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Watch Out for Alternative Medicine Charlatans!
Forget those Crystals
As an integrative medical practitioner, I keep an open mind to new modalities of evaluating illness and treating disease. My interest and pursuit of complementary or alternative medical therapies has led me to selectively incorporate some of what I have come across. For example, in my practice, I embrace acupuncture for the diagnosis and treatment of certain disease states. Also, Traditional Chinese Herbal medicine and western herbs have been quite helpful and marked with successful outcomes for many of our patients. However, there are many who claim to be practitioners of alternative medicine who pray on the gullible and ignorant. This fact hit home as never before when I attended and participated in a Holistic Expo in Atlanta in mid September this year. I was a guest speaker on the topic of super nutrients in health and longevity and had a presence on the Expo floor to promote my dietary supplement line and integrative practice in Savannah. After viewing over 160 vendor booths and reviewing the list of topics being lectured I was appalled and horrified at what I saw.
To my amazement the bulk of the practitioners present at this supposed health (Mind-Body-Spirit) Expo appeared to be charlatans, fakes and quacks. They offered no credentials and held no certification. There was no governing body that oversaw what they offered or preached. What amazed me more were the number of visitors to the expo who were duped into believing there was actually healing going on. I view these people as entertainers, but certainly not healers. Many of the vendors offered their services or wares for sale on the spot. A typical Divine Psychic reading could cost up to $35. A Channeling session with crystals was $5 per minute. And people were lining up for this. I was very uncomfortable and very out to place amongst this group. The vendor to my immediate left was comprised of three healers, a fellow who would sketch your spiritual drawing, and two females, one a psychic, the other a tarot card reader. Across from me was a vendor for a distance learning institution that offered degrees in nutrition, herbology, spiritual healing and Reiki. To my right was a massage therapist/channeler/healer who on several occasions had his victim on a table where he would rub them rather aggressively and wave rocks and crystals over their heads and chest. Yet another booth offered spontaneous healing where practitioners pranced around their victim chanting and waving their hands in an effort to expel the evil forces causing disease. They also showed a videotape repeatedly of a non-surgical way of extracting tumors from bodies seemingly through their skin with instantaneous healing.
Those at the booths (and in the lecture hall) purported to be able to deliver unbelievable health advice from celebrities on the other side (Celebrity Channelers). Many were divine psychics, and one booth offer aromatherapy for people & pets. One Native American fellow in Indian garb spoke of Meeting your Totem Animal. Whats more, others talked about Sonic Angel music and Turbo Tantra. A couple had people buying crystal balls set in a wooden box that could diagnose illness under the name of Chakra Life. While others offered means of Accessing the Akashic Records.
Astonished to see such a large number of people interested in such alternative healing claims lead me to ask the questions. Where did modern medicine go wrong to force people to accept or believe in the irrational? What have we done as physicians to push people to embrace such silly notions and odd alternative therapies? Why is the traditional physician despised by these people? Yes, there is genuine dislike of allopathic medicine and its practitioners. The rhetoric one overhears at these booths is ridiculous. Many complaints about medical doctors are based on misguided or casual observations, anecdotal horror stories with a lot of spin, and those with an axe-to-grind. Some complaints have legitimate grounds, I must admit, but never bad enough to consider the alternative.
Have we sold or souls to the pharmaceutical companies as we have been charged? Have we been caught up in pressures placed upon us by the current atmosphere of managed care? Have we been embittered by our feelings toward governmental and private insurance reimbursements and the medical malpractice litigation? I am still hopeful in our ability to turn this trend around and salvage our reputations with these people and dissuade those seeking health from wasting their time, money and energy on such quacks and charlatans. Should we chose to ignore our patients, we will only worsen this movement away from what we as physicians know to be effective medical care and push them toward the circus of sometimes harmful caregivers.
As one who subscribes to substantiated complementary medical therapeutics, while not turning my back on traditional allopathic medicine, I believe I have a license to be a critic and to write this article. I only embrace what has been shown, after careful scrutiny, to be effective and helpful as a treatment. Charles T. Sprading once said, Knowledge consists in understanding the evidence that establishes the fact, not in the belief that it is a fact.
Therefore, this is a call to those out there seeking healing and wellness. Dont give up on the medical establishment just yet, despite a lot of negative press, we still offer the best health/patient-care around with a proven track record. And despite the disseminated misinformation many of us do subscribe to and uphold our Hippocratic Oath. Even a few of us are open minded enough to realize our Allopathic education does not give us all the answers and we continuously seek new and better ways to take care of our patients.
JP Saleeby, MD is an Integrative Physician and Medical Director of LCNHC in Savannah, GA. He also co-directs the Emergency Department at LRMC in Hinesville, GA. He can be reached for comment at jpsaleeby@aol.com. More info visit http://www.saleeby.net or http://www.docsaleeby.blogspot.com
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1 Sep 2010 at 7:00am
Hawthorn extract, according to a new animal study. In tests on rat pups, scientists discovered that eye drops containing hawthorn extract helped fight cataracts by revving up antioxidant activity.
The world's leading cause of blindness, cataracts develop when fibers in the lens of the eye clump together and result in blurred vision (or complete blindness, if left untreated). In previously published population studies, researchers have found that loading up on lutein and zeaxanthin (antioxidants found in yellow or dark-green leafy vegetables) and omega-3 fatty acids (healthy fats found in flaxseed and certain fish) may help reduce risk of cataracts.
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31 Aug 2010 at 7:00am
To build strong bones, girls may need to start taking vitamin D supplements prior to early adolescence. In a recent study of 73 girls (ages 12 to 14), those who received four doses of 150,000 IU of vitamin D over the period of a year showed no significant improvement in bone health. According to the study's authors, this finding suggests that earlier supplementation is needed in order to make the most of peak bone-building years.
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30 Aug 2010 at 7:00am
Filling your plate with foods high in vitamin E may help reduce your risk for Alzheimer's disease, a new study shows.
For the study, researchers sized up dietary information provided by 5,395 participants (all of whom were 55 years or older and did not have dementia between 1990 and 1993). Over the course of about 9.6 years, 465 study members developed dementia. Among the participants with dementia, 365 were diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease. In analyzing their data, the researchers found that study members whose diets were highest in vitamin E were 25 percent less likely to develop dementia. Dietary intake of vitamin C and beta-carotene, however, was not associated with a reduction in dementia risk.
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27 Aug 2010 at 7:00am
Using zinc nasal sprays to soothe cold symptoms may dull your sense of smell, a new study shows.
The study included 25 patients, all of whom had been treated at a nasal dysfunction clinic. The patients reported experiencing a burning sensation immediately after using zinc nasal sprays, followed by a loss of sense of smell within minutes to hours of using the sprays. According to the study's authors, the only "probable explanation for the smell loss is chemical injury due to the use of intranasal zinc." What's more, the study's authors note, previous research suggests that zinc nasal sprays may not be effective when it comes to preventing or treating colds.
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26 Aug 2010 at 7:00am
Boosting your vitamin D levels may help shield you from Parkinson's disease, according to a recently published study.
For the study, researchers looked at data on 3,173 older adults, 50 of whom had Parkinson's (a motor system disorder that results from the loss of dopamine-producing brain cells). Results revealed that study members with the highest vitamin D levels had a 65 percent lower risk of developing Parkinson's (compared to those with the lowest vitamin D levels). It's possible that running low on vitamin D could lead to a chronic loss of dopamine-producing brain cells, the study's authors suggest.
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24 Aug 2010 at 7:00am
New research suggests that low vitamin D levels may not be linked to depression. This finding contradicts a number of previously published studies showing that boosting your levels of the ...
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