Monthly Archives: October 2013
Many reader of this blog will remember the libel case of the British Chiropractic Association (BCA) against Simon Singh. Simon had disclosed in a Guardian comment that the BCA was happily promoting bogus chiropractic treatments for 6 paediatric conditions, including infant colic. The BCA not only lost the case but the affair almost destroyed this strange organisation and resulted in an enormous reputational damage of chiropractors worldwide. In an article entitled AFTER THE STORM, the then-president of the BCA later described the defeat in his own words: “in 2009, events in the UK took a turn which was to consume the British Chiropractic Association (BCA) for two years and force the wider profession to confront key issues that for decades had kept it distanced from its medical counterparts and attracting ridicule from its critics…the BCA began one of the darkest periods in its history; one that was ultimately to cost it financially, reputationally and politically…The GCC itself was in an unprecedented situation. Faced with a 1500% rise in complaints, Investigating Committees were assembled to determine whether there was a case to answer…The events of the past two years have exposed a blind adherence to outdated principles amongst a small but significant minority of the profession. Mindful of the adage that it’s the squeaky wheel that gets the grease, the vocalism of this group has ensured that chiropractic is characterised by its critics as unscientific, unsafe and slightly wacky. Claims that the vertebral subluxation complex is the cause of illness and disease have persisted despite the three UK educational establishments advising the GCC that no evidence of acceptable quality exists to support such claims.”
Only a few years AFTER THE STORM, this story seems to have changed beyond recognition. Harald Walach, who is known to readers of this blog because I reported that he was elected ‘pseudo-scientist of the year’ in 2012, recently published a comment on the proceedings of the European Congress of Integrated Medicine where we find the following intriguing version of the libel case:
Mein Freund und Kollege George Lewith aus Southampton hatte einen Hauptvortrag über seine Überblicksarbeit über chiropraktische Interventionen für kleinkindliche Koliken vorgelegt. Sie ist ausgelöst worden durch die Behauptung, die Singh und Ernst vor einigen Jahren erhoben hatten, dass Chiropraktik gefährlich ist, dass es keine Daten dafür gäbe, dass sie wirksam sei und dass sie gefährliche Nebenwirkungen habe, speziell wenn sie bei Kindern angewendet würde. Die Chiropraktiker hatten den Wissenschaftsjournalisten Singh damals wegen Verleumdung verklagt und recht erhalten. George Lewith hatte dem Gericht die Expertise geliefert und nun seine Analyse auf Kinder ausgedehnt.
Kurz gefasst: Die Intervention wirkt sogar ziemlich stark, etwa eine Standardabweichung war der Effekt groß. Die Kinder schreien kürzer und weniger. Und die Durchforstung der Literatur nach gefährlichen Nebenwirkungen hatte keinen, wortwörtlich: nicht einen, Fall zu Tage gefördert, der von Nebenwirkungen, geschweige denn gefährlichen, berichtet hätte. Die Aufregung war seinerzeit dadurch entstanden, dass eine unqualifizierte Person einer zart gebauten Frau über den Rücken gelaufen ist und ihr dabei das Genick gebrochen hat. Die Presse hatte das ganze dann zu „tödlicher Nebenwirkung chiropraktischer Intervention“ aufgebauscht.
Oh, I almost forgot, you don’t read German? Here is my translation of this revealing text:
“My friend and colleague Geoorge Lewith from Southampton gave a keynote lecture on his review of chiropractic interventions for infant colic. This was prompted by the claim, made by Singh and Ernst a few years ago, that chiropractic was dangerous, that no data existed showing its effectiveness, and that it had dangerous side-effects, particularly for children. The chiropractors had sued the science journalist Singh for libel and won the case. George Lewith had provided the expert report for the court and has now extended his analysis on children.
To put it briefly: the intervention is even very effective; the effect-size is about one standard deviation. The children cry less long and more rarely. And the search of the literature for dangerous side-effects resulted in no – literally: not one – case of side-effects, not to mention dangerous ones. The fuzz had started back then because an unqualified person had walked over the back of a thin woman and had thus broken her neck. The press had subsequently hyped the whole thing to a “deadly side-effect of a chiropractic intervention”. (I am sorry for the clumsy language but the original is even worse.)
Now, isn’t that remarkable? Not only has the truth about the libel case been turned upside down, but also the evidence on chiropractic as a treatment for infant colic seems mysteriously improved; other reviews which might just be a bit more independent and objective come to the following conclusions:
And what should we make of all this? I don’t know about you, but I conclude that, for some apologists of alternative medicine, the truth is a rather flexible commodity.
Nobody really likes criticism, I suppose. Yet everyone with a functional brain agrees that criticism is a precondition to making progress. So most of us do listen to it, introspect and try to learn a lesson.
Not so in alternative medicine! The last post by Preston Long was a summary of constructive criticism of his own profession; it brought that message home to me much clearer than previous discussions on this blog (probably because it did not directly concern me) and, after some reflection, I realised that apologists of alternative medicine have developed five distinct strategies to avoid progress that otherwise might develop from criticism (alright, these strategies do exist in other fields too, but I think that many of the comments on this blog demonstrate that they are particularly evident in alternative medicine).
IGNORE
We could also call this method ‘The Prince of Wales Technique of Avoiding Progress’ because HRH is famous for making statements ‘ex cathedra’ without ever defending them or facing his critics or allowing others to directly challenge him. When he advocated the Gerson diet for cancer, for instance, Prof Baum challenged him in an open letter asking him to use his influence more wisely. Like with all other criticism directed to him, he decided to ignore it. This strategy is a safe bet for stalling progress and it has the added advantage that it does not require anything other than ignorance.
BLUFF
As it requires some basic understanding of the issues at hand, this method is a little more demanding. You need to look closely at the criticism and subsequently shoot holes in it. If you cannot find any, invent some. For instance, you might state that your critic misquoted the evidence. Very few people will bother to read up the original data, and you are likely to get away even with fairly obvious lies. To beef your response up a bit, pretend that there is plenty of good evidence demonstrating exactly the opposite of what your critic has said. If asked to provide actual references or sources for your claims, don’t listen. An extreme example of the bluff-method is to sue your critic for libel – but be careful, this can backfire in a major way!
INVALIDATE
A very popular method is to claim that the critic is not actually competent to criticise. The discussion of Long’s post demonstrated that technique in a classic fashion. His detractors argued that he was a failed chiropractor who had an axe to grind and thus had no right to criticise chiropractic (“Preston H Long you are a disgrace to the chiropractic profession…take off your chiropractic hat, you dont deserve to wear it. YOU sir are a shame and a folly!!”). Of course, you need to be a bit simple in order to agree with this type of logic, but lots of people seem to be just that!
BLAME
Even more popular is the blame-game. It involves arguing that, ok not all is rosy on your side of the fence, but the other side is so, so much worse. Before they dare to challenge you, they should look at their own mess; and while it is not sorted, they must simply shut up. For instance, if the criticism is that chiropractors have put hundreds of their patients into wheelchairs with their neck-manipulations, you must point out that doctors with their nasty drugs are much, much worse (“Long discounts the multitudes that chiropractic has… saved from dangerous drugs and surgery. As far as risks of injury from seeing a chiropractor vs. medicine, all one needs to do is compare malpractice insurance rates to see that insurance carriers rate medicine as an exponentially more dangerous undertaking”). Few people will realise that this is a fallacy and that the risks of any therapy must be seen in relation to its potential benefits.
