Alternative medicine...

[Something Amyss]

Quackery? Or legitimate?

Quackery.

Interestingly enough, using "TCM" on one family does not equal a test. It's amazing that you agree with Dawkins but haven't picked that sort of thing. Perhaps you agree with him for the wrong reasons, and don't really understand the problems with "alternative medicine."

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".

Where can I see your study written up in a medical journal?

 

[Something Amyss]

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.

I caught the end of a couple episodes of the 700 Club because it was on before something or other I watched. It always amused and infuriated me when Pat Robertson did his faith healing shtick and told someone to throw away their inhaler or "cured" their diabetes so they didn't need insulin anymore.

 

[Something Amyss]

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 don't think you know how "medicine" works, but the resulting conspiracy theory is adorable."

 

[Knusper]

Well I'm no biologist, and people can spend their money on what they like, but my thoughts on alternative medicine are outlined in this video:

Spoiler: Around 3 minutes in

 

[Substitute Troll]

When I feel sick I take two tablets of these: http://www.belowtheclouds.com/uploads/2008/07/treo01.jpg

Does that count?

 

[DarkRyter]

Anecdotal evidence unfortunately is not evidence. Probably isn't much to TCM.

But hey, at least it isn't homeopathy.

 

[Powereaver]

if its one less trip under the knife or put on horrible drugs to fix something then ill do it... ive had a couple of things fixed by alternative medicine in the past and they were the same things that modern medicine had absolutely no idea how to fix or what they were.

 

[Imbechile]

snip

A slightly off topic question.
Why do people call it alternative medicine when it's older than todays medicine?

 

[someonehairy-ish]

I'm sceptical of it. In you anecdote about having a cold, you said you got over it after a couple of days. Isn't it fairly normal to get over colds in a few days anyway?

Meh. If I ever have to go on medication I tend to look up the tests that were done on the drug. Its quite easy for companies to fudge results slightly in their favour.

Some alternative medicine may work, but homeopathy sure as hell doesn't. Not sure about chinese medicine.

 

[jimahaff]

I don't think you know how "medicine" works, but the resulting conspiracy theory is adorable."

I am actually a college student, and one of my internationally known professors told me about this. so ya jokes on you.

I may not have explained it as well as he did, but I think i got the gist across.

 

[Fbuh]

I've found that a lot of it has positive results. For instance, we brew a tea made form peppermint, dill seed, and basil that absolves almost any stomach ailment, short of an actual virus. Seriously, it's instant relief.

A lot of it does stem from folk magic, though, which most of the time stems from ignorance. Using a duck's egg strapped to your head to prevent blindness I can say most likely does not work. The tonics and what not tend to work though. It's kind of hard to ignore thousands of years of herbalism.

 

[Catchy Slogan]

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.

 

[Helmholtz Watson]

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...

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?

personally I don't care whether or not it is legit, I f*cking hate Chinese medicine when it involves animal parts because of how it is farmed. Case in point:

 

[MaxwellEdison]

Already been quoted, but as Tim Minchin said, "By definition, alternative medicine either has not been proved to work or has been proved not to work. You know what they call alternative medicine that's been proved to work? Medicine."

I hate the term, first off. Medicine is anything that science shows heals you - there's no alternate. It either helps, or it doesn't. The very term implies what many proponents of homeopathy that I've spoken to believe, that there's some conspiracy stopping the truth from being accepted by science.

None of it has been proven to work, much of it doesn't make sense at all, and I've heard more than a few people using alternative medicine distrust the scientific process altogether.

It's quackery and fraud.

 

[Helmholtz Watson]

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.

OMG!! I love your avatar! Sooyoung is my favorite! I didn't think anybody on this site would like kpop!! (sunny is ugly as hell though)

 

[TheDragon13]

I'm a pharmacy student so I'll give my opinion about what I learned since I'm interested in the discussion here and medication stuff in general.

A lot of people believe that naturals products have no side-effects and have no interaction with anything. That's completely wrong, if it works, it has side-effects and interactions. They also believe that it will work big time when in fact very few of them have studies that actually confirmed that they work and when they do they also have studies that say that they don't work. You must use everyone of them with caution, like any other medication.

Homeopathic medicine? It's water with a tiny part of something but that part is so small it really doesn't do anything, it's practically only water that runs on the placebo effect.

For the cold that some of you spoke of, there are meds that exist to treat it but it only help reduce symptoms for 2 days max and will be given almost only to those who can get complication from cold(pregnant women, elderly...). It's a virus, it will heal itself with your immune system and every over the counter medication only serve to appease the symptoms, not treat them.

For the asthma that got cured with TCM, well asthma can cured itself and you can't say that it was the TCM that did it, you'll need a study(and more than one!) comparing it to a placebo for that.

So long story short, some of them work, some of them don't. You should not trust them blindly and if you take other things, talk to your pharmacist about it.

 

[k-ossuburb]

Here's the thing, if "alternative medicine" worked, and was proven to work time-and-again in a controlled environment it would be science. Until you have something more than hearsay and circumstantial evidence on your side I will remain skeptical.