A few days ago I saw Dawkins on TV, attacking alternative medicine. Because I cannot remember exact wording of his on the program, I quote a passage from Dairy Telegraph: “Prof Dawkins says that alternative remedies constitute little more than a “money-spinning, multi-million pound industry that impoverishes our culture and throws up new age gurus who exhort us to run away from reality”. As a medical doctor who studied both modern and alternative medicine in Japan, I feel that he was right and wrong. It is probably obvious to many of you why he was right, so I would like to explain why he may be wrong.
First of all, the definition of “alternative medicine” is quite unclear. According to a medical dictionary, it is “any of various systems of healing or treating disease (as chiropractic, homeopathy, or faith healing) not included in the traditional medical curricula taught in the United States and Britain”. If this is what he meant, anything which is taught in medical schools in Japan, for example, but not in USA or UK would be called alternative medicine. OK, that definition may not be so good, so how about “medicine whose effect has not been proved by science”. Sounds better? Then you must accept that Western medicine is also a form of alternative medicine, because not every aspect of its practice has been proved effective by clinical trials.
Even though it is strongly supported by science, Western medicine is still highly empirical and will continue to be that way. That is because the progress of medical science is far too slow for patients and they don’t want to be stopped from receiving would-be live-saving treatment just because there is no paper to support it. Moreover, , too much emphasis on scientific evidence often downplay the fact that medicine is highly personal and individual and it is extremely difficult to reflect that in and clinical trials.
Of course there must be some form of regulation in any kind of medical practice. In Japan only doctors with so-called Western medical license can practice alternative medicine, though many of herbal remedies are also available from pharmacists. Medical practice must be honest, transparent and ready to take criticism. If proved to be harmful it should be stopped, or limited to licensed practitioners if there is a hint of evidence that it can be useful for some patients.
I think this is getting too long. I will continue this discussion another time.
Kojiro
I think you are raising a good point there. One really has to look at the different aspects of alternative medicine.
I also studied aspects of Japanese alternative medicine in Japan, I was focusing on functional meridian diagnostics and acupuncture. I have to say, I am not a medical doctor and I only practice what I learned privately. However, there are a few points I would like to add to your discussion.
In this never-ending discussion about alternative medicine, I believe one big aspect has been forgotten (or intentionally overlooked!).
Most aspects of traditional Chinese/Japanese medicine have been practiced for thousands of years and have proven very successful! The key aspect of this is, that in TCM a combination of many aspects of the patients life is considered in the choice of treatment. A combination of nutrition, life style, psychological state of the patient, and an in-detail analysis of the physiological symptoms. Also, the treatment will not consist of one isolated form of treatment, but of a combination of many.
As you mention, it is not the scientific proof that validates a medical approach, but if it works or not!
I believe that TCM is a more personalized approach to patient care and that the western society simply can’t afford that anymore. I find it hard to accept that the western medical/scientific establishment dares to critisise TCM, because after all, the Chinese/Japanese medical culture has accumulated millennia of experience vs. barely a century of modern western medicine.
I do agree however, that there are a lot of people who make a fortune on practicing isolated and poorly executed parts of TCM and that there is a desperate need to regulate this. But to invalidate the general Chinese/Japanese approach to medicine and patient care is condescending and arrogant. Western medicine will have to go a long way before it can truly understand the long term effects of modern medicine, so maybe the scientific establishment has to accept that long-practiced and long-tried practices do have a rightful place in patient care, even though the science/medical community would prefer proof in the lab and in clinical trials.
AFAIK, good part of the western pharma companies are also a money-spinning, multi-million pound industry that impoverishes our culture and throws up new age gurus who exhort us to run away from reality.
People look at the other way from chinese medicine and their old-age gurus because they don´t believe in concepts as “the liver is on fire”. They are too fast in denying the possibility that something there might be working behind the alchemistic jargon.
As for the ancient culture, does chinese medicine has RESEARCH? I don´t mean research strictly based on “western science”, but and “inside research”. Do they develop new drugs, test new herbal compounds, new ways to grow the plants, and new ways to make the wind in the kidneys put down the fire in the lungs?… If they don´t the “ancient” knowledge becomes just “old” knowledge, and the millenia of culture becomes a negative number, and not positive.