ATTACK
When criticised, you are understandably annoyed; most people will therefore forgive you calling your critic names which are not normally used in polite circles (“who is this idiot, who wouldnt know the first thing about chiropractic”). Ad hominem attacks are the last resort of apologists of alternative medicine which emerges with depressing regularity when they have run out of rational arguments; they are signs of victories of reason over unreason. In the case of those chiropractors who were unable to stomach Long’s critique, the insults were coming thick and fast. The reason for only very few being visible is quite simple: I often delete the worst excesses of such primitive reactions.
The following is a guest post by Preston H. Long. It is an excerpt from his new book entitled ‘Chiropractic Abuse—A Chiropractor’s Lament’. Preston H. Long is a licensed chiropractor from Arizona. His professional career has spanned nearly 30 years. In addition to treating patients, he has testified at about 200 trials, performed more than 10,000 chiropractic case evaluations, and served as a consultant to several law enforcement agencies. He is also an associate professor at Bryan University, where he teaches in the master’s program in applied health informatics. His new book is one of the very few that provides an inside criticism of chiropractic. It is well worth reading, in my view.
Have you ever consulted a chiropractor? Are you thinking about seeing one? Do you care whether your tax and health-care dollars are spent on worthless treatment? If your answer to any of these questions is yes, there are certain things you should know.
1. Chiropractic theory and practice are not based on the body of knowledge related to health, disease, and health care that has been widely accepted by the scientific community.
Most chiropractors believe that spinal problems, which they call “subluxations,” cause ill health and that fixing them by “adjusting” the spine will promote and restore health. The extent of this belief varies from chiropractor to chiropractor. Some believe that subluxations are the primary cause of ill health; others consider them an underlying cause. Only a small percentage (including me) reject these notions and align their beliefs and practices with those of the science-based medical community. The ramifications and consequences of subluxation theory will be discussed in detail throughout this book.
2. Many chiropractors promise too much.
The most common forms of treatment administered by chiropractors are spinal manipulation and passive physiotherapy measures such as heat, ultrasound, massage, and electrical muscle stimulation. These modalities can be useful in managing certain problems of muscles and bones, but they have little, if any, use against the vast majority of diseases. But chiropractors who believe that “subluxations” cause ill health claim that spinal adjustments promote general health and enable patients to recover from a wide range of diseases. The illustrations below reflect these beliefs. The one to the left is part of a poster that promotes the notion that periodic spinal “adjustments” are a cornerstone of good health. The other is a patient handout that improperly relates “subluxations” to a wide range of ailments that spinal adjustments supposedly can help. Some charts of this type have listed more than 100 diseases and conditions, including allergies, appendicitis, anemia, crossed eyes, deafness, gallbladder problems, hernias, and pneumonia.
A 2008 survey found that exaggeration is common among chiropractic Web sites. The researchers looked at the Web sites of 200 chiropractors and 9 chiropractic associations in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Each site was examined for claims suggesting that chiropractic treatment was appropriate for asthma, colic, ear infection/earache/otitis media, neck pain, whiplash, headache/migraine, and lower back pain. The study found that 95% of the surveyed sites made unsubstantiated claims for at least one of these conditions and 38% made unsubstantiated claims for all of them.1 False promises can have dire consequences to the unsuspecting.
3. Our education is vastly inferior to that of medical doctors.
I rarely encountered sick patients in my school clinic. Most of my “patients” were friends, students, and an occasional person who presented to the student clinic for inexpensive chiropractic care. Most had nothing really wrong with them. In order to graduate, chiropractic college students are required to treat a minimum number of people. To reach their number, some resort to paying people (including prostitutes) to visit them at the college’s clinic.2
Students also encounter a very narrow range of conditions, most related to aches and pains. Real medical education involves contact with thousands of patients with a wide variety of problems, including many severe enough to require hospitalization. Most chiropractic students see patients during two clinical years in chiropractic college. Medical students also average two clinical years, but they see many more patients and nearly all medical doctors have an additional three to five years of specialty training before they enter practice.
Chiropractic’s minimum educational standards are quite low. In 2007, chiropractic students were required to evaluate and manage only 15 patients in order to graduate. Chiropractic’s accreditation agency ordered this number to increase to 35 by the fall of 2011. However, only 10 of the 35 must be live patients (eight of whom are not students or their family members)! For the remaining cases, students are permitted to “assist, observe, or participate in live, paper-based, computer-based, distance learning, or other reasonable alternative.”3 In contrast, medical students see thousands of patients.
Former National Council Against Health Fraud President William T. Jarvis, Ph.D., has noted that chiropractic school prepares its students to practice “conversational medicine”—where they glibly use medical words but lack the knowledge or experience to deal appropriately with the vast majority of health problems.4 Dr. Stephen Barrett reported a fascinating example of this which occurred when he visited a chiropractor for research purposes. When Barrett mentioned that he was recovering from an attack of vertigo (dizziness), the chiropractor quickly rattled off a textbook-like list of all the possible causes. But instead of obtaining a proper history and conducting tests to pinpoint a diagnosis, he x-rayed Dr. Barrett’s neck and recommended a one-year course of manipulations to make his neck more curved. The medical diagnosis, which had been appropriately made elsewhere, was a viral infection that cleared up spontaneously in about ten days.5
4. Our legitimate scope is actually very narrow.
Appropriate chiropractic treatment is relevant only to a narrow range of ailments, nearly all related to musculoskeletal problems. But some chiropractors assert that they can influence the course of nearly everything. Some even offer adjustments to farm animals and family pets.
5. Very little of what chiropractors do has been studied.
Although chiropractic has been around since 1895, little of what we do meets the scientific standard through solid research. Chiropractic apologists try to sound scientific to counter their detractors, but very little research actually supports what chiropractors do.
6. Unless your diagnosis is obvious, it’s best to get diagnosed elsewhere.
During my work as an independent examiner, I have encountered many patients whose chiropractor missed readily apparent diagnoses and rendered inappropriate treatment for long periods of time. Chiropractors lack the depth of training available to medical doctors. For that reason, except for minor injuries, it is usually better to seek medical diagnosis first.
7. We offer lots of unnecessary services.
Many chiropractors, particularly those who find “subluxations” in everyone, routinely advise patients to come for many months, years, and even for their lifetime. Practice-builders teach how to persuade people they need “maintenance care” long after their original problem has resolved. In line with this, many chiropractors offer “discounts” to patients who pay in advance and sign a contract committing them for 50 to 100 treatments. And “chiropractic pediatric specialists” advise periodic examinations and spinal adjustments from early infancy onward. (This has been aptly described as “womb to tomb” care.) Greed is not the only factor involved in overtreatment. Many who advise periodic adjustments are “true believers.” In chiropractic school, one of my classmates actually adjusted his newborn son while the umbilical cord was still attached. Another student had the school radiology department take seven x-rays of his son’s neck to look for “subluxations” presumably acquired during the birth process. The topic of unnecessary care is discussed further in Chapter 8.
