay doctors alot fo money to push their products and they get to go on holiday trips.
Pharmaceuitcals and FDA recently joined forces. The codex alimentarius is getting rid of alternative medicines and bills have been passed to shut down alternative practioners. SO whos cutting into who's profit here.

I have also healed many things with alternative medicine. Before i believed in only drugs till i almost died form side effects and the only thing that helped me was alternative medicine and i thank God each day im living and for guiding me to read up on side effects.

curezone.com

and talking about snake oil. Pharamceuticals were founded on snake oil salesman. One of them rothschilds or rockefeller(they ised alternative medicine for themselves funnily enough) who knows thye both sound the same was selling oil as a cure for cancer and thats how the pharamaceuitcal industry grew. Read raw foodist propaganda has this info.


[edit on 20-5-2009 by Applesandoranges]

reply to post by Applesandoranges

It is funny how people saying that alternative practioners push their products for profit. When infact drug companies pay doctors alot fo money to push their products and they get to go on holiday trips.

Exactly!
Doctors will only recommend products that are regulated by the FDA; unless they are a truly caring individual, and thus, will recommend more un-orthodox treatments. Most doctors will only ever tell you to take a substance that they have jotted on their prescription pad.
I've even been to a "doctor", who took out a pharma-catalogue, flicked through its pages, to ultimately decide what he would prescribe me!
Frightening to have your life in these guys hands.......

Kristali i have never been to a doctor who has not prescribed me drugs.
They lose their licence if they even mention alternative treatments to their patient or dietary advice. Also they have cut out nutrition learning in the university courses. So gone are the good old days when doctors advised chicken soup, fruits and veggies and a change in diet that could help many ailments.
Drugs only counteract the symptoms and never the cure. When has a drug actually ever cured anyone. Never, they wouldnt make money from disease if they were to tell anyone their cures.
Funnily enough many of the cures are in nature and if anyone used them such as bloodroot paste for skin cancer you get jailed.
Even if some drgs have natural ingredients in them the chemical synthesis changes its structure so more side effects and they do this to be able to patent them. They cannot however patent nature.
Millions of people die each years from pharma drugs alone. But if only 1 dies from alternative medicine there is a national outcry, mediua would be allover it like the plague. Funny how the system and mind works and how much faith people have in doctors that most of them would be deemed brainwashed by mainstream views.



[edit on 20-5-2009 by Applesandoranges]

reply to post by Applesandoranges


Hi apples, heres my post from before:

The Sickness industry is controlled by pharmaceutical giants, their products are prescribed by doctors (legalized pushers); the products/treatments may give a little relief or kill you completely. Healing is mainly achieved by rest, good diet and placebo effect (of positive mind). Doctors (generally prefer you to get well slowly); that way they extract as much government rebates through elevated consultations, get kick-backs from Pharma. companies for recommending certain products, and extract as much money from you as possible. Alternate treatments are always shunned until some form of medical monopoly can be established or rather, how individual treatments can be morphed into the existing monopoly. Take Pilates (Yoga), Acupuncture, Chiropractic ; these are just some of the therapies that were poo-pooed by the establishment and are now slowly being accepted. Why? They have incorporated these practices into their regime, as they make their own adjustments to give their main concern attention- The therapy of making money: Not your health

That pretty much sums-up how I feel about it!

That pretty much sums-up my agreement with what you have said.

Since i have had experience with almost dying from pharma drugs i can view the alternative establishment with more light in my heart. Simply because they did help me. But it will take alot longer for the mainstream person to accept my understanding of it. So alternative treatments are never accepted unless people have had experiences with it.

Had i not almost died from pharma drugs i would still be the doctors unquestioning dummy.

How do we get the word out, heck who knows people need to be open minded or experience such things for themselves.

Also i changed to eating more raw fruits and veggies which also helped in my healing.

People deserve to live but they treat us like cattle for the slughter house. Here take a pill you scum.. yes doctor baaa baaa baaa

Count all these side effects if i were to take allopathic treatments and i would have been paying 10 times the amount then i did when healed naturally. See the trick with side effects is that they make you go onto other drugs. I would have been on depression drugs for life, i would have had to go get many scans for ovaries and back bones.
I realised where most of the money would have went seeking more doctor treatments. So i wondered if the side effects are also purposely done to seek more allopathic treatment.




[edit on 20-5-2009 by Applesandoranges]

Originally posted by tigpoppa
if you people refuse any kind of treatment your all fools

Thats the spirit

Im 30, have suffered only one server illness of glandular fever at the age of 12 (which I went to a local doctor for a blood test, but never took anything to counter it and let it run its course), prior to that the only other medical treatment I have had was as a small child with a broken leg, and the medical treatments I had to keep me alive due to being a premmy baby at birth.

Outside those instances ive never gone to hospital or seen a doctor nor taken anything beyond simple aspirin and cell salts, I get colds and flus as anyone does ive had the mumps measles and chicken pox (quite server on that last one). And ive only had the most minimal vaccination as a kid.

If I was to find I had some sort of major health issue first thing id do is try a change in my diet and lifestyle... i guess im an fool for doing so in your eyes for not rushing to the gods of medicine. But you know what I and alot of others have a thing called free choice. And im no fool for exercising that right as a human being thank you very much.

There something even better than medicine both mainstream and Alternative.. and that is prevention. You dont need to cure what you will no longer get.

As a good example ill say this, i got 2 years ago an extra lump where a guys only supposed to have 2 it steadily grew to the size of a elongated gold ball was rather painful and worried me alot, I told no one about it and ummed and ahhed for a month and a half, after which Idecided to immediately changed my diet and began exercising 100% more than usual, spent time out doors and away from computers and other sources of radiation. relaxed spent these periods in calm thought and willing myself to be well.

I increased my vitamin C intake by a huge margin along with other fruits and veg 10 fold, read up on food that helped such possible conditions and integrated them into my diet. After 2 months of this the lump stopped growing and stopped being painful. After 6 months from when I first found it, it had gone completely. My regular flu and colds also stopped since that change in diet.

Now I cant claim that what i had was a cancer, but it was something... and through 'Alternative' treatment and self healing I beat it, was I fool not to go to a doctor and get what it could have been 'cured' professionally? (yeah right cured you mean butchered out of me)... maybe.

But I repressed what ever it was. Ive recently in the last few months become lax again in my diet and i can feel myself getting ill again, which has promoted me to get back into my better diet. Heck had a headache a few days ago, decided not to take a tablet and made myself some noodles with Beetroot leaf, Garlic and a heap of Turmeric (Which I might add is a natural painkiller), within 3 minutes of starting to eat my headache was gone thanks to the turmeric, although i recently learned that Beetroot leaves have a compound that helps serotonin (i think it was that?) levels in the brain (ie a happy leaf ).

Eat well be well... The best cure is to not get sick at all. But wheres the profit in that i guess?. Im one guy medicine aint gonna get cash from unless I really need them.

[edit on 28-5-2009 by BigfootNZ]