I think the modernization of chinese medicine should be left for the chinese to do. “We” are not the ones to tell them they should or not drop their beliefs. On the meantime I think “wertern” doctors should at least try to do those interesting exams as looking at the toungue and sniffing the fæces of patients. What about sophisticated pictures of the toungue that could be examined just like x-ray pictures?…
“Western medicine” will happily take anything that can be shown to work in a double blind test. Understanding how exactly something works is not essential to using it. It is still not well known how SSRI’s reduce depression or lithium affects bipolar but they are still approved and prescribed treatments.
Also, we have to recognize that the human body will cure most ailments that afflict it regardless of what you do. This leads to lots of anecdotal reports of something working when that something played no part in curing the original affliction.
Thanks for your comments. Before the evident-based medicine with rigorous statistical analysis, most of the research in Chinese/Japanese traditional medicine was in the form of case reports as well as textbooks written by experienced practitioners. One of the oldest textbooks called Shou-kan-ron (“textbook of infectious diseases”) dates back more than 1000 years and of course there must have been thousands of books published since then. Because of limited circulation of these books, only really popular ones have survived to date, such as Futugo-yakushitu-houkan (“herbal medicine of Futugo pharmacy”) which was written about 200 years ago.
Of course, like Farhat said, alternative medicine will be accepted more readily if double blind tests are carried out for it. In Japan, effects of several herbal drugs have been studied by clinical trials for diseases like hepatitis, constipation, and hay fever. Clinical trials for herbal medicine are difficult because it is hard to make placebos (imagine making a placebo ginger tea with exactly the same taste and smell!) and there aren’t enough doctors who can carry them out. Therefore it will take at least a few decades before everybody can be confident about their effects.
I think no field of medicine can state that it has found solutions for every disease. Moreover, preventive medicine has been neglected by all systems of medicine.
We are not designed to fall sick. We are just composition of atoms and atoms do not fall sick but we do fall sick. Why?
Etiology of all diseases can be attributed to just one cause – stagnation of energy in the body. Stagnation of energy results in some cells getting exposed to excess energy and while some cells receive under nourishment. In both the cases functions of cells is severely affected and it may even cause cell deaths. The best possible way of remaining healthy is to ensure proper circulation of energy in the body. We absorb energy from three sources – sunlight, air, and food & water. If any of these energies get stagnant then the balance between these three energies is disturbed. Energy gets converted to matter when it gets stagnant. This matter manifests itself in the form of edema, viruses and microbes, and cancerous cells. We also get diseases due to absorption of microbes and viruses absorbed by us from different sources because these viruses and microbes consume energy to sustain themselves and thus cause energy deprivation.
Excess air energy results in diseases like cold, allergy, and other respiratory tract diseases and deprivation of air energy results in arthritis, chronic fatigue syndrome and all sorts of diseases caused by cell deaths.
Excess sunlight energy results in diseases like cancer, skin allergies, sunburns, edema etc. and deprivation of sunlight energy results in diseases caused by retarded tissue growths, bone diseases, and diseases caused by cell deaths.
Excess food & water energy results in all diseases of digestive tract, obesity, constipation etc. and deprivation of food & water energy results in general weakness and diseases caused by cell deaths.
Excess or deprivation of one type of energy creates an imbalance of energy and hence treatment has to be holistic. Best way to ensure proper circulation of energy in the body is doing breathing exercises and Yogasan.
I would like to have your comments on this observation that has been explained in detail on…
URL: www.newphysicsworld.com
I thank all of you for your feedback. I am out of station and hence at present I will not be able to reply to individual mails but I am try and reply to some general questions here.
I am not a doctor and no studies have been conducted to test this theory. I have studied Modern medicince and alternative medicine in my attempt to understand complex physical processes.
Most of you have expressed disappointment at the information given on the website. You obviously expected more information but the website is about physics and this is such a vast subject that a separate book can be written on the subject. I have just given the basic idea, the fundamental aspects and have avoided details.
One of you wants to know whether brain tumor of your friend can be cured through breathing excercises. Some of you have queried on its efficacy in treating some other less serious ailments.
Well all I can say is that I was suffering from Hyper thyroid and it was advised by my doctor that I will have to take long term treatment and may never get rid of the problem. My doctor was surprised when in just about 1 year I was cured. It took such a long time because I was not doing my excercises regularly as medicines had brought the problem to manageable levels.
Yes, I am sure that breathing excercises can help us cure any diseases. In any case, you are not required to make any changes in your medication, life style, or eating habits. Though, I feel that a change in life style and eating habits can go a long way in improving the condition. There are specific excercises that I feel could be helpful in curing specific diseases. I may suggest these excercises in individual replies to your e-mails.
All the best….