Monthly Archives: April 2018
Prof Ke’s Asante Academy (Ke claims that asante is French and means good health – wrong, of course, but that’s the least of his errors) offers many amazing things, and I do encourage you to have a look at his website. Prof Ke is clearly not plagued by false modesty; he informs us that “I am proud to say that we have gained a reputation as one of the leading Chinese Medicine clinics and teaching institutes in the UK and Europe. One CEO from a leading Acupuncture register commented that we were the best in the country. One doctor gave up his medical job in a European country to come study Chinese medicine at Middlesex University (our partner) – he said simply it was because of Asante. Our patients, from royalty and celebrities to hard working people all over the world, have praised us highly for successfully treating their wide-ranging conditions, including infertility, skin problems, pain and many others. We are also very pleased to have pioneered Acupuncture service in the NHS and for over a decade we have seen tens of thousands of NHS patients in hospitals.”
He provides treatments for any condition you can imagine, courses in various forms of TCM, a range of videos (they are particularly informative), as well as interesting explanations and treatment plans for dozens of conditions. From the latter, I have chosen just two diseases and quote some extracts to give you a vivid impression of the Ke’s genius:
CANCER
There are some ways in which Chinese medicine can help cancer cases where Western medicine cannot. Various herbal prescriptions have been shown to help in bolstering the immune system and some herbs can actually attack the abnormal cells and viruses which are responsible for certain types of cancer.
Chinese Medicine treatment aims first to increase the body’s own defence mechanisms, then to kill the cancer cells. Effective though radiotherapy and chemotherapy may be, they tend to have a drastic effect on the body generally and patients often feel very tired and weak, suffer from stress, anxiety, fear, insomnia and loss of appetite. Chinese Medicine practitioners regard strengthening the patient psychologically and physically to be of primary importance.
Chinese Medicine herbal remedies can help reduce or eliminate the side-effects from radiotherapy or chemotherapy. Astragalus will help raise the blood cell count, the sickness caused by chemotherapy can be relieved with fresh ginger and orange peel, and acupuncture can also help. To attack the cancer itself, depending on type and location, different herbs will be used.
A Chinese Medicine practitiioner will decide whether the illness is the result of qi energy deficiency, blood deficiency or yin or yang deficiency. Ginseng,astragalus, Chinese angelica, cooked rehmannia root, wolfberry root, Chinese yam and many tonic herbs may be used. But it is vital to remember that no one tonic is good for everybody. All treatments are dependent upon the individual. Some anti-cancer herbs used are very strong and sometimes make people sick, but this is because one poison is being used against another. How they work, and how clinically effective they are, is still being researched. No claims can be made for them based on modern scientific evaluation.
Acupuncture and meditation are also very important parts of the Chinese Medicine traditional approach to the treatment of cancer. These alleviate pain and induce a sense of calmness, instill confidence and build up the spirit of the body, so that patients do not need to take so many painkillers. In China, they have many meditation programmes which are used to treat cancer.
MENINGITIS
Chinese Medicine herbal treatment for meningitis has been very successful in China. In the recent past there were many epidemics, particularly in the north, and the hospitals routinely used Chinese herbs as treatment, with a high degree of success. One famous remedy in Chinese Medicine is called White Tiger Decoction, the main ingredients of which are gypsum and rice. These are simple things but they reduce the high fever and clear the infection from the brain. Modern medicine and Chinese Medicine used together is the most effective treatment.
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Ghosh, I am so glad that finally someone explained these things to me, and so logically and simply too. I used to have doubts about the value of TCM for these conditions, but now I am convinced … so much so that I go on Medline to find the scientific work of Prof Ke. But what, what, what? That is not possible; such a famous professor and no publications?
I conclude that my search skills are inadequate and throw myself into studying the plethora of courses Ke offers for the benefit of mankind:
Since 2000, Asanté Academy has officially collaborated with Middlesex University in running and teaching the BSc and MSc in Traditional Chinese Medicine.
- BSc Degrees in Acupuncture and Traditional Chinese Medicine
- MSc Degree in Chinese Medicine
- Professional Practice in Herbal Medicine, Chinese Herbal Medicine and Acupuncture
But perhaps this is a bit too arduous; maybe so-called diploma courses suit me better? Personally, I am tempted by the ‘24-day Certificate Course in TCM Acupuncture‘ – it’s a bargain, just £ 2,880!
