"alternative" medicine and health

this is an issue that because of my day job/future ambitions/passions i have a lot of interest in. i never really know where to post these kinds of things -- the vaccines thread seems like the closest fit but it's so busy right now that i'm worried about the other things i want to talk about getting buried. use this thread to talk about all forms of alternative medicine and related topics -- i'm more interested in the science/ethics/psychology/economics/political implications of this stuff than i am just link dumping and laughing at people

so, a couple of news items i've been keeping an eye on lately

1) in the vaccine thread omar or anthony or someone made a passing comment about parents refusing to allow their children to receive chemotherapy. this actually happens, and there are a couple of high-profile cases recently that highlight the extremely difficult ethical situations doctors and judges find themselves in.

connecticut 17 year old who doesn't want chemo but was ordered by a judge to receive it:
http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/01/10/nyregion/connecticut-teenager-with-cancer-loses-court-fight-to-refuse-chemotherapy.html?referrer=

canadian girl from indigenous tribe whose family refused chemotherapy. the judge allowed her to be treated by some quack in florida and she ended up dying
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/native-canadian-girl-makayla-sault-11-dies-after-refusing-chemotherapy-she-said-was-killing-her-9997376.html

2) on an unrelated note, i was pleasantly shocked to see NY's attorney general serve retail chains with cease-and-desist letters about the supplements they sell on their shelves
http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/02/03/new-york-attorney-general-targets-supplements-at-major-retailers/

burnt essential oils will fuck up a cold

yes, I saw the attorney general of NY on PBS news hour. this is precisely the sort of thing gov't should doing.

the ethical issues regarding chemo are surely thorny, though i'm not sure that they are any thornier than in the cases of a lot of other medical treatments. for me the bottom line is that children don't have the intellectual maturity to make these kinds of decisions for themselves, and we shouldn't leave their lives in the hands of parents whose judgment is so poor as to constitute child neglect. but i recognize that these matters cut right to the heart of debates about the function and reach of government in our "private" lives.

it probably should be noted that although chemo is very destructive, and can have quite horrible side effects, those effects have been cut down quite a bit in recent years, in part because medicine has gotten more precise about what kind of chemo people need and how long they need to undergo the chemo procedures.

I wish I had gotten in on that powdered carrot and rice game though.

It should be pointed out that the death rate among cancer patients who do receive chemotherapy is high enough that it is hardly the most triumphant case in favor of mainstream medicine. The only clear boast chemo can make is that it is statistically better than doing nothing at all. Alternative medicine may or may not be able to make the same claim (I don't know, there are a hell of a lot of alternative treatments floating around out there), but cancer presents such a radical challenge to health that it hardly constitutes a clear case.

There are much more obvious cases where choosing mainstream medicine vs. 'whatever' means choosing likely recovery over likely death, as for example, blood transfusions.

well, it depends on the cancer and the stage. chemo has better --and more dramatic-- results in certain contexts. not sure about the situation of the girl in connecticut.

the girl in connecticut has a treatable form of hodgkin lymphoma that, with chemotherapy, is associated with a very favorable prognosis -- her chances of being disease-free in 5 years are above 75%, and could even be much higher (i haven't seen her stage disclosed). on the other hand, she will almost certainly die within a year or two if she forgoes chemotherapy. that is something aimless might describe as a decision between "likely recovery" and "death". the choice is very clear, and very few mentally competent adults would choose to die given those odds. there are some situations where there there truly is no right answer -- eg, when a child has incurable metastatic disease and the chemotherapy is meant only to be life-prolonging, not curative -- but this is not one of them

the actual interesting part of this case is the patient's age and family situation. 18 may be an arbitrary cutoff, but it would be very difficult to find a serious person who would advocate state intervention in the personal health decisions of a competent adult. cassandra is 17 and a half, which obviously is right on the line, and the courts have had to consider whether she is a "mature minor" capable of making life-changing devisions. they have not found that she is, and from what is publicly available i would tend to agree. for one thing, she does not accept her diagnosis or her prognosis. her repeated desires for a "second opinion" -- heme diagnoses are not very controversial -- is a major red flag to me. another major issue is how much influence the mother is having over the daugher's decision-making process. all the facts of the case arent public, so it's hard to know not being there, but this is something else the judge considered in ruling her not mature enough to make this decision

another major issue is how much influence the mother is having over the daugher's decision-making process.

i imagine it is definitive. the girl was home schooled, which honestly just reinforces my feeling that many if not most people who home-school are doing their children a major disservice.

