Is It Stupid To Believe In Alternative Medicine?

1. Rhianna Says

   It’s illogical to support something that (with the exception of some herbals and a few others) is scientifically implausible and in most cases has zero demonstrated evidence of efficacy.
   If you look back in history at the average life expectancy and instances of diseases, it’s patently obvious these treatments did not work.
   I have a policy not to “believe” in anything. Science is not about belief, it is about understanding. “Believe” is a strange word to those of us who think logically and scientifically. I accept the best explanation supported by evidence.- Which happens to be lacking with AltMed.
   However, I don’t think we should make the mistake of thinking Alt.Med supporters are stupid. I’ve met quite a few highly educated quacks. The problem is, being educated and intelligent does not mean that person is necessarily able to think logically and critically. Scientific illiteracy seems to be a problem for many too, although I have met some Doctors who support woo. In the past I have used my own mother as example. I noticed a homeopathy poster in her office…..yet she was a Microbiologist before medicine. It’s interesting challenging her actually. Educated quacks are usually always better at defending and justifying their illogical ” beliefs”.
   There may be a tendency that educated people are more likely to use AltMed than uneducated people. Educated people may be more likely to research and question the perceived authority of mainstream medical practitioners than uneducated people. Humans by nature, are not logical beings, look at religion for example.
   Edit: The alties always do a better job of discrediting AltMed and their position in general than I ever could. Cheers Minx!
   Edit: Anyone who uses the term “dis ease” is a quack.

2. udaya k Says

   t is the only wisdom. Excuse me. Alternative Medicines are in reality the main stream medicines. And main stream medicines are actually alternative medicines. The medicines that promote harmony of the human body with its surroundings to keep oneself healthy is what is fundamentally a medicine. All medicines are food in their subtle forms. And all foods are medicine in their finite forms. What is tasted and eaten through the mouth as element earth and its metamorphic forms are called food. What is heard as music through the ears in its ethereal form of harmony is also medicines and food. That fragrance that are ultimate smelt through the nose in their form of Air is also medicine and food. That
   which is absorbed through the skin in the form of element Fire and is felt as heat and light is also called food and medicine in the form of various kinds of solar energies. That which is felt as cold through winds, drinking water, bathing water and felt through the skins and drank through the mouth or absorbed through the skins are forms of element Water and is also medicine and food.
   When any of these are in disharmony with the outside as well as the inside of the body, morbidity or unhealthy conditions result. When any of these cannot be rightly assimilated by the body, the body loses its capacity to protect itself and receives what is not in harmony with its own existence. That receiving and its population and propagation and perculation and proliferation and deterioration, and prognosis etc.etc. is what we define as disease.
   When such conditions arises, the body force, which hitherto had protected itself requires outside support to correct oneself and that is what we prescribe in the name of medicines. These medicines are expected only to correct the system and not attack the system or force the system into control. The body life force need be activated wherever it is not properly being activated and the rest, the true nature of the life force will do on its own. Any substance ingested into the body towards that end only can be called as medicines, rest all are toxins, foreign elements, aliens, disruptive forces, not-requited in the body. The main stream medicines believe in all kinds of imageries which are violent. to name a few : KILL the germs, ATTACK by germs, Cut/SURGERY/AMPUTATION, Infected, Anti-hystemines, Anti-………, Beta Blockers, …….etc.etc. are all repair works and not strengthening the inbuilt system. To quote an example. Killing the germs, how a medicine can kill a germ and not damage the system. Anything toxic enough to kill a germs should be known as toxins and destructive to the body whether it is internal abdominal linings or organs or micro-organism or scavenger parasites or adding impurities to the circulatory, draining, sublimating, expiratory, exuding or other kind of mechanisms and creating blockages to assimilating, absorbing, semi-permeable or other kinds of delicate systems within the cells and subtle areas of the body.
   There are many ways of medicating. Conventionally there are only very less ways like oral, injections, surgical etc. The subtlest methods however, is not known to the conventional system which consider itself as mainstream. The medicines are taken like food or earth and assimilated through the abdomen, intestines etc. Whereas the injection takes the medicines direct to the circulatory system. What the conventional medicines forget is that the blood is not designed to take anything directly from outside, it has to go through the villi of the intestine or other absorbing systems. And when injections are made directly into the blood they remain as toxins. Therefore, they are ultimately forced to resort to surgery inorder to remove the toxins created by themselves.
   How does other system work. In systems like homeopathy, the medicine is turned into energy vibrations through dilution, potentisation, succusion and other methods and is absorbed by the buds of the tongue directly into the energy system and the chakras gets activated by these forces. The e.g. of such absorption in toxic forms can be seen in a deadly poison killing anyone within seconds by being absorbed into he energy system directly through the buds of the tongue.
   Similarly, the synapses can be activated by sound through music therapy, through ether by charging oneself with cosmic energy and imparting it to the patient through conduction like Reikhi, Aura healing, chakra healing, etc. Then there is complete system of medicine in Ayurveda inclusive of Bhasmas (dusts of elements) which is natural panacea for all kinds of imbalances, And then there is directive techniques like Acupuncture, acupressure where life forces are activated by redirecting the forces. A doctor can be qualified to function as a doctor only if he is adept in knowing the human being as a complete whole and not in piece meal or partially. The present system is the fourth methods of Sama Dana Bheda Danda. The offensive method has to be adopted only when all avenues and roads are closed towards homeostasis. Unfortunately, it is named as main stream relegating the mainstream to the name of alternative medicines. That shallowness can come only from the shallow mind of a materialist.