8. “Cracking” of the spine doesn’t mean much.
Spinal manipulation usually produces a “popping” or “cracking” sound similar to what occurs when you crack your knuckles. Both are due to a phenomenon called cavitation, which occurs when there is a sudden decrease in joint pressure brought on by the manipulation. That allows dissolved gasses in the joint fluid to be released into the joint itself. Chiropractors sometimes state that the noise means that something therapeutic has taken place. However, the noise has no health-related significance and does not indicate that anything has been realigned. It simply means that gas was allowed to escape under less pressure than normal. Knuckles do not “go back into place” when you crack them, and neither do spinal bones.
9. If the first few visits don’t help you, more treatment probably won’t help.
I used to tell my patients “three and through.” If we did not see significant objective improvement in three visits, it was time to move on.
10. We take too many x-rays.
No test should be done unless it is likely to provide information that will influence clinical management of the patient. X-ray examinations are appropriate when a fracture, tumor, infection, or neurological defect is suspected. But they are not needed for evaluating simple mechanical-type strains, such as back or neck pain that develops after lifting a heavy object.
The average number of x-rays taken during the first visit by chiropractors whose records I have been asked to review has been about eleven. Those records were sent to me because an insurance company had flagged them for investigation into excessive billing, so this number of x-rays is much higher than average. But many chiropractors take at least a few x-rays of everyone who walks through their door.
There are two main reasons why chiropractors take more x-rays than are medically necessary. One is easy money. It costs about 35¢ to buy an 8- x 10-inch film, for which they typically charge $40. In chiropractic, the spine encompasses five areas: the neck, mid-back, low-back, pelvic, and sacral regions. That means five separate regions to bill for—typically three to seven views of the neck, two to six for the low back, and two for each of the rest. So eleven x-ray films would net the chiropractor over $400 for just few minutes of work. In many accident cases I have reviewed, the fact that patients had adequate x-ray examinations in a hospital emergency department to rule out fractures did not deter the chiropractor from unnecessarily repeating these exams.
Chiropractors also use x-ray examinations inappropriately for marketing purposes. Chiropractors who do this point to various things on the films that they interpret as (a) subluxations, (b) not enough spinal curvature, (c) too much spinal curvature, and/or (d) “spinal decay,” all of which supposedly call for long courses of adjustments with periodic x-ray re-checks to supposedly assess progress. In addition to wasting money, unnecessary x-rays entail unnecessary exposure to the risks of ionizing radiation.
11. Research on spinal manipulation does not reflect what takes place in most chiropractic offices.
Research studies that look at spinal manipulation are generally done under strict protocols that protect patients from harm. The results reflect what happens when manipulation is done on patients who are appropriately screened—usually by medical teams that exclude people with conditions that would make manipulation dangerous. The results do not reflect what typically happens when patients select chiropractors on their own. The chiropractic marketplace is a mess because most chiropractors ignore research findings and subject their patients to procedures that are unnecessary and/or senseless.
12. Neck manipulation is potentially dangerous.
Certain types of chiropractic neck manipulation can damage neck arteries and cause a stroke. Chiropractors claim that the risk is trivial, but they have made no systematic effort to actually measure it. Chapter 9 covers this topic in detail.
13. Most chiropractors don’t know much about nutrition.
Chiropractors learn little about clinical nutrition during their schooling. Many offer what they describe as “nutrition counseling.” But this typically consists of superficial advice about eating less fat and various schemes to sell you supplements that are high-priced and unnecessary.
14. Chiropractors who sell vitamins charge much more than it costs them.
Chiropractors who sell vitamins typically recommend them unnecessarily and charge two to three times what they pay for them. Some chiropractors center their practice around selling vitamins to patients. Their recommendations are based on hair analysis, live blood analysis, applied kinesiology muscle-testing or other quack tests that will be discussed later in this book. Patients who are victimized this way typically pay several dollars a day and are encouraged to stay on the products indefinitely. In one case I investigated, an Arizona chiropractor advised an 80+-year-old grandma to charge more than $10,000 for vitamins to her credit cards to avoid an impending stroke that he had diagnosed by testing a sample of her pubic hair. No hair test can determine that a stroke is imminent or show that dietary supplements are needed. Doctors who evaluated the woman at the Mayo Clinic found no evidence to support the chiropractor’s assessment.
15. Chiropractors have no business treating young children.
The pediatric training chiropractors receive during their schooling is skimpy and based mainly on reading. Students see few children and get little or no experience in diagnosing or following the course of the vast majority of childhood ailments. Moreover, spinal adjustment has no proven effectiveness against childhood diseases. Some adolescents with spinal stiffness might benefit from manipulation, but most will recover without treatment. Chiropractors who claim to practice “chiropractic pediatrics” typically aim to adjust spines from birth onward and are likely to oppose immunization. Some chiropractors claim they can reverse or lessen the spinal curvature of scoliosis, but there is no scientific evidence that spinal manipulation can do this.6
16. The fact that patients swear by us does not mean we are actually helping them.
Satisfaction is not the same thing as effectiveness. Many people who believe they have been helped had conditions that would have resolved without treatment. Some have had treatment for dangers that did not exist but were said by the chiropractor to be imminent. Many chiropractors actually take courses on how to trick patients to believe in them. (See Chapter 8)
17. Insurance companies don’t want to pay for chiropractic care.
Chiropractors love to brag that their services are covered by Medicare and most insurance companies. However, this coverage has been achieved though political action rather than scientific merit. I have never encountered an insurance company that would reimburse for chiropractic if not forced to do so by state laws. The political pressure to mandate chiropractic coverage comes from chiropractors, of course, but it also comes from the patients whom they have brainwashed.
18. Lots of chiropractors do really strange things.
The chiropractic profession seems to attract people who are prone to believe in strange things. One I know of does “aura adjustments” to treat people’s “bruised karma.” Another rents out a large crystal to other chiropractors so they can “recharge” their own (smaller) crystals. Another claims to get advice by “channeling” a 15th Century Scottish physician. Another claimed to “balance a woman’s harmonics” by inserting his thumb into her vagina and his index finger into her anus. Another treated cancer with an orange light that was mounted in a wooden box. Another did rectal exams on all his female patients. Even though such exams are outside the legitimate scope of chiropractic, he also videotaped them so that if his bills for this service were questioned, he could prove that he had actually performed what he billed for.
19. Don’t expect our licensing boards to protect you.
Many chiropractors who serve on chiropractic licensing boards harbor the same misbeliefs that are rampant among their colleagues. This means, for example, that most boards are unlikely to discipline chiropractors for diagnosing and treating imaginary “subluxations.”
20. The media rarely look at what we do wrong.
The media rarely if ever address chiropractic nonsense. Reporting on chiropractic is complicated because chiropractors vary so much in what they do. (In fact, a very astute observer once wrote that “for every chiropractor, there is an equal and opposite chiropractor.”) Consumer Reports published superb exposés in 1975 and 1994, but no other print outlet has done so in the past 35 years. This lack of information is the main reason I have written this book.
