A friend tells me that having suffered from heartburn for some time, she took Western medicines which provided relief without side effects, though the tablets were expensive.
Then someone mentioned to her that, in order to fight heartburn, all that is needed is to take four Adzuki beans every night with a glass of water before going to sleep.
She tried it and - problem solved!
As I don't suffer from heartburn, I can't vouch for the treatment myself. But I am putting this information here as pharma companies don't like such information being around in the public realm - and if the information helps you that will be excellent.
If this natural remedy does not help you, you can always go back to expensive Western medicine.
Saturday, 19 November 2011
Wednesday, 16 November 2011
The Placebo Effect
Western medicine ("allopathy") seems to me to regard the Placebo Effect with less respect than it should.
What is the Placebo Effect? Basically: that a "placebo" or pill consisting of a substance which has no known medical effect, given to a sick person with the statement that it may improve his/her condition, actually (or at least in the perception of the patient) actually improves their condition.
Placebos are at present given as "controls" to patients suffering from a disease, with others being given "real medicines" in order to check the efficacy of the "real medicine".
The assumption is that people given the medicine should all benefit from the medicine, whereas the people given the placebo will not, in general, benefit from the placebo. The surprising thing is that some or many patients do respond to the placebo.
Western medicine then tries very hard to "explain" (that is, to discount and dismiss) placebos - for example, regarding homeopathic effectiveness as "merely a placebo effect".
To any skeptical person, this is surely completely the wrong way round. If the placebo effect is so powerful, and so cheap, should THAT not be what we should investigate in order to improve its effectiveness?
But no one in the West likes to think in politically incorrect ways. Psychologists and physicians who take the placebo effect seriously are regarded as stupid or even dangerous.
On the other hand, no one in the West takes seriously the costs of so-called "evidence-based medicine": it is obvious that Western medicine is extremely powerful and has dangerous side-effects. So the only justification for giving these "medicines" is that the benefits outweigh the costs. That can only be possible where the diagnosis of the disease is correct. But has any research been done on how many cases are mis-diagnosed, or how much people have suffered and are suffering from the wrong medicines being administered to them?
No. Researching neither misdiagnosis nor improving the efficacy of the placebo effect would be financed by the main financers of medical research (pharmaceutical companies) - and it would bring no researcher any any kudos in the world of Western medicine.
So we have the taboo around quantifying the prevalance and effects of misdiagnosis in Western medicine, and we have the continued non-investigation of what should be the cheapest way of treating people.
In other words, it is faith in Western medicine that enables it to continue its dominance against so-called "alternative" or "complementary" medicine, and that is why the Western medical tradition is so bent on stigmatising the placebo effect rather than in investigating it.
"Evidence-based medicine" has become today's equivalent of Roman Catholic or Hindu dogma: it is not supposed to be questioned by anyone who wishes to continue to be accepted in society as "rational" - when at least some of the rationality is on the side of those who wish to question it.
Perhaps I should put it more strongly: We will move to "genuinely evidence-based medicine" only when we begin to investigate how to decrease the rate of misdiagnosis, how to spot more quickly that the wrong medicine has been or is being administered, and how to improve the efficacy of placebos.
What is the Placebo Effect? Basically: that a "placebo" or pill consisting of a substance which has no known medical effect, given to a sick person with the statement that it may improve his/her condition, actually (or at least in the perception of the patient) actually improves their condition.
Placebos are at present given as "controls" to patients suffering from a disease, with others being given "real medicines" in order to check the efficacy of the "real medicine".
The assumption is that people given the medicine should all benefit from the medicine, whereas the people given the placebo will not, in general, benefit from the placebo. The surprising thing is that some or many patients do respond to the placebo.
Western medicine then tries very hard to "explain" (that is, to discount and dismiss) placebos - for example, regarding homeopathic effectiveness as "merely a placebo effect".
To any skeptical person, this is surely completely the wrong way round. If the placebo effect is so powerful, and so cheap, should THAT not be what we should investigate in order to improve its effectiveness?
But no one in the West likes to think in politically incorrect ways. Psychologists and physicians who take the placebo effect seriously are regarded as stupid or even dangerous.
On the other hand, no one in the West takes seriously the costs of so-called "evidence-based medicine": it is obvious that Western medicine is extremely powerful and has dangerous side-effects. So the only justification for giving these "medicines" is that the benefits outweigh the costs. That can only be possible where the diagnosis of the disease is correct. But has any research been done on how many cases are mis-diagnosed, or how much people have suffered and are suffering from the wrong medicines being administered to them?
No. Researching neither misdiagnosis nor improving the efficacy of the placebo effect would be financed by the main financers of medical research (pharmaceutical companies) - and it would bring no researcher any any kudos in the world of Western medicine.
So we have the taboo around quantifying the prevalance and effects of misdiagnosis in Western medicine, and we have the continued non-investigation of what should be the cheapest way of treating people.
In other words, it is faith in Western medicine that enables it to continue its dominance against so-called "alternative" or "complementary" medicine, and that is why the Western medical tradition is so bent on stigmatising the placebo effect rather than in investigating it.
"Evidence-based medicine" has become today's equivalent of Roman Catholic or Hindu dogma: it is not supposed to be questioned by anyone who wishes to continue to be accepted in society as "rational" - when at least some of the rationality is on the side of those who wish to question it.
Perhaps I should put it more strongly: We will move to "genuinely evidence-based medicine" only when we begin to investigate how to decrease the rate of misdiagnosis, how to spot more quickly that the wrong medicine has been or is being administered, and how to improve the efficacy of placebos.
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