Sequel Thread To Holistic Doctors, and medicine

A condition involving psychosis is consistent with the indications for prescribing Zyprexa. Technically you are correct then, Zyprexa is indicated for use in depression if it involves psychosis.I would prefer not to see any psychotropic drugs prescribed at all. My position here has been that there are healthier non-drug alternatives. I have a particular concern about neuroleptics because incidences of serious side effects are so high with those, and they are still so widely prescribed. Instead of looking for alternatives, doctors tend to prescribe new medications in an attempt to ameliorate the side effects of the first medication. It is not uncommon for a person to experience the first manic episode of their lives on an antidepressant and for the doctor to decide, not that the episode was possibly an effect of the drug, but that the mania is a sign of an "emerging" bipolar condition. And so new drugs are added to the mix. I've seen new medications prescribed for tardive dyskinesia when what the patient needs is to be taken off the drug that is causing it. You are correct. But a doctor is also allowed to prescribe off-label when no studies have been done, and they don't have to tell the patient that this is the case. Maybe I haven't made myself very clear in this regard. My own GP is a hard-working person who genuinely seems to want to help people. That's the case with most GPs I've met. I would never accuse them of the motivations you listed above. And I'm sure that many people who work for pharmaceutical companies are convinced that what they are doing is helping people. The ones I would suspect of being callous and greedy are the ones in the top echelons who make all the decisions and produce the marketing strategies. They are the ones who are behind decisions to conceal clinical trial results indicating that a drug like Zyprexa has adverse side effects (i.e. type II diabetes). They are the ones who develop a drug and then decide how best to market it -- in essence, what to do with it that will profit them, as was the case with Prozac. But the majority of people, though they may collude with these practices and believe wholeheartedly that drugs are the only cures for anything, no doubt do not have ulterior motives. They are simply ignorant of nutritional medicine, or are not interested in it. I find this sad, but I don't believe it's a sign of evil or corruption in and of itself. AltMed is a huge umbrella term. I do not defend it as a body, and I am sure there are many charlatans who take advantage of people's gullibility. I have no doubt of that at all. I've explained in other posts here what I do believe to be best practice: diet and nutrition. My own ND, the one who runs the internet list to which I belong, doesn't get money from us and doesn't sell anything. I am more wary of people who do because I know they have a profit motive. Having said that, if your career is in alternative medicine, then you've got to have a way of earning a living. Not everyone getting a profit from some kind of AltMed practice has got bogus reasons for doing so, though this is what Stephen Barrett would like you to believe. It's Hoffer, and he's the one whose work was claimed to be "ancient," though it was only his published work in mainstream journals that was being referred to. That aside, then what you're saying is clear. I'm trying to sharpen up my methods, as I've said before, and I'm learning the ropes here. You want me to back up what I am saying with studies published in mainstream peer-reviewed journals. I am now attempting to do this, though I see this as no reason to dismiss everything else out of hand. Peter Breggin, Abram Hoffer and others have much of value to say. You would be logically correct in saying they are not worth listening to because they are not currently published in the prestigious journals, but that doesn't necessarily mean you have arrived at the truth. I see your point of view Percy. But I, and most everyone else on the lists I belong to, tried the modern medicine approach. It didn't work, and in many cases it did a lot of damage. I have not shared any individual stories here apart from mine because I know they would be dismissed as anecdotes, but as groups of people they do not deserve to be ignored. Your definition of the scientific approach seems to be to take the drugs your doctor prescribed you because they have been tested. If you get side effects then it's bad luck. There are alternatives though. These alternatives can prevent disease from occurring in the first place, and they can help when it does occur, often without the need for drugs. I've said this before but if you feel there is not enough evidence for this in the mainstream, that's fine. It can take a long time for a new idea to be accepted. I'm glad I wasn't so skeptical myself because I would probably either be dead or in a psychiatric ward by now if I hadn't looked for other ways of addressing my illness.

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It can take a long time for a new idea to be accepted.

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So, how much randomized, double-blind research do the organizations and companies that promote and sell and market these alternatives to mainstream medicine fund?Are they careful to not prescribe any substance or treatment without it being tested thorouughly first?what are the results of those studies? What new discoveries have they made that have been replicated?Edited by nator, : No reason given.