Cytotoxic chemo effectiveness depends hugely on the cancer. For most cancers, its not that great (5 yr survival increases in the single digits). However, for some lymphomas it's near 100% effective.

I think its perfectly reasonable for a person to refuse cytotoxic chemo - I suspect I would. The time to fight cancer is before its detectable.

Glad to see the NY AG take on the store brand herbal supps. Some do study the research (I find Andrographis, berberine, Rhodiola, and sinomenine particularly interesting), but I hate that there's practically no regulation to ensure content.

for one thing, she does not accept her diagnosis or her prognosis. her repeated desires for a "second opinion"

Out of curiosity has she gotten one or more? Like, have 5 docs all said "this is what you have, honestly" and she's just ignoring them all?

(I suppose I could google the story heh sorry)

Cytotoxic chemo effectiveness depends hugely on the cancer. For most cancers, its not that great (5 yr survival increases in the single digits). However, for some lymphomas it's near 100% effective.

I think its perfectly reasonable for a person to refuse cytotoxic chemo - I suspect I would. The time to fight cancer is before its detectable.

sure, which is why i framed it the way i did. when the benefits are much more modest, reasonable people can come to different conclusions about what is the best course, and parents should within reason be allowed to decide what is best for their child. the issue of overtreatment/in stilling false hope into patients with dire prognoses is a separate but also very important issue; i chose examples above where clearly the benefit of treatment outweighs the costs. the infuriating thing with the canadian girl -- seriously, read her story, it is profoundly sad -- is not even that she had a cancer with a pretty favorable prognosis and was allowed to die, but that the judge allowed, on some sort of cultural or religious grounds, the family to take her to a florida quack with no tribal affiliation to be treated with intravenous vitamins and coffee enemas. just an unfathomable abdication of duty imo

speaking of cancer quackery, i read this old michael specter NYer piece recently, and i'd recommend it highly. the complete lack of ethics or decency of these doctors/naturopaths who prey on the sick is horrifying, and it's a shame they're not in jail. the article is a bit old now, but it does touch a little on DSHEA/the supplement industry a bit as well as the rise of "integrative" medicine, which has only skyrocketed since this article's publication and is imo a major blight on the medical profession

http://www.michaelspecter.com/2001/02/the-outlaw-doctor/

for one thing, she does not accept her diagnosis or her prognosis. her repeated desires for a "second opinion"

Out of curiosity has she gotten one or more? Like, have 5 docs all said "this is what you have, honestly" and she's just ignoring them all?

(I suppose I could google the story heh sorry)

― I checked Snoops , and it is for real (Trayce), Wednesday, February 4, 2015 11:19 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

if she hadn't privately, presumably with her case being the the subject of court proceedings with physician experts weighing in, it has been confirmed by now

I read the article up top and tbh i found it confronting, that she'd been strapped to a gurney and given a cathport under sedation. She's stupid to refuse chemo but geez.

We need Plasmon in here

It seems to me that the wording of the thread title, complete with scare quotes, is pretty confrontational and the OP focuses on an issue that is extremely narrow compared to the announced subject.

Personally, I find that naturopaths in my area are perfectly competent to diagnose and treat common minor ailments such as a sinus infection. They take more time with me during the consultation and are better trained in a wider variety of practical treatments. Consequently, I get better results.

If I had cancer I would consider consulting a naturopath at some point in my treatment, but never for primary care. An oncologist is going to be x1000 better trained for that. The best use of a naturopath in that situation would be to suggest practical methods for coping with some of the secondary effects of the primary treatment, such as reducing nausea or increasing my resistance to opportunistic infections.

Health is a much larger and more basic concept than whether or not you have a serious illness requiring a specialist and drastic therapeutic treatments. And "alternative" medicine is a MUCH bigger category than quackery and Christian Science denialism.

i dunno, i think most "alternative" medicine is no better than placebo. but , you know, placebos work sometimes. just not for cancer.

occasionally these guys--like chiropractic--will hit on a practical treatment that has some limited efficacy, but that doesn't mean the underlying psuedo-science isn't bunk.

nah, sorry, this thread is a smug and mean-spirited paean to state coercion

/rush lyrics

as sleeve is bringing up in an enjoyably risible fashion, there is a limited conception of ethics underlying kevin's pov itt

I am lucky enough to have as my chiropractor a woman who thoroughly understands the musculoskeletal system and the origins of common pains from various stresses on that system, such as repetitive stress injuries, bad posture, poor workplace habits, athletic injuries, maladapted gait, plantar fasciitis, and so on.

