If "alternative" medicine actually worked we'd just call it medicine.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5iVzCMf2-0G5bmxm0XCQdbHOS5gjwD98NU5FO0

After the last eight years why would R. Barker Bausell expect "scientific thinking" at any federal agency?

:popcorn:

I've seen this frigging article all over this board for the last few days!

at least.

I'll be saving it to send to a few who need to read this.

can call it what you want.

:crazy: Not too impartial, is he?

That would be bad for BOOK sales! :wow:

I think it is asinine to think that synthetic drugs are the cure all. The active compounds in 95% of all prescription drugs were isolated from natural plants, animals, etc. It is by identifying the effect of a natural substance that we have been able to synthesize new drugs. I don't think it was a waste of time to test these alternative drugs, because we might find something profound that could alter the way medicine is practiced.

recently a herb, the root of a tree in Asia, has been found to work well for rheumatoid arthritis. it lead to a revolutionary discovery about how RA is caused, and now this herb may be an alternative to current cancer meds that are used to currently treat RA.

prevention, health and healing, systems of the body rather than conventional wait til the parts break down and treat symptoms that people mean when they say "medicine" and make wild claims about integrative medicine as bunk.

I'd be willing to believe that 95% of drugs on the market come from natural product leads, but isolated from natural sources?

No, I'm not buying that.

nor does metmorfin

And I could go on.

The list of medicines that come from PLANTS is long and distinguished

Willful ignorance and all included

While it's useless for (peri)menopausal women, it's fairly effective at causing strong, painful uterine contractions, and can cause both miscarriages and premature labor if a woman should take it during pregnancy.

Since surprise pregnancies aren't uncommon in women nearing menopause (due to a tendency to slack off on birth control a bit too soon) and often aren't noticed right away due to irregular menstruation at that time, adding an herb that's dangerous in pregnancy to womens' supplements is a bad idea.

once were alternative, and stayed that way for a long time.

i can tell you that as a national level competitive athlete, i use many conventional and many alternative modalities.

the difference is largely approach. western conventional medicine generally aims to treat acute symptoms, moreso than the body as a whole, and moreso than the PREVENTIVE medicine.

in the field of preventive (and to some extent performance enhancing) medicine, there are lots of excellent alternatives or adjuncts.

i recently got (my first) cortisone shot to get me through a competition. that's an example of conventional medicine. (also a highly destructive method if overused).

however, conventional medicine did little for me in FIXING the problem. for that, massage, chiropractic, and my special vit c/MSM/Glucosamine mix did a great job.

sports science and medicine is usually years ahead of conventional medicine. many techniques we use ARE accepted in conventional medicine. YEARS later.

fish oil is a good example. it took conventional medicine decades to catch on to the benefits of healthy EFA profiles.

The ultimate question is "cui bono?" translation "Who gains?" In today's medical environment, that question is only one of many. The health care providers are trained to look at the world through a narrow lens. If they didn't learn it through their post grad it holds no basis in fact, even if it works. The people who educate them never divulge any financial interest in selling the common or best practices and how they benefit from structuring the thought process of those they teach or advise.

Another point central to your post is diagnosing the problem and fixing the problem. Street level medicine today is mitigating the problem to assure a long term income stream or providing moderate improvement to justify continued expenditures. Since we have a profit based "health care?" system, it's all about how much money can we make and how do we do it. There are only two options for the private sector, cut and question treatments and pick and choose who you will accept as a client. Been there, done that, I'd rather share my risk for health care needs with 300M people that I spent 3$K in the last years and be sure that my meager, AFIKA no income could afford. I'd really like to earn enough today to be able to pay for health care benefits I had 30 years ago, with no cost to me.

I could go on all night about what was and what is, but it's just watching the river under the bridge.

cui bono. we use it in the law, but it certainly applies to medicine.

Dr. Andrew Weill in his very user friendly, common sense books on health and integrative medicine has warned us for years to (use omega-3s and) avoid high fructose corn syrup and hydrogenated fats. That's now mainstream.

Turns out medical training doesn't include much on nutrition, at all. I was shocked, found that hard to believe, asked on DU if it had changed in current medical training -- promptly had my head handed to me on a flying monkey platter.

Different approaches, complementary and you're right, eventually conventional medicine improves with alternative options.

not so much about nutrition since they don't deal with that.

