our medical system treats symptoms

[norral]

and thats all it treats . it doesnt cure anything. diet has to be a foundation of healing. i have a friend at work who is over acidic. i have shared with him info about alkalizing the body. he went to the hospital and what do they give him , maalox. that isnt going to cure anything. health imo is centered around diet and exercise . the medical system doesnt really address that and isnt interested in addressing it.

norral

[reeay]

That's mainly secondary and tertiary care of the medical system (dealing with symptoms) because the person is already sick upon entering the health system, if they choose to go that western medicine route. Some of the healthiest countries have very active and effective primary care systems (more preventative) and practice a holistic approach to health that integrates programs for physiological, social, and psychological well being.

[norral]

i was wondering about the scandanavian countries their approach to health. i would imagine its probably pretty integrated but i dont know.
the most holistic system i have seen is traditional chinese medicine. it combines herbs diet and exercise and seems to be very effective. the elderly chinese seem to be healthier than say elderly americans. of course it also gets down to personal choice. i find diet is one of the most difficult things for people to change. we , as humans, get a lot of comfort from food and it is hard to let that go .

norral

[Marc]

Just change the food that makes make us confortable to other better foods and they'll make you comfortable. I eat a lot... But only on a whole foods plant based diet, and within 2 months of being on it I lost 20lbs automatically and feel great. At work I bring the most food with me and a ton of snacks (fruit, carrots, homemade hummus..) and I eat as much as I'd like and still feel great and healthy. It's not about quantity as much as quality.

[Monica]

We don't have a healthcare system in the US. We have a trauma and disease management system, which is a huge, multi-billion (trillion?) $$ industry that views sick people in terms of profit.

Note: I'm referring to the medical mafia, the pharmaceutical drug cartel, not the individuals working in the industry, who, for the most part, are well-intentioned.

[Guardian]

Less than 2% of the 4 billion dollar national cancer institute budget goes towards preventing cancer. The rest goes to subsidizing private pharmaceutical trials. The corruption is beyond ridiculous.

[reeay]

I think the entire society needs to shift to become a more health-oriented and holistically oriented (as supposed to problem/sickness oriented)... so change the way we think about our bodies, our self, our way of life.

[zenmaster]

Just be very glad that the new agers aren't treating the sick.

[reeay]

I think they are.

[zenmaster]

I think they are.

As in hospitals. There would be many, many more dead as they appeal to "higher vibrations".

[Monica]

As in hospitals. There would be many, many more dead as they appeal to "higher vibrations".

I agree. Conventional, allopathic doctors should prevail in hospitals.

And, hospitals should be reserved for only acute trauma conditions: gunshot wounds, broken bones, heart attacks, car accidents, snake bites, etc.

Cancer, diabetes, hypertension, arthritis, etc. patients don't belong in hospitals.

Since conventional medicine has failed so miserably in treating degenerative diseases, the holistic healers should do their healing of those conditions in places other than hospitals, as they are now.

[turtledude23]

Alot of doctors, especially younger ones, are giving more focus to diet, exercise, and the social determinants of health http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_dete..._of_health

The official view of medicine is no longer that health is only caused by physiological factors, mainstream medicine now subscribes to a theory called the Bio-psycho-social Model, meaning doctors - at least in theory - should be giving as much weight to psychological and social factors in determining health as biological factors.

Mainstream medicine is far from perfect but it is gradually starting to absorb more principles from alternative medicine and prevention rather than symptom management, but there are a few rare cases where pharmaceuticals actually cure a disease. Until practitioners of alternative medicine get the money to have double blind placebo controlled scientific studies of their treatment methods they will always be less credible than mainstream doctors.

[zenmaster]

As in hospitals. There would be many, many more dead as they appeal to "higher vibrations".

I agree. Conventional, allopathic doctors should prevail in hospitals.

And, hospitals should be reserved for only acute trauma conditions: gunshot wounds, broken bones, heart attacks, car accidents, snake bites, etc.