She does do spinal adjustments, but I don't actually go to her for those. I go to her for a diagnosis, at which she excels, and for the physical therapy exercises she recommends as homework. These have always been spot on and have improved several minor, but chronic problems. Again, I don't go to her for major stuff. She has never, ever tried to convince me that all ills begin with the spine and can be cured by spinal adjustments and her diagnoses reflect this, since she usually traces my problem to body mechanics, not that spinal hoo-hah, which I agree is bunk.

i truly didn't mean to the quotes to be scare quotes, i intended for it to reflect the eye-of-the-beholder nature of the field, and how wide-reaching it is. i'm also not limiting the discussion at all; i posted a couple of stories that are topical and set the stage for interesting ethical and legal questions. the thread can be used for any issue that falls under the "alternative" umbrella. i do have strong, adversarial opinions on the majority of alternative health care, but my ire is reserved exclusively for its practitioners who deceive vulnerable patients and legislators and other policymakers who encourage the practice

certainly a benefit of seeing a naturopath is that they tend to have more time to give to patients -- a cynic may point out that this is partly a product of a lighter workload, but undoubtedly people like it. for many minor illnesses naturopaths paradoxically may even do net good: take a patient who presents with a common cold or one of its minor complications, such as acute sinusitis. a physician, overwhelmed with work and unable or unwilling to convince the patient of the self-limited nature of the illness, may prescribe unnecessary antibiotics, which on balance does society harm. a naturopath on the other hand may prescribe vitamin c, echinacea, a homeopathic zinc preparation, or some other herbal supplement. none of these things will do a thing for the cold, but the patient, satisfied that the naturopath has taken the time to "treat the whole person", recovers from his minor ailment in exactly the same amount of time he would have had he seen a doctor (or if he saw no one), and attributes his recovery to the naturopath's compassionate and holistic care. it's hard to find a lot of harm in that. (and a good doctor should understand that his patient's perception of the doctor and how interested he is in what is important to the patient often matters just as much as the medical decisions themselves.) some naturopaths have the power to prescribe a wide range of prescription medications (though they lack the training to do so and i strongly oppose it), and they often will appropriately prescribe medications for blood pressure or minor infections and the like. sure, fine. what i have more of an issue with, aside from the patently criminal practices of people like the florida doctor from the canadian girl's story, is misleading patients to believe that therapies that are not evidence-based will actually work. for the surprisingly sizable amount of people who seek "all-natural" therapies, entire industries and fields of practice (naturopathy, homeopathy, etc) are designed to in effect prey on their naiveté.

the legitimacy of the practice of medicine, or any form of health care, rests on the trust patients place in their practitioners. providers of alternative health care make a living off of misinforming and misleading their patients. providing medical care that is not evidenced-based, particularly when effective conventional treatments exist, is problematic whether we're talking about people with curable cancers or pushing useless nutritional supplements on healthy people. the entire enterprise is built on dishonesty, and it is not something the government should be in the business of sanctioning or protecting.

none of this is to say that conventional medicine is unassailable, particularly with regard to how some of its practitioners approach patients whose views or values differ from their own. i've seen firsthand the dismissiveness with which physicians treat patients whose ideas they feel are beneath them, and anyone who has read a book like the spirit catches you and you fall down can tell you the havoc cultural arrogance can wreak. but i don't have the broad policy answers either. on a micro level i've had success working in clinics serving refugee populations that employ community health workers to legitimize -- from the patient's point of view -- the conventional therapy we try to push. at the same time, we encouraged patients to use traditional or alternative practices on the side, provided that we were kept informed and that there were no incompatibilities. a macro-level sort of "compromise" is being seen with the burgeoning so-called integrative medicine movement, which i nonetheless have a lot of qualms about -- i'm worried that when hospitals and establishment health systems provide alternative therapies under their own roofs, they lend them an unearned and potentially dangerous legitimacy. a naturopath can do nothing an oncologist can't do for chemo side effects or preventing opportunistic infections, but some major cancer networks apparently integrate them into their care. (NB, i have not worked at any of these places.) what i believe the integrative movement is in reality is a craven attempt by executives of health systems to cash in on the "natural" fads that are currently in vogue (organic, non-GMO, etc), perhaps at the expense of the integrity of the medical profession. but i don't know, one of the selling points pro-integrative conventional physicians made, even those who were adversarial to alternative medicine, was that it would provide an opportunity to better study these treatments, and i guess that's not incorrect. but the movement to my knowledge has added nothing to the armamentarium other than the knowledge that (shocker) none of the alternative therapies, none of the supplements that didn't already have evidence behind them, actually work.