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I am getting very weary of these lists of clinical studies. Tell me. Did you read the abstracts of any of them before you cut and pasted them here? Do you know why any of these studies were conducted? Why these particular doses of these substances would be given to anyone, what the circumstances would be? What were the amounts of the vitamins and minerals used, and in what form? Do you know? Do you care? This is all important information. When you show an interest in actually looking in detail at one of these studies, I will be willing to engage in a more detailed discussion.

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Thank you, thank you, thank you. It is interesting that we don't get links to these wonderful studies. I found this article dealing with synergy which references the first study on her list in Message 70.
(1) The Synergistic Approach: The Future of Nutrition TherapyAnd this abstract concerning the study.
(2) Procarcinogenic and anticarcinogenic effects of beta-carotene.The study deals more with synergy not just megadosing. According to the first article, beta carotene needs Vitamins E & C to keep it from oxidizing. Supposedly smoking decreases the levels of Vitmains E & C in the tissue. The study doesn't seem to address nonsmokers.Both articles favor a synergistic approach to using nutrients. That's one of the things we have to watch when trying to maintain health as naturally as possible. We don't want to fall into the trap of using isolated vitamins as cures. We don't eat isolated vitamins. We eat foods containing many vitamins.Synergy is the key. Much as we would like to believe that all health fields are only concerned about our wellbeing, we have to accept that marketing strategies aren't really looking out for our wellbeing. They're concerned about lining their pockets. Even those selliing vitamins tend to take advantage of our allopathic paradigm.All we can do is try to learn as much as we can and find an individual or individuals within our own areas who can cover our individual needs for healthcare.Unfortunately in a debate setting, opposing sides are more concerned with presenting the information that supports their position and not necessarily to give their opposition the whole picture.So a learning experience is not always possible, sad to say. Sometimes it is possible to glean some new insight even if it isn't what the opposition intended us to see.Hint: Don't take their monkey's on your back.

Again, I share your concern. Including yours. And what an easy living it is! With no FDA regulation or testing requirements, one only need construct arguments convincing to laypeople unqualified to assess them.LindaLou, laundry lists of big pharma misbehavior may be an indictment of something, but not of the scientific method.You say that you think the worker bees in big pharma are honest, that it is the higher-ups who are culpable, but alternative medical companies have higher-ups, too. And profit motives. And everything else that all money-making concerns have, except they don't have to deal with FDA regulation and the rigors of the scientific method.Regarding things of possible medical value, except for those with obvious immediate effects such as hallucinogens, the best way to ferret out the effects is with statistically and rigorously well-designed placebo-based double-blind studies.The history of clinical studies in the field of medicine is that the early studies and the smaller studies and the not-so-well-designed-or-implemented studies can be very useful in indicating if further study is warranted, but they are not conclusive, and these kinds of studies tend to outnumber the larger more rigorous (and expensive and time-consuming) studies. The gold standard of clinical trials are large placebo-based double-blind studies.For this reason, you will be able to find many studies in the technical literature that appear to support your case, but there will be other studies that contradict it. How do you or me, non-experts, decide which is right? You've chosen anecdote. I and most others have chosen to recognize that as non-experts we are unqualified to assess this literature without help, and so we accept the guidance of the consensus of the scientific community qualified to assess it.But Molbiogirl is not a non-expert. Regarding your rebuttals of her most recent posts, I do think there are legitimate issues to complain about regarding quote-mining, since one shouldn't be expected to have to mount a spur-of-the-moment rebuttal to a website of data gathered over a period of years, so if that's what Molbiogirl is doing then you have a point. But I don't agree with your paragraphs-long questioning of Molbiogirl's motives. She's not the one willing to adopt unscientific approaches based on misgivings about things that are true of all people and organizations everywhere, including those in alternative medicine.Think about what you're actually claiming: "The people on my side are honest and wouldn't lie and are motivated only by a desire to help people, while the people on your side are greedy, motivated by profit, and unconcerned about the people they're allegedly trying to help. You've been taken in by this dishonest bunch."Aside from the naiveté such expressions display, demonizing the other side is a common debate fallacy, and we will hopefully see less of this as the discussion continues.The problems of alternative medicine are made clear by the examples that Molbiogirl presented to you. Being inherently unscientific, its practitioners base their treatments upon adherence to principles that aren't supported by real-world evidence, and so they are much more likely than traditional medical practitioners to do harm. As far as learning the ropes here, there's nothing special about this place. Science is science. It's by far the best method we've ever had for figuring out what's really going on in the real world. Ferreting out small but statistically valid characteristics of medicines whose medicinal effects vary from one individual to the next is something that takes knowledge, training, skill and experience, a combination not in plentiful supply. Those who can operate at the top echelons of demanding scientific fields are rare and special people. Those who cannot perform at this level instead work on perpetual motion machines or try to prove ESP right and Einstein wrong, or go into alternative medicine where they can avoid their peers and instead work at persuading laypeople who are much less demanding of evidence.Almost all scientific fields are highly specialized, and even Nobel Prize winning scientists are but laypeople outside their own field, so even they have to rely on the scientific consensus of other fields. Scientists vie through their research presented in technical papers and replicated by other scientists to build a consensus within their own subcommunity. Those who withdraw from such efforts and evade peer-review by publishing in their own journals lose the right to have their ideas seriously considered, and appealing to laypeople unqualified to assess such ideas only compounds their error.--Percy

