Complimentary therapy

[Frank]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/a ... ge_id=1770


"It's very frustrating that senior responsible people dismiss complementary medicine for the sole reason that it doesn't have the definitive scientific proof that other drugs have.

"There is so much anecdotal evidence that thousands of people gain benefit from using complementary medicines. We shouldn't dismiss that."


It's been across alot of newspapers, but I wondered what the views of various Sinners are on stuff like that. The above quote is hopefully something to get folks going...a.k.a. "Just can't dismiss us because we don't have proof to prove anything with!"


I know my next door neighbour is quite convinced of the efficacy of acupuncture, and my mother swears by homeopathy, but I can't see for the life of me how any of them are any more practically useful than a massage or similar 'soothing' "therapy".

So, what's the thoughts?

[hr]

"There is only ever one truth. Things are always black or white, there's no such thing as a shade of grey. If you think that something is a shade of grey it simply means that you don't fully understand the situation. The truth is narrow and the path of the pursuit of truth is similarly narrow."
Also, some years later:
"here we are arguing about a few uppity troublemakers with a bee in their bonnet and a conspiracy theory."

[novium]

homeopathy is the one where they endlessly dilute something until the original ingredient isn't, or might as well not be, there, isn't it?

[hr]

Neither the storms of crisis, nor the breezes of ambition could ever divert him, either by hope or by fear, from the course that he had chosen

[Senethro]

The benefits of widespread inclusion of science in school curricula become immediately apparent.

[Frank]

Quoting novium from 16:29, 8th Nov 2007
homeopathy is the one where they endlessly dilute something until the original ingredient isn't, or might as well not be, there, isn't it?

[hr]

Neither the storms of crisis, nor the breezes of ambition could ever divert him, either by hope or by fear, from the course that he had chosen

Yes. That's the one. Two principles:
1- Like cures like
2- As diluted as possible = as best as possible

That is: If you're having allergies, you need some of that allergy-inducing stuff to be mixed up in some sort of remedy. But the remedy is diluted, alot. Alot. In the end your remedy is something extremely diluted. Not like a vaccine and weak/small amounts of the disease, but miniscule amounts such that you'd be lucky (or unlucky, I suppose) to find any trace of it in the final solution that your 'doctor' provides you.

Sure, if it works it works, I'm not one to argue (err...), but there's no supporting evidence (i.e. statistically sufficient experiments with large groups, suitable blinding measures, conducted openly and rigorously etc). Well, not that I have ever seen or heard of...

[hr]

"There is only ever one truth. Things are always black or white, there's no such thing as a shade of grey. If you think that something is a shade of grey it simply means that you don't fully understand the situation. The truth is narrow and the path of the pursuit of truth is similarly narrow."
Also, some years later:
"here we are arguing about a few uppity troublemakers with a bee in their bonnet and a conspiracy theory."

[Steveo]

Anecdotal evidence.

Sounds similar to the placebo effect to me.

If you think homeopathy works, trust me, you're probably mentally retarded. It's just that simple.

[hr]

Get off my internet.

[kiwi]

There's strong evidence that even placebos often have a positive effect... probably just because people become more positive and feel more in-control of their illness; and it's well-known that a positive attitude has huge benefits with most diseases.

The reason homeopathy works isn't known yet. There's a theory though that although the substance has been diluted to such a degree that not even a molecule of it will be present, there will be 'imprints' left in the water molecules which lead to the paradoxical good effect.

Possibly in 10/20 years we'll be able to see these imprints down microscopes just like we can with bigger things at the moment, but just because we're not sure isn't a reason to dismiss it...

[hr]

http://standrews.facebook.com/profile.php?id=37101695

[MaverickMenzies]

Quoting kiwi from 17:08, 8th Nov 2007
The reason homeopathy works isn't known yet. There's a theory though that although the substance has been diluted to such a degree that not even a molecule of it will be present, there will be 'imprints' left in the water molecules which lead to the paradoxical good effect.

Total crackpot science.

[Frank]

Quoting kiwi from 17:08, 8th Nov 2007
There's strong evidence that even placebos often have a positive effect... probably just because people become more positive and feel more in-control of their illness; and it's well-known that a positive attitude has huge benefits with most diseases.

The reason homeopathy works isn't known yet.

1) Would that effect be known as 'The Placebo Effect'?

2) Homeopathy works?

[hr]

"There is only ever one truth. Things are always black or white, there's no such thing as a shade of grey. If you think that something is a shade of grey it simply means that you don't fully understand the situation. The truth is narrow and the path of the pursuit of truth is similarly narrow."
Also, some years later:
"here we are arguing about a few uppity troublemakers with a bee in their bonnet and a conspiracy theory."