References
1. Ernst E, Gilbey A. Chiropractic claims in the English-speaking world. New Zealand Medical Journal 123:36–44, 2010.
2. Bernet J. Affidavit, April 12, 1996. Posted to Chirobase Web site.
3. Standards for Doctor of Chiropractic Programs and Requirements for Institutional Status. Council on Chiropractic Education, Scottsdale, Arizona, Jan 2007.
4. Jarvis WT. Why becoming a chiropractor may be risky. Chirobase Web site, October 5, 1999.
5. Barrett S. My visit to a “straight” chiropractor. Quackwatch Web site, Oct 10, 2002.
6. Romano M, Negrini S. Manual therapy as a conservative treatment for idiopathic scoliosis: A review. Scoliosis 3:2, 2008.
In 1747, James Lind conducted what may well be the first documented controlled clinical trial in the history of medicine. He treated a small group of healthy sailors with a range of different remedies to see whether one of these regimen might be effective in preventing scurvy. The results showed that lemon and lime juice – effectively vitamin C – did the trick. This trial changed the world: it saved tens of thousands of lives, gave Britain the advantage at sea needed to become a dominant empire, and set medicine on the track to eventually become evidence-based.
Of course, Lind did not know that the effective principle in his lemon/lime juice was vitamin C. The Hungarian physiologist Albert Szent-Gyorgyi discovered vitamin C only ~200 years later and received the Nobel Prize for it in 1937. Since then, research has been buoyant, and vitamin C has been advocated for almost every condition one can think of. Looking at some of the claims made for it, I get the impression that more charlatans have jumped on the vitamin C band-waggon than the old vehicle can support. In alternative medicine, high-dose IV vitamin C is a popular variation of Lind’s concept, not least for the treatment of cancer.
Researchers from the NIH in the US surveyed attendees at annual CAM Conferences in 2006 and 2008, and determined sales of intravenous vitamin C by major U.S. manufacturers/distributors. They also queried practitioners for adverse effects, compiled published cases, and analyzed FDA’s Adverse Events Database. Of 199 survey respondents (out of 550), 172 practitioners had administered IV vitamin C to 11,233 patients in 2006 and to 8876 patients in 2008. The average dose was 28 grams every 4 days, with a mean of 22 treatments per patient. Estimated yearly doses used (as 25g/50ml vials) were 318,539 in 2006 and 354,647 in 2008. Manufacturers’ yearly sales were 750,000 and 855,000 vials, respectively. Common reasons for treatment included infection, cancer, and fatigue. Of 9,328 patients for whom data was available, 101 had adverse effects, mostly minor, including lethargy/fatigue in 59 patients, change in mental status in 21 patients and vein irritation/phlebitis in 6 patients. Publications documented serious adverse events, including two deaths. The FDA Adverse Events Database was uninformative.
The authors of this paper conclude that high dose IV vitamin C is in unexpectedly wide use by CAM practitioners. Other than the known complications of IV vitamin C in those with renal impairment or glucose 6 phosphate dehydrogenase deficiency, high dose intravenous vitamin C appears to be remarkably safe. Physicians should inquire about IV vitamin C use in patients with cancer, chronic, untreatable, or intractable conditions and be observant of unexpected harm, drug interactions, or benefit.
I find these results somewhat worrying. Desperate cancer patients are constantly being told that they can fight the disease with high-dose vitamin C, for instance on the >9 million (!) websites on this subject. One site, for instance, leaves little doubt about the efficacy of vitamin C as a treatment for cancer: First shown to be a powerful anti-cancer agent in 1971, it wasn’t until 20 years later that vitamin C started to be accepted by the mainstream medical profession. Eating a vitamin C-rich diet substantially reduces the risk of cancer, and high intakes – above 5000mg a day (the equivalent of 100 oranges) – substantially increases the life expectancy of cancer patients.
Statements like this one give false hope to cancer patients which is unethical and cruel and might hasten the death of many. The reality is quite different and provides little reason for such hope. Here are just a few conclusions from recent scientific analyses on this or closely related topics:
The question whether the regular intake of high doses of vitamin C have a preventative effect for certain cancers is currently open. But there is no good reason to suggest that high dose IV vitamin C is an effective treatment for any cancer. To pretend otherwise, as so many alternative practitioners seem to do, is less than responsible – in fact, it is a hallmark for cancer quackery.
This post was inspired by a shiatsu-practitioner who recently commented on this blog. As I have not yet written a post about shiatsu, I think this might be a good occasion to do so. On one of the websites of the said practitioner – who claimed to have such amazing powers that he “would be locked up or worse“, if he made them public – explains that Shiatsu is a form of natural healing therapy that promotes health through finger pressure along energy meridians or channels – like acupuncture but with no needles and all your clothes on. Shiatsu is a combination of ancient theories of oriental medicine and ‘energy’, with modern knowledge of anatomy and physiology. Shiatsu originated in Japan where it is officially recognised and parents teach their children to treat them. Shiatsu is one of the fastest growing areas of complementary therapy in the UK. Shiatsu is safe and non-invasive. Shiatsu is a holistic therapy which means your whole body is treated. Work on your energy channels promotes well-being at the physical and emotional levels and stimulates your natural self-healing processes. The application of pressure and gentle stretching helps relieve muscle tension, joint stiffness and to realign body structures. Contact with the energy pathways helps to correct imbalance in the functioning of internal organs and to re-balance the effects of emotional disturbance. You don’t have to be ill to enjoy Shiatsu, many people enjoy it simply because it is deeply relaxing.
I also looked up another of his websites and found that he claims to treat the following conditions:
- Anger Management
- Anxiety and Stress
- Arthritis
- Back pain
- Bipolar disorder
- Breathing/respiratory problems
- Cancer
- Confidence issues
- Depression
- Digestive Disorders
- Eating Disorders
- Eczema
- Emotional Issues
- Fears and Phobias
- Headache
- Indigestion
- Infertility
- Insomnia
- Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS)
- Joint Pain
- Low energy/Lethargy
- Low Self-Esteem
- ME/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome
- Migraine
- Muscular Tension
- Nausea and sickness
- Nightmares
- Obesity
- Pain
- Panic Attacks
- Sciatica
- Sexual problems
- Sinus problems
- Skin conditions
- Sleeping problems
- Social anxiety disorder
- Spiritual Issues
- Stiffness/Tension
- Weight problems
Impressed by this list, I looked at similar sites and found that such extravagant claims seem more the rule than the exception in the world of shiatsu. Such therapeutic claims came as a big surprise to me: the last time we reviewed the evidence, we had concluded: NO CONVINCING DATA AVAILABLE TO SUGGEST THAT SHIATSU IS EFFECTIVE FOR ANY CONDITION.