PS
Prof Ke, if you read these lines, would you please tell us where and when you got your professorship? Your otherwise ostentatious website seems to fail to disclose this detail.
Since many months, I have noticed a proliferation of so-called pilot studies of alternative therapies. A pilot study (also called feasibility study) is defined as a small scale preliminary study conducted in order to evaluate feasibility, time, cost, adverse events, and improve upon the study design prior to performance of a full-scale research project. Here I submit that most of the pilot studies of alternative therapies are, in fact, bogus.
To qualify as a pilot study, an investigation needs to have an aim that is in line with the above-mentioned definition. Another obvious hallmark must be that its conclusions are in line with this aim. We do not need to conduct much research to find that even these two elementary preconditions are not fulfilled by the plethora of pilot studies that are currently being published, and that proper pilot studies of alternative medicine are very rare.
Three recent examples of dodgy pilot studies will have to suffice (but rest assured, there are many, many more).
The aim of this study was to evaluate the effects of foot reflexotherapy on pain and postural balance in elderly individuals with low back pain. And the conclusions drawn by its authors were that this study demonstrated that foot reflexotherapy induced analgesia but did not affect postural balance in elderly individuals with low back pain.
The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of Tai Chi training on dual-tasking performance that involved stepping down and compared it with that of conventional exercise among stroke survivors. And the conclusions read: These results suggest a beneficial effect of Tai Chi training on cognition among stroke survivors without compromising physical task performance in dual-tasking.
The aim of this study was to evaluate the efficacy [of acupuncture] over 12 weeks of treatment and 12 weeks of follow-up. And the conclusion: Acupuncture decreases WC, HC, HbA1c, TG, and TC values and blood pressure in MetS.
It is almost painfully obvious that these studies are not ‘pilot’ studies as defined above.
So, what are they, and why are they so popular in alternative medicine?
The way I see it, they are the result of amateur researchers conducting pseudo-research for publication in lamentable journals in an attempt to promote their pet therapies (I have yet to find such a study that reports a negative finding). The sequence of events that lead to the publication of such pilot studies is usually as follows:
- An enthusiast or a team of enthusiasts of alternative medicine decide that they will do some research.
- They have no or very little know-how in conducting a clinical trial.
- They nevertheless feel that such a study would be nice as it promotes both their careers and their pet therapy.
- They design some sort of a plan and start recruiting patients for their trial.
- At this point they notice that things are not as easy as they had imagined.
- They have too few funds and too little time to do anything properly.
- This does, however, not stop them to continue.
- The trial progresses slowly, and patient numbers remain low.
- After a while the would-be researchers get fed up and decide that their study has enough patients to stop the trial.
- They improvise some statistical analyses with their results.
- They write up the results the best they can.
- They submit it for publication in a 3rd class journal and, in order to get it accepted, they call it a ‘pilot study’.
- They feel that this title is an excuse for even the most obvious flaws in their work.
- The journal’s reviewers and editors are all proponents of alternative medicine who welcome any study that seems to confirm their belief.
- Thus the study does get published despite the fact that it is worthless.
Some might say ‘so what? no harm done!’
But I beg to differ: these studies pollute the medical literature and misguide people who are unable or unwilling to look behind the smoke-screen. Enthusiasts of alternative medicine popularise these bogus trials, while hiding the fact that their results are unreliable. Journalists report about them, and many consumers assume they are being told the truth – after all it was published in a ‘peer-reviewed’ medical journal!
My conclusions are as simple as they are severe:
- Such pilot studies are the result of gross incompetence on many levels (researchers, funders, ethics committees, reviewers, journal editors).
- They can cause considerable harm, because they mislead many people.
- In more than one way, they represent a violation of medical ethics.
- The could be considered scientific misconduct.
- We should think of stopping this increasingly common form of scientific misconduct.