you're lucky to have a great chiropractor! the ones i've gone to have mostly recited the spinal hoo-hah, in a kind of way that suggested they were only half-convinced themselves, before going on to do an "adjustment"

i don't really get how someone like the person you describe would be a chiropractor, since the underlying theories on which chiropractic as a discrete brand of medicine is founded are pretty much bunk---not so far off from the medieval idea of the "humours" and so on.

xpost

i agree that a major problem with conventional medicine is overprescription, but "alternative" medicine is at best an indirect answer to that, and as kevin points out its one with its own serious problems.

as sleeve is bringing up in an enjoyably risible fashion, there is a limited conception of ethics underlying kevin's pov itt

― mattresslessness, Thursday, February 5, 2015 6:54 PM (24 minutes ago)

no, i have a pretty good understanding of the ethics, actually, though i'd be interested in hearing what you have to bring to the discussion. the connecticut girl's case is not an easy one by any means, and we as members of the public don't have access to all the facts of the case, but if you accept that the state has an interest in protecting the lives of minors from harmful medical decisions by their parents, it's not difficult to deduce the judge's reasoning.

that said, she's 17 and a half. i'm not sure i'd want to be the hematologist who is in charge with strapping her to a bed and giving her chemotherapy. and clearly it seems there must be a better way to go about it than separating her from her mother, imprisoning her in a hospital room, and confiscating her cell phone, but i don't have the specific answers. but i'd absolutely report the case to the authorities if she and the mother refused to accept the diagnosis and announced they would look into alternative therapies. in fact, the doctor who did that was likely legally required to do so

the other case, involving the canadian aboriginal girl, is particularly fraught given the ugly history between the canadian government and the aboriginal people. i'm not sure how to best protect the life of an 11-year old girl while respecting the customs of the family (who, it should be noted, chose treatment that had no connection to either their aboriginal culture, as far as i can tell, or their christian faith), but allowing an 11-year old to die is an unacceptable result. what exactly is the purpose of child protective services (or its canadian equivalent) if not to save the life of this girl? i'm interested in plasmon's view on this case, though, as a canadian physician. i suspect there are differences in how americans see things vs canadians

just to be clear, in the case of the 17-year old, i think a perfectly acceptable outcome in a hypothetical case like this is the child refusing chemotherapy and doctors/the courts respecting that wish. (and obviously if she were 18 there would be no issue here at all.) i think in this case there are questions about her understanding of her diagnosis, as well as her mother's influence over her, coupled with her legal status as a minor, that could lead to a reasonable determination being made that she is incapable of making decisions for herself. even still, the images of her strapped to a bed, waking up to find a central line in her chest, clearly signal that something has gone horribly wrong

What Aimless describes sounds more like what a physiotherapist does - mine's brillant.

I agree that my chiropractor is delivering care very comparable to a physiotherapist. The major difference between a physiotherapist and my chiropractor is that in order to have access to my chiropractor, all I must do is pick up the phone, make an appointment, often for the next day, and pay about $60 for a fruitful and beneficial consultation. As a person with no health insurance and no primary care physician, this is inexpensive, simple, direct and entirely satisfactory in terms of outcome. I have rarely needed a follow up appointment for the types of problems I use her for.

Compare this to the rigmarole of making an appointment to see a physician, shelling $$ out of pocket for that visit, then being referred to a physiotherapist, where I would once more need to pay. Include my almost certainly needing to wait more than a week between my decision to seek care and the delivery of that care, because my case is not urgent. Not to mention the amount of paperwork required. So, I would be subjected to all that extra money, effort and time spent, just for a worse health outcome. Worse, because I have suffered needlessly prolonged pain and discomfort as I worked my way through that unwieldy system.

But experts marvel that alternative medicine has been gaining popularity and blame it all on us silly patients who can't tell the difference between a quack and a real doctor and throw money away on things that don't work. Basically, the only problem they can see is that we must be stupid. There's no way to fix that, so they don't need to change anything they're doing amirite.

Huh. We dont need referrals for physios here and they charge about $60 a sesh (but unless you have private insurance none of that can be claimed back). Thatd be a pain having to get a referral!

To keep on topic, mine uses "dry needling". I'm pretty skeptical of most CAM, but I have to say that does seem to work. Tho she does it in conjunction with a TENS machine and intensive remedial massage on my knee joints/muscles so who knows whats working.

I moved suburbs away recently and I miss her so - my knees are a mess :(

Basically, naturopaths, chiropractors and the like are filling a vacuum, a need the mainstream system is not adequately addressing. The USA needs to create a ton more nurse practitioners right away and use them to allow patients quick, easy and relatively inexpensive access to health care for minor ailments. That's all the care I have needed for the past 45 years. That's what I use my naturopath and chiropractor for. Give me something equally useful via the mainstream system and I would willingly, nay, happily use it.

i've never been to one, but interestingly, kaiser (my insurance co) offers chiropractic services.