Cancer, diabetes, hypertension, arthritis, etc. patients don't belong in hospitals.

I call bullshit, due to lack of scientific evidence otherwise.

Since conventional medicine has failed so miserably in treating degenerative diseases, the holistic healers should do their healing of those conditions in places other than hospitals, as they are now.

Holistic healers also fail miserably. Given that it's not too difficult to test efficacy of treatment, regardless of treatment type, you'd think that bias would not be a factor in choosing a treatment. But hey, since part of "holistic" treatment is psychosomatic, belief in one method working vs another may just be enough.

[reeay]

Looking at all the research done on pharma drugs clinical trials, we find that the most effective in this world is the placebo pill, the sugar pill.

[zenmaster]

Looking at all the research done on pharma drugs clinical trials, we find that the most effective in this world is the placebo pill, the sugar pill.

Would definitely depend on the particular person, the particular drug and the particular type of imbalance it was supposed to address.
http://www.wrf.org/alternative-therapies...lacebo.php

[AnthroHeart]

Yeah, placebo is really on a person by person basis. I was taking vitamins and omega-3, thinking sincerely that would help me contain my schizophrenia symptoms. It didn't work. That would have been placebo.

[reeay]

Yes true, zenmaster, thanks for article.



When looking at studies on something like distant healing, this one meta-analysis (analyzing statistical data from multiple studies on distant healing) did show some promise but the effect size (how much of the treatment success was attributed to the actual effects of the distant healing) was on average, 0.25... so that means 75% of the treatment success was attributed to factors other than the distant healing. Although medical treatment studies sometimes have that low 'effect size' that would be considered really poor treatment effectiveness... so I think there may be multiple reasons why new age treatment works, e.g., placebo effect, changing one's lifestyle that contributed to the problem, natural healing mechanism, etc.

Have to look into other forms of alternative treatments... but my point is, although something may have success, you can't attribute the success to a particular treatment bc there are myriads of other factors playing out, hopefully in the favor of a person's health.

[Monica]

Looking at all the research done on pharma drugs clinical trials, we find that the most effective in this world is the placebo pill, the sugar pill.

Would definitely depend on the particular person, the particular drug and the particular type of imbalance it was supposed to address.
http://www.wrf.org/alternative-therapies...lacebo.php

I find it amusing that the medical establishment is more willing to believe in the power of the mind, than in the power of alternative therapies like herbs, homeopathy, etc.

[norral]

the holistic approach is just that holistic. the healer is really a guide for a soul who desires to travel on a journey. the soul has to want to go there. conventional medicine has its good points. as far as an approach to chronic diseases they have failed. they are treating symptoms.
look at the approach to cancer. chemo , i think not at least not for me. how can u give someone a medicine that is so horribly destructive. the gerson therapy, dr bernard jensen, anne wigmore these are people who have had success treating chronic diseases that conventional medicine can only dream about.
each one of us is responsible for our own health. we have to decide if we want to be healthy or not and if we want to do the work to be healthy. the information is there it is available for those who want to pursue it.
or arthritis they have no answers. but a simple stalk of celery is one of the best things for arthritis and for blood pressure also. the medical system does not want to know about this stuff because it challenges the model that they have set up for healing. so they will give people pills for cholesterol that drop it to 100 which is way too low. when u could take a vitamin like pantethine which will lower it naturally without the side effects of statins. doctors have their place but if u want to be healthy u have to embark on that journey on your own. and the creator will bring the information into your life if u really want it.

norral

man in the mirror - michael jackson

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pEQAie8ABLE

[reeay]

If it were up to the medical establishment they wouldn't want the placebo effect to be more effective than whatever treatment they're coming up with. Would be hard to package a sugar pill and charge customers $250 for them. But maybe in some cases it could be more effective than drugs with a sugar high as its main side effect and increased blood glucose levels. Still dangerous.

If homeopathy and herbal medicine were to be accepted as effective, it would have to be studied through a clinical trial, even if such research has major limitations (like tweaking results to fit agenda... I've seen it happen it is awful). Then, if it's effective, the big companies are going to gobble that up and brand it as their own... which is what they are doing in the South Pacific right now.

