Alternative medicine...

[SckizoBoy]

You read the topic title so... your thoughts please...

Personally, I'm unsure. Some of the time, I find myself agreeing with Richard Dawkins and his rather... acerbic comments about it. However, having grown up around a couple of people (read: my parents) who know a lot about Chinese herbology, I can vouch for 'TCM' (traditional Chinese medicine) which I/they have tested... primarily on myself/themselves/my sisters... (half-kidding)

You find me recovering from a cold (I actually recovered a few days ago after a couple straight days of having herbal teas and manuka and just debased myself on a truckload of junk food) with a slight niggling cough and I've spent the last half hour alternately sipping and sniffing a hot concoction of nin jiom (I haven't the faintest idea either how it is anglicised from Cantonese or what it is in English).

Quackery? Or legitimate?

EDIT - I know 'common cold' is probably not the best thing to judge its merits by so... *meh* Still, considering the availability of medicine, Chinese physicians in certain parts did admirably with what they could get their hands on.

Medicine has the trouble that human body is a difficult thing to cater to. Most modern drug designs need the rule of five to function otherwise they become too lipophilic (or plain up large) to be able to reach their targets. Herbal medicines (the main... and probably only, area of alt-med that I advocate) primarily are water based, but they suffer from a lack of efficacy. Where they are easily absorbed by tissues, they are easily dispelled for the same reasons. Thus there is a slight impasse... it's why it's rather difficult to overdose on ascorbic acid...

It's why you find that Chinese medicine commonly combines traditional treatments to complement or accelerate that which has been started by "modern medicinal methods".

Spoiler: Quoted cos I love Dara!

This can pretty much sum up my thoughts about homeopathy and alternate medicines.


Alternative medicine always seems a little... fake to me.

If they did have such an effect, and worked so well, then the cynical part of me would have a hard time believing that all the big pharmaceutical companies wouldn't be jumping at the chance to patent that crap and sell it for profit.

Currently, as far as BBDs are concerned (blockbuster drugs), the known ones from herbal sources are either for low level conditions (mild infections etc.) or are preventative (since western medicine is a little too obsessed with curing, as opposed to avoiding) that they don't perceive much of a market for them beyond fad status. The only one that comes to mind is a Japanese developed anti-cancer drug... can't remember what it is, though it's been in development since the nineties... :/

 

[Wintermoot]

some of it is quackery and some of it might work.
just don,t use it when you have something live threatening (like cancer or AIDS).

 

[Alexander Bradley]

It just depends on how your body works. There really isn't going to be one universal medicine people can take to get rid of any infection or disease. People's bodies work way too differently from each other in order to have that.

Personally, I just drink some tea, eat small amounts of food, and take some over-the-counter medicine and it works just fine. I tried getting rid of my colds via roughing them out and doing just natural cleansing, but I just had to run to the store and get pills anyways because of how severe my colds get.

 

[Soviet Steve]

"Alternative Medicine" in the sense of untested medicine backed up purely by anecdotes and the placebo effect is nonsense.

As for ancient Chinese medicine, the story of how that got popular in the west is rather funny: http://skeptoid.com/episodes/4259

Edit: For people with a cold, I'm suffering from one at the moment. Try exercising while you have it - If you're sweating, panting and so forth you should be suitably miserable, and breathing.

Otherwise I tend to eat fishermans friend tablets, they fry your tastebuds but they ease it.

 

[elcher]

some of it is quackery and some of it might work.
just don,t use it when you have something live threatening (like cancer or AIDS).

Terrible advice.

I have successfully used TCM to cure my chronic bronchitis and have seen multiple people fight Cancer for years when "modern" medicine considered them "dead within a month".

At this point of time in modern science we dont really understand the human body or how everything interacts with it. Chinese Medicine somehow does this through experience - and while some of it might (and probably does) not make any sense a lot of it has proven successful over millenia for Billions of people.

And this is coming from a native german that lived in china for a long time.

Dont always trust "modern" medicine.

 

[Lord Mountbatten Reborn]

You find me recovering from a cold (I actually recovered a few days ago after a couple straight days of having herbal teas and manuka and just debased myself on a truckload of junk food) with a slight niggling cough and I've spent the last half hour alternately sipping and sniffing a hot concoction of nin jiom (I haven't the faintest idea either how it is anglicised from Cantonese or what it is in English).

Generally the same thing happens to me, except I don't change the way I'm living whatsoever. As far as I've been able to tell a cold runs its course no matter what you do to try and lessen it.

 

[TheVoodooFrog]

You know what they call 'alternative' medicine that actually works?
Medicine.