My ex used to use those ion footbaths. Good for relaxing yr feet, witchcraft beyond that.

I went to a chiro as a kid. The adjustments felt weird but can't say I ever noticed a diff.

http://www.universal-tao.com/article/urine_therapy.html

Painful, burning and tired eyes can be relieved by applying a few drops of fresh or boiled urine to the eyes.

fuck boiling a urine

<i>The USA needs to create a ton more nurse practitioners right away</i>

The issue is less with a shortage of clinicians than with a shortage of clinicians who focus on lifestyle/prevention, as somewhere near 90% of chronic ailments like CVD, diabetes, COPD, psychiatric disorders, and the most common (late-life) cancers are due to poor diet, smoking, lack of exercise, sleep, and companionship, and little time is devoted to adequately addressing these factors in med school. I'd love to find a local physician affiliated with the American College of Lifestyle Medicine, which is to date, still a niche association.

There are some chiropractors (like Alan Goldhamer, videos) who've achieved better results for certain ailments than any allopathic clinician. Similarly, some naturopaths are extremely well versed in physiology. On the whole though, alternative medicine is brimful with quacks. It's unfortunate that a divide has emerged between preventative/lifestyle medicine in alternative practice, and those licenced to prescribe drugs, as in some cases the two are complementary, and should at the very least communicate with each other.

I'd love to see all family practitioners specialize in lifestyle/preventative medicine, with acute care passed off to specialists.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2015/02/05/how-to-spot-the-rare-dietary-supplement-thats-actually-legit/

^thats an amazing idea, though given the guy's background i would question whether he has the expertise to compile that. (niacin in particular is a strange one to have up near the top there.) the point about how even if there is evidence for a supplement, there is no telling whether that supplement is even in the bottle is key though

Niacin does make sense: pretty much every study until AIM-HIGH in 2011 showed benefits from nicotinic acid in raising HDL, while lowering LDL, Lp(a), triglycerides, fibrinogen, and events. The issues with the null result in AIM-HIGH IMO stemmed from 1) the higher doses of simvastatin & ezetimibe given to the statin arm than the statin + niacin arm (they aimed to match LDL reduction), and 2) no HDL raising intervention or even genetic predisposition to higher HDL has demonstrated benefit. So basically it was pitting the lesser-known antiinflammatory activity of the extra statin against the lowering of Lp(a), TG, & fibs by niacin, and those are frankly lesser predictors.

The ones I'd question above the line are creatine (only works in vegetarians), omega-6 (no one should chug corn oil), egg shell membrane (what, based on a trial of 39 written by an employee of ESM Technologies), and colostrinin (again, single trial funded by the manufacturer).

If I were to do a similar ranking, it would be:

strong: aspirin/salicylates, berberine, cocoa, curcumin, glucosamine, glycine, green tea, niacin, magnesium
promising: K2mk7, vitamin D, fish oil/DHA, low dose zinc, andrographis, N-acetylcysteine, α-Lipoic acid
promising for vegetarians: β‐alanine, carnitine, creatine, taurine
subjects for further research: C60, rhodiola, sinomenine, spirulina
not worth it: any other blue green algae, coconut oil, creosote, juice plus, multivitamins or complexes in those eating healthy diets, anything marketed for weight loss and tons of other stuff

niacin definitely reduces LDL and raises HDL, but what's more important is whether changes in risk factors actually translate to changes in risk, and on that count the evidence for niacin's effectiveness is less clear. it is true that enough people had issues with the AIM-HIGH's methodology that the results weren't exactly the death blow for niacin they might have otherwise been, but imo those concerns are pretty weak (for one thing, the influence of higher doses of simvastatin (statins have ceiling effects) or more ezetimibe is uncertain since neither of those things have been shown to decrease cardiovascular risk either). the real death blow was dealt a few months ago when HPS2 THRIVE was published and suggested that niacin when added to statin therapy (which everyone gets) may not only be useless, which many people already suspected, but might in fact be harmful. i'm a sucker for strongly-worded editorials like these, tbh. if the purpose of the chart is to show which supplements have at least had some investigation into their efficacy, or even showed improvement in surrogate endpoints, niacin belongs at or near the top. but it's not something that the vast majority of people should be taking for dyslipidemia or to prevent heart disease

