4 ms·

This is what drives me crazy about people who dismiss alternative therapies as placebo and therefore worthless. There's something mich more interesting going on

This is what drives me crazy about people who dismiss alternative therapies as placebo and therefore worthless. There's something mich more interesting going on, and studies on the placebo effect have barely scratched the surface regarding the range of placebo effects and what can modulate the strength of those effects.

Spooky23 5y ago
My mom was an advocate of therapeutic touch, which was taught in nursing schools and was reportedly effective in hospital settings. Is there something to it? I don’t know, but nobody really does as real trials aren’t financially practical.
- User23 5y ago
  I don't know if there is or not, but if I'm ever dying alone in a hospice and therapeutic manual therapy is offered I assure you I'll take it.
  - Spooky23 5y ago
    Absolutely! The “industry” of healthcare is solely focused on $$$, not care. Case in point: hundreds or thousands of people died from COVID-19 because hospital protocols didn’t accommodate rolling patients. Think about that - beyond the covid tragedy, how many sick people are suffering from pressure sores for want of aides to perform basic care protocols. It’s gross… the president of the local hospital chain here was whining on TV about the lack of nurses. He makes $15M/year and cut nurse salaries by 25% in 2019.
- eyelidlessness 5y ago
  The vast majority of people have at least some positive emotional response to kind, attentive physical touch. It’s important to acknowledge that there are people who don’t and for them it’s detrimental (I am one of both depending on circumstances). Even if there isn’t a clinical trial that specifically validates it, I think it’s a reasonable assumption that kind and attentive communication (to determine welcomeness of touch) and kind attentive touch can benefit most patients.
- aradox66 5y ago
  I'm sure it's beneficial, I know there's a ton of studies on the importance of touch for infant health in particular.
dsizzle 5y ago
So are you advocating taking alternative therapies more seriously as advanced placebos or something? Do you question whether it’s important to distinguish between the placebo and a “real” effect?
- aradox66 5y ago
  I do think the distinction is important, but I'd hope for a more precise terminology than "real" vs "fake" effects. "psychosomatic" is okay but has some similar baggage. There should be a thorough technical vocabulary for "placebo" effects. Currently the biological mechanisms aren't even understood for many of the effects.
  - darkerside 5y ago
    Yeah, I think it's a cultural and systemic issue, not a vocabulary issue. Similar to how words like crippled and retarded became slurs. The problem is not the word, it's that we have cultural connotations associated with these conditions, no matter what name we call it by.
  - dsizzle 5y ago
    I'm all for more precise terminology, and yes "real" would not be that terminology. As far as distinguishing mechanisms, for any drug that doesn't have a perceptible side effect (drowsiness, euphoria, numbness, etc), it seems the only assumption required is that the effect is due to some chemical property. That doesn't require much understanding to make a meaningful distinction.
GuB-42 5y ago
One thing I've seen about alternative therapies that work better than "mainstream" medicine simply has to do with a therapist who actually cares about his patients, and at the same time, suggests positive lifestyle changes. The same effect could be achieved by skipping the magic rituals and by replacing the therapist by a doctor, problem is: we don't have enough doctors! As a result, doctor appointments are rushed. A 10 minute diagnostic, get your prescription, take your medicine, next patient. No time to discuss how your life is going, how you eat, how you sleep, the kind of exercise you are doing, make suggestions, etc... Homeopathy is one of the best example. The sugar pills don't matter. What matters is that you are supposed to spend a lot of time with your homeopath so that he can find the right treatment for you, good practice also require an impeccable lifestyle. Hahnemann, the father of homeopathy recommended rest, a good diet, good hygiene, sunshine and fresh air. Yep, by telling you to open the windows, homeopathy can prevent covid!
- eyelidlessness 5y ago
  > The same effect could be achieved by skipping the magic rituals and by replacing the therapist by a doctor This is not in evidence and deserves a supporting case.
  - GuB-42 5y ago
    Here is my source (in french): https://lepharmachien.com/reiki/ https://lepharmachien.com/reiki/ It is linked to the study here: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21531671/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21531671/ This is a bit of an extrapolation from the study. The study just says that real reiki and sham reiki (placebo) work just as well at improving cancer patients comfort, and are better than doing nothing. Now if there is an actual study that compares the efficacy of typical "rushed" care vs a more "holistic" approach by doctors vs alternative therapies, I would be very interested.
    - darkerside 5y ago
      I don't know what Reiki is, but maybe it's actually just really easy to learn, and the people who happened to name it don't have a monopoly on the behaviors that it consists of.
eyelidlessness 5y ago
I agree the effectiveness of placebo shouldn’t be so readily dismissed. I also think it would be good, for a lot of patients for a lot of diagnostics, to treat somatic symptoms as real. They are real, at least for the person experiencing them, but often objectively too.
Nursie 5y ago
> There's something mich more interesting going on But at that point, it's not the therapy itself that's doing it, so we're right to dismiss them as worthless. Do these pills work? No, we couldn't separate their effects from placebo, so there is nothing about these pills that work. Should we investigate placebo effects? Sure, definitely, they are interesting. Doesn't mean that the alt-med added anything to any picture though.