[norral]

as monica had said earlier its about profit profit profit. to be a healer to me means to be a lover of souls . because u absolutely hate to see others suffer u dedicate yourself to relieving their suffering. if that is the motivation of the healer then u are working with a true healer a true lover of humanity. the medical system is symbolic of our society imho, it is predatory, and so it feeds on its victims, oops , i mean patients . and there are a lot of sincere doctors and nurses i am not putting them down many are truly dedicated to healing so let me not be self righteous here. but the system itself is in general predatory and its about money.
when my sister had cancer a doctor said something to her husband which i will never forget. i wont repeat what he said, but it was so stunning that a so called healer would say something like that to someone who was in obvious emotional distress. my brother in law would have justified in beating the crap out of that dude but he didnt. but it always stuck with me stuck in my gut that a so called healer would view someone suffering basically as a piece of meat. but this doctor to me represents the forces behind the system in general .
sigh . we live in 3d and it is predatory and peoples welfare is not put first and so we suffer . and i am never surprised when people or institutions act coldly because we live on a cold cold planet.

norral

[reeay]

Yeah that's the implication of living in a larger system that endorses those values.

[Monica]

If homeopathy and herbal medicine were to be accepted as effective, it would have to be studied through a clinical trial,

Homeopathy is very individual and thus a study using the double blind method won't work. Ten people with the same illness might need 10 different remedies because their constitutions are different. This is a key principle as to how homeopathy works. Yet the studies that were done failed to take this into consideration, gave the same remedy to all participants, and then gleefully announced that homeopathy failed to show any results.

Many clinical trials have been done. Check out Dr. Dorothy Shepherd's work during the polio epidemic, for starters.

But trying to fit homeopathy into a double-blind study, treating it like a pharmaceutical, is like trying to fit a square peg into a round hole.

Then, if it's effective, the big companies are going to gobble that up and brand it as their own... which is what they are doing in the South Pacific right now.

That would never happen with homeopathy because it costs mere pennies to make homeopathic remedies. There isn't enough profit for the drug companies to take notice. Instead, their bogus websites like quackwatch.com continue their smear campaign to discredit safe, inexpensive, effective therapies with zero side effects.

---

as monica had said earlier its about profit profit profit. to be a healer to me means to be a lover of souls . because u absolutely hate to see others suffer u dedicate yourself to relieving their suffering. if that is the motivation of the healer then u are working with a true healer a true lover of humanity. the medical system is symbolic of our society imho, it is predatory, and so it feeds on its victims, oops , i mean patients . and there are a lot of sincere doctors and nurses i am not putting them down many are truly dedicated to healing so let me not be self righteous here. but the system itself is in general predatory and its about money.

The entire industry thrives by keeping people sick. Just drive through any big city and look at how many of the large buildings are either banks, hospitals or medical treatment centers! In my city there are so many hospitals and doctors' office buildings in one area that we call it 'the medical center' area of town. Then there are still more scattered throughout the city. Make no mistake: disease is BIG business! Each cancer patient is worth something like half a million bucks, as a commodity. How much is a diabetes patient worth to the industry? An arthritis patient? A heart disease patient? They are commodities to the industry.

Again, not referring to individual doctors or medical workers...referring to the industry.

[zenmaster]

Looking at all the research done on pharma drugs clinical trials, we find that the most effective in this world is the placebo pill, the sugar pill.

Would definitely depend on the particular person, the particular drug and the particular type of imbalance it was supposed to address.
http://www.wrf.org/alternative-therapies...lacebo.php

I find it amusing that the medical establishment is more willing to believe in the power of the mind, than in the power of alternative therapies like herbs, homeopathy, etc.

They look at reproducible evidence.

[Monica]

They look at reproducible evidence.

