Interesting article."Alt believers journey back to science"

exbrnxgrl

I certainly can't ague that natural cures have been around for thousands of years and that it takes far too long for modern medicines to come to market (yes, there is conflicting info but safety and efficacy issue need to be dealt with in a controlled manner). But I have two concerns, the first being why are alternative methods not trialed in the same way so we can have more definitive answers about what works . I know big pharma prevents it, nature can't be patented etc.but the makers of these natural remedies could increase their credibility a thousand fold if they went through rigorous scientific trials. Of course, if you believe they are all corrupt and falsified, then trials would be meaningless.

My second concern is more general. I lived, for several years, in a country where there was virtually no environmental pollution, few cars, no chemicals or pesticides in farming, no industrial pollution, breast fed children, no vaccines, no canned/processed foods (everything was purchased and consumed daily) little access to conventional medicine, lots of traditional healers and remedies. The average life expectancy for men was in the early '40's, less for women. There was a child mortality rate of 50% up to age 5. With all of this wholesome living, why was the life expectancy so low? I will be honest and say that those who had access to Western medicine (a small upper class) lived on the average 10 years longer. I guess this is why I would like to see all things that claim to have medicinal value trialed scientifically. After all, these substances could still be used freely outside of trials as they are now, so it just seems logical to me. I think all of us would prefer cures/treatments that did no harm, but we'd like to see evidence of it.

abigail48

lot a sugarcane there??

pipers_dream

exbronxgirl, I think they have done many studies in this field but the fact is that they don't often make the big headlines. A quick look at this will show you what I mean.

Some that have been done recently though are the studies done by Valter Longo on the efficacy of fasting for cancer patients, with or without chemo. Fasting boosts the effects of chemo and even works on its own and there was a hint of a recommendation that chemo patients should fast for 3-4 days during each chemo tx, which I know is something that MO's almost never endorse, but it seems that it strengthens the healthy cells and weakens the cancer ones and I think a big part of that may be due to the fact that it puts your insulin level at an all-time low. It also gives a big boost to the immune system. I'm not one of those starry eyed holistic people who goes around ranting about the cancer conspiracy--there is no conspiracy that I can see, but I do follow the money. Still and yet I do believe that most of the Drs and nurses who work with this are sincerely wanting to help people but they only know what they've been taught, and what if much of what they've been taught is wrong? Not because they were deliberately lied to, but b/c A. We threw out all prior knowledge about health care since it didn't fit our current paradigm of controlled studies, and B. The new studies are coming in so thick and fast that no one could possibly keep up with them and 2 years out of med school you're already out of date and no doctor I know is able to keep up with it.

Also, it's best to keep in mind that there is no one holistic tx that will cure someone of cancer unless they get really lucky and the fact is that holistic relies on getting your whole body system in order so it can heal itself and generally when we get cancer we are pretty much out of balance so it takes awhile. Now, that could be our fault from eating too many Doritos, or it could be due to a genetic defect or even something your parents or grandparents did that gave you less than a stellar start in life. You could have that MTHFR gene mutation that we keep hearing about--I know of a family of 4 sisters who have a lot of BC in their family. Two of the sisters got tested for MTHFR and were + of it so they got the methylated folate and B-12. The other two sisters laughed that off and guess what--both got BC! There is so much we don't know.

exbrnxgrl

No, Abigail. No sugar cane. It was not a tropical country