[exnihilo]

The amounts of the "active ingredient" in homeopathic treatments is so minute that if there was any sense to it at all we'd all be fit and healthy all the time simply from drinking water and breathing air - and yet my taxes are being used to fund hospitals specialising in this shit as a sop to the incredible ignorance of the public. In a nation full of idiots, democracy really is a mistake.

[David Bean]

Complimentary therapy is a wonderful idea - you just pay a bunch of people to tell you how great you are. Wonderful for the self esteem.

[hr]

Psalm 91:7

[DrAlex]

Quoting Frank from 16:26, 8th Nov 2007
I know my next door neighbour is quite convinced of the efficacy of acupuncture, and my mother swears by homeopathy, but I can't see for the life of me how any of them are any more practically useful than a massage or similar 'soothing' "therapy".

Regarding acupuncture, there's a characteristic of the nervous system called the fast/slow gate pain response. Basically, some impulses are transmitted faster to the brain than others (ever pulled your hand away from a hot water tap only to realise that it wasn't that hot?). Next time you have a headache, pinch yourself sharply for a few seconds. You won't notice your head. This system has been suggested as a possible mechanism for reported relief felt from acupuncture.

Regarding the placebo effect gained from alternative medicines, if the placebo effect gives very real relief to people suffering, why do (some of) you feel the need to pull the rug out from under them?

"Oooh this homoeopathic treatment really makes me feel better with these chemo side effects."
"You tool, it's all placebo effect, lolz. Stop feeling better. Your treatment's bad and you should feel bad."

There's something kind of mean spirited about that.

[hr]

The Sinner: Where no one ever learned "if you haven't got any thing nice to say, don't say anything at all."

[Gubbins]

As a scientist, the quote at the top makes me want to take the person who said it and give them a good hard academic-induced slap around the head.

That's not to say that, assuming complimentary therapy is a load of bollocks, it can't be useful. There is obviously something going on here that is making people feel better. If it's just the placebo effect (or whatever else), then we should see how we can replicate the same effect under patients not undergoing the same therapy: this might be an improvement in living conditions, councilling to provide a more positive outlook, etc.

Taking homeopathy as a particular example, it is easy to prove this can't be as simple as diluting things down to "imprint" things on water molecules. If you drop a cat hair into a river, this runs into the sea, broken down, and its component chemicals diluted throughout the world's water. It doesn't mean that when someone takes a drink of water, they're immediately cured of an allergy to cats. If there's anything at all in homeopathy, it must be more complicated than that.

[hr]

...then again, that is only my opinion.

[Gubbins]

Quoting DrAlex from 21:03, 8th Nov 2007
Regarding the placebo effect gained from alternative medicines, if the placebo effect gives very real relief to people suffering, why do (some of) you feel the need to pull the rug out from under them?

I think it's more a case of spending the money on other things and finding cheaper ways of giving them the same effect. I'm not suggesting giving patients a glass of tap water as their "homeopathic remedy", but you get my drift.

[hr]

...then again, that is only my opinion.

[Steveo]

Quoting DrAlex from 21:03, 8th Nov 2007
Regarding the placebo effect gained from alternative medicines, if the placebo effect gives very real relief to people suffering, why do (some of) you feel the need to pull the rug out from under them?

"Oooh this homoeopathic treatment really makes me feel better with these chemo side effects."
"You tool, it's all placebo effect, lolz. Stop feeling better. Your treatment's bad and you should feel bad."

There's something kind of mean spirited about that.

I'd be more than happy to leave it, were people paying for this 100% out of their own money, but the government funds this nonsense. As Dr Joss said, it's just not a good idea to have democracy with a population of idiots.

Essentially, be an idiot out of ones own pocket, not the public purse.

Quoting Gubbins from 21:06, 8th Nov 2007
If there's anything at all in homeopathy, it must be more complicated than that.

I'm more inclined to believe that, in fact, there is just nothing in it.

[hr]

Get off my internet.

[DrAlex]

Quoting MaverickMenzies from 17:32, 8th Nov 2007
Total crackpot science.

In the interest of playing Devil's advocate (long quote, I know, the main point is in the second paragraph):

That there is more to water than hydrogen and oxygen is something many researchers welcome. But Rustum Roy, a materials scientist at Pennsylvania State University in University Park goes further. He thinks it is time for a radical overhaul of the scientific view of water - one which, he believes, has been dominated by chemistry
her than water?