Thanks for doing this work, Purpledawn. It shows again that it is important to look into what the full study is saying.I agree that synergy is very, very important. People looking for the magic bullet often decide, "OK, I'll try fish oil" or "vitamin C is supposed to be good." But they don't always work that way in isolation, unless the person has a marked deficiency to begin with. This is key to my ND's approach to healing and it's gratifying seeing it reflected in a study like this.Nice to know I'm not alone here

I'm gullible because I eat a whole foods diet and take vitamins? That's a pretty harsh accusation. Maybe what was gullible of me was to put my trust in the SSRI that didn't help me, and ended up damaging me. You keep telling me I ought to have faith in this system but mine has been utterly shattered. You cannot expect me to go to my doctor for more drugs of this kind when I and many others I know have learned what those drugs can do. I don't give a damn how many double-blind clinical trials show that the drug is supposed to help. This philosophy of treating mental illness is fundamentally flawed. There are cures, and they don't involve drugs.Remember also what I said about someone who feels great on an SSRI. This person has taken a pill to ease the pain of depression. It is now forgotten -- and with it, the root cause of the depression. How are people going to learn to take responsibility for their health if they are taught to pop a pill when they don't feel so good? The depression could have been caused by physical or phsychological factors, or both. It might have signalled a thyroid problem or a nutrient deficiency. While the person is feeling great on an SSRI, these issues go unaddressed. Often the only option offered to a person with depression is a pill. No counselling is available on the NHS where I live, only drugs. I saw several psychiatrists but all they did was Hamilton Test me and tell me to take my drug. They were utterly useless. I am not against regulation or testing, as long as access to vital nutrients such as vitamin C isn't restricted or made more expensive for people. The supplements I take are not advertised to me. I don't go out and buy things like that because they've been hawked at me. I take what appears to be the supplement of the highest quality, and the proof of that is in the ingredients.I am certainly not against clinical tests of any so-called natural substance. I welcome them. Whatever nefarious practices might exist in AltMed companies deserve to be brought to light. But what evils do you expect to find in vitamins, exactly? The biggest problem I've seen there is price-fixing. As long as it's a good quality supplement, I don't see how it can cause such a huge concern. Drugs can be dangerous and no sensible person gets them without a prescription and experiments with them. You can often do this with vitamins, however, because by and large they are harmless even in large amounts. I would say it's always wise, though to consult an ND who can prescribe the amount and combination that would likely be most effective for you individually. Until I learned more on my own, I took the advice of my ND. She is a neurologist and a naturopath. She reads the studies, she knows the literature that's out there.I know what the consensus of the scientific community is. They would tell me to take a drug. And so far from the vitamin C research I've been doing and the studies I've looked at, I think there's ample evidence that it is safe and effective. Are you suggesting I wait 50 years or more until it is generally accepted by mainstream medicine? I could be dead of cancer by then LOL.I can see your point about mainstream medicine Percy, but I do not share it. A pill for every ill is not the way to health. I haven't claimed anything of the kind. I've said several times that there are charlatans in AltMed and I support their exposure and removal. My ND is trustworthy and desires to help people, but I am not extrapolating from that to say that this is true of all AltMed practitioners. Also, in my previous post I explained that I do not have the attitude toward GPs that you describe above. And I said that the people helping to develop drugs probably do, for the most part, beieve they are doing something good to help people. You keep creating these straw men. What I'm saying is that the philosophy behind the current diagnose-and-prescribe practice is flawed. I'm not saying people are necessarily being unscientific, or doing their jobs wrong. It's that they're looking in the wrong places for ways to help people. Why didn't someone test Pauling's mother for a B12 deficiency? Today she would probably be put on drugs; or, if they didn't work, be offered psychosurgery, mentioned by MBG. For god's sake, all someone needed to do to cure her was inject her with B12. You are grouping all AltMed practitioners into the same homogenized group. Many of them are trained and experienced MDs who had personal experiences themselves, or with family or friends or even patients, that convinced them that allopathic medicine does not have all the answers. My ND is one. So these MDs that practice medicine with naturopathic knowledge are unscientific? As I've been discovering, there are clinical studies on vitamins out there. These aren't real-world evidence? Is it not real-world evidence when my ND draws on her experience of 20 years in assisting people to get off and stay off psychotropic drugs? If you limit yourself to accepting only the evidence from prestigious mainstream journals, you risk missing out on other ideas that have merit but which are not currently in vogue with the mainstream. At the moment that appears to include any treatment not involving drugs.By the way, who has convinced you that naturopaths are so very dangerous? (As opposed to, say, doctors prescribing drugs with risks of side effects that can include death.) Stephen Barrett? Then it's up to individuals to decide whether or not they want to listen. It's clear that you and MBG are people who would not. There are some physicians and scientists who are a little more open-minded to non-mainstream opinions.We're pretty entrenched in our views here I think Percy. What do you think either of us can gain by continuing this discussion?

