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

Bioresonance: electromagnetic radiation and electric currents from a patient’s body are registered by an electronic device and used to diagnose everything from allergies to hormonal disorders. In treatment mode, the electrical signals are ‘normalized’ by the instrument and sent back into the patient’s body.

Iridology: each point on the iris is said to correspond to an organ, and irregularities are supposed to indicate problems with the corresponding organ.

Kinesiology: muscle strength, tested manually, is claimed to be indicative of the health status of inner organs.

Kirlian photography: high-frequency electrical currents applied to a patient’s body generate electrical discharges which are turned into impressive, colourful images. These are in turn supposed to be indicative of human health.

Radionics: a technique based on supposed energy vibrations in the body that can be detected with pendula, divining rods or electrical devices.

Vega-test: an electrodiagnostic device, used by many alternative therapists, which can supposedly detect a range of conditions from allergies to cancer.

What is the evidence?

In nearly every case, these methods and the concepts behind them are not plausible, so their ability to diagnose accurately must be treated with great scepticism. Moreover, when these methods have been rigorously tested, the most reliable results of such investigations show that they are not valid. Finally, they typically fail the test of reproducibility, which means that ten practitioners generate ten different results.

Conclusion

Alternative diagnostic techniques are dangerous as they are likely to generate false diagnoses. They can be misused by fraudulent practitioners to cause unwarranted fears in patients and to convince them to pay for ineffective or harmful treatments of conditions they did not have in the first place.

Alternative Diets

Regimented plans of eating and drinking with health claims that are not in line with accepted knowledge.

Background

In alternative medicine, unsubstantiated health claims are being made for dozens of special diets. Many of these are ‘flavour of the month’ approaches. To name but a few: Ama-reducing diet (Ayurvedic diet to burn off accumulated ama, which are supposed toxins); anthroposophic diet (lactovegetarian food with sour-milk products); Budwig’s diet (fruit, juices, flaxseed oil and curd cheese); Gerson diet (fresh fruit juices, vegetables, supplements, liver extracts and coffee enemas to cure cancer); Kelly diet (anti-cancer diet including supplements and enzymes); Kousmine diet (anti-cancer diet with ‘vital energy’ foods, raw vegetables and wheat); macrobiotic diet (aimed at balancing yin and yang); McDougall diet (vegetarian diet, low fat, whole foods); Moerman diet (anti-cancer lactovegetarian diet with added iodine, sulphur, iron, citric acid and vitamins A, B, C, E); Pritikin diet (vegetarian diet combined with aerobic exercise); Swank diet (low amounts of saturated fat to combat multiple sclerosis).

Each of these diets has its own unique concept and is promoted for specific circumstances. Some must be followed long-term, others only until the condition in question is cured. Alternative diets are promoted by a range of alternative practitioners and health writers, and via the internet.

What is the evidence?

Clearly one would need to assess each diet on its own merits, yet little data has been gathered on any of those mentioned above or in general. Where evidence does exist, it is usually seriously flawed. For instance, the Gerson diet is relentlessly promoted as a cancer cure, but the only positive evidence comes from an analysis which is now widely accepted to be fatally flawed and which should therefore be ignored.

Several alternative diets can lead to malnutrition, particularly in seriously ill patients for whom it is important to consume a balanced diet with sufficient calorie intake. Feeding a highly restricted diet to a cancer patient, for instance, hastens death and reduces quality of life. Some proponents of these diets make patients feel guilty if they cannot follow their often tedious regimens. This can further reduce quality of life.

Conclusion

Alternative diets are burdened with the risk of malnutrition and have not been shown to be effective for any condition. Our advice is to stay well clear of them.

Alternative Exercise Therapies

Approaches that employ regular movements for improving health and wellbeing, and which are not normally used in conventional healthcare.

Background