Not sure, I know very little about alternative medicine, but my guess is that there's a lot to some herbal remedies. they were used for thousands of years by "actual" doctors, after all. they have to have done something useful. That is not to say that modern medicine is not better in most ways, but older medicine didn't stop being useful. For example, mint didn't become useless for calming an upset stomach just because someone put pepto on the market.
That said, what I really meant was that I don't know enough about all forms of alternative medicine to say one way or the other, but that I'm okay with it as long as you're also working normal medicine into the mix. As long as your doctor doesn't say you're doing yourself any harm, then it's likely doing something good or doing nothing and either is okay by me if it makes you feel better. It's when you stop going to see the doctor and rely strictly on the alternative medicine that you've got problems.
I'll have to poke through the medical literature, but there certainly is evidence that some herbal remedies and some dietary supplements can help treat various conditions.
One example that comes to mind is selenium supplements to help lower thyroid peroxidase antibody levels in patients with Hashimoto's Thyroiditis. I was recently diagnosed with that condition myself, so I've been delving into medical journals to see what the most recent papers say about treatments for it. I found one or two controlled studies that demonstrated that euthyroid patients who took 200 mcg of selenium significantly lowered their thyroid peroxidase antibody levels.
So yeah, I don't completely dismiss "alternative" treatments so long as there are studies to support their effectiveness, and so long as they are used in conjunction with medicine and medical guidance from professional doctors.
...Yeah. See, alt-med likes to co-opt nutrition, exercise, and supplements, even though those are a part of actual real-people medicine. If you found those articles in a reputable journal, it isn't alternative medicine, it's plain old medicine.
Ahh, okay. I wasn't sure what we were defining as "alternative" versus regular medicine. I was assuming that supplements usually fall under the alternative label, but the definitions can be kind of vague. Yeah, it was in a pretty good peer-reviewed endocrinology journal, so it wasn't crackpottery.
Vitamin E works better to alleviate leg cramps than any drug on the market... as told to me by my rheumatologist and supported by the Journal of American Medicine.
There is also something to be said for a placebo effect. If someone believes that alternative medicine will help them, chances are they will at least report an improvement of their symptoms.
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(no subject)
Date: 2009-05-04 06:24 pm (UTC)That said, what I really meant was that I don't know enough about all forms of alternative medicine to say one way or the other, but that I'm okay with it as long as you're also working normal medicine into the mix. As long as your doctor doesn't say you're doing yourself any harm, then it's likely doing something good or doing nothing and either is okay by me if it makes you feel better. It's when you stop going to see the doctor and rely strictly on the alternative medicine that you've got problems.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-05-04 08:52 pm (UTC)One example that comes to mind is selenium supplements to help lower thyroid peroxidase antibody levels in patients with Hashimoto's Thyroiditis. I was recently diagnosed with that condition myself, so I've been delving into medical journals to see what the most recent papers say about treatments for it. I found one or two controlled studies that demonstrated that euthyroid patients who took 200 mcg of selenium significantly lowered their thyroid peroxidase antibody levels.
So yeah, I don't completely dismiss "alternative" treatments so long as there are studies to support their effectiveness, and so long as they are used in conjunction with medicine and medical guidance from professional doctors.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-05-04 09:19 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-05-04 10:32 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-05-04 11:43 pm (UTC)There is also something to be said for a placebo effect. If someone believes that alternative medicine will help them, chances are they will at least report an improvement of their symptoms.