Complementary Medicine

One of those ongoing little spats. The use of Alternative or Complementary medicine. Being hugely sceptical of the whole nonsense myself, I regard them both as not-medicine. Medecine is what we can prove in double blind controlled trials, if something meets those standards then it is not anything-medicine, it is simply medicine.

Although sometimes things do indeed cross the line from one to the other:

A traditional Chinese medicine used to treat type 2
diabetes may make the body more sensitive to insulin, according to new
research.

Berberine, a plant extract, is found in
the roots and bark of a number of plants and is used for conditions
including diarrhoea, heart conditions and to promote the healing of
wounds.

Studies on the use of berberine for
diabetes in Chinese medicine began more than 30 years ago. But until
now it was not known how it worked.

2 responses

  1. Tony Jackson Avatar
    Tony Jackson

    That’s fine. Many modern drugs derive from plant extracts.There is nothing in this particular example that violates any of the laws of physics. Alternative medicine that makes it through double-blind trials is just medicine. The problem is with stuff like homeopathy that could only be right if some of the most fundamental and well-established laws of science are wrong. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

  2. Steve G Avatar
    Steve G

    Point taken about the use of the term ‘medicine’, but I think there’s an important difference between alternative and complementary treatments (to use a more neutral term).
    For example, a friend of mine who’s an acupuncturist insists that his patients keep in close touch with their GPs and follow their medical advice; his role, as he sees it, is to complement whatever the GP is doing; he can’t, as he is the first to admit, treat anyone for cancer. What he claims he can do, however, is use his traditional acupuncture techniques and dietary advice to help relieve some of the unpleasant side-effects of chemotherapy, such as fatigue and nausea, thus complementing the conventional treatment.
    This seems to him, and to me, completely different from the practice of doubtless well-meaning but potentially dangerous charlatans who tell their patients to ignore their GPs altogether in favour of some treatment that purports to offer an alternative to more conventional therapies.

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