The "4 foods group" thing was pushed by meat and dairy industries.

are MD's first and foremost.

he was a general practitioner for several years.

my point stands. the average MD knows fuck-all about nutrition, and not much about preventive medicine

it's the structure of western medicine.

and yes, the 4 food groups was pushed by meat and dairy (and grain) industries.

so what?

the AMA pimped it.

that's my point

also, the AMA pimped that fat was generally BAD.

like i said, "alternative" medicine people like udo erasmus correctly claimed that EFA's were extremely important and beneficial.

the AMA and conventional medicine disagreed. for years

Well established quack.

http://www.quackwatch.com/search/webglimpse.cgi?ID=1&query=andrew+weil

So, sorry, you're the one with the spelling error.

Not that I actually consider pointing out spelling errors to be an honest rebuttal to an argument, but you're the one who wanted to go there.

But yes, my post is an endorsement of reasonable folks, and a denouncement of unreasonable folks like Weil and the suckers who buy his books and pills.

"Non-violent?"

Say what? Hitting the sauce?

he is a Harvard trained medical doctor and is the founder of the Arizona Center for Integrative Medicine at the University of Arizona.

The quackwatch doctor is an uninformed lunatic LOL

Like Andrew Weil, also fucked in the head.

"The quackwatch doctor is an uninformed lunatic LOL"

Feel free to debunk any of the information he provides on Weil's quackery.

but here are some of his honors, from his Wikipedia page:

* Forbes on-line magazine wrote: "Dr. Weil, a graduate of Harvard Medical School, is one of the most widely known and respected alternative medicine gurus. For five years, he has offered straightforward tips and advice on achieving wellness through natural means and educating the public on alternative therapies" and listed his web site in their Best of the Web Directory in the "Alternative Medicine" category,<10> listing it as one of the three "Best of the Web" picks in that category.<11>

* Weil appeared on the cover of Time Magazine in 1997 and 2005. Time Magazine also named him one of the 25 most influential Americans in 1997 and one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2005. He received the John P. McGovern Award in Behavioral Sciences from Smithsonian Associates in 2005.
* Weil was honored by the Institute for Health and Healing in San Francisco as their 2006 Pioneer in Integrative Medicine.

* He was inducted into the Academy of Achievement in 1998.<12>

* Dr. Weil was honored by the New York Open Center <2> in 2004 as having made "extraordinary contributions to public awareness of integrative and complementary medicine."

And, many medical doctors and nurses have trained in his Integrative Medicine program at the University of Arizona medical school. Gee, do you think UA would have a "quack" on their campus?

single substances for the tests. Much herbal based medicine is synergistic using multiple substances.

I take a chinese-style medicinal herbal for pre-menopause symptoms. No Cohosh, mostly angelica and astragalus.

The months I take it, I have no PMS and pain-free normal periods. When I forget to take it I have extremely heavy, painful periods preceeded by moderate PMS.

Dunno, the herbs work for me, maybe hormones would be more 'scientific' but given the risks of cancer, HBP, and the cruelty to mares kept pregnant to supply premarin and others, I prefer to use my chinese elixir.

but it helped with the night sweats I was having. When I stopped taking it they came back with a vengence. I know some other women who have used it and found it helpful.

I also take glucosamine and chondroitin. My friend's rheumatologist doesn't think it does much for repairing the damage done by arthritis but he thinks he it useful to avert it or at least slow the progression down and does recommend people start taking before they need it.

for very personal reasons.

... between alopathic and naturopathic. I am fed up with the medical system here. It's much better in the developing nation my family has used. Americans are so closed minded and at some point we need to become aware of a wider world than what we're shown.

If the remedies work, they should stand up to scrutiny. If they don't work, wouldn't it be close-minded to ignore that?

Using myself as an example here, I suffer from severe major depression but I can't take anti-depressants. I'm don't have a suicidal bone in my body, yet when I took anti-depressants I found myself sitting in the dark, in my room, thinking of different ways I could kill myself and what it would feel like. It scared the shit out of me to the point that I took my guns out of my house. It was the same with several different anti-depressants. I've tried Paxil, Effexor, amitriptyline (Elavil), Prozac and a few others. However, I know several people who have had great successes with the same medications.

