Traditional Medicine Starts To Examine Alternative Therapies

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Traditional Medicine Starts To Examine Alternative Therapies

 

_http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2001/08/22/alternative.aspx_

(http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2001/08/22/alternative.aspx)

 

by Judy Gerstel

 

We're on the brink of going back to the future in medicine.

 

Stem cells, genes and transplants are getting the headlines, but the bigger

story may be that medicine is advancing beyond the biomedical model and

embracing medical pluralism.

 

The overwhelming trend is the integration of orthodox medicine, defined by

its pharmaceuticals and invasive techniques, with other ancient, old-fashioned

and unconventional healing practices.

 

The future of medicine, it seems, is not only in the high-tech laboratory

and the surgical suite but also on the NST and massage tables, at the

herbalists and the health food store, behind the therapist's closed door, but

most

especially in the cerebral hemisphere ã the mind.

 

This week's edition of Annals Of Internal Medicine, the August journal of

the conservative American College of Physicians-American Society of Internal

Medicine, kicks off an unprecedented series on complementary and alternative

medicine.

 

And they take the subject seriously, referring to *postmodern medical

diversity.* It*s probably the first time that Haitian *vodun*, hair analysis,

crystals, magnets and charismatic healing have all been mentioned without

derision

in the pages of Annals.

 

Authored by David Eisenberg, MD, and Ted Kaptchuk, OMD (Doctor of Oriental

Medicine) of Harvard Medical School and its division of complementary and

integrative medical therapies, the series considers everything from acupuncture

to iridology to chicken soup to Reiki to vitamins to **ethno-medicine.**

 

**The alternative medicine *boom* is not new,** Kaptchuk says. **What*s new

is that orthodox medicine has abandoned the crusade against alternative

medicine and is trying to accommodate widespread patient belief and acceptance

of

these practices.**

 

MDs are unlikely to suddenly start recommending copper bracelets to combat

arthritis or stopping a nosebleed by placing a a red string around the neck,

but they are acknowledging that a patient's belief in healing properties may

be just as powerful in many medical situations as the interventions of the

physician.

 

In this week*s issue of the journal Science, there's stunning testimony from

University of British Columbia researchers about how _the mind can heal the

body_

(http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2001/08/18/placebo-part-one.\

aspx) . Their study suggests that the placebo effect in Parkinson's

disease produces the same neurological outcome as active drugs used to treat

Parkinson's: an increase in dopamine release by neurons impaired by the

disease.

 

The placebo effect occurs when individuals take an inactive substance,

rather than an active drug, and experience beneficial effects only because they

believe they're receiving beneficial treatment.

 

**The magnitude of the placebo effect was surprising,** admits UBC

researcher Ral de la Fuente-Ferny¥ndez. **The greater the expectation, the

greater the

effect of the mind's healing power.**

 

He adds, **This paper shows that there must be a bridge between traditional

medicine and natural medicine.**

 

In studies of the impact of psychological therapies on longevity in patients

with metastatic cancers, Ontario Cancer Institute senior scientist Alastair

Cunningham found an association between intense spiritual work and longer

survival.

 

**The psychological dimension offers promise for the treatment of many

physical diseases,** writes Cunningham in the forthcoming issue of Advances In

Mind-Body Medicine, an innovative, peer-reviewed scholarly journal published in

the U.S.

 

**Modern medicine is conservative,** says Cunningham. **My approach is to

try to play on the medical playing field and give evidence.**

 

Scientific, evidence-based proof of the placebo effect and the psychological

dimension is only one reason for the dramatic shift right now toward

inclusiveness and away from the historical antagonism to alternative practices

by

the medical establishment, say the Annals authors.

 

**People generally adopt multiple healing practices, even when biomedicine

is generally available,** note the Annals authors.

 

This sheer force of numbers comes at the same time as a trend toward

consumer-oriented medicine and away from **doctor knows best.**

 

More and more, the increasingly sophisticated patient is an educated partner

in medical decisions. Knowledgeable health consumers are letting the medical

profession know they want inclusive medicine.

 

The medical profession is responding for two reasons. First, there's money

to be made from patients, since most alternative services must be paid for

privately.

 

But with the US leading the way, there's also more funding for alternative

and complementary medicine. American researchers vie for grants from the

prestigious National Institutes of Health*s Office of Alternative Medicine. And

insurance providers such as HMOs in the US are beginning to realize that

alternative practices can be just as effective and a lot cheaper than expensive

high-tech interventions.

 

But what may appear to be new and cutting-edge is only a change in

perception and attitude by orthodox medicine, maintains Harvard's Kaptchuk,

co-author

of the Annals article.

 

**I'm so bored with people being hypocritical and pretending that all this

is new, rather than saying that they've changed standards,** he says. **That's

a kind of distortion, not looking at the reality of the phenomena. It's the

response that's different. What is new is that conventional medicine has to

redefine its relationship to this phenomena.**

 

Kaptchuk claims that orthodox medicine's nascent inclusiveness of

complementary and alternative medicine is **a breathless attempt to co-opt

it.**

 

**It's market-driven,** he says, with distaste. His cynicism is

understandable.

 

**In 1970 I was arrested in Cambridge (Mass.) for practicing medicine

without a license,** Kaptchuk says. **Now I'm a professor at Harvard Medical

School.**

 

The Star.com August 10, 2001

 

 

Dr. Mercola's Comments:

 

First it was Dr. Eisenberg's article in NEJM eight years ago (328:246-252,

Jan 28, 1993) that started the whole process. Then three years ago JAMA

devoted an entire issue to alternative therapies.

 

Now the journal of the highly conservative and ultra traditional US

Internists (Annals of Internal Medicine) publishes an update of Dr. Eisenberg's

article in its August 2001 issue.

 

 

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