In the current issue of the Faculty of Homeopathy‘s Simile publication, Dr Peter Fisher, the Queen’s homeopath, re-visits the old story of the ‘Smallwood Report’. To my big surprise, I found the following two paragraphs in his editorial:
A prepublication draft [of the Smallwood report] was circulated for comment with prominent warnings that it was confidential and not to be shared more widely (I can personally vouch for this, since I was one of those asked to comment). Regrettably, Prof Ernst did precisely this, leaking it to The Times who used it as the basis of their lead story. The editor of The Lancet, Richard Horton, certainly no friend of homeopathy, promptly denounced Ernst for having “broken every professional code of scientific behaviour”.
Sir Michael Peat, the Prince of Wales’ Principal Private Secretary, wrote to the vice chancellor of Exeter University protesting at the leak, and the university conducted an investigation. Ernst’s position became untenable, funding for his department dried up and he took early retirement. Thirteen years later he remains sore; in his latest book More Harm than Good? he attacks the Prince of Wales as “foolish and immoral”.
END OF QUOTE
Sadly it is true that Horton wrote these defaming words. Subsequently, I asked him to justify them explaining that they were being used by my university against me. He ignored several of my emails, but eventually he sent a reply. In it, he said that, since the university was investigating the issue, the truth would doubtlessly be disclosed. I remember that I was livid at the arrogance and ignorance of this reply. However, being in the middle of my university’s investigation against me, never did anything about it. Looking back at this part of the episode, I feel that Horton behaved abominably.
But back to Dr Fisher.
Why did his defamatory and false accusation in his new editorial come as a ‘big surprise’ to me?
Should I not have gotten used to the often odd way in which some homeopaths handle the truth?
Yes, I did get used to this phenomenon; but I am nevertheless surprised because I have tried to correct Fisher’s ‘error’ before.
This is from a post about Fisher which I published in 2015:
In this article [available here in archive,org – Admin] which he published as Dr. Peter Fisher, Homeopath to Her Majesty, the Queen, he wrote: There is a serious threat to the future of the Royal London Homoeopathic Hospital (RLHH), and we need your help…Lurking behind all this is an orchestrated campaign, including the ’13 doctors letter’, the front page lead in The Times of 23 May 2006, Ernst’s leak of the Smallwood report (also front page lead in The Times, August 2005), and the deeply flawed, but much publicised Lancet meta-analysis of Shang et al…
If you have read my memoir, you will know that even the hostile 13-months investigation my own university did not find me guilty of the ‘leak’. The Times journalist who interviewed me about the Smallwood report already had the document on his desk when we spoke, and I did not disclose any contents of the report to him…
END OF QUOTE
So, assuming that Dr Peter Fisher has seen my 2015 post, he is knowingly perpetuating a slanderous untruth. However, giving him the benefit of the doubt, he might not have read the post nor my memoir and could be unaware of the truth. Error or lie? I am determined to find out and will send him today’s post with an offer to clarify the situation.
I will keep you posted.
Some commentators on this blog and elsewhere keep on claiming that conventional medicine is dangerous, certainly more dangerous than homeopathy (or other alternative therapies). To test the validity of this assumption, I invite you to a little thought experiment:
Imagine 100 patients suffering from each of the conditions listed below.
- cancer
- AIDS
- Ebola
- sepsis
- TB
- MS
- dementia
- coronary heart disease
- stroke
- diabetes
- peripheral vascular disease
(this list could be extended ad libitum)
Now imagine all of these patients would receive alternative treatment in the form of homeopathy.
Next ask yourself in how many of these patients would hasten death (i. e. contribute to a fatal outcome earlier than necessary).
Here are my estimates (based on the best available evidence):
- cancer: 100
- AIDS: 100
- Ebola: 100
- sepsis: 100
- TB: 100
- MS: 100
- dementia: 100
- coronary heart disease: 100
- stroke: 100
- diabetes: 100
- peripheral vascular disease: 100
(Please don’t tell me that homeopaths do not regularly claim to be able to treat those conditions; and please don’t say that they do not advocate homeopathy as a truly alternative therapy, because they do – if you don’t believe me, do a simple google search yourself.)
And now imagine these patients are being treated by conventional medicine. It seems obvious that not all lives would be saved and that some would die of their condition. But that was not my question. It was, in how many of these patients would conventional medicine hasten death?
