How to render alternative medicine ‘evidence-based’ in a hurry

If we search on ‘Medline’ for ‘complementary alternative medicine’ (CAM), we currently get about 13000 hits. A little graph on the side of the page demonstrates that, during the last 4 years, the number of articles on this subject has grown exponentially.

Surely, this must be very good news: such intense research activity will soon tell us exactly which alternative treatments work for which conditions and which don’t.

I beg to differ. Let me explain why.

The same ‘Medline’ search informs us that the majority of the recent articles were published in an open access journal called ‘Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine’ (eCAM). For example, of the 80 most recent articles listed in Medline (on 26/5/2014), 53 came from that journal. The publication frequency of eCAM and its increase in recent years beggars belief: in 2011, they published just over 500 articles which is already a high number, but, in 2012, the figure had risen to >800, and in 2013 it was >1300 (the equivalent 2013 figure for the BMJ/BMJ Open by comparison is 4, and that for another alt med journal, e.g. Forsch Komplement, is 10)

How do they do it? How can eCAM be so dominant in publishing alt med research? The trick seems to be fairly simple.

Let’s assume you are an alt med researcher and you have an article that you would like to see published. Once you submit it to eCAM, your paper is sent to one of the ~150 members of the editorial board. These people are almost all strong proponents of alternative medicine; critics are a true rarity in this group. At this stage, you are able to suggest the peer reviewers for your submission (all who ever accepted this task are listed on the website; they amount to several thousand!), and it seems that, with the vast majority of submissions, the authors’ suggestions are being followed.

It goes without saying that most researchers suggest colleagues for peer reviewing who are not going to reject their work (the motto seems to be “if you pass my paper, I will pass yours). Therefore even faily flimsy bits of research pass this peer review process and get quickly published online in eCAM.

This process explains a lot, I think: 1) the extraordinarily high number of articles published 2) why currently more than 50% of all alt med research originate from eCAM 3) why so much of it is utter rubbish.

Even the mere titles of some of the articles might demonstrate my point. A few examples have to suffice:

• Color distribution differences in the tongue in sleep disorder
• Wen-dan decoction improves negative emotions in sleep-deprived rats by regulating orexin-a and leptin expression.
• Yiqi Huoxue Recipe Improves Heart Function through Inhibiting Apoptosis Related to Endoplasmic Reticulum Stress in Myocardial Infarction Model of Rats.
• Protective Effects of Bu-Shen-Huo-Xue Formula against 5/6 Nephrectomy-Induced Chronic Renal Failure in Rats
• Effects and Mechanisms of Complementary and Alternative Medicine during the Reproductive Process
• Evidence-based medicinal plants for modern chronic diseases
• Transforming Pain into Beauty: On Art, Healing, and Care for the Spirit

This system of uncritical peer review and fast online publication seems to suit many of the people involved in this process: the journal’s owners are laughing all the way to the bank; there is a publication charge of US$ 2000 per article, and, in 2013, the income of eCAM must therefore have been well over US$2 000 000. The researchers are equally delighted; they get even their flimsiest papers published (remember: ‘publish or perish’!). And the evangelic believers in alternative medicine are pleased because they can now claim that their field is highly research-active and that there is plenty of evidence to support the use of this or that therapy.

But there are others who are not served well by eCAM habit of publishing irrelevant, low quality articles:

• professionals who would like to advance health care and want to see reliable evidence as to which treatments work and which don’t,
• the public who, in one way or another, pay for all this and might assume that published research tends to be relevant and reliable,
• the patients who have given their time to researchers in the hope that their gift will improve health care,
• ill individuals who hope that alternative treatments might relieve their suffering,
• politicians who rely on research to be reliable in order to arrive at the right decisions.

Come to think of it, the vast majority of people should be less than enchanted with eCAM and similar journals.