alternative medicine, not as safe as some people think.

[bananaandcustard]

www.independent.ie/irish-news/courts/man-died-an-hour-after-being-treated-for-peanut-allergy-26531233.html

There is no money to be made in researching herbal medicines. Drug companies are meant to register all trials- they still find ways of getting round this so that only the ones that appear to show significant results are published. There is a well recognised publication bias also. Holistic approached to health are complex - not just take this one remedy - but an overall approach to health and lifestyle. These can be researched and evidenced, e.g. Longitudinal studies, but there's no funding and it is not as quick and sexy as a randomised double blind trial- not necessarily the gold standard it is held up to be. The placebo effect is recognised in medical research and the small effect sizes of some medicines over the placebo, e.g. In SSRIs, are not explained to the public. We have a broken system that treats disease at the expense of health. Too many lobbyists influence the governments healthy eating messages. Science, in practice, is not unbiased, although I don't doubt that those working in medical research want to do good.

I completely agree with ShiningBright. This is not a simple topic to be covered by the attitude that all alternative to Western conventional medicine are bullshit.

Herbal medicine is researched. This is how we know that St John's Wort is good for treating mild to moderate detention.

I completely agree with ShiningBright. This is not a simple topic to be covered by the attitude that all alternative to Western conventional medicine are bullshit

This!

*I completely agree with ShiningBright. This is not a simple topic to be covered by the attitude that all alternative to Western conventional medicine are bullshit

This!*

I haven't seen that attitude expressed here to all alternatives to western medicine, moreso scepticism towards some alternatives like homeopathy (justified in my view) along with many posters acknowledging that other treatments eg acupuncture, herbal medicine etc could have an impact and be beneficial in certain situations.

Bolding fail above

Except you were talking about someone having an IGE reaction to lactose.

And I was saying thats not how it works.

And you can link me to whatever you like, but with my experience, it would be me that could type it do you. Not link it to you.

Anyone can Google, not everyone is knowledgable.

I completely agree with ShiningBright. This is not a simple topic to be covered by the attitude that all alternative to Western conventional medicine are bullshit

All alternatives to evidence-based medicines ARE bullshit.

lactose intolerance is a real thing.

but lactose as in milk sugar, comes from milk and may have cows milk protein and it would be advisable that anyone with a ige allergy to milk avoids all forms of cows milk including lactose.
UNLESS an immunologist advises otherwise. If you were an immunologist then fair enough.
But from what I have been told, like all ige allergies avoidance is a sensible option.

What do you call evidence HaroldsBishop?

There has been lots of mainstream information about how pharmaceutical companies falsify their results, is that the sort of evidence you like?

You would not drink mint tea to ease a stomach-ache, because nobody has spent thousands of pounds researching it?

You would dismiss all the knowledge acquired over thousands of years in countries like China or Mexico, where I live, until some pharmaceutical company decides to take out a patent on it?

When my mum was alive she used to buy certain vitamins, cod liver oil etc from a health food store. the woman who ran the stall maintained cancer could be cured using natural remedies! It has its place but the doctor and prescribed meds are usually the way to go!

What do you call evidence HaroldsBishop?

Well the usual standard is multiple independent clinical trials.

*There has been lots of mainstream information about how pharmaceutical companies falsify their results, is that the sort of evidence you like?

You would not drink mint tea to ease a stomach-ache, because nobody has spent thousands of pounds researching it?*

Yes, pharmaceutical companies falsify data. If the data is falsified then the medicine ceases to be evidenced based.That doesn't mean that alternative medicine is good. People do research alternative medicines. If there was evidence that they worked they wouldn't be called "alternative medicines", they'd just be called "medicines".

Ill just leave this here

I like this one, Gin

"If there was evidence that they worked they wouldn't be called "alternative medicines", they'd just be called "medicines"

The NHS/NICE still refer to the ones that they've tested and recommend/provide as complementary and alternative medicine.

so what do you call the ones that don't work, such as homeopathy and reflexology?

The placebo effect is very strong. Think it's all rubbish and companies selling all sorts and quacks are making lots of money.

Sorry Coyoacan, I lost this thread and didn't see that you had responded.

Triliteral Wouldn't it be wonderful if allopathic doctors could just sometimes have a placebo effect?

Because according to people like you, people like me are only capable of getting a placebo effect from alternative medicine, aren't we? Even if we grew up going to great allopathic doctors who cured us and our families, which I would have thought would be the perfect set up for a placebo effect.

The placebo effect also works with allopathic medicine. I don't think I stated otherwise anywhere. Somewhat controversially, I do feel that on some occasions, homeopathic medicine is a good thing, on the grounds that in general (allergic problems being an obvious exception) it does little harm, and on some occasions it has a positive effect, however that effect is obtained. Whether that should be available on the NHS with its very limited funding would have to be very carefully weighed up with costs/benefits taken into account.

I'm certainly not averse to the idea that we have things to learn from alternative medicines and their practitioners. I have a brilliant chiropractor who has done wonders with my spine where conventional medicine had not. I have also sent animals to an acupuncturist before.

I actually surprised myself in commenting at all because I am generally an AIBU wuss, but I thought through what it was about your post that caused me to want to respond as I did and came up with this part

My dd was catching everything going when she was 7 years old because of overprescription of antibiotics on the part of the doctor

I just felt this was an unprovable statement, and it seems to echo the frequently cited recent (and unproven) suggestion that over-prescription of antibiotics causes weakening of the immune system. I believe this is a misconception which has occurred, possibly through bad reporting, but I seem to see it all over the place just recently, and it frustrates me. If I am incorrect and there is a body of scientific proof that this weakening does occur, then I would be delighted to change my mind.

The main negative effect of over-use of antibiotics is that the antibiotics themselves no longer kill some bacteria. This is because the bacteria have evolved to be resistant. Antibiotics (as a group of medicines) don't in general, so far as I am aware, weaken anyone's immune system.

I do know that killing off all the beneficial gut bacteria can allow C. Difficile (for example) to gain a hold. Perhaps that was the kind of scenario you meant, in which case I apologise.