Guest guest Posted November 3, 2008 Report Share Posted November 3, 2008 so in a drug study showing no difference between inferior or superior outcomes to a sugar pill does not matter? 400 29th St. Suite 419 Oakland Ca 94609 alonmarcus Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted November 3, 2008 Report Share Posted November 3, 2008 Hey Alon: In answer to your question, which I am not sure is on the point I or the following authors were making: " So in a drug study showing no difference between inferior or superior outcomes to a sugar pill does not matter? " Is this extract from the abstract I reprinted earlier today (Kienle and Kiene 1997): " False impressions of placebo effects can be produced in various ways. Spontaneous improvement, fluctuation of symptoms, regression to the mean, additional treatment, conditional switching of placebo treatment, scaling bias, irrelevant response variables, answers of politeness, experimental subordination, conditioned answers, neurotic or psychotic misjudgment, psychosomatic phenomena, misquotation, etc. " Also see Hróbjartsson and Gøtzsche 2001, Hróbjartsson and Gøtzsche 2007, Hróbjartsson and Norup 2003. From the Cochrane Library (Hróbjartsson and Gøtzsche 2004): " There was no evidence that placebo interventions in general have clinically important effects. A possible small effect on continuous patient-reported outcomes, especially pain, could not be clearly distinguished from bias. " Thoughts? Hugo ________________________________ Hugo Ramiro http://middlemedicine.wordpress.com http://www.chinesemedicaltherapies.org ________________________________ alon marcus <alonmarcus Chinese Medicine Sunday, 2 November, 2008 20:09:03 Re:Placebo Effect so in a drug study showing no difference between inferior or superior outcomes to a sugar pill does not matter? 400 29th St. Suite 419 Oakland Ca 94609 www.integrativeheal thmedicine. com alonmarcus (AT) wans (DOT) net Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted November 4, 2008 Report Share Posted November 4, 2008 Hugo all look like variables that can be controlled for Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted November 5, 2008 Report Share Posted November 5, 2008 Doesn't veterinary acupuncture effective eliminate any discussions about placebo? Why not? Also, has it not been considered that placebo itself is a scientific construct that itself has shifting goal posts? In philosophy of science circles this discussion has certainly been taken up. y.c. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted November 5, 2008 Report Share Posted November 5, 2008 Placebo = any positive healing effect that comes from within the person (usually attributed to a belief or mental state, but not necessarily) that can't be accounted for by modern biochemistry. Acupuncture is then placebo. Christopher Vedeler L.Ac. Oasis Acupuncture http://www.oasisacupuncture.com 9832 N. Hayden Rd. Suite 215 Scottsdale, AZ 85258 Phone: (480) 991-3650 Chinese Medicine Chinese Medicine On Behalf Of Yangchu Higgins Wednesday, November 05, 2008 8:42 AM Chinese Medicine Re: Placebo Effect Doesn't veterinary acupuncture effective eliminate any discussions about placebo? Why not? Also, has it not been considered that placebo itself is a scientific construct that itself has shifting goal posts? In philosophy of science circles this discussion has certainly been taken up. y.c. --- Subscribe to the free online journal for TCM at Times http://www.chinesemedicinetimes.com Help build the world's largest online encyclopedia for Chinese medicine and acupuncture, click, http://www.chinesemedicinetimes.com/wiki/CMTpedia and adjust accordingly. Messages are the property of the author. Any duplication outside the group requires prior permission from the author. Please consider the environment and only print this message if absolutely necessary. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted November 6, 2008 Report Share Posted November 6, 2008 Hi Christopher: " Placebo = any positive healing effect that comes from within the person (usually attributed to a belief or mental state, but not necessarily) that can't be accounted for by modern biochemistry. Acupuncture is then placebo. " The way I've been seeing this recently is that the orthodoxy will use " placebo " to group all medical systems, modalities and tools which do not fall under biomedicine into one undifferentiated unit. This position will then be finally and definitively labelled: " placebo response = it's all in your head and mediated by endogenous opioid release - there is no specific effect beyond this " . " Placebo " , in this sense, would be deeply disempowering to CM and other similar health professions, because, really, anyone could do it. All it takes is force of personality. I believe that this eventuality would spell a long-term regression of any realistic understanding of what human health is. As far as y.c.'s question regarding veterinary acupuncture - if all it took was evidence, then we'd be fine. Unfortunately (or fortunately??) we are working with human beings, who tend to have heavy biases and limited, lazy minds, no matter how vigorous they believe themselves to be. It's a turf-war, it's a power-struggle, and it's about ego. 200 years of modern