i'm not convinced about glucosamine/chondroitin either, but like niacin (and unlike the others, other than aspirin, in your "strong" list) it at least can boast that some well-designed studies have been done to see whether it works, even if most of them show it to be useless

another thing exploding in popularity that is probably missing from the chart is PROBIOTICS. i spend a significant portion of my day convincing people not to waste their money on those. though there are some people for whom it might be worth it -- the thing i tell people is that the enthusiasm at this point definitely outpaces the evidence

sanapku, what do you do, man? i always read your posts and am impressed with the health knowledge you drop

sanpaku*

oh shit probiotics are on there! i would have them toward the middle, in the "promising" section

are there any forms of probiotics that are worth taking? my husband has some kind of IBD and i did some research (but i'm not exactly great at finding good reliable info) and made him start taking two different kinds of probiotics a day, switching them up every month or so. they didn't do any harm, but he stopped taking them a while ago when he got lazy and it hasn't made any difference.

If you like yoghurt you could try switching to a variety that has live cultures rather than it being pasteurized after the culturing. Most of those live acidophilus flora won't make it to your gut, but the ones that do are benign. I'm not sure how much difference it would make, but at least it would be a cheap and harmless experiment.

Glucosamine isn't so interesting to me as a joint-health supplement, but as one of very few supplements that possibly reduces mortality (functioning as an AMPK inducer/calorie restriction memetic): 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.

Probiotics have shown benefit in reducing antibiotic-associated diarrhea 6. The problems include 1) they don't seem to compete with established cultures in the gut lining, little change in bacterial populations is seen after a course of probiotics; 2) Lactobaccili and Bifidobacilli are used primarily because they're relatively easy to culture and produce viable shelf-stable supplements with, but the most important strains for health may be difficult to culture strains like F. prausnitzii, Akkermansia and Roseburia; and 3) quality control in the probiotics industry is dismal, the contents of supplements are unlikely to be what's on the label.

I've seen more promising work of late with prebiotics (7, 8, 9, 10)): mostly fermentable oligosaccharides, but also resistant starch, and polyphenols that beneficially shift existing flora. One can take chicory-derived inulin, but I just steer my diet towards whole wheat (& bran), Allium vegetables (onions, garlic, leeks), high polyphenol foods (berries, wine, cocoa, tea), and beans.

Is there any reason why probiotics (both supplements and various foods fortified with probiotics, but not regular old yogurt) would make me wildly nauseated? Because they do.

(I don't really want to take probiotics, but the few times I've tried has been miserable and I've always wondered why that happens.)

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/02/03/new-york-attorney-general-targets-supplements-at-major-retailers

The authorities said they had conducted tests on top-selling store brands of herbal supplements at four national retailers — GNC, Target, Walgreens and Walmart — and found that four out of five of the products did not contain any of the herbs on their labels. The tests showed that pills labeled medicinal herbs often contained little more than cheap fillers like powdered rice, asparagus and houseplants, and in some cases substances that could be dangerous to those with allergies.

Houseplants!!!

My daughter's (former - we switched for this and other reasons) pediatrician always recommended some kind of herbal supplements for whatever ailed her, and knowing all of this, I was always reluctant to get them. But why would the doctor recommend them if there wasn't something to it? So I usually would although I always felt conflicted about it. Ugh.

The last time I tried to take a simple multi-vitamin it made me horribly cramped/bloated and miserable for days. Afraid to try again, no idea what's in that stuff.

vitamins iirc

Article says a lot of supplements, even ones labeled as gluten free, contain wheat. So who freaking knows.

four out of five of the products did not contain any of the herbs on their labels

overregulation is killing american business

i don't see any specific mention of multivitamins in there but that article is freaking me out.

i guess there's no reason expect the multis to be totally a-ok after reading that. but maybe a general A/B/C/etc pill is cheaper to put together than gingko or fucking saw palmetto or w/e

lesson i take is that the people selling us "supplements" would put cat shit in there if they thought they could get away with it

anybody making more than $100k a year needs to be treated with maximum suspicion

i have an irrational hatred of walgreens for some reason. and CVS and all big drug chains, i guess. their stores suck and all they sell is junk food and also the diabetes and heart medicine you will need after a life of junk. blah. they did get rid of the cigarettes though. which made sense. big gross convenience stores + pain pills. what a racket.

