Trick or Treatment—The Undeniable Facts about Alternative Medicine (Electronic book text)

Warning: this treatment has shown only very limited evidence that it can treat some types of pain and nausea. If it is effective for these conditions, then its benefits appear to be short-lived and minor. It is more expensive than conventional treatments, and very likely to be less effective. It is likely that its major impact is as a placebo in treating pain and nausea. In the treatment of all other conditions, acupuncture either has no effect other than a placebo effect. It is a largely safe treatment when practised by a trained acupuncturist.

Chiropractic

Warning: this treatment carries the risk of stroke and death if spinal manipulation is applied to the neck. Elsewhere on the spine, chiropractic therapy is relatively safe. It has shown some evidence of benefit in the treatment of back pain, but conventional treatments are usually equally effective and much cheaper. In the treatment of all other conditions, chiropractic therapy is ineffective except that it might act as a placebo.

Herbal Medicine — Evening Primrose Oil

Warning: this product is a placebo. It will work only if you believe in it, and only for certain conditions which respond to placebo treatments. Even then, the placebo effect is unpredictable and it is not likely to be as powerful as orthodox drugs. You may get fewer adverse side-effects from this treatment than from a drug, but you will probably also receive less benefit.

Herbal Medicine — St John’s Wort

Warning: this product can interact with other drugs — consult your GP before taking St John’s wort. There is evidence that it is effective in the treatment of mild and moderate depression. Conventional drugs are available for these conditions, and are similarly effective.

These summaries reflect the broad range and complexity of alternative therapies, which includes treatments that are untested, or unproven, or disproven, or unsafe, or placebos, or only marginally beneficial, or almost certainly beneficial. Of all the above treatments, St John’s wort has the most positive summary. Indeed, the clinical trials for St John’s wort are so positive that GPs and scientists would endorse its use. Conventional medicine has no prejudice against any alternative treatment that can prove its worth, both in terms of safey and efficacy.

Fish oil is another excellent example of an alternative treatment that has been embraced by conventional medicine. Fish oil, available in capsules, comes under the heading of food supplements, and such supplements are discussed in the appendix. The trigger for detailed research into the possible benefits of fish oil was the observation that Inuits have very low rates of heart disease. This gave rise to further epidemiological investigations in other populations and eventually to clinical trials that have been uniformly positive. Ultimately, this has led to reassurances that fish oil is both safe and effective as a long-term preventative treatment for coronary heart disease. Detailed evaluation has also suggested that daily fish-oil capsules can extend life by one year on average. For those who do not eat oily fish on a regular basis, fish-oil capsules offer a clear benefit. Fish oil may also help control inflammation, which would be beneficial for people with arthritis or a range of skin problems.

Fish oil and St John’s wort are marvellous examples of treatments that have emerged from traditional roots, which were then promoted within alternative medicine, and which have now been accepted by conventional medicine. Fish oil, in particular, is so utterly mainstream that it is no longer considered alternative by most conventional doctors, and St John’s wort should be heading in the same direction. The appendix includes several other alternative therapies that conventional doctors would also endorse, particularly those that increase general wellbeing by relaxation or stress reduction — for instance, meditation and massage therapy.

This brings us to an interesting situation: any provably safe and effective alternative medicine is not really an alternative medicine at all, but rather it becomes a conventional medicine. Therefore, alternative medicine, by definition, seems to consist of treatments that are untested, or unproven, or disproven, or unsafe, or placebos, or only marginally beneficial.

Yet, alternative therapists continue to wear the name ‘alternative’ as a badge of honour, using it to give their substandard treatments an undeserved level of dignity. They use the term ‘alternative’ to promote the notion that they somehow exploit alternative aspects of science. The truth, however, is that there is no such thing as alternative science, just as there is no alternative biology, alternative anatomy, alternative testing, or alternative evidence.