3. ƦєdAиgєℓ Says

   “With a meager success rate of 2.3%, selling chemotherapy as a medical treatment (instead of a scam), is one of the greatest fraudulent acts ever committed. The average chemotherapy earns the medical establishment a whopping $300,000 to $1,000,000 each year, and has so far earned those who promote this pseudo-medication (poison) over 1 trillion dollars. It’s no surprise that the medical establishment tries to keep this scam alive for as long as possible.”http://www.naturalnews.com/023689_chemot…
   It can be deadly to believe in what conventional medicine is telling you.
   “Healing Cancer From Inside Out” Trailer (Proven alternative cancer treatments) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uz4Bcu8Jh…

4. Anonymous Says

   For me it boils down to a few things.
   Sometimes people are just too trusting:
   My Grand mother-in-law (?) believes in astrology only for the reason that she could not quite get herself to believe that someone would just make it all up. She doesn’t want to think of the people who write in the papers as just lying so she thinks “there must be something in it”
   So when a person A’s friend says “I was sick until I went to my homeopath and now I’m better” person A doesn’t want to start think their friend is lying or wrong or illogical and attaches a certain amount of trust to that claim.
   People don’t understand the scientific method:
   When one group of people say “there is no evidence that AltMed works and plenty to show it doesn’t” and another group say “it has been PROVEN altmed works” … Who is an outsider to believe. There are two equally passionate groups saying opposite things. So surely this must be a topic up for real debate right? no, wrong. There is no serious debate (for example Homeopathy is completly debunked) but only a knowledge of how scientific testing occurs would lead you to realise the value of each sides ‘proof’.
   I always hear people saying that you can’t disprove that an AltMed works or it’s beyond scientific testing. These people simply don’t grasp how clinical trials work. Of course every trial could be bigger and better controlled but everything has a budget.
   For me the main reason is this.
   You seek treatment when your illness is at it’s worst. This means that after you see the AltMed guy you were generally going to get better anyway. also when you listen to your friends you only tend to get told about the times they got better not the time they wasted money getting their back stuck with needles for no reason.
   And please no-one come back with “animals can’t be subject to the placebo effect”. It’s just desperate and sad.

5. Mr E Says

   it is stupid to believe that giving sick people poison will make them well, yet that is standard practice in what is called conventional health care (more accurately, disease maintenance). it is stupid to believe that you can fail to identify and correct the cause of a health problem, (or any problem for that matter) and expect the symptoms/effects to disappear. again, this is the standard practice of conventional allopathic health care.

6. Nate Says

   I agree with Rhianna.
   You don’t need to be stupid to believe in something stupid. As she said, a lot of brilliant people believe in silly things they should know better not to. This is called cognitive dissonance http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_d…
   @Gourou, I don’t know if you thought you were being original, but you’re running the Galileo Gambithttp://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Galileo_fal…
   Also, some people still believe in geocentrism http://www.catholicintl.com/galileowaswr… a lot of those guys have “Dr” in front of their names too.
   @Minx, I laugh every time I see disease spelled “dis ease.” Keep it up!

