'Are we being hoodwinked by alternative medicine? Two leading scientists examine the evidence'
...evidence-based medicine, has revolutionised medical practice, transforming it from an industry of charlatans and incompetents into a system of healthcare that can deliver such miracles as transplanting kidneys, removing cataracts, combating childhood diseases, eradicating smallpox and saving millions of lives each year.
Evidence-based medicine is about using the current best evidence - gathered through clinical trials and other scientific investigations - to make medical decisions. Alternative medicine claims to be able to treat the same illnesses and diseases that conventional medicine tries to tackle.
We set out to establish the truth of these claims by using the principles of evidence-based medicine.
Some people will be suspicious of this, perceiving evidence-based medicine as a strategy for allowing the medical establishment to defend its own members and treatment, while excluding outsiders who offer alternative treatments.
In fact, the opposite is often true - evidence-based medicine actually allows outsiders to be heard; it endorses any treatment that turns out to be effective, however strange it may seem.
In the 18th century, for instance, lemon juice as a treatment for scurvy was regarded as implausible but the establishment had to accept it because it was backed up by evidence from trials.
We had no axe to grind - indeed Professor Ernst even practised as a homeopath for many years (as well as receiving treatment as a patient) - and we came to our conclusions based on a fair, thorough and scientific assessment of the evidence.
So what did we find? While some therapies do provide some health benefits (e.g. osteopathy), most have nothing to offer.
Many popular therapies are "effective" only because they are good at eliciting a placebo response; making the patient feel better simply because they believe the treatment will help.
You might feel that as placebos help patients, this alone justifies the use of the therapy. But any treatment that relies on the placebo effect is essentially a bogus treatment. And it's far from cheap.
Alexander Technique, for example, can require between 30 and 100 sessions with a therapist.
If alternative practitioners are making unproven, disproven or vastly exaggerated claims, and if their treatments carry risks, then we are being swindled at the expense of our own good health.
And what about the cost to the NHS? The £500million it spends annually on unproven or disproven therapies could instead, for example, pay for 20,000 more nurses.
Too many alternative therapists remain uninterested in determining the safety and efficacy of their interventions. These practitioners also fail to see the importance of rigorous clinical trials in establishing proper evidence for or against their treatments - where evidence already exists that treatments are ineffective or unsafe, alternative therapists carry on regardless.
Despite this disturbing situation, the market for alternative treatments is booming, and the public is being misled over and over again, often by misguided therapists; sometimes by exploitative charlatans.
It is time for the tricks to stop, and for the real treatments to take priority. The same scientific standards, evaluation and regulation should be applied to all types of medicine.
If this doesn't happen, then homeopaths, acupuncturists, chiropractors, herbalists and many other alternative therapists will continue to prey on the most vulnerable - raiding their wallets, offering false hope and even endangering their health.
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http://www.dailymail.co.uk:80/pages...=557946&in_page_id=1774&ICO=HEALTH&ICL=TOPART