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But what evils do you expect to find in vitamins, exactly?

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How about being prescribed a bunch of vitamins (or herbal drugs, or topical treatments, etc.) for a disease or condition that those vitamins have not been demonstrated to have any effect upon?

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By the way, who has convinced you that naturopaths are so very dangerous? (As opposed to, say, doctors prescribing drugs with risks of side effects that can include death.)

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Naturopaths have prescribed drugs with risks of side effects that can include death.Moreover, they can cause people to dely getting effective treatment for diseases until it is too late.Edited by nator, : No reason given.

The original Mayo Clinic quote: Lindalou's response: Where is the above quote does the Mayo Clinic claim to have reproduced Dr. Pauling's methods "exactly"? You are correct. The vitamin C was given via IV in Dr. Pauling's study and orally in the Mayo Clinic studies.Little problem, tho.There are no other studies of vitamin C given intravenously (other than Hoffer's nonsense, I mean). Here is the cite:N Engl J Med 2007 356: 1423-1431
Vitamins and Perinatal Outcomes among HIV-Negative Women in TanzaniaHere is the quote from your website: Two problems are immediately apparent from the title of the study alone.One. A multivitamin was given. Not vitamin C.Two. The multivitamin was administered orally.Want to try again? Let's see some cites. In vitro and in vivo are miles apart, Lindalou.I can name dozens of compounds that kill cancer cells in vitro.Want to try again? Cites! This is untrue. Another teensy problem, here.Dr. Pauling didn't write this "paper". This is just precious!Three people. Really? Three whole entire people?Eensy weensy problem, tho!From the conclusion in that paper: Look. You seem to think there are 1500+ papers that support your claim that vitamin C is effective in the treatment of cancer.Let's see some cites.And make sure the vitamin C is intravenously administered!

Yes.Because BigPharma throws BigBucks at vitamin research. And how might you evaluate the methodology if you did?(Hint: Methodology is just a laundry list of the chemicals and procedures used in the study so that it might be replicated by other researchers.) There are 16 placebo-controlled, double-blind studies that show no effect of vitamin C on the common cold.