But that was 5 years ago; perhaps there have been major advances since? To find out, I did a quick Medline search and – BINGO! – found a recent systematic review entitled “The evidence for Shiatsu: a systematic review of Shiatsu and acupressure“. It was authored by proponents of this therapy and can therefore not be suspected to be riddled with ‘anti-shiatsu bias’ (I just love the give-away title THE EVIDENCE FOR SHIATSU….!). These authors found that “Shiatsu studies comprised 1 RCT, three controlled non-randomised, one within-subjects, one observational and 3 uncontrolled studies investigating mental and physical health issues. Evidence was of insufficient quantity and quality” The only RCT included in their review was not actually a study of shiatsu but of a complex mixture of treatments including shiatsu for back and neck pain. No significant effects compared to standard care were identified in this study.
So, what does that tell us about shiatsu? It clearly tells us that it is an unproven therapy. And what does that say about shiatsu-practitioners who make multiple claims about treating serious conditions? I think I can leave it to my readers to answer this question.
Yet another celebration!
Precisely one year ago today, I posted the first article on this blog. At the time, I had little inkling of what it might mean to have my own blog. It was a friend who put me up to it and very kindly helped me setting it all up. I had my doubts that I would enjoy doing this – but life is full of surprises; as it turned out, I do enjoy it tremendously.
Within one year, I have posted over 160 articles – that is almost one every second day – which generated in excess of 4000 comments. The blog now attracts about 600-1000 visitors per day and is regularly mentioned elsewhere. I don’t know how to measure the success of a blog but, I guess, these figures do not exactly indicate failure.
Am I perhaps a bit of a masochist to do all this? I certainly got challenged, attacked and insulted left, right and centre by some of my readers. But that’s part of the fun and it also makes an important point: fanatics will regularly resort to ad hominem attacks when they lack rational arguments (which they often do). But I do not think that I am a masochist; I hope I have other reasons for writing this blog; and I have tried to put them into words in one of my posts.
This first anniversary is, I think, foremost an occasion for a big THANK YOU. First of all, thanks to the friend who helped me setting up the blog and who guided me through all the difficulties and worries that followed. I also want to thank all the commentators; I know you are not all in agreement with me, but debate and differences of views are the engine that drives progress; so please keep your critical comments coming. I furthermore thank my guest-bloggers for their excellent contributions and hope we will see more of them.
And finally, perhaps even foremost, I need to thank those in the field of alternative medicine who provide me with more than enough bogus claims, implausible notions, fanatic beliefs, weird concepts etc.; this enables me to find ample material to continue writing critical analyses for a life-time.
THANK YOU ALL.
As I write these words, I am travelling back from a medical conference. The organisers had invited me to give a lecture which I concluded saying: “anyone in medicine not believing in evidence-based health care is in the wrong business”. This statement was meant to stimulate the discussion and provoke the audience who were perhaps just a little on the side of those who are not all that taken by science.
I may well have been right, because, in the coffee break, several doctors disputed my point; to paraphrase their arguments: “You don’t believe in the value of experience, you think that science is the way to know everything. But you are wrong! Philosophers and other people, who are a lot cleverer than you, tell us that science is not the way to real knowledge; and in some forms of medicine we have a wealth of experience which we cannot ignore. This is at least as important as scientific knowledge. Take TCM, for instance, thousands of years of tradition must mean something; in fact it tells us more than science will ever be able to. Qi-energy, for instance, is a concept based on experience, and science is useless at verifying it.”
I disagreed, of course. But I am afraid that I did not convince my colleagues. The appeal to tradition is amazingly powerful, so much so that even well-seasoned physicians fall for it. Yet it nevertheless is a fallacy, I am sure.
So what does experience tell us, how is it generated and why should it be unreliable?
On the level of the individual, experience emerges when a clinician makes similar observations several times in a row. This is so persuasive that few doctors are immune to the phenomenon. Let’s assume the experience is about acupuncture, more precisely about acupuncture for smoking cessation. The acupuncturist presumably has learnt during his training that his therapy works for that indication via stimulating the flow of Qi, and promptly tries it on several patients. Some of them come back for more and report that they find it easier to give up cigarettes after consulting him. This happens repeatedly, and our clinician forthwith is convinced – in fact, he knows – that acupuncture is effective for smoking cessation.
If we critically analyse this scenario, what does it tell us? It tells us very little of relevance, I am afraid. The scenario is entirely compatible with a whole host of explanations which have nothing to do with the effects of acupuncture per se:
- Those patients who did not manage to stop smoking might not have returned. Only seeing his successes without his failures, the acupuncturist would have got the wrong end of the stick.
- Human memory is selective such that the few patients who did come back and reported failure might easily get forgotten by the clinician. We all remember the good things and forget the disappointments, particularly if we are clinicians.
- The placebo-effect might have played a dirty trick on the experience of our acupuncturist.
- Some patients might have used nicotine patches that helped him to stop smoking without disclosing this fact to the acupuncturist who then, of course, attributed the benefit to his needling.
- The acupuncturist – being a very kind and empathetic clinician – might have involuntarily induced some of his patients to show kindness in return and thus tell porkies about their smoking habits which would have created a false positive impression about the effectiveness of his treatment.
- Being so empathetic, the acupuncturists would have provided lots of encouragement to stop smoking which, in some patients, might have been sufficient to kick the habit.
The long and short of all this is that our acupuncturist gradually got convinced by this interplay of factors that Qi exists and that acupuncture is an ineffective treatment. Hence forth he would bet his last shirt that he is right about this – after all, he has seen it with his own eyes, not just once but many times. And he will doubt anyone who shows him evidence that says otherwise. In fact, he is likely become very sceptical about scientific evidence in general – just like the doctors who talked to me after my lecture.
On a population level, such experience will be prevalent in not just one but most acupuncturists. Our clinician’s experience is certainly not unique; others will have made it too. In fact, as an acupuncturist, it is hard not to make it. Acupuncturists would have told everyone else about it, perhaps reported it on conferences or published it in articles or books. Experience of this nature is passed on from generation to generation, and soon someone will be able to demonstrate that acupuncture has been used ’effectively’ for smoking cessation since decades or centuries. The creation of a myth out of unreliable experience is thus complete.
Am I saying that experience of this nature is always and necessarily wrong or useless? No, I am not. It can be and often is correct. But, at the same time, it is frequently incorrect. It can serve as a valuable indicator but not more. Experience is not a tool for reliably informing us about the effectiveness of medical interventions. Experience based-medicine is an obsolete pseudo-medicine burdened with concepts that are counter-productive to optimal health care.
Philosophers and other people who are much cleverer than I am have been trying for some time to separate good from bad science and evidence from experience. Most recently, two philosophers, MASSIMO PIGLIUCCI and MAARTEN BOUDRY, commented specifically on this problem in relation to TCM. I leave you with some extensive quotes from what they wrote.
… pointing out that some traditional Chinese remedies (like drinking fresh turtle blood to alleviate cold symptoms) may in fact work, and therefore should not be dismissed as pseudoscience… risks confusing the possible effectiveness of folk remedies with the arbitrary theoretical-metaphysical baggage attached to it. There is no question that some folk remedies do work. The active ingredient of aspirin, for example, is derived from willow bark…
… claims about the existence of “Qi” energy, channeled through the human body by way of “meridians,” though, is a different matter. This sounds scientific, because it uses arcane jargon that gives the impression of articulating explanatory principles. But there is no way to test the existence of Qi and associated meridians, or to establish a viable research program based on those concepts, for the simple reason that talk of Qi and meridians only looks substantive, but it isn’t even in the ballpark of an empirically verifiable theory.