As for pain medications, they haven't helped me much either. Since my accident in 2003 & two subsequent major neck surgeries in 2004, I've lived in constant pain. The only thing that pain pills did for me was knock me out (but at least I get some good sleep). Being a single father, I couldn't be knocked out or even just "out of it" and take care of my kids the way I needed to. Because of this, I chose to use marijuana to control my pain. It helps my pain better than any drug that's been prescribed to me over the past 6 years but, like the pain pills, it doesn't take *all* the pain away. It just makes it more tolerable, but I'm able to function where I couldn't on the pills. I also don't get the (severe in my case) concrete bowel syndome that comes along with taking pain pills.

The funny thing about the marijuana use, though, is the fact that since I've been using it for pain I've been able to get off anti-anxiety meds *and* high blood pressure meds.

All things don't work on all people.. but your mileage may vary...


Peace,

Ghost

I think the science on antidepressants is murky at best, and that Pharma is able to scrap studies they don't like. I think these drugs are terribly over-prescribed. And also, pot has a lot of science behind it as a potent medicine for nausea, anxiety and pain. My point being that in terms of science, nothing you've said here really refutes that in my eyes. I believe in science, not profit-motivated number-fudging. Science is the baby; the Pharma lobby is the bathwater. Again, it's about what works. But that's why the medical marijuana movement has made such headway--it actually works.

There are plenty of herbs and natural therapies that work with the human body to promote and maintain health, the main objection to them is that no one makes a profit from them.

I cured myself of chronic migraines with an herb, and by "cured" I mean that I never had migraines again. The best that Pharma could do was relieve symptoms, not correct the underlying physical imbalance so that migraines would no longer occur.

I prefer to "just say no" to drugs.

sw

:shrug: nor can their minions

I've taken herbals and had great success. I don't believe in getting hooked on pharmas, which seems to be the major goal ... to keep you taking them and taking them and paying a fortune for the privilege.

Seems that many who advocate using them keep taking them and pay a fortune for the privilege.

I was taking St. John's Wort for anxiety (panic attacks) but after taking them I no longer have the problem. I take them when I have a cold coming on etc. I don't have to continually take the same ones for the same problem the way you have to with most prescriptions.

edit: spelling

No alternative medicine has ever been scientifically proven to be both effective and safe. I mean an actual study with appropriate controls and statistical analysis.

We need to abolish the CAM offices within the federal government because they are an utter waste of time and money. I am happy to hear that this study proves once again that SCAM (Supplements, complimentary and alternative medicine) does NOT WORK.

I don't give a fuck about whatever "scientific" principles I may have offended by using a plant instead of a chemical to heal myself.

sw

I am a medical student who did an undergarduate degree in science and in doing so learned a great deal about the scientific method. In one of my pharmacology classes the professor did a unit on herbal medicines and the bottom line was the vast majority do nothing, unfortunatley. We talked a lot about the claims, and he pointed us to published studies that we could appraise ourselves. It's all about peer reviewed literature, and if you can find me a good body of literature that indicates that drug x leads to effect y, with a plausible biophysiological mechanism, I will certainly believe it. Most of these herbals are in fact snake oil. Some definitely DO work though and when they find these things they quickly become mainstream. E.g. the chemotherapy drug Taxol was initially derived from the pacific yew tree in the '60s.

Welcome to DU :toast:

hepatic toxicity. The ACE inhibitors are all derived from a natural snake venom. Digitalis comes from fox glove. Valerian root is used in Europe instead of Valium.

I think they tested only the ones that they thought would not work. And they ban herbal (i.e. non patented) remedies for the tiniest of side effects, while ok'ing Baycol and other patent medicines that kill.

The whole drug vetting process in the US is controlled by Big Pharm.

1. Lovastatin was originally isolated from Aspergillus, although yes, it is also found in certain red rice molds.

2. Valium IS used in Europe, and valerian root is a poor substitute.

3. They're not going to spend $25 billion if they're already sure of the outcome.

4. Natural products have killed a lot more people than cerivastatin. The digitalis you mention is a good example.

5. The idea that big pharma controls the scientific method is screwball conspiracy theory.

and allopathic medicine have killed more people than herbs and alternative therapies!

Lives saved by pharmaceuticals: hundreds of millions, probably billions.

Lives saved by alternative medicines: zero

that wasn't what I said, but whatever. Pharma drugs have indeed killed more people than herbs.

I take it in addition to Tricor.

David

NT!

Big pharma has big pockets.

Pubmed is a search engine for peer reviewed scientific articles. It occasionally lists some journals from what might be considered "left field," but is one of the primary data bases for accepted science in the west.

