Health
Related: About this forumWhat Is Traditional Chinese Medicine?
http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/index.php/what-is-traditional-chinese-medicine/"...
It may be trivially true that TCM has a long history, but it is hard to ignore that the placement of this statement at the beginning of a scientific article implies an argument from antiquity that TCM should be taken seriously because of this long history. I would argue that this is actually a reason to be suspicious of TCM, for it derives from a pre-scientific largely superstition-based culture, similar in this way to the pre-scientific Western culture that produced the humoral (Galenic) theory of biology.
The next line is an admission that TCM is largely based on anecdotal information, described as the precious experience of life. This is a point that is often overlooked or not understood by proponents but central to the scientific/skeptical position what is the value and predictive power of precious experience in developing a system of medicine?
I maintain that there are many good reasons to conclude that any system which derives from everyday experience is likely to be seriously flawed and almost entirely cut off from reality. Obvious short term effects, the lowest hanging fruit of observation, are likely to be reliable. Uncontrolled observation is a reasonable way to discover which plants, for example, are deadly poisons. This is likely to produce some false positives but few false negatives, which is fine for survival.
Other obvious effects, like nausea, diarrhea, and psychedelic effects are also easy to discover. Similarly it was probably obvious that people need to eat, breathe, and drink in order to stay healthy and alive. But records of pre-scientific thinking about health and disease shows that little else was.
..."
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Can we please get back to discussing health care via the scientific method?
xchrom
(108,903 posts)BiggJawn
(23,051 posts)... that uses body parts of endangered species as "treatment" for erectile dysfunction in wealthy Chinese men.
pipoman
(16,038 posts)Voice for Peace
(13,141 posts)cured their indigestion?
KT2000
(20,567 posts)their life of play and activity compared to the monkeys with the same diet without charcoal is amazing. All they can do is sit around in discomfort.
I have a hard time believing that our cures for common ills depend upon the evolution of the pharmaceutical companies.
Voice for Peace
(13,141 posts)I frankly don't trust most of the modern medical 'science' which I think overlooks the forest for the trees. Give me something that's worked safely for a thousand years, and I'll take my chances.
KT2000
(20,567 posts)one should really go to China where it is studied by MDs as a specialty.
This article is only setting up TCM for a straw man argument.
Ecumenist
(6,086 posts)Until one uses it because pharmaceutical meds haven't worked, in my case, one can never know how effective it really is. Alot of it isn't understood and remember, 5000 years would have done away with TCM if it was worthless. Just like Acunpuncture, it's modes of efficacy isn't well understood in the west but it works. Trust you me, I know firsthand.
laconicsax
(14,860 posts)That understanding has shown that sticking needles in your skin releases adenosine, which acts as a natural pain-killer, but the location of the needles (or if you even use needles) doesn't make any difference. Uses for acupuncture outside of pain-relief have been shown to be solely the result of the placebo effect and there has been no evidence that "meridians" are anything other than fiction.
This, of course, applies only to modern acupuncture, which is vastly different from traditional acupuncture as practiced in the past. Traditional acupuncture was a form of blood-letting that involved bigger needles designed to draw blood and later cauterize the site.
Ecumenist
(6,086 posts)t did NOT respond to meds was placebo, right? I also used acupuncture to assist in fertility treatment and it worked to help me conceive and hold on to the enbryo well into the second trimester when I hadn't been able to conceive at all and had gone through 5 transfer cycles. My fertility doc recommended and referred me to the acupuncture. All the placebo effect in the world couldn't accomplish that. Sorry.
laconicsax
(14,860 posts)It looks like you don't understand what placebo is or how it works.
Ecumenist
(6,086 posts)Are you seriously trying to tell me that my fertility doctor and countless other Fertility doctors are sending their patients to acupuncture based on anecdotal evidence? Really? You're honestly telling me with a straight face that my DUB that hadn't responded to pharma but did to acupuncture and TCM is a product of my mind...I was one of about 50 pateints that attended this GYNAECOLOGICAL ACUPUNCTURE clionic that were there based on RESULTS of other patients, not placebo effects. I was somewhat skeptical when I started and decided to give it a chance. My God, you can't be serious. Your statement is hilariously wrong. Wow....LOL!!!
laconicsax
(14,860 posts)Since you attended a gynecological acupuncture "clionic," surely you can state or describe the mechanisms by which acupuncture improves fertility. If you can provide large, double-blind studies that corroborate this effect, that'd be fantastic.
BTW, it seems that "skeptical" is another word you use without understanding what it means.