Roy believes this is too simplistic: "It is a naive, chemistry-schoolbook argument." He argues that water has proved itself capable of effects that go beyond simple chemistry, and these may imbue water with a memory. One way this may occur, he says, is through an effect known as epitaxy: using the atomic structure of one compound as a template to induce the same structure in others.
Hidden depths

Epitaxy is routinely used in the microprocessor industry to create perfect semiconductor crystals. And according to Roy, water already exhibits epitaxial effects. "The 'seeding' of clouds is the growth of crystalline ice on a substrate of silver iodide, which has the same crystal structure," he says. "No chemical transfer whatsoever occurs."

Roy and his colleagues also point to another effect they believe has been overlooked by mainstream scientists in their rush to dismiss homeopathy: the vigorous shaking of the mixtures used, a process called succussion. The team estimates that shock waves generated by the shaking can cause localised pressures inside the water to reach over 10,000 atmospheres, which may trigger fundamental changes in the properties of the water molecules.

Roy believes that by taking homeopathy seriously scientists may find out more about water's fundamental properties. "The problem is that much more research needs to be done to find the right techniques to probe the properties of water reliably," he says.

However, many scientists question the very idea of taking homeopathy seriously. The most recent review of the medical evidence found that homeopathic remedies were no better than a placebo in all but a handful of cases (Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine, vol 11, p 813). That is likely to put the brakes on research into this aspect of water. "Rigorous experiments need to be done to provide support for all scientific claims," says theoretical chemist David Clary at the University of Oxford. "I don't think it is worth spending time on this." Chemist Martin Chaplin of London South Bank University is more sympathetic: "I think there may be something in it, but we need good experiments - and the best researchers won't go near the subject."

The latest discoveries about the role of water in living processes may change that, however. After decades of research, Franks sums up his view of the simple little molecule we call H2O in terms that will put a smile on the face of New Age hippies everywhere: "It's the magic ingredient that turns lifeless powders on laboratory shelves into living things."

From issue 2546 of New Scientist magazine, 08 April 2006, page 32

[hr]

The Sinner: Where no one ever learned "if you haven't got any thing nice to say, don't say anything at all."

[Frank]

Quoting DrAlex from 21:13, 8th Nov 2007

Quoting MaverickMenzies from 17:32, 8th Nov 2007
Total crackpot science.

In the interest of playing Devil's advocate (long quote, I know, the main point is in the second paragraph):

Roy believes this is too simplistic: "It is a naive, chemistry-schoolbook argument." He argues that water has proved itself capable of effects that go beyond simple chemistry, and these may imbue water with a memory. One way this may occur, he says, is through an effect known as epitaxy: using the atomic structure of one compound as a template to induce the same structure in others.
Hidden depths

Epitaxy is routinely used in the microprocessor industry to create perfect semiconductor crystals. And according to Roy, water already exhibits epitaxial effects. "The 'seeding' of clouds is the growth of crystalline ice on a substrate of silver iodide, which has the same crystal structure," he says. "No chemical transfer whatsoever occurs."

Roy and his colleagues also point to another effect they believe has been overlooked by mainstream scientists in their rush to dismiss homeopathy: the vigorous shaking of the mixtures used, a process called succussion. The team estimates that shock waves generated by the shaking can cause localised pressures inside the water to reach over 10,000 atmospheres, which may trigger fundamental changes in the properties of the water molecules.

I've done a bit of study in complexity 'science' (I use 'science' not in an attempt to be derisive, but in that the study of complexity is extremely basic at present, and whilst a very legitimate field of academic interest, I would hesitate to call it science.

That is: The idea of effects reaching 'across the hierarchy' isn't at all unthinkable. There are many examples of self-organised criticality, well organised hierarchical structures, hell even the idea of scale-independent causation has been given a hearty breath of life (well deserved or not) with the advent of the likes of fractals and whatnot.

Anyway, my point is that things like epitaxy and cross-scale phenomenon (i.e. the local pressure argument above) are potentially extremely viable, but on the other hand they could be a load of hockum bullcrap. As a point of reference (how coincidental!): The Aether/Ether.

That is: it wasn't a completely ridiculous idea. Intuitively it makes sense to think of waves propagating in something. It came from something quite plausible, if a bit fanciful (but much of science is). The keen and absolutely overwhelmingly useful sieve to seperate it all out is simple experimentation. The scientific method is, basically, quite sound.

I imagine there are a great many 'fundamental issues' at which it breaks down, but that's because science isn't the be all and end all (at least not yet). Reason is exceptionally more useful in being and ending, I'd wager.

My point, however, is that all this complexity, epitaxy, cross-scale*

* I should explain this. I mean to say that microscopic phenomena, such as the extreme local pressures mentioned above, could go on to have macroscopic scale (i.e. our health) effects. Similarly, and more simply (and verifiably) is the idea that only a few certain interations between particles of certain small dimensions (the studies I saw were types of rice in 2D piles) can go on to induce significant effects at much larger scales: That is...an avalanche. (Quote Babylon 5 time, Ambassador Kosh says "The avalanche has already started. It is too late for the pebbles to vote")

Anyhow, I digress. Just because water, and many other substances, may posses these seemingly surprising effects (we're already becoming used to the idea of superconductivity, try explaining that to James Maxwell!), that is not to say that it is an excuse for permitting the likes of homeopathy to continue untested.

