[pa-l] Paradoxical results in AP/TCM Research

[Guest guest]

Phil,

 

Two things come to mind with your commentary. One is that our Western science

as currently practiced lacks historical perspective. My 1991 thesis on the

molecular genetics of human female X-chromosome shutdown drew from an historical

perspective of thirteen years. My bibliography's most classic reference when

back to a 1978 paper marking the beginning of my field of molecular biology.

 

Chinese medicine alone has an historical perspective which can be challenged as

to its coherence, but it can not be dismissed with respect to ideas that have

stood the test of time. Formulas from the 3rd Century through the Song Dynasty

are still in broad and effective use. Acupuncture likewise has an historical

perspective of usage that is unprecedented in Western sciences.

 

Your observation about our current research into safe and effective treatment

protocols is all about time and epidemiology. Time and epidemiology will

eventually let us know with ever more clarity the parameters of any given

treatment. Randomized controlled trials from the perspective of Western science

involves comparatively little time and little epidemiology. In 2,000 years folks

on the Traditional Western Biomedicine Network online forum will be arguing the

ancient meaning of epidemiology from the turn of the 21st Century. Especially

since everyone in 4004 will know that magnetic resonance acupuncture and

hydroponic herbal formulas mostly replaced invasive surgical procedures by the

25th Century. We'll all have to be very patient during that era of our

reincarnation ... or reintarnation, as the case may be.

 

In gratitude,

Emmanuel Segmen

 

 

 

Hi All, & Ken,

 

Ken wrote [re differing / paradoxical results in TCM/AP research]:

> Phil, Thanks for bringing this up. I'm curious to know your take on what

lies beneath such findings.

 

I prefix these comments with a statement: we had good friends home for dinner

tonight, and I have imbibed Chilean red wine in copious amounts.

 

As a professional researcher for circa 40 years, I can say that ALL

" scientific hypotheses " have 3 possible outcomes:

 

(a) supported by the experimental work;

(b) not supported (neither for, nor against) by the experiments;

© refuted by the experimental results.

 

If the pre-thesis hypotheses are based on common-sense, or well researched

pre-thesis literature review, the odds of outcomes (a), (b) and © are circa

65, 25, and 10%, respectively.

 

Biology is not a science with outcome predictions as exact as in the physical

sciences.

 

Paradox reigns in biology moreso than in routine physics / chemistry, because

so many factors (often unrecognised by the researcher(s) before the trial(s)),

can influence / bias the outcomes of the trials.

 

So it is no surprise to me that different research groups, or even DIFFERENT

studies by the SAME research group, can generate different conclusions in

so-called randomised controlled trials (RCTs).

 

Ideally, in the design of RCTs, the various trial groups are randomised.

Before final assignment to the various treatments, the structure of each group

is checked to ensure that individual factors that might bias the results (such

as breed, age, sex, reproductive status, health-history, etc) are randomised

across all groups.

 

The problem with this concept is that scientists do not KNOW (in advance) ALL

of the factors that may influence tha outcomes. Therefore the experimental

groups are not properly randomised pretrial!

 

This makes it very difficult (if not impossible) to draw sound conclusions

from the results. For example, in a trial of AP/CHM on chronic asthma, if the

researchers are not cognisant of the the TCM concept of " KI Not Grasping LU Qi "

as a factor in asthma, and a pre-trial TCM Dx has not been made, the " placebo "

or " sham-AP " group could have 80% of its subjects FREE of that Dx, with the

" active " (real) AP group having 80% of its subjects with that more serious Dx.

 

It follows that a comparison of " sham AP " (in the less-seriously affected

group) could have similar clinical outcomes to " expert AP " in the more seriously

affected group!

 

The (MISTAKEN) conclusion could be that " real AP " was no better than " " sham

AP " .

 

BOTTOM LINE: unwary researchers might conclude that " real AP " had no benefit

over " sham AP " .

 

> Are you familiar with the details of the studies design > and conduct? Are

there factors at work here that lead

> to such findings? Ken

 

No! I have not looked at the full-text (small print " ) of those papers.

 

But, from personal experience, I KNOW that AP can confer

significant clinical benefit to many patients (esp humans) with chronic LU

disease!

 

My problem (and the problem for the AP / TCM community) is that I cannot PROVE

that to the satisfaction of skeptical colleagues!

 

If one looks at the TOTAL number of Medline " hits " on TCM (AP, herbal, tuina,

moxa, etc), they are a FLEABITE i(?60,000) n comparison to the number of papers

on " conventional " (allopathic)

medicine (?15,000,000).

 

THAT is our problem! We simply have NOT enough high quality published research

on TCM. And I do not hold my breath while I wait for governments or users to

FUND such research.

 

Meanwhile, we are in " Limbo " . We (who use TCM daily) KNOW that it is a very

good system when used in well-selected cases, but few scientists / conventional

practitioners believe us when we say

so!

 

 

Best regards,