Ecumenist
(6,086 posts)is synonymous with showing up to a gun duel and you showing up with a nail file. Some people are worth debating with, you, however, are not. One last thing, Google, is your friend regarding fertility treatment that uses acupuncture to improve the results. There have been studies that have shown a significantly higher rate of conceptions in women who used acupuncture vs those that didn't. If you can read, please feel free.
HuckleB
(35,773 posts)Further:
Acupuncture for IVF Revisited More Tooth Fairy Science?
http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/index.php/acupuncture-for-ivf-revisited-more-tooth-fairy-science/
CONTROLS FOR ACUPUNCTURE STUDIES ARE IMPROVING. THEIR RESULTS ARE NOT. HOW ARE PEER REVIEWERS REACTING?
http://seedmagazine.com/content/article/acupuncture_real_or_sham/
Voice for Peace
(13,141 posts)Not much openness to learning otherwise;
discussion is usually a big waste of time.
Ecumenist
(6,086 posts)happened when I was treated for years by the products of BIG PHARMA. Alot of meds Ihave be prescribed but the meds I used in relation to the DUB for 4 years and Endometriosis I had suffered for about 20 years. They had NOT responded to hormones. antagonists, and a huge variety of other prescriptions but they did respond to acupuncture and TCM. It wasn't sudden but a gradual thing.
The same thing happened when I first entered perimenopause a couple of years ago, the wild hormones swings, sleeplessness, anxiety, depression, hot flashes were alleviated by the same TCM and acupuncture, It took approximately 6 weeks but it worked. I now take 3 mg of melatonin every night to balance the hormones but I know that this is a placebo effect.
HuckleB
(35,773 posts)You are twisting what an actual open mind is, and trying to tell others that a closed mind is an open mind.
That's just not going to help anyone move forward.
Dorian Gray
(13,479 posts)It is supplied by an "Eastern Medicine" acupuncture support site, but it links to a myriad of studies which support acupuncture as a means for sustaining post IVF implanted eggs.
Many fertility doctors recommend that patients use Acupuncture as a supplement to their treatments.
Not required, but not unusual.
Former_DU_Member
(33 posts)Voice for Peace
(13,141 posts)what is your scientific verifiable definition & understanding of reality? just so we're all on the same page..
KT2000
(20,567 posts)the point that the OP and/or the article should have complete and accurate understanding of TCM before using it as a straw man argument to denounce it and advocate another position.
Ecumenist
(6,086 posts)HuckleB
(35,773 posts)Pretending otherwise is simply dishonest.
skepticscott
(13,029 posts)that is reflected in statements to the effect of "I don't know how it works, I just know it works"?
HuckleB
(35,773 posts)Thank you.
per the usual!
saras
(6,670 posts)For the last thirty years, at least, there has been pretty much no behavioral psychology research with the purpose of making people's lives better. It is funded by, and directed towards, manipulating people more effectively and at an earlier age for corporate profit. That's no more science than spreading kudzu through the lakes of the Midwest is farming.
A large part of the scientific method is applying the scientific method, not corporate control, to the issue of what questions should be asked and what research should be funded.
So, yes, I'd love to see more scientific method in Western medicine.
HuckleB
(35,773 posts)Secondly, a great deal of neurological research is paid for by the NIMH as well as private foundations.
saras
(6,670 posts)HuckleB
(35,773 posts)Comparing science with its checks and balances to something that is simply made up out of thin air is quite odd, btw.
HuckleB
(35,773 posts)Acupuncture Revisited
http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/index.php/acupuncture-revisited/
Some very good reading for open minds.
Why Syzygy
(18,928 posts)I do not care if I'm simply an anecdote. I don't care if a cure is a 'placebo'. I do not give one POS if it can't be measured by "the scientific method". Science has never been thoroughly studied scientifically.
Would you deny another health because they can't PROVE their health has recovered? That's just mean.
Question: Do all discussions of the Scientific Method necessarily include a companion discussion of Philosophy?
laconicsax
(14,860 posts)but it isn't all about you. Science-based medicine is about finding treatments that work for everyone.
If a treatment doesn't perform better than no treatment at all, then it's dishonest to sell it. You may not care if you're simply an anecdote, but do you care if you're paying for something that doesn't actually cure you?
If your answer is yes, I have a bridge to sell you.
Why Syzygy
(18,928 posts)when I talk of "I", it is reference to the microcosm. It extrapolates to the macrocosm.
Of course no one wants to pay for something that doesn't work. But it happens millions of times every day in MD's offices and hospitals! You think every 'modern medical' treatment works!? HAHAHHAAA And I betcha you think you really DO have a bridge?!
laconicsax
(14,860 posts)HuckleB
(35,773 posts)In order to make money? Isn't that the definition of scam!?