Here are my estimates (based on the best available evidence):
- cancer: 0
- AIDS: 0
- Ebola: 0
- sepsis: 0
- TB: 0
- MS: 0
- dementia: o
- coronary heart disease: 0
- stroke: 0
- diabetes: 0
- peripheral vascular disease: 0
I know this is a bit simplistic (as well as provocative). But I was merely trying to make a point: Homeopathy (and many other alternative treatments) are by no means as safe as its proponents seem to think.
In recent days, journalists across the world had a field day (mis)reporting that doctors practising integrative medicine were doing something positive after all. I think that the paper shows nothing of the kind – but please judge for yourself.
The authors of this article wanted to determine differences in antibiotic prescription rates between conventional General Practice (GP) surgeries and GP surgeries employing general practitioners (GPs) additionally trained in integrative medicine (IM) or complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) (referred to as IM GPs) working within National Health Service (NHS) England.
They conducted a retrospective study on antibiotic prescription rates per STAR-PU (Specific Therapeutic group Age–sex weighting Related Prescribing Unit) using NHS Digital data over 2016. Publicly available data were used on prevalence of relevant comorbidities, demographics of patient populations and deprivation scores. setting Primary Care. Participants were 7283 NHS GP surgeries in England. The association between IM GPs and antibiotic prescribing rates per STAR-PU with the number of antibiotic prescriptions (total, and for respiratory tract infection (RTI) and urinary tract infection (UTI) separately) as outcome. results IM GP surgeries (n=9) were comparable to conventional GP surgeries in terms of list sizes, demographics, deprivation scores and comorbidity prevalence.
Statistically significant fewer total antibiotics were prescribed at NHS IM GP surgeries compared with conventional NHS GP surgeries. In contrast, the number of antibiotics prescribed for UTI were similar between both practices.
The authors concluded that NHS England GP surgeries employing GPs additionally trained in IM/CAM have lower antibiotic prescribing rates. Accessibility of IM/CAM within NHS England primary care is limited. Main study limitation is the lack of consultation data. Future research should include the differences in consultation behaviour of patients self-selecting to consult an IM GP or conventional surgery, and its effect on antibiotic prescription. Additional treatment strategies for common primary care infections used by IM GPs should be explored to see if they could be used to assist in the fight against antimicrobial resistance.
The study was flimsy to say the least:
- It was retrospective and is therefore open to no end of confounders.
- There were only 9 surgeries in the IM group.
Moreover, the results were far from impressive. The differences in antibiotic prescribing between the two groups of GP surgeries were minimal or non-existent. Finally, the study was financed via an unrestricted grant of WALA Heilmittel GmbH, Germany (“approx. 900 different remedies conforming to the anthroposophic understanding of man and nature”) and its senior author has a long track record of publishing papers promotional for anthroposophic medicine.
Such pseudo-research seems to be popular in the realm of CAM, and I have commented before on similarly futile projects. The comparison, I sometimes use is that of a Hamburger restaurant:
Employees by a large Hamburger chain set out to study the association between utilization of Hamburger restaurant services and vegetarianism. The authors used a retrospective cohort design. The study population comprised New Hampshire residents aged 18-99 years, who had entered the premises of a Hamburger restaurant within 90 days for a primary purpose of eating. The authors excluded subjects with a diagnosis of cancer. They measured the likelihood of vegetarianism among recipients of services delivered by Hamburger restaurants compared with a control group of individuals not using meat-dispensing facilities. They also compared the cohorts with regard to the money spent in Hamburger restaurants. The adjusted likelihood of being a vegetarian was 55% lower among the experimental group compared to controls. The average money spent per person in Hamburger restaurants were also significantly lower among the Hamburger group.
To me, it is obvious that such analyses must produce a seemingly favourable result for CAM. In the present case, there are several reasons for this:
- GPs who volunteer to be trained in CAM tend to be in favour of ‘natural’ treatments and oppose synthetic drugs such as antibiotics.
- Education in CAM would only re-inforce this notion.
- Similarly, patients electing to consult IM GPs tend to be in favour of ‘natural’ treatments and oppose synthetic drugs such as antibiotics.
