5 ms·

There's a huge economic imbalance between the economic resources and motivations given to prove and market traditional medicine and alternative medicine. Someti

by ippisl 14y ago

There's a huge economic imbalance between the economic resources and motivations given to prove and market traditional medicine and alternative medicine. Sometimes this leads to a situations that non-fully proven alternative treatments can offer better results with less side effects than current medicine practice. And since risk for many alternative medicines is low it makes sense to try them. This of course doesn't apply to homeopathy.

tatsuke95 14y ago
>"Sometimes this leads to a situations that non-fully proven alternative treatments can offer better results with less side effects than current medicine practice." Maybe you're right. Care to point to some specific cases?
- lmm 14y ago
  St John's Wort for depression is the poster child; it's in the process of gradually becoming ordinary medicine as more studies are performed, but it's not yet something your doctor would prescribe you. We err far too much on the side of not approving new treatments (it's like we think harming someone by giving them bad medicine is thousands of times worse than doing the same harm by not giving them good medicine), particularly when there are no patents so no drug company profit motive to push them through trials.
  - tatsuke95 14y ago
    I'm in the pharmacy business, so this is of obvious interest to me. >"but it's not yet something your doctor would prescribe you." Because it doesn't require a prescription. There is nearly unlimited information on the product (including efficacy), and I can go into any pharmacy in North America and buy it off the shelf, no questions asked. >"particularly when there are no patents" The idea that you can't make money without owning the patent on something flies in the face of everything done in the hacker world, doesn't it? I don't buy into that theory, but can't really back up my opinion. The world is filled with companies who sell commodity products at a mark up, though.
- ippisl 14y ago
  Omega-3 for adhd is one example: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20424008 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20424008 Basically what is says that omega-3 combination might help some kids, we need more research. omega-3 is safe to use(except maybe for people who use blood thinners). The best strategy seems just to try.
freshhawk 14y ago
> Sometimes this leads to a situations that non-fully proven alternative treatments can offer better results with less side effects than current medicine practice. And since risk for many alternative medicines is low it makes sense to try them. This is a strange sentence. So this hypothetical alternative treatment has been shown to work better and with less side effects and also that it's risk is low, but is only "non-fully proven". If you showed low risk and better efficacy and less side effects then that's pretty much fully proven. What's left?
DaveChild 14y ago
> less side effects Well, yes. Less effects of all sorts naturally means less side effects as well.

by ippisl 14y ago

tatsuke95 14y ago

>"Sometimes this leads to a situations that non-fully proven alternative treatments can offer better results with less side effects than current medicine practice." Maybe you're right. Care to point to some specific cases?

lmm 14y ago
St John's Wort for depression is the poster child; it's in the process of gradually becoming ordinary medicine as more studies are performed, but it's not yet something your doctor would prescribe you. We err far too much on the side of not approving new treatments (it's like we think harming someone by giving them bad medicine is thousands of times worse than doing the same harm by not giving them good medicine), particularly when there are no patents so no drug company profit motive to push them through trials.
- tatsuke95 14y ago
  I'm in the pharmacy business, so this is of obvious interest to me. >"but it's not yet something your doctor would prescribe you." Because it doesn't require a prescription. There is nearly unlimited information on the product (including efficacy), and I can go into any pharmacy in North America and buy it off the shelf, no questions asked. >"particularly when there are no patents" The idea that you can't make money without owning the patent on something flies in the face of everything done in the hacker world, doesn't it? I don't buy into that theory, but can't really back up my opinion. The world is filled with companies who sell commodity products at a mark up, though.
ippisl 14y ago
Omega-3 for adhd is one example: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20424008 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20424008 Basically what is says that omega-3 combination might help some kids, we need more research. omega-3 is safe to use(except maybe for people who use blood thinners). The best strategy seems just to try.

freshhawk 14y ago

> Sometimes this leads to a situations that non-fully proven alternative treatments can offer better results with less side effects than current medicine practice. And since risk for many alternative medicines is low it makes sense to try them. This is a strange sentence. So this hypothetical alternative treatment has been shown to work better and with less side effects and also that it's risk is low, but is only "non-fully proven". If you showed low risk and better efficacy and less side effects then that's pretty much fully proven. What's left?

DaveChild 14y ago

> less side effects Well, yes. Less effects of all sorts naturally means less side effects as well.