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Brushing off TCM as pseudoscience is quite ignorant. There are plenty of legitimate TCM research and verified treatments that have improved the lives of many in

by ptenk 8y ago

Brushing off TCM as pseudoscience is quite ignorant. There are plenty of legitimate TCM research and verified treatments that have improved the lives of many in the world.

matthewbauer 8y ago
Traditional medicine that is shown to be effective is no longer traditional. It’s modern medicine.
- paraditedc 8y ago
  That not what "traditional" means. Traditional dance or traditional costumes don't become modern no matter how "effective" they are. "Traditional" simply means TCM hasn't changed much over the years.
  - zazen 8y ago
    The point is, the parts of traditional medicine that work are adopted by modern medicine. Meaning, although they're still part of traditional medicine, they're no longer distinctive of traditional medicine. Traditional medicine is distinct from modern medicine only by virtue of the parts that don't work. This is what is meant by the "traditional medicine that works is called medicine" soundbite. The soundbite on its own condenses the argument very imperfectly, and people should be wary of using it.
    - paraditedc 8y ago
      Please educate yourself with the term TCM (traditional Chinese medicine, 中药) before making such condescending comments. It's a very specific branch of medicine, not related to the generic English term "traditional medicine". Your argument, to a Chinese person, is equivalent to "JavaScript is old because Java is old." It makes no sense at all. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traditional_Chinese_medicine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traditional_Chinese_medicine Edit: It's also worth noting that in Chinese, TCM is simply 中医, which literally means Chinese medicine. I'm not sure who decided to add the "traditional" in front, but it's not actually how it's called in China. > Traditional medicine is distinct from modern medicine only by virtue of the parts that don't work. If you say it this way, then maybe we should stop using the term TCM and just call it its original name "Chinese medicine" so we can both be happy.
- tim333 8y ago
  Dunno - stuff like acupuncture works for pain relief but is still part of TCM. If you have a bad back it probably has a lot less side effects than being put on opioids as is common in the US.
  - lsc 8y ago
    I was reading a few years back that they didn't have anything like double-blind studies on chiropractic medicine, in part 'cause double blind studies are much more difficult for procedures than for pills. I mean, I'm not claiming to be an expert here or anything, it's just that last time I read up on that sort of thing it sounded like there was no evidence that chiropractic medicine or acupuncture was more than just placebo. Do you have citations?
    - tomhoward 8y ago
      The hard thing about all of this is that, as you pointed out, studies are hard to do. Even if they were funded to the same level as pharmaceuticals, it would be much harder to make conclusive findings. But in the absence of huge companies with profit motives or government bodies with political motives, there's not much funding around for thorough studies. But some examples of where practices from TCM and CAM are achieving recognition are: - The Nobel Prize awarded to Tu Youyou for finding artemisinin effective for treating malaria [1] - A recent NIH review finding acupuncture, yoga and other non-drug therapies effective for common pain conditions [2] - A study of a chiropractic technique to reduce the physiological effects of emotional stress/trauma [3] But aside from these studies, surely the market is at least somewhat of an indicator of some level of benefit. Economists generally regard consumers of being capable of making rational decisions about how to spend their money in ways that most benefit them. Of course it's not a water-tight rule, but nor is it completely false. Yet many people dismiss the entire CAM industry as being fuelled by nothing but stupidity, and dismiss the possibility that at least some of the industry's customers are capable of making rational spending decisions when it comes to their health. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tu_Youyou https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tu_Youyou [2] https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/nih-review-finds-nondrug-approaches-effective-treatment-common-pain-conditions https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/nih-review-fin... [3] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28181091 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28181091
EmbarrassedFuel 8y ago
Are you really claiming that TCM and other such pseudosciences have been a net positive for the world? Unproven treatments that may make problems worse, while also encouraging patients to stay away from tested treatments, should play no part in a modern society. If you're in any doubt about this, perhaps you should read 'Bad Science' by Ben Goldacre, which takes a whistle stop tour of such quackery, as well as the various unethical practices undertaken by pharmaceutical companies.
- paraditedc 8y ago
  The fact that nobody in the West bothered doing in-depth research into TCM does not mean it's ineffective or bad. Chinese people have been practicing it for thousands years and we are doing just fine in terms of life expectancy, actually better than US.
  - EmbarrassedFuel 8y ago
    Do you have anything better than an appeal to tradition to justify your viewpoint, perhaps a book or study that comprehensively justifies TCM without falling into the basic traps of failed statistical reasoning?
    - paraditedc 8y ago
      Perhaps the missing point is that the TCM approach to illness or health is dramatically different from Western medicine. Surgery or modern medicine (injection, pills) focuses on one particular manifestation of illness and targets a particular illness. On the other hand, TCM is not targeting a particular illness, but rather, it sees illness as the symptom of something deeper going off track in the body. Hence it tries to regulate and balance the body so that it can correct itself, without too much intervention. It's not something that you can quantitatively study easily and get concrete results, as it is more long-term and therapeutic rather than short-term result driven.
- tomhoward 8y ago
  So Goldacre's finding is that unethical practices and unproven treatments exist both in mainstream pharma and "CAM" [1]. So why is your contempt reserved for "CAM"? > Unproven treatments that may make problems worse, while also encouraging patients to stay away from tested treatments I keep hearing this but I've only witnessed the opposite. I've utilised "CAM" for conditions that mainstream medicine couldn't help with (after years of trying to get help from different mainstream practitioners). Only a combination of treatments from "CAM" modalities (naturopathy, osteopathy, myotherapy, yoga/pilates, limited chiropractic & TCM) has enabled me to get properly well. Every "CAM" practitioner I saw encouraged me to keep checking in with mainstream doctors, which I did and have continued to do. My mainstream doctors now look at my test results and just say "whatever you've been doing, keep doing it". I get that there are horror stories, as there are in many facets of life. But like much of what makes up mainstream news reporting, the very thing that makes them noteworthy is that they are exceptions to the norm. As someone who has gone about as deep into researching health/medicine as one can without actually undertaking a medical degree, I'm comfortable that the hysterical reactions over "CAM" are overblown. So, it would seem, are government regulators around the world who are actually looking at the data, otherwise there would be even more stringent controls imposed on practitioners than are already in place. [1] "Complementary and Alternative Medicine"