Reproducible has no meaning if the study is flawed from the beginning, like failing to take into consideration that in order to work, the correct homeopathic remedy must be chosen for that person's constitution. It's simply impossible to do that in a double blind study. That doesn't mean homeopathic medicine doesn't work! It clearly does. There are mountains of clinical evidence showing that it does, and anyone who has witnessed a fever cooling within seconds of administering the proper fever remedy, or a cat's abscess draining within minutes, or a child's attitude changing instantly, etc. knows that it works.

Holistic treatments are called holistic because they work together to balance and heal the whole organism, rather than a single body part. It's a completely different paradigm.

I have no issue with the medical industry refusing to acknowledge that these alternative modalities work; they cannot do that because alternative medicine is outside their domain.

What I have an issue with is them actively trying to discredit alternative treatments. By denying the public access to treatments that work, they have blood on their hands.

A lot of blood. But I guess STS entities don't mind that.

Again: NOT saying individual doctors are STS! On the contrary; most are well-intentioned. But there is no question in my mind that the driving force behind the medical monopoly is a group of highly polarized STS entities, who are intentionally causing confusion, intentionally lying, intentionally skewing the facts, intentionally suppressing effective remedies, and intentionally profiting off of people's pain and anguish.

There's just no other explanation for it. One would have to have their heads completely buried to sand to not be aware of the effectiveness of alternative treatments. Either that, or they're so locked into their paradigm that they are unwilling to really see what is obvious.

Case in point: Dr. Lorraine Day, the MD who had breast cancer, did the conventional treatments, and was left for dead by the medical establishment she had worked for so many years. With only days left to live, she prayed and received guidance as to how to heal herself. And heal she did! Not any one magic cure, but a holistic system of detox, green juices, superfoods, etc. Her case is quite well documented.

Now, decades later, she has a website with lots of educational materials. She has helped many, many people heal themselves.

But instead of applauding her success, the medical establishment, via their propaganda site quackwatch.com, totally ridicules her. She has been harassed countless times. She has been threatened.

THAT is what I have an issue with! By all means, let those who choose poisonous treatments like chemo have their choice. Holistic healing isn't for everyone. Many simply cannot utilize holistic therapies because they aren't willing to do what it takes for the therapies to work...like give up their junk foods and sodas or start exercising. For them, the cut/burn/poison method is all they know. They don't want to know anything else. They don't want the responsibility of confronting the catalyst of sickness head-on. (For it is indeed a catalyst!) And that's fine. That is their choice.

But, let those who choose otherwise, have the same freedom!

I don't expect the drug industry to embrace alternative treatments that cannot be proven with their methods of testing. That's fine. But at least don't discredit them either. Just stay neutral. I realize that's asking too much...for a multi-trillion-$-industry to stay neutral. Can you imagine what will happen when enough people finally wake up? It would revolutionize our country and change the economic landscape, because a large factor in the recession is the high cost of disease management...the #1 cause of bankruptcy is medical bills.

It's really a toss-up as to which industry is the more heinous: the drug industry or the war industry.

Yes, the war industry kills people directly, but the drug industry knowingly kills a great many more...it's just less bloody.

The good news is that people ARE waking up! I meet people every day who are fed up with all the side effects...fed up with taking pain meds for arthritis and yet are still in pain...then see their pain vanish in a couple of weeks...it blows their minds! Others who've already done the chemo and suffered so much, yet are still dying from their cancer...literally on their deathbeds, then, seemingly miraculously, are cancer-free in just a few months, effortlessly, painlessly, except for some detox...children damaged by vaccines, autistic, unable to talk, can only grunt, are able to talk in sentences within a week...diabetics getting off their meds...people with fibromyalgia, bedridden, in extreme pain, getting out of bed pain-free, med-free, and living a normal life...

The list goes on.

Yes, word is getting out.

The genie can't be put back in the bottle.

[zenmaster]

They look at reproducible evidence.

Reproducible has no meaning if the study is flawed from the beginning, like failing to take into consideration that in order to work, the correct homeopathic remedy must be chosen for that person's constitution. It's simply impossible to do that in a double blind study.

