> A pragmatic question: with such vague standards for evaluation ("case by
> case", "wide range of criteria"), how is any health care provider or
> client supposed to decide what therapies to use? --"Well, there's no
> systematic research now that supports the use of treatment X, but
> scientific theories and methods change, so you shouldn't rule out
> treatment X". By this logic, if I claim that eating skinny vegetables
> like green beans will make me skinny, I should consider green beans an
> "alternative" treatment for weight loss, and even if there's no clear
> research that supports my claim--hey! science is fallible, so we need
> to keep my "alternative" treatment on record!
>
> Miles
I came into this thread late but one thing I did not see was anyone noting that the particular NIH study Doug originally posted was a poor way for one to study the efficacy of glucosamine.
Since glucosamine is not an analgesic but rather works to build connective tissue it's relationship to pain is not direct. Yet it was compared to Celebrex a quick acting analgesic. The test was also a short term test, 6 months, which does not allow glucosamine the time required to act. It is well supported in previous studies that glucosamine takes 3 to 6 months to allow tissue regeneration sufficient to experience any noticeable reduction in pain. This would be similar to testing the effectiveness of Prozac in a 2 month study when the drug needs to be administered for 6 to 12 weeks before a regular and measurable difference manifests itself. Since, as it was pointed out, the people at NIH are not idiots why did they arrange for such a poorly designed study that almost looks as if it were designed to give glucosamine a failing grade? The Belgian study I cited was a 3 year study. Surely it is the equal of NIH's study?
I have nothing against the scientific method, I love it in fact, but I do have something against poorly designed studies the results of which allegedly refute "hippie treatments" when they do no such thing.
I have very little love for most people who label themselves alternative health practitioners. I think they prey on uninformed persons who do not always choose to reject traditional medicine. Many choose to but many more do not.
My grandmother rejected traditional medicine in her battle with colon cancer and instead relied on an alternative health care provider who had her drink copious amounts of fresh fruit juice and Yerba Mate. Unsurprisingly this "treatment" failed and she died less than 6 months after her diagnosis. I loved the woman dearly but why she rejected treatments with a known good track record to try a quack cure I can only partly understand. However I do not blame the makers of Yerba Mate or alternative health care in general for her death. She was a very wealthy woman with access to the very best doctors and treatments available. In my store I also sold this same silly Mate concoction to people with cancer who had no insurance and could not afford proper treatment. They choose alternative medicine for a different reason but get the same results in the end. They are told natural is good and believe it. They are told corporate interests try to suppress natural remedies in favor of patentable and therefore profitable medicines and they believe this too. They are not rubes for believing these things and when you couple this with their desire not to roll over and passively die but to try to find some hope for a cure they can afford it is really foolish not to expect large numbers of people to believe in alternative therapies. While it is easy to laugh and point out that most are crap and do nothing do not forget that some of them actually work. It is the ones that promise miracles that are doomed to fail.
My younger brother died of a severe cardiac arythemia when he was 29. No family history of heart disease and he had just seen a cardiologist and had a complete battery of cardiac tests that showed his heart was in grand condition. His night-time chest pains were caused by digestive acids. His doctor put him on the newest treatment for such problems, Propulsid. He died on the living room floor right in front of his three daughters exactly 5 weeks later. Had he tried alternative therapies such as marshmallow root and licorice extract he would not have died that night. I do not blame his doctor and I do not blame traditional medicine in general for his death. I do blame the makers of this product and the FDA for their new shitty streamlined approval process that allows quicker profitability for drug makers at the expense of human lives.
John Thornton