What do you think of alternative health care methods such as homeopathy, indigenous medicine, acupuncture, mind-body medicine and so on?

What?

What do we think of ALL THOSE THINGS TOGETHER?

You can try them if you want as long as you don't completely disregard traditional medicine. They can also be studied alongside traditional medicine in the hope that they might enhance traditional medical treatment, if possible.

Imo they are all superstitious nonsense.

Although they certainly can not do any direct harm, or good, I guess, and may even help some 'true believers' and hypochondriacs, problem is these treatments are often substituted or given before 'effective' ones i.e 'real' medicine.

goldorak,

They can do direct harm. If children are subject to parents who believe nonsense, the children could die of perfectly preventable diseases. If adults take the alternative health (i.e. it doesn't work) route too long, effective modern medicine won't be able to help them.

I listened to a brain surgeon discuss alternative health care and he said if it worked, it would be included in modern medicine. So far, no proof (scientific, not anecdotal).

The human mind is very powerful. If someone believes it will help, there's a 50/50 chance it will get better. Of course, for most health issues, there is a 50/50 chance that it will go away over time if nothing is done anyway. That's the only way I can explain 80% of what chiropractors do. Certainly, there is a small set of ails where a chiropractor CAN help and I know going feels good when I've left. But I figure most of it is like getting a massage - which always feels good on the way out too, without the insurance paperwork and deductibles to track.

For a non-believer, I prefer to go with proven, scientific, no-juju needed, methods. Sadly, people don't always know how to eat right and exercise daily.

I don't want to say that acupuncture isn't helpful in "some" situations, but claiming it is a cure for all the things I've seen claims for is just bunk.

But ... if someone believes some odd treatment will work, maybe it will, for them? I just don't want my taxes going for unproven therapies.

I agree with Bertie. You cannot lump all of these together as they all have different mechanisms to treat and some (such as acupuncture) have been proven by study to provide cures to some ailments.

Some "indigenous techniques" have been used for 1000's of years and have been proven to be successful (while others have not)

I think this question is far too general.

@borscht, I see what you mean and obviously completely agree (that's what I describe in the 2nd part of my post). I see that as 'indirect' ham though as it's not the bogus drug/treatment itself that does any harm but the fact good effective ones had been substituted/not even conisdered, the misinformation surrounding these alternative medicines etc. No harm done (pun intended) though.

while I prefer being seen by a doctor, it's been well proven the human brain is still a total mystery, and I believe people can actually "cure" themselves if they believe something obsolete to the medical world is working and improving their health.

I heard someone say that there is word for alternative medicine that has been proven in clinical trials. It's "medicine".

There is a lot we don't know about the human body and lots of potential for millions of treatments out there to work. Ones that do though generally get adopted by the medical profession. Doctors aren't conspiring against you/us.

I don't know what "mind-body medicine" is but it should be obvious that the two are very heavily linked.

I think some alternative medical practices are good for preventing and treating some ailments and also in post-operative rehab, but obviously in crises such as heart attacks or strokes, conventional medical treatment is a must. Personally, I couldn't find any that worked for me when I had a herniated disk, and had to have an operation. But acupuncture helped in my rehab.

"but obviously in crises such as heart attacks or strokes, conventional medical treatment is a must."

In other words in the cases that allow us to determine whether a medical treatment actually works or not. Yep, on that account "traditional" treatments fail miserably. No thanks!

Homeopathy has been proven in double blind experiments to be 100% BS. Surprised you didn't add Reiki to the list of 'snake oil' procedures. If any of these dubious practices passed a double blind experiment, they would not be called 'alternative'.

JeffLee

I don't understand your point. Are you saying that if someone had a heart attack or stroke, you wouldn't call an ambulance but instead try alternative medicine? If you are, that's bizarre.

Here's what I think:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cg2CQqMaU1I

It's a well-known fact that a lot of illness, long term and short, is brought on by stress and poor lifestyle. If any of the above mentioned can help improve a person's life, and therefore their health, who are we to say it's nonsense? I agree that these should not all be lumped together, and I also agree that they should not be a substitute for going to see a doctor (in a clinic/hospital) and getting medicine IF needed, but I don't believe they are 100% ineffective. Most seem to me to be just glorified masseurs, but that's me. If they're not conning people and are actually helping some, then fine.

Alternative to what? Within the context of "Modern Medicine" there exists practices and therapies considered very different / controversial to those exercised by "main stream" medicos. eg transplanting of cancerous kidneys to patients on dialysis. Numerous examples abound. I disagree totally with the treatment meted out to my mother-in-law by her orthopaedic surgeon. Thankfully she is going for a 3rd opinion to a reputable doctor next week, escaping the clutches of the malpractice practiced by her "western medicine" surgeon.

It's more appropriate to talk about various therapies and their merits / demerits, regardless of their origins and philosophies. I've certainly seen enough quackery in modern hospitals, whether it be drug therapy, operations, rehab etc, that to divide treatment into the good (western) vs bad (alternative) is nonsensical.

If my national covers it, I am game for it.

There are reasons that the treatments mentioned in the question have been around for, ( some of them anyway ) hundreds of years. They must do the job for some folks !

It's a well-known fact that a lot of illness, long term and short, is brought on by stress and poor lifestyle. If any of the above mentioned can help improve a person's life, and therefore their health, who are we to say it's nonsense?

The human mind is very powerful. If someone believes it will help, there's a 50/50 chance it will get better.

Placebo effect?

We live in a time where we know more about basically every part of everything about the world and the universe than any other time in human history.

(Don't be mistaken Im not suggesting we know everything, that would be foolish)

We have ways to prove and test effectiveness and medicinal value of all kinds of therapies and claimed treatments.

Homeopathy and acupuncture for example have been shown again and again to be no better than placebo in every blinded study in peer reviewed literature.

If you go down the conspiracy path if you like, but either you want to use facts in your decisions or you don't.

You want to drink some solution, get some needles suck in you, try some old thing or have a relax then go for it.. but don't be confused about what it is..

The real issue with this is the whats the harm attitude I think.

When treatable illnesses are not treated and instead "alternative" therapies are used, then someone should be held responsible.

http://whatstheharm.net/homeopathy.html

http://whatstheharm.net/acupuncture.html

alternative medicine : medicine :: alternative facts : facts

Tokyo-EngrMAR. 21, 2017 - 10:07AM JST Some "indigenous techniques"

I really like this term that you used, it helps us address the issue more rationally. "Alternative medicine" is for things that are alternatives to medicine - i.e. their efficacy cannot be shown through scientific study. As opposed to "indigenous techniques", which implies traditional approaches to medicine that simply haven't been studied yet and which there is no evidence supporting or disconfirming their effectiveness.

It has been proven that homeopathy causes autism.

Didn't we already have enough posters on this site who are too stupid to fact check what they post? Do we really need another?

There's a 'dark web'. I'm thinking we need an 'intelligent web' too. Something that you need to pass screening in order to access. That way we could leave the morons to themselves.

Generally, bunk. They're welcome to try to prove their effectiveness over a placebo. If they do, they will be non-alternative medicine, as Kohakuebisu says.

Acupuncture has been "proven" to work, in the sense that sticking needles into people can distract from pain, but it's equally effective done by a "master" as done by a newb: It's the needle-sticking itself that's effective, not hitting the purported "acupuncture points". This has been demonstrated in empirical, blinded investigations.

No Homeopathy Don't cause Autism not at all.

I'm Professional Homeopath from last 25 years and I can say Homeopathy don't cause autism because I have reversed thousands of children's autism with homeopathy. If still curious watch success stories of autism.

sorry I don't have direct link.