by ptenk 8y ago

Brushing off TCM as pseudoscience is quite ignorant. There are plenty of legitimate TCM research and verified treatments that have improved the lives of many in the world.

matthewbauer 8y ago

Traditional medicine that is shown to be effective is no longer traditional. It’s modern medicine.

paraditedc 8y ago
That not what "traditional" means. Traditional dance or traditional costumes don't become modern no matter how "effective" they are. "Traditional" simply means TCM hasn't changed much over the years.
- zazen 8y ago
  The point is, the parts of traditional medicine that work are adopted by modern medicine. Meaning, although they're still part of traditional medicine, they're no longer distinctive of traditional medicine. Traditional medicine is distinct from modern medicine only by virtue of the parts that don't work. This is what is meant by the "traditional medicine that works is called medicine" soundbite. The soundbite on its own condenses the argument very imperfectly, and people should be wary of using it.
  - paraditedc 8y ago
    Please educate yourself with the term TCM (traditional Chinese medicine, 中药) before making such condescending comments. It's a very specific branch of medicine, not related to the generic English term "traditional medicine". Your argument, to a Chinese person, is equivalent to "JavaScript is old because Java is old." It makes no sense at all. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traditional_Chinese_medicine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traditional_Chinese_medicine Edit: It's also worth noting that in Chinese, TCM is simply 中医, which literally means Chinese medicine. I'm not sure who decided to add the "traditional" in front, but it's not actually how it's called in China. > Traditional medicine is distinct from modern medicine only by virtue of the parts that don't work. If you say it this way, then maybe we should stop using the term TCM and just call it its original name "Chinese medicine" so we can both be happy.
tim333 8y ago
Dunno - stuff like acupuncture works for pain relief but is still part of TCM. If you have a bad back it probably has a lot less side effects than being put on opioids as is common in the US.
- lsc 8y ago
  I was reading a few years back that they didn't have anything like double-blind studies on chiropractic medicine, in part 'cause double blind studies are much more difficult for procedures than for pills. I mean, I'm not claiming to be an expert here or anything, it's just that last time I read up on that sort of thing it sounded like there was no evidence that chiropractic medicine or acupuncture was more than just placebo. Do you have citations?
  - tomhoward 8y ago
    The hard thing about all of this is that, as you pointed out, studies are hard to do. Even if they were funded to the same level as pharmaceuticals, it would be much harder to make conclusive findings. But in the absence of huge companies with profit motives or government bodies with political motives, there's not much funding around for thorough studies. But some examples of where practices from TCM and CAM are achieving recognition are: - The Nobel Prize awarded to Tu Youyou for finding artemisinin effective for treating malaria [1] - A recent NIH review finding acupuncture, yoga and other non-drug therapies effective for common pain conditions [2] - A study of a chiropractic technique to reduce the physiological effects of emotional stress/trauma [3] But aside from these studies, surely the market is at least somewhat of an indicator of some level of benefit. Economists generally regard consumers of being capable of making rational decisions about how to spend their money in ways that most benefit them. Of course it's not a water-tight rule, but nor is it completely false. Yet many people dismiss the entire CAM industry as being fuelled by nothing but stupidity, and dismiss the possibility that at least some of the industry's customers are capable of making rational spending decisions when it comes to their health. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tu_Youyou https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tu_Youyou [2] https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/nih-review-finds-nondrug-approaches-effective-treatment-common-pain-conditions https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/nih-review-fin... [3] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28181091 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28181091