- Such patients might be less severely ill that the rest of the patient population (the data from the present study do in fact imply this to be true).
- These phenomena work in concert to generate less antibiotic prescribing in the IM group.
In the final analysis, all this finding amounts to is a self-fulfilling prophecy: grocery shops sell less meat than butchers! You don’t believe me? Perhaps you need to read a previous post then; it concluded that physicians practicing integrative medicine (the 80% who did not respond to the survey were most likely even worse) not only use and promote much quackery, they also tend to endanger public health by their bizarre, irrational and irresponsible attitudes towards vaccination.
What is upsetting with the present paper, in my view, are the facts that:
- a reputable journal published this junk,
- the international press has a field-day reporting this study implying that CAM is a good thing.
The fact is that it shows nothing of the kind. Imagine we send GPs on a course where they are taught to treat all their patients with blood-letting. This too would result in less prescription of antibiotics, wouldn’t it? But would it be a good thing? Of course not!
True, we prescribe too much antibiotics. Nobody doubts that. And nobody doubts that it is a big problem. The solution to this problem is not more CAM, but less antibiotics. To realise the solution we do not need to teach GPs CAM but we need to remind them of the principles of evidence-based practice. And the two are clearly not the same; in fact, they are opposites.
Did you know that chiropractic is a religion?
Well, not quite but almost.
DD Palmer seriously toyed with the idea of turning chiropractic into a religion.
And rightly so!
In the absence of evidence, belief is everything.
And this is why, to this day, so many chiropractors bank (a most appropriate term in this context!) on belief rather than evidence.
Look, for instance at this lovely advertisement I found on Twitter (there are many more, but this one has to stand for the many).
Seven common benefits of chiropractic care!?!
Beneath the picture of a pathologically straight spine – if that is what chiro does to you, avoid it at all cost! – we see the name of the ‘doctor’ who seems to have designed this impressive picture. ‘Dr’ Schluter is even more versatile than his pretty advertisement implies; he also seems to treat newborn babies! And on his website he also tells us that he is able to treat allergies:
You may be surprised to find that chiropractic can do a great deal to alleviate some allergies. Allergies are very common and we become so used to their effect on us that we tend to ignore their symptoms. And many people are unaware of the gradual decline in health that results. Chiropractic treatment didn’t necessarily set out specifically to provide care for allergies, but due to the nature of the chiropractic care and its effect on the nervous system, it has been shown to help.
If we look at some of the common signs of allergies we find that they include some unexpected examples. Not only do we find the usual ones – asthma, sinus congestion, sneezing, itchy eyes, skin rashes and running nose – but also weight gain, Acne and even fluid retention and heartburn.
Many people approach the problem of allergies as though all allergens affect everyone in the same way; this is not the case. Because we are individuals, different allergens affect each of us in differing ways. Some allergens affect some and not others. Consequently treating the condition must be approached on this basis of individuality.
It may not be the pet fur or dried saliva that is kicked up as your pooch washes and scratches; it may also not be the pollen, grass dust or other one of the many irritants in the air at any one time. It could be that due to a misalignment of the spine (or subluxation), mild though it may be, the nervous system is finding it difficult to help the body adapt to its surroundings and is therefore unable to deal with the necessary adjustments.
As an individual you need to treat your body’s physical and nervous system as such. You could be, without even being aware of it, in a generally stressed condition – this may be through lack of sleep, poor nutrition or any one of a combination of the many other stressors affecting us daily. Suddenly you find that with the first spring pollen dust that comes along you begin to wheeze and sneeze!
You may not have previously connected chiropractors and allergies but, for you or someone you know, the connection could help.
Schluter Chiropractic works on the principle of reducing interference so the nervous system and body can work better. Providing that any symptom or condition (including pain) is occurring as a result of nerve interference from vertebral subluxation, there is a very good chance that it will improve with chiropractic care.
END OF QUOTE
Wise words indeed.
Like most chiros, ‘Dr’ Schulter seems to be a true miracle-worker; and because he can do miracles, he does not need to be rational or concerned about evidence or worried about telling the truth.
For Christ sake, it’s Easter!
We ought to show a bit of belief!!!
Why?
Because without it, the benefits of chiropractic would be just an illusion.