Vis: I think it is quite reprehensible that the NHS has not yet (to my knowledge, but my knowledge quite limited so this statement is more idealistic than strictly about what is happening right now) using a sizeable portion of its budget to research the efficacy of complementary medicines when instead it seems to be simply spending a sizeable portion of its budget on them without firm evidence.

Drug companies never get away with such lax research: Why then should herbal remedies, homeopathy and the like when both allegedly posses the same healing capacity? Why not the capacity for harm.

That is to say: Investigate it. If it works, fine, if not get out of here!

Anyhow, even then I digress.

Back on topic Re: Dr Alex and mean spiritedness

Of course, I think it's mean to say it the way you propose, but I doubt many people do it that way. I don't doubt, however, alot of people do go around telling people "Ah, it didn't actually work, you deluded yourself better!" (the existence of mean spiritedness in such a statement could be debated endlessely, I feel).

Anyhow, to the point: Is it not more mean spiritedness to promiss something you really know nothing about. If homeopathy is wrong, is it fair to have given people false hope of genuine recovery? Further, is it not somewhat mean spirited, or indeed condescending and perhaps reprehensible, to dupe them into feeling better?

The ethics of untested, alleged, fake or indeed uncertain-but-effective medicine is something I would imagine to be a hotbed for those interested.

A (slightly leading) question perhaps:


Assume the efficacy of homeopathy is nothing more than a placebo.

Is it fair that a MD in Homeopathy (or whatever the equivalent is) is paid and respected to the same degree as a physician who deals in actually verifiable medicines?

Anyhow, I've rambled way too much. I'll stop.

[hr]

"There is only ever one truth. Things are always black or white, there's no such thing as a shade of grey. If you think that something is a shade of grey it simply means that you don't fully understand the situation. The truth is narrow and the path of the pursuit of truth is similarly narrow."
Also, some years later:
"here we are arguing about a few uppity troublemakers with a bee in their bonnet and a conspiracy theory."

[Haunted]

The whole thing is just crap alchemy.
Richard Dawkins did a program about this on Channel 4 a while back (theres probably clips on youtube) and apparently the NHS is pouring £10m a year into this rubbish.

By all means spend your own money on whatever you want, but my taxes should not fund your feelgood newage pseudo bullshit.
Also, the idea that such alternative therapies are somehow legitimate science worthy of funding is appalling.

Water is H2O, thats it. Two hydrogens, one oxgen. Every water molecule is indistinguishable from every other because they are absolutely identical.

These people need to be stopped

[hr]

Now with 100% more corn

[Gubbins]

Quoting Haunted from 11:33, 9th Nov 2007
Water is H2O, thats it. Two hydrogens, one oxgen. Every water molecule is indistinguishable from every other because they are absolutely identical.

Well that's not entirely true, is it? Even in pure water, there are hydrogen and OH ions in roughly equal proportions, and there are also a number of isotopes of both hydrogen and oxygen. It's never quite as simple as it seems.

I agree with Frank - don't spend the money 'in case it works'; spend the money finding out whether/how it works, then spend it on improving people's health, if indeed it does.

Regarding mean spiritedness, is it really mean spirited to say: "No, you can't have £10m for this because there's no evidence it works. We're going to use to fund hip replacements instead."

[hr]

...then again, that is only my opinion.

[Haunted]

Ok yes there is heavy water and pH jazz but you know what I meant.

Found the clip about how dilute homeopathy medicines are
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8KbLHii8M2A

[hr]

Now with 100% more corn

[novium]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homeopathy ... _criticism

Quoting kiwi from 17:08, 8th Nov 2007
There's strong evidence that even placebos often have a positive effect... probably just because people become more positive and feel more in-control of their illness; and it's well-known that a positive attitude has huge benefits with most diseases.

The reason homeopathy works isn't known yet. There's a theory though that although the substance has been diluted to such a degree that not even a molecule of it will be present, there will be 'imprints' left in the water molecules which lead to the paradoxical good effect.

Possibly in 10/20 years we'll be able to see these imprints down microscopes just like we can with bigger things at the moment, but just because we're not sure isn't a reason to dismiss it...

[hr]

http://standrews.facebook.com/profile.php?id=37101695

[hr]

Neither the storms of crisis, nor the breezes of ambition could ever divert him, either by hope or by fear, from the course that he had chosen