 

[Crenelate]

Not sure about TCM and what category it falls into, but as far as straight up Homeopathy goes it's scientifically proven to be complete bollocks. If it has any effect it's placebo.

 

[Cowabungaa]

There is no "alternative" medicine.

There is just shit that works, medicine, and there's shit that doesn't work, non-medicine. All those silly labels are just there to increase revenue.

At this point of time in modern science we dont really understand the human body or how everything interacts with it.

Nonsense. We're far from finished, but that's just a silly, thing to say. One of those typical crappy hippy sayings to promote their homeopathy bullshit or something of the sort.

If one of those Chinese herbs work then there's a simple, chemical and thus explainable reason for it.

 

[SckizoBoy]

Generally the same thing happens to me, except I don't change the way I'm living whatsoever. As far as I've been able to tell a cold runs its course no matter what you do to try and lessen it.

As rhinoviruses go, the common cold's actually rather odd insomuch that the healthier you are (i.e. the strength of one's immune system) the worse it affects you, since all the symptoms are just immune responses...

Still, I got TCM instead of conventional when I broke my ankle as a kid, recovered in less than a month... and my old man cured his asthma with it (working at HK Airport didn't exactly help... :/ )

 

[Lord Mountbatten Reborn]

As rhinoviruses go, the common cold's actually rather odd insomuch that the healthier you are (i.e. the strength of one's immune system) the worse it affects you, since all the symptoms are just immune responses...

I must have a brilliant immune system then, since recently I managed to have a cold for over three weeks (though it felt like two consecutive colds).

Still, I got TCM instead of conventional when I broke my ankle as a kid, recovered in less than a month... and my old man cured his asthma with it (working at HK Airport didn't exactly help... :/ )

Kids tend to recover quickly from broken bones anyway.

I had asthma once - it disappeared randomly without my doing anything.

 

[Thaliur]

Not sure about TCM and what category it falls into, but as far as straight up Homeopathy goes it's scientifically proven to be complete bollocks. If it has any effect it's placebo.

It wasn't just scientifically proven. I can't find the source right now, but a few years ago there was a huge headline about a woman who sued a maker of homeopathic medicine because she suffered severe side-effects. The company's defense was primarily based on the fact that there could not have been any side-effects because the medicine was just tap water with a fancy name.

 

[BlackStar42]

Dara O'Briain says it best: "We used to have herbal medicine and alternative medicine, yeah. Then we tested it all, and the stuff that worked became medicine."

 

[Knight Captain Kerr]

Dara O'Briain says it best: "We used to have herbal medicine and alternative medicine, yeah. Then we tested it all, and the stuff that worked became medicine."

Ahh got there just before me. Still I can't put it any better myself.

 

[Colinmac93]

Dara O'Briain says it best: "We used to have herbal medicine and alternative medicine, yeah. Then we tested it all, and the stuff that worked became medicine."

"The rest of it just became a nice bowl of chicken soup and some potpurri."

To me, alternative medicine/therapies really aren't all that good. If I was ever going to use one, I'd at least look into the research that has been done on it first, since I'd actually want to get better than feel nice for a little while and not get better at all.

 

[jimahaff]

Traditional medicine is just medicine that was developed in a European context. The denial of non-European medicine (alternative medicine, because I won't call it that) comes from something called euro-centrism. Basically the idea that Europe and European things and ideas are inherently better. They aren't.

I'm not defending all non-European medical practices, some of it is a load of horse crap. I just don't like the idea that it's o.k. to ignore anything that didn't come from Europe. My Mom is an herbalist, and I have been raised on herbal practices and remedies. The worst disease I have ever had was strep throat, and that was cured by herbs.

So keep an open mind, and drugs and surgery aren't the only treatments available.

 

[SuperNova221]

Dara O'Briain says it best: "We used to have herbal medicine and alternative medicine, yeah. Then we tested it all, and the stuff that worked became medicine."

The exact quote I was going to post, not entirely surprised I was beaten too it though.

By all means do some testing, get some objective evidence that it works. But until you do, subjective stories of how it worked for you or somebody you know just isn't going to sway many people.

 

[Dags90]

Honestly, alternative medicine convinces me about as much as "faith healing". If you replace most alternative medicine anecdotes with "prayed to Raptor Jesus" it starts to become apparent how silly they are. "Spontaneous remission" is a medical term that makes no bones about Western medicine not being able to explain everything, and that sometimes good things just happen. There is also the concept of self limiting diseases. Evidence based medicine doesn't say you should shove antibiotics down your gullet for every case of strep throat. Unfortunately doctors don't usually say what's recommended, which is often "go home and rest, it'll go away on its own".