…the notion of Qi only mimics scientific notions such as enzyme actions on lipid compounds. This is a standard modus operandi of pseudoscience: it adopts the external trappings of science, but without the substance.
…The notion of Qi, again, is not really a theory in any meaningful sense of the word. It is just an evocative word to label a mysterious force of which we do not know and we are not told how to find out anything at all.
Still, one may reasonably object, what’s the harm in believing in Qi and related notions, if in fact the proposed remedies seem to help? Well, setting aside the obvious objections that the slaughtering of turtles might raise on ethical grounds, there are several issues to consider. To begin with, we can incorporate whatever serendipitous discoveries from folk medicine into modern scientific practice, as in the case of the willow bark turned aspirin. In this sense, there is no such thing as “alternative” medicine, there’s only stuff that works and stuff that doesn’t.
Second, if we are positing Qi and similar concepts, we are attempting to provide explanations for why some things work and others don’t. If these explanations are wrong, or unfounded as in the case of vacuous concepts like Qi, then we ought to correct or abandon them. Most importantly, pseudo-medical treatments often do not work, or are even positively harmful. If you take folk herbal “remedies,” for instance, while your body is fighting a serious infection, you may suffer severe, even fatal, consequences.
…Indulging in a bit of pseudoscience in some instances may be relatively innocuous, but the problem is that doing so lowers your defenses against more dangerous delusions that are based on similar confusions and fallacies. For instance, you may expose yourself and your loved ones to harm because your pseudoscientific proclivities lead you to accept notions that have been scientifically disproved, like the increasingly (and worryingly) popular idea that vaccines cause autism.
Philosophers nowadays recognize that there is no sharp line dividing sense from nonsense, and moreover that doctrines starting out in one camp may over time evolve into the other. For example, alchemy was a (somewhat) legitimate science in the times of Newton and Boyle, but it is now firmly pseudoscientific (movements in the opposite direction, from full-blown pseudoscience to genuine science, are notably rare)….
The borderlines between genuine science and pseudoscience may be fuzzy, but this should be even more of a call for careful distinctions, based on systematic facts and sound reasoning. To try a modicum of turtle blood here and a little aspirin there is not the hallmark of wisdom and even-mindedness. It is a dangerous gateway to superstition and irrationality
I regularly used to ask alternative practitioners what diseases they are good at treating. In fact, we once ran an entire research project dedicated to this question and found that their own impressions were generally based on wishful thinking rather than on evidence. The libel case of the BCA versus Simon Singh then brought this issue into the focus of the public eye, and consequently several professional organisations of alternative practitioners seem to have advised their members to be cautious about making unsubstantiated therapeutic claims. This could have been an important step into the right direction – unless, of course, a clever trick had not been devised to bypass the need for evidence. Today, when I ask alternative practitioners ‘what do you treat effectively?’ I tend to get answers like:
- Alternative practitioners, unlike conventional clinicians, do not treat diseases.
- I treat the whole person, not just the disease.
- I treat people and their specific set of signs and symptoms, rather than disease labels (this actually is a quote from the comments section of one of my recent posts).
- I focus on the totality of the symptoms; disease labels are irrelevant in the realm of my therapy.
- Chiropractors adjust subluxations which are the root cause for most diseases.
- Acupuncturists re-balance life energies which is a precondition for healing to commence irrespective of the disease.
- Homeopaths treat the totality of symptoms so that the patient’s vital force can do the healing.
- etc. etc.
All of these statements are deeply rooted in the long obsolete notions of vitalism, i.e. the assumption that a vital energy flows in all living organisms and is responsible for our health irrespective of the disease we happen to suffer from. But what do the answers to my question ‘what do you treat?’ really mean? If we analyse the above responses critically, they seem to imply that:
- Conventional clinicians do not treat patients but merely disease labels.
- Alternative practitioners can successfully treat any disease or condition.
Ad 1 In my view, it is arrogant and grossly unfair to claim that alternative practitioners work holistically, while conventional health care professionals do not. I have pointed out repeatedly that any good medicine always has been and always will be holistic. High-jacking holism as a specific characteristic for alternative medicine is misleading and an insult to all conventional clinicians who do their best to practice good medicine.
Ad 2 By claiming that they treat the whole person irrespective of her disease, alternative practitioners effectively try to give themselves a ‘carte blanche’ for treating any disease or any condition or any symptom. If a child has asthma, a chiropractor will find a subluxation, adjust it with spinal manipulation, and claim that the child’s condition will improve as a consequence of his treatment – NEVER MIND THE EVIDENCE. If a person wants to give up smoking, an acupuncturist will use acupuncture to re-balance her yin and yang claiming that this intervention will make smoking cessation more successful – NEVER MIND THE EVIDENCE. If a patient suffers from cancer, a homeopath might find a remedy that promotes her vital energy claiming that the cancer will subsequently be cured – NEVER MIND THE EVIDENCE which in all of the three cases is negative.
The claim of alternative practitioners to not treat disease labels but the whole patient is doubtlessly attractive to consumers and it is also extremely good for business. On closer inspection, however, it turns out to be a distraction from the fact that alternative practitioners treat everything and anything, usually without the slightest evidence that their interventions generates more good than harm. It allows alternative practitioners to live in a fool’s paradise of quackery where they believe themselves to be protected from any challenges and demands for evidence.
One cannot very well write a blog about alternative medicine without giving full credit to the biggest and probably most determined champion of quackery who ever hugged a tree. Prince Charles certainly has done more than anyone else I know to let unproven treatments infiltrate real medicine. To honour his unique achievements, I am here presenting a fictitious interview with him. It never did take place, of course, and the questions I put to him are pure imagination. However, the ‘answers’ are in a way quite real: they have been taken unaltered from various speeches he made and articles he wrote. To avoid being accused of using dodgy sources which might have quoted him inaccurately or sympathetically, I have exclusively used HRH’s very own official website as a source for his comments. It seems safe to assume that HRH identifies with them more fully than with the many other statements he made on this subject.
I have not changed a single word in his statements and I have tried to avoid quoting him out of context; I did, however, take the liberty of putting sentences side by side which do not always originate from the same speech or article, i.e. I have used quotes from different communications to appear as though they originally were in sequence. It will be clear from the text that the fictitious interview is dated before Charles’ Foundation folded because of money laundering and fraud.
It is, of course, hugely tempting to comment on the various statements by Charles. However, I have resisted this temptation; I wanted the reader to enjoy his wisdom in its pure and unadulterated beauty. Anyone who feels like it will have plenty of opportunity to post comments, if they so wish.
To make clear what is what, my questions appear in italics, while his ‘answers’ are in Roman typeface.
Q I believe you have no training in science or medicine; yet you have long felt yourself expert enough to champion bizarre forms of therapies which many of our readers might call quackery.