What type of scientific study is better?

[Monica]

What type of scientific study is better?

There is none that's better. Homeopathy doesn't lend itself to scientific study. Homeopathy requires personalizing the remedy to the patient's constitution, and that can't be done with zero possibility for bias.

For example, 3 people have a fever.

Person A is irritable and cranky
Person B got a sudden, severe fever with chills and cannot get warm no matter how many blankets are piled on him
Person C is hot, hot, hot, sweating, with bright red, flushed cheeks

The fever, measured by a thermometer, is the same with all 3 patients, but their symptoms are different and their mental/emotional states are different.

Person A likely needs Chamomilla.
Person B likely needs Aconite.
Person C is a clear case for Belladonna.

(This is a simplified example - there are other remedies for fever, but these are 3 of the common ones.)

Give the right remedy and watch all the fevers cool down within seconds, literally. B's chills will subside and A will be more pleasant. C's cheeks will be less flushed.

But mix those remedies up - like give A Belladonna - and nothing happens.

That's what they did in the mega-study a few years ago. They had x number of people with x symptom and gave them all the same remedy. It was like taking 1000 random people with fevers and giving them ALL Aconite! When maybe only 1 in 10 would be indicated for Aconite. Of course very few people got results! it was left up to chance that the right person might need the particular remedy they were studying.

Any self-respecting homeopath knows this. Had they truly wanted to understand how homeopathy works, they would surely have consulted with some homeopaths! Therefore I can only conclude that the study was intentionally designed to fail.

Holistic medicine is much more time-intensive. It doesn't work in the fast-food-fast-drugs-get-medicine-OTC paradigm. It never will.

But see, people like me, who were very sick and were healed by holistic medicine, don't care about scientific studies.

There's nothing wrong with scientific studies. For emergency trauma care, yes, please, study the pain management drugs and tell me the potential side effects. I recently had some dental work done and you can bet I got pain meds! And I was very grateful that there were websites explaining the side effects of vicodin, versed and other drugs used by the dental profession. (Although they neglected to mention that many people have bad acid trips when given versed! I found that out on a discussion forum.) There is a place for allopathic medicine!

[zenmaster]

I honestly believe Monica, that it's irresponsible to say that "Cancer, diabetes, hypertension, arthritis, etc. patients don't belong in hospitals." when it's effectively a crap shoot with holistic medicine, and the lack of ability for most people to understand their minds and bodies to the degree necessary to remedy illness.

[Monica]

I honestly believe Monica, that it's irresponsible to say that "Cancer, diabetes, hypertension, arthritis, etc. patients don't belong in hospitals." when it's effectively a crap shoot with holistic medicine, and the lack of ability for most people to understand their minds and bodies to the degree necessary to remedy illness.

It's a crap shoot either way.

But ok, I concede that when I made that statement, I was thinking about those who are willing to take responsibility for their health and do the necessary lifestyle changes. Not everyone is willing to do that, so you are right, for THEM it would be a crap shoot, just as for those who ARE willing to do that, the medical route would be a crap shoot.

So, I will rephrase: Those who choose conventional treatment (hospitals, surgery, drugs, etc.) should have the freedom to pursue it.

Those who choose alternative treatments should have the same freedom.

[zenmaster]

I honestly believe Monica, that it's irresponsible to say that "Cancer, diabetes, hypertension, arthritis, etc. patients don't belong in hospitals." when it's effectively a crap shoot with holistic medicine, and the lack of ability for most people to understand their minds and bodies to the degree necessary to remedy illness.

It's a crap shoot either way.

But ok, I concede that when I made that statement, I was thinking about those who are willing to take responsibility for their health and do the necessary lifestyle changes. Not everyone is willing to do that, so you are right, for THEM it would be a crap shoot, just as for those who ARE willing to do that, the medical route would be a crap shoot.

But you miss my point. If they knew their disposition, they would know how to seek the treatment. It's not just a willingness to do something, there is desire, and a certain faith involved.