Anyway, I ran a few searches to see what's out there, and there ARE a lot of reviews and studies which conclude individual herbs or supplements were ineffective in individual applications (shark cartilage had no effect in patients with end stage cancer, for example). But, there are also a lot of studies which show significant therapeutic benefit.

Personally, I suspect the debate is muddied by the failure to standardize extract preparation and source materials. And, of course, Big Pharma will go out of its way to debunk any potentially therapeutic compound until it's found a way to make a profit off of it. It seems premature to make blanket statements denying the potential benefits of alternative medicines.

Here's a sampling of the "pro-alternative medicine" studies which popped up.

Ginseng

1) Korean red ginseng (Panax ginseng) improves insulin sensitivity and attenuates the development of diabetes in Otsuka Long-Evans Tokushima fatty rats. Metabolism. 2009 May 27.
2) A new herbal combination, Etana, for enhancing erectile function: an efficacy and safety study in animals. Int J Impot Res. 2009 Jun 4.
3) Danshen extracts decrease blood c reactive protein and prevent ischemic stroke recurrence: a controlled pilot study. Phytother Res. 2009 May 15.
4) Asian ginseng enhances the anti-proliferative effect of 5-fluorouracil on human colorectal cancer: comparison between white and red ginseng. Arch Pharm Res. 2009 Apr;32(4):505-13.

Gingko biloba

1) Improvement of Contractile Function in Isolated Cardiomyocytes From Ischemia-Reperfusion Rats by Ginkgolide B Pretreatment. J Cardiovasc Pharmacol. 2009 May 29.
2) Clinical efficacy of a Ginkgo biloba extract in the topical treatment of allergic conjunctivitis. Eur J Ophthalmol. 2009 May-Jun;19(3):331-6
3) Efficacy and tolerability of Ginkgo biloba extract EGb 761((R)) by type of dementia: Analyses of a randomised controlled trial. J Neurol Sci. 2009 Mar 13.
4) Transcriptome profiling analysis reveals multiple modulatory effects of Ginkgo biloba extract in the liver of rats on a high-fat diet. FEBS J. 2009 Mar;276(5):1450-8.

Glucosamine/Chondroitin

1) A review of evidence-based medicine for glucosamine and chondroitin sulfate use in knee osteoarthritis. Arthroscopy. 2009 Jan;25(1):86-94.
2) The NIH Glucosamine/Chondroitin Arthritis Intervention Trial (GAIT). J Pain Palliat Care Pharmacother. 2008;22(1):39-43.

^^^^^this one is particularly interesting because it comes directly from the NIH. Quoting from the article: :"For a subset of participants with moderate-to-severe pain, glucosamine combined with chondroitin sulfate provided statistically significant pain relief compared with placebo, about 79% had a 20% or greater reduction in pain versus about 54% for placebo."

Saw Palmetto

1) Saw Palmetto induces growth arrest and apoptosis of androgen-dependent prostate cancer LNCaP cells via inactivation of STAT 3 and androgen receptor signaling. Int J Oncol. 2007 Sep;31(3):593-600.
2) Preventive effects of D-004, a lipid extract from Cuban royal palm (Roystonea regia) fruits, on testosterone-induced prostate hyperplasia in intact and castrated rodents. Drugs Exp Clin Res. 2004;30(5-6):227-33

Shark cartilage

1) Angiogenic inhibitor protein fractions derived from shark cartilage. Biosci Rep. 2008 Feb;28(1):15-21
2) dentification of low-molecular-weight protein (SCP1) from shark cartilage with anti-angiogenesis activity and sequence similarity to parvalbumin. J Pharm Biomed Anal. 2008 Feb 13;46(3):563-7.
3) A novel polypeptide from shark cartilage with potent anti-angiogenic activity. Cancer Biol Ther. 2007 May;6(5):775-80.

:sarcasm:

although 2.5 billion seems like a bit much. It is entirely possible that there is some natural compound found in a particular herbal tea that really does reduce the symptoms it claims to, it's happened before with aspirin and other plants. Seems like keeping an open mind and testing these claims objectively is a good idea.

That being said most of it will turn out to be garbage, a placebo effect at most.

So yeah, after it's been tested anything that remains alternative is most likely junk.

about alternatives like using a midwife instead of an OBGYN for low risk pregnancies. Chiropractic was considered alternative medicine too, wasn't it, once upon a time?

I agree that herbal supplements may not be the answer we want them to be, but don't throw the baby out with the bath water.