As you know by now, this is an area to which I attach the greatest importance and where I have tried to make a particular contribution. For many years, the NHS has found complementary medicine an uncomfortable bedfellow – at best regarded as ‘fringe’ and in some quarters as ‘quack’; never viewed as a substitute for conventional medicine and rarely as a genuine partner in providing therapy.
I look back to the rather “lukewarm” response I received in 1983 as President of the British Medical Association when I first spoke about integration and complementary and alternative medicine. We have clearly travelled a very long way since that time.
Q Alternative medicine is mainly used by those who can afford it; at present, little of it is available on the NHS. Why do you want to change this situation?
The very popularity of non-conventional approaches suggests that people are either dissatisfied with the kind of orthodox treatment they are receiving, or find genuine relief in such therapies. Whatever the case, it is only reasonable to try to identify the factors that are contributing to their increased use. And if advantages are found, clearly they should not be limited only to those people who can pay, but should be made more widely available on the NHS.
Q If with a capital “I”?
I believe it is because complementary and alternative approaches to healthcare bring a different emphasis to bear which often unlocks an individual’s inner resources to aid recovery or help to manage living with a serious chronic illness. It is also because complementary and alternative therapies often offer more effective and less intrusive ways of treating illness.
Q Really? Are you sure that they are more effective that conventional treatments? What is your evidence for that?
In 1997 the Foundation for Integrated Medicine, of which I am the president and founder, identified research and development based on rigorous scientific evidence as one of the keys to the medical establishment’s acceptance of non-conventional approaches. I believed then, as I do now, that the move to a more integrated provision of healthcare would ultimately benefit patients and their families.
Q But belief is hardly a good substitute for evidence. In this context, it is interesting to note that chiropractors and osteopaths received the same status as doctors and nurses in the UK. Is this another of your achievements? Was it based on belief or on evidence?
True healing is a synergy that comes not by courtesy of a medical diploma.
Q What do you mean?
As we know, the professions of Osteopathy and Chiropractice are now regulated in the same way as doctors and dentists, with their own Acts of Parliament. I’m very proud to have played a tiny role in trying to push for that Act of Parliament over the years. It has also been reassuring to see the progress being made by the other main complementary professions and I look forward to the further development of regulatory frameworks enabling high standards of training, clinical practice and professional behaviour.
Q Some might argue that statutory regulation made them not more professional but merely improved their status and thus prevented asking question about evidence. Why did they need to be regulated in that way?
The House of Lord’s Select Committee Report on Complementary and Alternative Medicine in 2000, quite sensibly recommended that only complementary professions which were statutorily regulated, or which had well-established arrangements for voluntary self-regulation, should be made available through the NHS.
Q Integrated healthcare seems to be your new buzz-word, what does it mean? Is it more than a passing fad?
Integrated Healthcare is, I believe, here to stay. The public want it and need it. It is not a takeover of the orthodox by CAM or the other way around, but is rather the bringing together of the best from both for the ultimate benefit of the patient.
Q Your lobby-group, Foundation for Integrated Medicine, what has it ever done to justify its existence?
In 1997 the steering group of The Foundation for Integrated Medicine (FIM), of which I am proud to be president, published a discussion document ‘Integrated Healthcare – A Way Forward for the Next Five Years?’
Q Sorry to interrupt, but if so many people are already using them, why do you feel compelled to promote unproven treatments even more? Why is ‘a way forward’ in promotion actually needed? Why did we need a lobby group like FIM?
Homoeopaths, osteopaths, reflexologists, acupuncturists, T’ai chi instructors, art therapists, chiropractors, herbalists and aromatherapists: these practitioners were working alongside NHS colleagues in acute hospitals, on children’s wards, in nursing homes and in particular in primary healthcare, in GP practices and health clinics up and down the country.
Q Exactly! Why then even more promotion of unproven treatments?
All well and good, perhaps, but if there are advantages in this approach, clearly they should not be limited only to those who can pay.
Q Yes, if again with a capital “I”, presumably . Anyway, do you believe these therapies should be tested like other treatments?
One of the obstacles always raised is that it is very difficult to trial complementary therapies in the rigorous randomised way that mainstream medicine deems to be the gold standard. This is ironic as there are, of course, un-evaluated orthodox practices which continue to be funded by the NHS.
Q Are you an expert on research methodology as well?
At the same time, we should be mindful that clinically controlled trials alone are not the only pre-requisites to apply a healthcare intervention. Consumer-based surveys can explore WHY people choose complementary and alternative medicine and tease out the therapeutic powers of belief and trust
These “rationalist selves” would be enormously relieved to see the effectiveness of these treatments proven through the “double-blind randomized controlled trial” – the gold-standard of medical research. However, we know that some complementary and alternative medicine disciplines (and indeed other forms of medical or surgical intervention) do not lend themselves to this research method.
Q Are you sure? This sounds like something someone who is ignorant of research methodology has told you.
… it has been suggested that we need a research method for complementary treatment that is, to use that awful expression, “fit for purpose”. Something that is entirely practical – what has been called “applied” research – which takes into account the whole person and the whole treatment as it is actually given in the surgery or the hospital. Something that might offer us a better idea of the cost-effectiveness of any given approach. It would also help to provide the right sort of evidence that health service commissioners require when they decide which services they wish to commission for their patients.
Q Hmm – anyway, would you promote unproven treatments even for serious conditions like cancer?
Two surveys have indicated that up to eighty per cent of cancer patients try alternative or complementary treatments at some stage following diagnosis and seventy-five per cent of patients would like to see complementary medicine available on the N.H.S.
Q Yes, but why the promotion?
There is a major role for complementary medicine in bowel cancer – as a support to more conventional approaches – in helping to prevent it through lifestyle changes, helping to boost our immune systems and in helping sufferers to come to terms with, and maintain, a sense of control over their own lives and wellbeing. My own Foundation For Integrated Medicine is, for example, involved in finding ways to integrate the best of complementary and alternative medicine.
Q And what do you understand by “the best”? In medicine, this term should mean “the most effective”, shouldn’t it?
Many cancer patients have turned to an integrated approach to managing their health, finding complementary therapies such as acupuncture, aromatherapy, reflexology and massage therapy extremely therapeutic. I know of one patient who turned to Gerson Therapy having been told that she was suffering from terminal cancer, and would not survive another course of chemotherapy. Happily, seven years later she is alive and well. So it is therefore vital that, rather than dismissing such experiences, we should further investigate the beneficial nature of these treatments.
Q Gerson? Is it ethical to promote an unproven starvation diet for cancer?
…many patients use and believe in Gerson Therapy, yet more evidence needs to be available as to who might benefit or what adverse effects there might be. But, surely, we need to take a wider view of the most appropriate types of research methodology – a wider view of what research will help patients.
Q You are a very wealthy man; will you put your own money into the research that you regularly demand?
Complementary medicine is gaining a toehold on the rockface of medical science.
Q I beg your pardon.
Complementary medicine’s toehold is literally that, and it’s an inescapable fact that clinical trials, of the calibre that medical science demands, cost money. Figures from the Department of Complementary Medicine at the University of Exeter show that less than 8p out of every £100 of NHS funds for medical research was spent on complementary medicine. In 1998-99 the Medical Research Council spent no money on it at all, and in 1999 only 0.05% of the total research budget of UK medical charities went to this area.