Spooky23 5y ago

My mom was an advocate of therapeutic touch, which was taught in nursing schools and was reportedly effective in hospital settings. Is there something to it? I don’t know, but nobody really does as real trials aren’t financially practical.

User23 5y ago
I don't know if there is or not, but if I'm ever dying alone in a hospice and therapeutic manual therapy is offered I assure you I'll take it.
- Spooky23 5y ago
  Absolutely! The “industry” of healthcare is solely focused on $$$, not care. Case in point: hundreds or thousands of people died from COVID-19 because hospital protocols didn’t accommodate rolling patients. Think about that - beyond the covid tragedy, how many sick people are suffering from pressure sores for want of aides to perform basic care protocols. It’s gross… the president of the local hospital chain here was whining on TV about the lack of nurses. He makes $15M/year and cut nurse salaries by 25% in 2019.
eyelidlessness 5y ago
The vast majority of people have at least some positive emotional response to kind, attentive physical touch. It’s important to acknowledge that there are people who don’t and for them it’s detrimental (I am one of both depending on circumstances). Even if there isn’t a clinical trial that specifically validates it, I think it’s a reasonable assumption that kind and attentive communication (to determine welcomeness of touch) and kind attentive touch can benefit most patients.
aradox66 5y ago
I'm sure it's beneficial, I know there's a ton of studies on the importance of touch for infant health in particular.

dsizzle 5y ago

So are you advocating taking alternative therapies more seriously as advanced placebos or something? Do you question whether it’s important to distinguish between the placebo and a “real” effect?

aradox66 5y ago
I do think the distinction is important, but I'd hope for a more precise terminology than "real" vs "fake" effects. "psychosomatic" is okay but has some similar baggage. There should be a thorough technical vocabulary for "placebo" effects. Currently the biological mechanisms aren't even understood for many of the effects.
- darkerside 5y ago
  Yeah, I think it's a cultural and systemic issue, not a vocabulary issue. Similar to how words like crippled and retarded became slurs. The problem is not the word, it's that we have cultural connotations associated with these conditions, no matter what name we call it by.
- dsizzle 5y ago
  I'm all for more precise terminology, and yes "real" would not be that terminology. As far as distinguishing mechanisms, for any drug that doesn't have a perceptible side effect (drowsiness, euphoria, numbness, etc), it seems the only assumption required is that the effect is due to some chemical property. That doesn't require much understanding to make a meaningful distinction.

GuB-42 5y ago

One thing I've seen about alternative therapies that work better than "mainstream" medicine simply has to do with a therapist who actually cares about his patients, and at the same time, suggests positive lifestyle changes. The same effect could be achieved by skipping the magic rituals and by replacing the therapist by a doctor, problem is: we don't have enough doctors! As a result, doctor appointments are rushed. A 10 minute diagnostic, get your prescription, take your medicine, next patient. No time to discuss how your life is going, how you eat, how you sleep, the kind of exercise you are doing, make suggestions, etc... Homeopathy is one of the best example. The sugar pills don't matter. What matters is that you are supposed to spend a lot of time with your homeopath so that he can find the right treatment for you, good practice also require an impeccable lifestyle. Hahnemann, the father of homeopathy recommended rest, a good diet, good hygiene, sunshine and fresh air. Yep, by telling you to open the windows, homeopathy can prevent covid!

eyelidlessness 5y ago
> The same effect could be achieved by skipping the magic rituals and by replacing the therapist by a doctor This is not in evidence and deserves a supporting case.
- GuB-42 5y ago
  Here is my source (in french): https://lepharmachien.com/reiki/ https://lepharmachien.com/reiki/ It is linked to the study here: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21531671/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21531671/ This is a bit of an extrapolation from the study. The study just says that real reiki and sham reiki (placebo) work just as well at improving cancer patients comfort, and are better than doing nothing. Now if there is an actual study that compares the efficacy of typical "rushed" care vs a more "holistic" approach by doctors vs alternative therapies, I would be very interested.
  - darkerside 5y ago
    I don't know what Reiki is, but maybe it's actually just really easy to learn, and the people who happened to name it don't have a monopoly on the behaviors that it consists of.

eyelidlessness 5y ago

I agree the effectiveness of placebo shouldn’t be so readily dismissed. I also think it would be good, for a lot of patients for a lot of diagnostics, to treat somatic symptoms as real. They are real, at least for the person experiencing them, but often objectively too.

Nursie 5y ago

> There's something mich more interesting going on But at that point, it's not the therapy itself that's doing it, so we're right to dismiss them as worthless. Do these pills work? No, we couldn't separate their effects from placebo, so there is nothing about these pills that work. Should we investigate placebo effects? Sure, definitely, they are interesting. Doesn't mean that the alt-med added anything to any picture though.