Psychic healer, catholic saints, herbs, Harry Potter, Mother Teresa, Vuddu, and do not forget to drink plenty of raw milk

Interesting about the cancer info. I looked into body pH when I learnt about soil pH during a horticulture course years ago. I never read about that though... interesting.

Holistic/homeopathic medicine is really big in the Orient.  There are things to be said about it.  And most modern pharmaceutics are based on herbal treatments.

I use a homeopathic compound for my jumpy legs and sleep problems.

I think some methods practiced in Holistic medicine rely on the Placebo Effect rather than any sort of external healing. The mind is a powerful creature, and if you convince it that something's happening to make the body better, then the body's innate self-healing capacity is very likely to be employed far more effectively. It's a catalyst rather than an actual treatment.

Quote from: Sephirah on June 10, 2011, 10:07:21 AM
I think some methods practiced in Holistic medicine rely on the Placebo Effect rather than any sort of external healing. The mind is a powerful creature, and if you convince it that something's happening to make the body better, then the body's innate self-healing capacity is very likely to be employed far more effectively. It's a catalyst rather than an actual treatment.

The video mentioned this is so many words ---> the biggest thing that makes people susceptible to cancer is "attitude", the whole positive thinking/negative thinking. It's easy to get run down when you are feeling down that's for sure. Healthy lifestyle choices can help sway the balance to make positive thinking that much easier for sures!

The placebo effect can be quite powerful, but it doesn't do well to rely on it to do everything.
A lot of people have died because they chose homeopathy INSTEAD of the medication they needed to live.

The vast majority of medicines on the market shouldnmt be. Vioxx was taken off the market after 60 thousand people died from heart attack and strokes after taking it. No one in the industry was ever prosecuted or did jail time. The companies just pay a fine, then go back to killing people.                                                                                                                           Gennee

  Doctors usually are not the blame here.  They are not well versed in pharmacology.  They get suckered-in by the snake oil salesmen that visit their offices.  These salesmen have all of the answers to their questions.  The doctors are enticed by the "free samples" and the doodads with the company name and logo to give their patients. 
  Homeopathy and the herbals for my prostate and the GID only made things worse.  The gal who did the herbal feminization has dropped her pamphlet how-to system in the past two months.  She still does the feminization secrets such as; fashion, voice training, exercise, etc. 
  Joelene

If I was offered holistic medicine, herbs or Rituximab to treat Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma. I know which one I would use, even if the company make billions from it.

Cindy

A lot of these herbal/holistic medicines/treatments only work if the body itself has been kept/maintained to allow them to actually do their thing. Their effects are subtle and need a clear system for them to work. hmmm that wording sucks I'll try again.. If you eat ->-bleeped-<- and have a lot of toxins, fat and poor pH then this will override the herbals etc as they're more suited to people/bodies that live more naturally like in eastern cultures. Western culture is not generally suited to these practices and need stronger more dangerous treatments to have any kind of effect. Marginally better :/
Source: some herbal book I read years ago, it seems plausible to me. 

Fact,
Crap.
Sorry Muffin.

Yes if you have a healthy diet and life style you are more likely to stay healthy.

Once you get a disease or syndrome, being healthy may prolong your life. An alcoholic, who is overweight and has poor cardiovascular functionality has a low  chance of surviving chemo, they may as well go on holistic medicine and chanting to their gods. Because they have destroyed their health to an extent that it may not be repairable by the best therapy available, Lets put this in the cruel perspective. If I put a patient on the 'best' combo chemo/immuno therapeutic therapy for NHL, it will cost the tax payer about $75000  a year. (Australian). Yes I will do it. They have a very good chance of long term (>10 yr) survival (put pick the disease).  But should I do that for someone who has abused their health? A Humi crib in neonatal IC will cost  me $K40. Who do I save?

I won't even touch immunisation
Cindy

As pH is an effect, not a cause, you can't blame it for anything I'm afraid. Normal blood pH is 7.42, and as it is well buffered it takes a fair bit to change it even slightly. 

You misunderstood my post.

Sorry about that Muffin.
I understand there have actually been some rigorous double-blind trials on alternative medicines done recently that showed that a lot were useless at best, and potentially dangerous at worst.
Some worked though.  Artemesia as a malaria treatment is a good example.(I know from personal experiance that acupunture, for instance does too.)
The problem is sorting out the good from the bad, and looking at things like dosages, practitioner's competence etc.
I will see if I can find the article I read, and get back to you. Interesting subject.

Karen.

trials done on western culture or eastern? I'm not going to speculate on something that stretches across such cultures that as far as I can tell would be pretty differcult to disprove. I mean for all we know eastern cultures that do use a lot of herbal and more nature remedies could just be coincidental. *shrugs*. 

There's a middle ground here...

A LOT of "natural" medicine is dangerous!
Not just because it encourages people to believe that the herbs they're eating are "Harmless" while they're not, but also because it encourages the thinking that "pills" are bad.
People have DIED from choosing to stop taking their medication because their homeopath had them believe that their medication is the reason they were sick.

However, some "natural" medicine Can Help, in the right circumstances.
Massages, herbs, exercises, etc, can help.

Neither is "the devil", but at the same time, there is a LOT of snake oil salesmen out there.
Homeopathy has been researched and tested and examines in the finest detail and has been conclusively proven to be 100% placebo. It has no more effect on anything what so ever than pure, un-homeopathicly-treated-water.
Homeopathy does not work.
It's the placebo effect.

Every time I'm told I should do X, Y, or Z for my fibromyalgia, I research the F out of it.
I wade through hundreds of links, thousands of pages of information, I look for "any" conclusive information on it what so ever.
I've been told that "holograms" with specially charged "negative ions" will fix everything. Less than two minutes of google will show you that "that's not how it works".
There's the "nanotechnology" patches that were supposed to fix everything, yeah, less than two minutes of google will show you that that too is "not how it works".

I've been promised a perfect cure from all my pain and fatigue by eating the right herb, the right chocolate, the right this the right that, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, doing the right exercises, putting the right rock in the right bedroom window, etc, etc, etc, etc... but also I've been given series of pills as well.
The only thing that's helped reduce my pain is massages.
That's it.
Massages.
And very gentle, specifically targeted weight training.

Yes, we should be suspicious of medicine. We should research and look up side effects and make carefully thought out, informed, decisions, but the solution isn't to go "Omg! doctors are DEVULS! let's all take sugarpills instead!"

Quote from: Miniar on July 18, 2011, 09:36:57 AM
However, some "natural" medicine Can Help, in the right circumstances.
Massages, herbs, exercises, etc, can help.

Exactly... it's all about being smart and making educated choices on what's dangerous to try and what's innocuous.  If I had a severe medical condition that's kept in check by modern medicine, I would never forgo modern treatments to keep myself healthy.  But taking an herbal for a few weeks to get rid of a wart?  I'd have no problem with that...

By the way, the wart treatment works.   First found out about it when I was 19 and had a wart covering an entire knuckle that had been there for a decade.  It cracked and bled every time I moved my finger, and resisted over-the-counter wart treatments, as well as getting burned off (three times) by a dermatologist.  Kept coming back instantly.  Then my girlfriend at the time read about an herbal treatment and I was so desperate I gave it a shot.  The wart disappeared in a week.

But still, the reason that treatment works is because the herbs in question boost your immune system, so if you're on immunosuppresants for some sort of disorder, even this treatment would be dangerous.  It's all about educating yourself.