science and I think that it still takes an historian of science to see how deeply affected the scientific institution is by bias, orthodoxy and assumption. On the other hand, if we present well and congruently to the public, they will back us, because I think most people are interested in what works, and have little desire to spend most of their lives living in the steel cage of pure rationality. Hugo ________________________________ Hugo Ramiro http://middlemedicine.wordpress.com http://www.chinesemedicaltherapies.org ________________________________ Christopher Vedeler L.Ac. <vedeler Chinese Medicine Wednesday, 5 November, 2008 18:07:32 RE: Re: Placebo Effect Christopher Vedeler L.Ac. Oasis Acupuncture http://www.oasisacu puncture. com 9832 N. Hayden Rd. Suite 215 Scottsdale, AZ 85258 Phone: (480) 991-3650 Traditional_ Chinese_Medicine [Traditional_ Chinese_Medicine ] On Behalf Of Yangchu Higgins Wednesday, November 05, 2008 8:42 AM Re: Placebo Effect Doesn't veterinary acupuncture effective eliminate any discussions about placebo? Why not? Also, has it not been considered that placebo itself is a scientific construct that itself has shifting goal posts? In philosophy of science circles this discussion has certainly been taken up. y.c. ------------ --------- --------- ------ Subscribe to the free online journal for TCM at Times http://www.chinesem edicinetimes. com Help build the world's largest online encyclopedia for Chinese medicine and acupuncture, click, http://www.chinesem edicinetimes. com/wiki/ CMTpedia http://groups. / group/Traditiona l_Chinese_ Medicine/ join and adjust accordingly. Messages are the property of the author. Any duplication outside the group requires prior permission from the author. Please consider the environment and only print this message if absolutely necessary. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted November 6, 2008 Report Share Posted November 6, 2008 There is no *placebo effect*. Effects observed in persons who have been given inert sugar pill (or so-called sham treatment) never did and never will occur in a vacuum without many other factors involved. Even in-vitro experiments are not in total isolation from constantly changing environmental variables. Many forms of radiant energy invalidate the idea of impervious barriers. Effort to pin down cause and effect in a human being leads me to search for *requisite co-factors* amidst huge quantities of merely incidental concomitants. It is only speculative, but there is nothing to prove, since I only need a provisional / hypothetical understanding. Like many interactions, it is an ongoing process, making any patient encounter truly UNIQUE as I aim to facilitate a favorable transition. This is in reality un-repeatable, yet the only way that any science can be considered replicable is through an implicit agreement to ignore anything that is inconvenient to the rationale. (Imagine the entire universe through all time as ONE pattern. Any similarity of one moment to the next is just that, similar, not the same.) I believe in evaluation / diagnosis because it is something that I can point to pre and post to clarify some kind of results. Most people really don't care *how* they got the results they want, only that they do. I urge all to stop playing into the idiotic game of so-called scientific evidence based research standards. The only claim that matters is that YOU (as opposed to any specific nominal technique / method) have a convincingly good probability of assisting YOUR patients achieve the health goals they want. How about a study of 50 drugs and surgery MD's vs. 50 multi-modality LAc's, comparing FUNCTIONAL OUTCOMES and COSTS for patients selected on the basis of all having a similar presenting chief complaint. That would likely produce some VERY interesting data! joe reid 11-06-08 www.jreidomd.blogspot.com Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted November 7, 2008 Report Share Posted November 7, 2008 That is called best practices and is an acceptable way to have a study. The outcome however needs to be independently and objectively evaluated. 400 29th St. Suite 419 Oakland Ca 94609 alonmarcus Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted November 8, 2008 Report Share Posted November 8, 2008 Pray tell, what constitutes " independently " and " objectively. " I'm sure that the materialistically oriented acupuncturists have fully been equal in their pursuit of " nocebo, " ya? This is when a prescribed medication does not respond as it otherwise should. The parameters of independence and objectivity do not accommodate such anomalies other than chalking it up for something " in the patient's head. " Hmm. I dare venture that our medicine is a tad more sophisticated. I value the materialist acupuncturists for their building bridges for the more " wo wo " types. But I feel that your discourse is hampered by perameters that are already stacked against you. You've got to do better. y.c. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted November 8, 2008 Report Share Posted November 8, 2008 I was told, not sure how true it is, but there was a study in the Chicago area (by an insurance related company) to compare a cohort of patients who went to traditional MDs, chiropractors and acuncturists for the same complaints. The results showed 60% cheaper, 60% more effective and 60% greater patient satisfaction in the groups that went to chiropractors and acupuncturists. For some reason they just kind of put that under the table. I think more studies similar to that need to be done and widely known about. What more could you want from a system of medicine - more effective, cheaper and more satisfying?! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted November 11, 2008 Report Share Posted November 11, 2008 Hi Joe: Joe wrote: " Most people really don't care *how* they got the results they want, only that they do. I urge all to stop playing into the idiotic game of so-called scientific evidence based research standards. The only claim that matters is that YOU (as opposed to any specific nominal technique / method) have a convincingly good probability of assisting YOUR patients achieve the health goals they want. " oof. Powerful, thanks Joe. Hugo ________________________________ Hugo Ramiro http://middlemedicine.wordpress.com http://www.chinesemedicaltherapies.org Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted April 27, 2010 Report Share Posted April 27, 2010 Placebo Effect ============== You hear a lot about " placebo effect " nowadays. Placebo refers to any medical treatment that is inert. The placebo has long been used in research trials to test the efficacy of a new health care treatment. Often, it is called as " dummy treatment " . The placebo effect is observable, and one can feel improvement in health not attributable to treatment. This effect is believed by many people to be due to the placebo itself in some mysterious way. When I was a young school student, our family was poor, and all my brothers were not able to buy shoes. We had to weave rice straw sandals by ourselves to commute to school. However, I had wart problems in my foot that hurts when scratched by the clog thong of the sandals. I tried to apply acid solutions as well as many other medical remedies, but the wart never disappeared from my foot for more than three years. One day, we had a trip to my mother's hometown. It was about 400 kilometers far from Osaka to Mount Koya, and during that time of WWII there were no trains or automobiles. We had to commute by walking on most of the ways. On the way along the mountain, we saw a statue of Jizo (Ksitigarbha), traditionally seen in Japan as the guardian deity of children: http://www.pyroenergen.com/articles10/images/jizo-ksitigarbha.jpg We have tens of thousands of Jizo statues in Japan, and they are commonly found especially by roadsides and in graveyards. Some of them are also known as Wart-Removing Jizo. History tells that once upon a time, a religious and hard-working man had a lot of warts on his body. He prayed to the Jizo every day and night. One day, he dreamed that he should wash his body with water streaming beside Jizo, the guardian deity. He, of course, followed the instruction given by the deity. After three days, he noticed that his warts are disappearing one by one. The story spread all over Japan, and today, there are thousands of Wart-Removing Deity called Ibotori Jizo all over Japan. I myself tried to get blessed water from Jizo, then, miraculously, my wart was removed in just three days while I was with my grandparents in the deep mountain province of Mount Koya. This is the foot of the author, Mr. Takano, with a scar of wart remaining in the middle just below the index toe: http://www.pyroenergen.com/articles10/images/wart.jpg Even in this modern age in medical science, the above practice has remained widely in Japan. Scientifically, they say that it is really a placebo effect, but no one denies its miraculous phenomena. There are hundreds of techniques for placebo effect for various maladies. Talisman, charms, and magical words, are also considered placebo, and there is no scientific evidence to prove them. We could say that our brain wave may be controlled spiritually, and very often they are also effective mysteriously as healing tools. All medical practices have started from placebo, and many have recognized them as effective and genuine. Simple suggestions or kind words to children including to some adults are effective for the treatment of bed-wetting, allergies, asthma, metabolic syndrome, and even diabetes and kidney diseases, according to some data reported. Try anything by yourself, if it does not harm physically or mentally. It may be just like that of hypnotism and your sufferings may disappear miraculously and mysteriously. --------------------------- About the Author: Junji Takano is a Japanese health researcher involved in investigating the cause of many dreadful diseases. In 1968, he invented PYRO-ENERGEN, the first electrostatic therapy device for electromedicine that effectively eradicates viral diseases, cancer, and diseases of unknown cause. Free newsletter: http://www.pyroenergen.com/newsletter.htm --------------------------- Reprint Rights: You may reprint this article within your website, blog, or newsletter as long as the entire article remains the same as well as the " About the Author " box. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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