EmbarrassedFuel 8y ago

Are you really claiming that TCM and other such pseudosciences have been a net positive for the world? Unproven treatments that may make problems worse, while also encouraging patients to stay away from tested treatments, should play no part in a modern society. If you're in any doubt about this, perhaps you should read 'Bad Science' by Ben Goldacre, which takes a whistle stop tour of such quackery, as well as the various unethical practices undertaken by pharmaceutical companies.

paraditedc 8y ago
The fact that nobody in the West bothered doing in-depth research into TCM does not mean it's ineffective or bad. Chinese people have been practicing it for thousands years and we are doing just fine in terms of life expectancy, actually better than US.
- EmbarrassedFuel 8y ago
  Do you have anything better than an appeal to tradition to justify your viewpoint, perhaps a book or study that comprehensively justifies TCM without falling into the basic traps of failed statistical reasoning?
  - paraditedc 8y ago
    Perhaps the missing point is that the TCM approach to illness or health is dramatically different from Western medicine. Surgery or modern medicine (injection, pills) focuses on one particular manifestation of illness and targets a particular illness. On the other hand, TCM is not targeting a particular illness, but rather, it sees illness as the symptom of something deeper going off track in the body. Hence it tries to regulate and balance the body so that it can correct itself, without too much intervention. It's not something that you can quantitatively study easily and get concrete results, as it is more long-term and therapeutic rather than short-term result driven.
tomhoward 8y ago
So Goldacre's finding is that unethical practices and unproven treatments exist both in mainstream pharma and "CAM" [1]. So why is your contempt reserved for "CAM"? > Unproven treatments that may make problems worse, while also encouraging patients to stay away from tested treatments I keep hearing this but I've only witnessed the opposite. I've utilised "CAM" for conditions that mainstream medicine couldn't help with (after years of trying to get help from different mainstream practitioners). Only a combination of treatments from "CAM" modalities (naturopathy, osteopathy, myotherapy, yoga/pilates, limited chiropractic & TCM) has enabled me to get properly well. Every "CAM" practitioner I saw encouraged me to keep checking in with mainstream doctors, which I did and have continued to do. My mainstream doctors now look at my test results and just say "whatever you've been doing, keep doing it". I get that there are horror stories, as there are in many facets of life. But like much of what makes up mainstream news reporting, the very thing that makes them noteworthy is that they are exceptions to the norm. As someone who has gone about as deep into researching health/medicine as one can without actually undertaking a medical degree, I'm comfortable that the hysterical reactions over "CAM" are overblown. So, it would seem, are government regulators around the world who are actually looking at the data, otherwise there would be even more stringent controls imposed on practitioners than are already in place. [1] "Complementary and Alternative Medicine"