7. Minx Says

   No it is not. It is, however, vacuous to believe that a bunch of toxicmuckchemicals can possibly heal and resolve ill health and dis ease from the source or anywhere at all.
   alternative medicine ~ an alternative to poison.
   alternative medicine ~ healing in natural synergy with the body.
   people who practice any type of medicine need to fully inform themselves of precisely what they are ingesting and be aware of exactly what side effects are likely and assess any cointradictions with current medication and address any food / chemical allergies and / or intolerances and also ensure they aren’t ingesting the very thing that is making them so sick…… such as an ingredient in an herbal remedy or vitamin supplement they are intolerant to …… not doing that is stupid.
   bless u
   x

8. Lightnin Says

   Its an interesting Question as are some of the Answers.
   It’s no suprise that the usual suspects either label anyone that practises outside the medical field as a quack or that the patient would have got better anyway.
   The profession I work in is extensively regulated. We got rid of our quacks a while ago.
   Although there is some truth that many of the altmed practitioners are unregulated many are.
   This makes people like me accountable and guarentee’s a minimum standard of competance and safety.
   Personally I’d like to see this implemented among all practitioners who provide healthcare to the public. I wouldn’t want to see everyone become medicalised.
   As an osteopath Our concepts of health and healtcare are quite different to the medical profession. Should we adopt the medical model our practice would change dramatically and it wouldn’t be Osteopathy anymore (for better or worse).
   One blogger says that people only tell you when they got better.
   He’s using the same thinking of talking to someone with a gambling addiction where they will only tell you when they won not when they lost.
   I think it says more about the people he hangs around with than anything else.
   From personal experience I can tell you people paying me good, hard earned money have no problem at all telling me if they didn’t get better.
   Before I became an osteopath I used to talk to people now and again who had tried different therapies and they didn’t hold back if it didn’t work.
   Now when talking to patients many of them will have tried other therapies with varying success and they are again not shy about whether it worked or not.
   The reason why many people choose alternative medicine is because the conventional medical system failed them so they want to try something else.
   If the medical profession wants to stop us practicing what they need to do is look at what we are doing differently to them and implement it into their practice.
   The only reason my job exists is because musculoskeletal medicine is so poorly practiced. if it was done correctly why would someone pay to see me rather than used the free health service? Where is all this slick advertising we allegedly do to attract patients?
   NB. The word DISEASE actually comes from the old medical concept of DIS EASE. It was to illustrate a breakdown in the body of any sort because the process of patho-pyhsiology or dysfunction was poorly understood.

9. M R Says

   Of course not. The drug companies have everyone believe drugs are the only answer. I suggest you read Kevin Trudeau’s “Natural Cures..” book. In parts of Europe, alternative medicine is used as much OR EVEN MORE OFTEN than drugs.

10. Anonymous Says

    Hi Ari,
    I would say that it is unwise for anyone to believe or disbelieve something on the basis of their own seemingly relevant previous experience, education or personal practice(s). For example, it would be foolish in the extreme to assume that, because one dislikes the taste of grapefruit, that one would dislike the taste of an orange, without ever bothering to taste an orange. Or even better, since we’ve been told that red coloured fruits and vegetables are great sources of vitamin c that when confronted with the fact that a kiwi or an orange is great source of vitamin c, that we throw a fit and completely refute the possibility. A historical example of what I’m trying to illustrate above would be the once held belief that earth was the centre of the universe. When proposed by Galileo that the sun was the centre of the universe, believers of the geocentric concept of the universe just wouldn’t have any of it. Who could blame them, really? The earthling perspective was the only one they had and they weren’t about to let anyone disabuse them of it. I would attribute the same approach and characteristics to those of us who argue that alternative medicine is charlatanism, without having practiced or been subject to its healing methods. Such folks have lost the ability (when it comes to alternative medicine) to know or accept when they don’t know something. They are content with coming to convenient conclusions through a filter of their previous experiences, education and personal practice. So, I guess what I’m saying is it isn’t smart to believe or not believe in alternative medicine, but it is more sensible to consult with those who practice it and those who’ve been subject to it, as you’re somewhat doing, here. Then find an alternative therapy that is relevant to any condition you may have and experience its healing methods, for yourself. That way you won’t be believing, you’ll know. I’d offer that those who submit to and practice alternative therapy do so, because they’ve experienced favourable results, with it. Such individuals certainly couldn’t be considered stupid.

11. Sugar Baby Says

    no its not stupid…. garlic is a fantastic antibiotic i use it all the time… honey and bee pollen also have a great reputation for healing a lot of things….. i could go on and on about this subject…
    there are a lot of stupid people who practice alternative medicine (my mother) but there are also a lot of stupid people who go to the doctors everyday… lol

12. gamya Says

    The proof of pudding is in it’s eating. Homoeopathy cures rapidly, gently and permanently.

13. Tigger Says

    Not at all, however, it’s not for me

14. Nick Says

    No. I take it to FEEL GOOD!

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