My daughter's (former - we switched for this and other reasons) pediatrician always recommended some kind of herbal supplements for whatever ailed her, and knowing all of this, I was always reluctant to get them. But why would the doctor recommend them if there wasn't something to it? So I usually would although I always felt conflicted about it. Ugh.

feel like carl is highlighting the other side of things, in that actual licensed doctors aren't quackery-free, either. see: Dr. Oz and his ilk who might feel they're doing no harm or being helpful when really all they're doing is using their title to funnel money from people directly to their wallets. obviously your neighborhood doctor isn't getting kickbacks like that, but they're not immune to the influence of that side of the business

until the system rewards its component parts for working well together and for treating patients and not treating symptoms/issues, we're going to keep seeing people returning to whoever gives them personal care

all they sell is junk food
junk food, cigarettes (walgreens still sells cigs here), booze, makeup, and prescription meds

(but they do have pretty great $5 fleece-lined leggings! i still have a hard time feeling 100% good about those in spite of their monumental comfort and nice price)

and band-aids, school supplies, ointments, etc

until the system rewards its component parts for working well together and for treating patients and not treating symptoms/issues, we're going to keep seeing people returning to whoever gives them personal care
otm
i have never felt better about my lesson plan revolving around the concept of snake oil
i recently learned of a weight loss method called "waist training" and when it was described, i was like "you mean like corsets?" and was told "yeah corsets are like an extreme version of Waist Training TM"

;_;

LL I have some of those too! I got them for christmas

Yesss waist training please get it out of my facebook feed jfc

I have never heard of it! It amounts to "wear a belt and constrict your midsection so you don't want to eat"?

yeah well i still buy stuff there. there is a walgreens at the end of our street. and i usually get a flu shot there too. hope there aren't house plants in my flu shot...

i just always get bugged when i go in there...one of those places that takes forever to get out of.

Had never heard of it, that is
Who is touting this revolution in weight loss?

you'll know there are harmful houseplants in your flu shot if you start aggressively pointing at people with your mouth hanging open

Iirc it's mostly "buy one of these wrap-around girdles made of neoprene (see also: fajas) and take pics of yourself on ig wearing it over your gym clothes while working out!"

How does waist training work?

Waist training involves wearing a belt (made from thick latex and cotton lining) around your waist that looks just like an old-fashioned corset — you know, the kinds that used to break women’s ribs, crush their internal organs, and make them faint all the time. The belt works by putting pressure on the waist in order to change its shape over time. You can also wear the belt while working out in order to “speed up” the weight loss process and “strengthen your core.”

What are the benefits?

Waist training advocates claim that with waist training you can lose up to seven inches from your waist line, which sounds more terrifying than anything else. The waist training belt is supposed to put pressure on your waist — which generates heat while you’re physically active to help your body burn fat quicker — and expel toxins. It also doubles as a breast lift, pushing your boobies up to put them in “the right place.”

Riiiiiiiiiiiiiight.

so many red flags there
wow

Can I also, tentatively?, put oil pulling in this category? That needs to get out of all my feeds too.

And it's not that I'm in love with medical science or that it's never been wrong or certainly not that it's never been ethically bankrupt in testing methods, patient care, experimenting on the least powerful all through history, etc. But yeah I can't see anything else past the forest of red flags.

wasn't sure what that was, read about it online on the NIH website, appears to be less than or just equal to brushing your teeth and/or using mouthwash, with brushing and mouthwash being a bit better

seems like a good way to think you're doing something cool while attempting to dodge the drudgery of flossing

Yeah, you can be forceful about oil pulling. That's straight bullshit.

i don't see any specific mention of multivitamins in there but that article is freaking me out.

i guess there's no reason expect the multis to be totally a-ok after reading that. but maybe a general A/B/C/etc pill is cheaper to put together than gingko or fucking saw palmetto or w/e

― goole, Tuesday, February 17, 2015 3:25 PM (1 hour ago)

the first thing i will say is that the vast majority of healthy people do not need a multivitamin, unless you're on a weird diet. that said multivitamins are generally more reliable than "supplements", as you allude to. many of them are made by the same companies that make OTC products that are FDA-regulated

http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/2012/05/multivitamins/index.htm

i have an irrational hatred of walgreens for some reason. and CVS and all big drug chains, i guess. their stores suck and all they sell is junk food and also the diabetes and heart medicine you will need after a life of junk. blah. they did get rid of the cigarettes though. which made sense. big gross convenience stores + pain pills. what a racket.

― scott seward, Tuesday, February 17, 2015 3:40 PM (1 hour ago)

yeah i mean, you're not wrong. i am not especially popular with my bosses because i constantly give them a hard time about our selling cigarettes, as well as homeopathic medicine and supplements. obviously at the end of the day it's a business decision. i can't say i'm too upset to be leaving the field

i've never heard of oil pulling! that is weird to me because i LOVE flossing, getting food out of your teeth that's been stuck there for hours is like the best feeling

Whereas swishing oil around in your mouth for what like 20 minutes? is fucking disgusting.