Q Hmm – Nature; you are very fond of all things natural, aren’t you?
The garden is designed to remind people of our interconnectedness with Nature and of the beneficial medicinal properties She provides through countless plants, flowers and trees. Throughout the 20th century so much ancient, accumulated, traditional wisdom has been thrown away – whether in the fields of medicine, architecture, agriculture or education. The baby was thrown out with the bathwater, so this garden is designed to bring the baby back again and to remind us of that priceless, traditional knowledge before we lose that rich store of Nature’s healing gifts for the benefit of our descendants.
When you think about it, what on earth is the point of throwing away our lifeline; of abandoning the priceless knowledge and wisdom accumulated over 1,000’s of years relating to the treatment of the human condition by natural means? It is sheer folly it seems to me to forget that we are a part of Nature and to imagine we can survive on this Earth as if we were merely a mechanical process divorced from, and in opposition to, the unity of the world around us.
Q …and herbalism?
Medical herbalists talk about ‘synergy’, the result of a complex mix of active ingredients in a plant that create a more powerful therapeutic effect together than if isolated. It’s a concept that has a wider application. As the 17th century poet John Donne famously wrote, “No man is an Island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the Continent, a part of the main.”
Q I am not sure I understand; what does that mean?
Medical herbalists, who make up their own preparations from combinations of fresh or dried plants, believe that this mix within individual herbs as well as in traditional mixtures of plant medicines creates what is called synergy, in which all the chemical components contribute to the remedy’s specific therapeutic effects.
At a time when farmers everywhere are struggling to make ends meet, the development of a natural pharmacy of organically grown herbs offers an alternative means of earning a living. Yet without protective measures, herbs are easily adulterated or their quality compromised.
Q …and homeopathy?
I went to open the new Glasgow Homeopathic Hospital for instance a couple of years ago, I met a whole lot of students who were studying homeopathy, I think, and I’ve never forgotten when they said to me ‘Are you interested in homeopathy’ and I thought – I don’t know, why do I bother?
Q And why exactly do you bother, if I may ask?
By allowing patients treatment choice, negative emotions can, in part, be alleviated. Many complementary practitioners provide time, empathy, hope and reassurance – skills that are referred to as the “human effect” – which can improve the confidence of cancer patients, alter mindsets and produce major positive changes in the immune system. As a result the “human effect” can greatly prolong life: it has been demonstrated that in a variety of cancers, such as breast cancer, that attitude of mind can not only raise the quality of life but in some cases can even prolong life. At the same time, we need specific treatments that are designed to improve the quality of patients’ lives, and to provide relief from the unpleasant symptoms of cancer – anxiety; pain; sleeplessness; skin irritation; poor appetite; nausea and depression, to name but a few.
Q At heart you seem to be a vitalist who believes in a vital force or energy that interconnects anything with everything and determines our health.
Research in the new field of psychoneuroimmunology – or mind-body medicine as it is sometimes called – is discovering that there is a constant interplay between our emotions, thoughts and actions and our body systems. It seems that the food we eat, the air we breathe, the exercise we take, our relationships with other people, all have a direct bearing on our health and natural healing processes. Complementary medicine has always known this and I believe it is one of the reasons for its enormous popularity.
Q Clarence House made several statements assuring the British public that you never overstep your constitutional role by trying to influence health politics; they were having us on, weren’t they?
A few days ago I launched an initiative to promote the provision of more complementary medicine in the NHS. For many years I have been working towards this goal.
Q Does that mean these statements were wrong?
I am convinced there is no better moment than now to create a real integration of our healthcare, particularly when there is talk of a Patient-Centred NHS. So much ill-health and disease is due to the misery, stress and alienation we see in our community.
The fish oil (FO) story began when a young Danish doctor noticed that there were no heart attacks in Greenland. Large epidemiological studies were initiated, mechanistic investigations followed, and a huge amount of fascinating data emerged. Today, we know more about FO than most other dietary supplements.
Fish oil contains large amounts of omega-3 fatty acids which are thought to be beneficial in treating hypertriglyceridemia, preventing heart disease. In addition, FO is often recommended for a wide variety of other conditions, such as cancer, depression, and macular degeneration. Perhaps the most compelling evidence exists in the realm of inflammatory diseases; the mechanism of action of FO is well-studied and includes powerful anti-inflammatory properties.
Australian rheumatologists just published a study of FO supplements for patients suffering from rheumatoid arthritis (RA). Specifically, they examined the effects of high versus low dose FO in early RA employing a ‘treat-to-target’ protocol of combination disease-modifying anti-rheumatic drugs (DMARDs).
Patients with chronic RA <12 months’ who were DMARD-naïve were enrolled and randomised 2:1 to FO at a high dose or plaacebo (low dose FO for masking). These groups were given 5.5 or 0.4 g/day, respectively, of eicosapentaenoic acid + docosahexaenoic acid. All patients received methotrexate (MTX), sulphasalazine and hydroxychloroquine, and DMARD doses were adjusted according to an algorithm taking disease activity and toxicity into account. DAS28-erythrocyte sedimentation rate, modified Health Assessment Questionnaire (mHAQ) and remission were assessed three monthly. The primary outcome measure was failure of triple DMARD therapy.
The results indicate that, the FO group, failure of triple DMARD therapy was lower (HR=0.28 (95% CI 0.12 to 0.63; p=0.002) unadjusted and 0.24 (95% CI 0.10 to 0.54; p=0.0006) following adjustment for smoking history, shared epitope and baseline anti–cyclic citrullinated peptide. The rate of first American College of Rheumatology (ACR) remission was significantly greater in the FO compared with the control group (HRs=2.17 (95% CI 1.07 to 4.42; p=0.03) unadjusted and 2.09 (95% CI 1.02 to 4.30; p=0.04) adjusted). There were no differences between groups in MTX dose, DAS28 or mHAQ scores, or adverse events.
The authors conclude that FO was associated with benefits additional to those achieved by combination ‘treat-to-target’ DMARDs with similar MTX use. These included reduced triple DMARD failure and a higher rate of ACR remission.
These findings are most encouraging, particularly as they collaborate those of systematic reviews which concluded that evidence is seen for a fairly consistent, but modest, benefit of marine n-3 PUFAs on joint swelling and pain, duration of morning stiffness, global assessments of pain and disease activity, and use of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs and …there is evidence from 6 of 14 randomized controlled trials supporting a favourable effect of n-3 LCP supplementation in decreasing joint inflammation in RA. And you don’t need to buy the supplements either; regularly eating lots of fatty fish like mackerel, sardine or salmon has the same effects.
So, here we have an alternative, ‘natural’, dietary supplement or diet that is supported by reasonably sound evidence for efficacy, that has very few adverse effects (the main one being contamination of the supplement with toxins), that generates a host of potentially useful effects on other organ systems, that is affordable, that has a plausible mechanism of action…. Hold on, I hear some people interrupting me, FO is not an alternative medicine, it is mainstream! Exactly, an alternative medicine that works is called….MEDICINE.