Let's see your source on this.And a question:It is clear from Dr. Pauling's papers that Belle suffered from pernicious anemia.It was obviously diagnosed, correct?Are you suggesting that it was then simply ignored?

Quote mining, Percy?Really?I included 5 quotes from Dr. Barrett's site. None of which were taken out of context.And 2 quotes re: deep-brain stimulation. Neither of which were taken out of context.

The only list I provided was in response to Lindalou's request: From Message 51.Should she wish to find the studies on pubmed, all the pertinent information is there.

Read what I said again. I said it is legitimate to complain about quote-mining and that "if that's what Molbiogirl is doing then you have a point."In other words, I reached no conclusion either way about whether you were quote mining. And somewhere in my post I told LindaLou that her paragraph's long criticisms of you weren't really appropriate.Also, I think LindaLou is using a different definition of quote mining than we usually see here. She's using it to refer to drawing material wholesale from websites, while we usually use it to refer to drawing quotes out of context to make it seem the author was saying something he never intended.--Percy

I may not be a doctor or a scientist, but I can at least check through a study and see how much of the substance was administered, and in what form. I would probably ask for my ND's help with technical info.It isn't "just" a laundry list because if a study claims to have found no effect on the common cold from vitamin C use, it is important to check how much of the vitamin was used, and in what form.My personal feeling? It is keeping my daughter and me healthy. I don't honestly care if every person here disagrees with me. You are free to make your choices and I to make mine. Then I suggest you look at how much vitamin C was administered, and in what form. It also is best when used preventatively. At the onset of a cold, Pauling recommends that you take 1,000mg every hour until the symptoms go away. My naturopath suggests 2,000mg. I've done it and it works. No, I've spent enough time here. I was up until midnight last night doing vitamin C research. I am tired. I want to talk on other threads here but have been spending all my time in this one. I'm spending too much time on the computer as well. I would be inclined to carry on in this thread if I thought that all the time and effort were worthwhile for someone. However, as stimulating as this debate has been, I'm well aware that I'm not going to persuade anyone.I intend for this to be my last post in this thread.For anyone who is reading this and is interested in naturopathic medicine, then I recommend checking out the following sites. I do not recommend them to the people with whom I have been debating here, who no doubt would find plenty of disparaging remarks for them. Orthomolecular.orgDoctor YourselfMercola.comNews Target Health News

I don't think I included a specific reason, but it is telling that you find your own accusation "pretty harsh" when turned on yourself. Interesting mirror you're holding up to yourself.The point I made a couple times in my previous post was that you're personalizing the debate. You accused Molgiogirl of quote mining, you questioned whether she was actually reading any of the studies, you accused traditional medicine of greed and uncaringness. I suggest you stick to the facts. But I didn't say that a pill for every ill is the way to health, did I. Could we perhaps have fewer attempts at emotional appeals, fewer swipes at strawmen, and more accuracy?What I said was that reliable medical knowledge comes from well designed and conducted placebo-based double-blind studies. Anything that isn't based upon the consensus of results from the relevant collection of studies should not be considered something that is known, and anything that is admitted to rely upon anecdote should be considered highly questionable. Well, then I think that's wonderful, and I just can't imagine where I got such a mistaken impression. I'm glad I was wrong, because if I didn't really see such charges in your previous posts then that means I won't see them in your future posts, either. Good news! Of course allopathic medicine doesn't have all the answers. But that doesn't make anecdote a reliable method for gaining information. Anecdote remains about the worst method one could think of. And giving insufficient weight to consensus opinion is not a course often associated with success, either. Why are you phrasing the question this way? You're implying that I'm just a puppet of whoever cornered me and convinced me. I am capable of making up my own mind and forming my own opinions, and my methods are scientific.And why are you asking a question that has already been answered? One obvious danger of alternative medicine is that it can delay effective medical care. Depending upon the condition this could be irrelevant or fatal, depends upon whether we're talking about a cold or cancer. And even prescribing vitamins isn't benign, for instance, megadoses of vitamin A can be fatal. Well yes, of course. But you're referring to individuals poorly equipped to assess the validity of the claims that are made. Good show! I'm hoping that you gain an understanding of how important it is for your advice to be firmly grounded in scientifically valid findings.--Percy