I guess before modern toothbrushes, fillings, decent dentures, etc, whatever various cultures came up with in terms of dental hygiene is great. If it came close to modern results in cleanliness & protection, that's pretty surprisingly great! But it's 2015 now and my teeth break when I even think about chewing.

Nah.

Well and modern oil pulling enthusiasts aren't talking it up for dental health. It's about TOXINS.

lol

Sometimes I see both oil pulling and waist training paired with the rhetoric of reclaiming non-Western practices of one's ancestors, having faith in women's wisdom that worked for centuries before it was erased by colonialism, and so on.

My ancestors probably had Scottish teeth and appallingly bad vision just like I do. I'll take all the medical advances I can get.

modern dentistry is awesome, dental insurance that pays for it doubly so

well fuck, i've been taking a complex b vitamin since i don't eat meat much and i'm mental, plus vitamin d supplement bc my levels were low. so these are probably bullshit and not doing anything??

doctors have recommended B12 supplements to me & I'm pretty certain they weren't getting any kickbacks for it

if you look at the washington post article amateurist linked upthread, there are strong indicators via study that both B and D vitamins have some level of therapeutic efficacy. if they're manufactured by a reputable company, I'd imagine they're useful.

plus, having your levels tested as being low by an actual doctor and taking a supplement is a lot different from people who have no particular reason to take vitamins

i start taking astragalus every day in the fall and thru the winter and i've been doing that for the last three years and i don't know if the astragalus pills i've been taking have actually been ground up old apple cores and chinese newspapers but i haven't been sick in three years. so...something's working. i recommend it! that and a flu shot.

I would like to point out that multiple of the things shown to have therapeutic effect are all readily available in a can of Red Bull and I will continue on my niacin/caffeine regimen as indicated

I take strong B supplements cos I drink. I can tell you they help - when I dont take them I become an exhausted miserable mess. But theyre addressing a genuine lack - most people who eat well likely dont need vitamins (except maybe D now tha we all avoid the sun)

http://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/mar/09/teen-battled-cancer-chemo-treament-remission

you've probably read about this: teen girl wanted to refuse chemo for her non-hodgkin's lymphoma, her parents wanted to respect her wishes, but the state intervened and held her in custody and forced her to received the treatments. she said she thought the chemo was unhealthy, but with this form of cancer -- which friends of mine have had -- it has a very high success rate. without chemo, the mortality rate is very high. anyway she is in remission now, thanks to the forced treatment.

commenters on multiple platforms think the state overstepped its bounds and that they should have respected the kid's and the parents' (???????) wishes. i understand the idea of respecting the girl's wishes -- it's her body -- but i do think it's possible she was under the influence of her parents, which made this case problematic. in these cases, i feel that the parents should definitely NOT have the final say, especially if their perspective is "don't get chemo." if the parents aren't medical professionals, what the fuck do they know about anything?

https://www.buzzfeed.com/stephaniemlee/inside-the-internets-war-on-science

Welcome to the vast universe of self-built social media empires devoted to spreading false, misleading, and polarizing science and health news — sometimes further and wider than the real information. Here, climate change is a government-sponsored hoax, fluoridated water is poisonous, cannabis can cure cancer, and airplanes are constantly spraying pesticides and biological waste into the air. Genetically modified food is destroying humanity and the planet. Vaccines are experimental, autism-causing injections forced on innocent babies. We can’t trust anything that we eat, drink, breathe, or medicate with, nor rely on physicians and public health agencies to act in our best interests. Between the organic recipes and menacing stock images of syringes and pills, a clear theme emerges: Everything is rigged — by doctors, Big Pharma, Monsanto, the FDA — and the mainstream media isn’t telling us. (Also, there’s usually a link to buy vitamins.) This messaging reflects a new, uniquely conspiratorial strain of libertarianism that hijacks deeply intimate issues — your body, your health, your children’s health. It shares magnificently.

whine pairings

just here to lol at Dr Oz

lol dr oz more like dr lOZt, because he lost, like a fkin loser

part of an old nyer profile of him stuck with me tho, where the writer pointed out that since lots of americans have basically no health care, they're left vulnerable to grifters like him. 💛i hope he fucking dies 💛

dr oz, that is, of course. not the nyer writer.

there was an early seinfeld episode where george has some kind of health scare, but he doesn't want to see a real doctor because $$$, so kramer convinces him to go to a $40 naturopath who messes george up so bad he has to go to the hospital anyway. #thisisamerica