Alternative Medicine

Donal O'Mathuna, Walt Larimore, MD

• Publisher: Zondervan
• Year: 2010
• ISBN:
  9780310861003
• Topic: Teología y religión
• Subtopic: Religión

The most complete resource of its kind on alternative medicine• Herbal remedies, dietary supplements, and alternative therapiesTheir specific usesWhich ones really work (and which ones don't)What to watch out for• Christian versus non-Christian approaches to holistic health• Clinically proven treatments versus unproven or quack treatments• Truths and fallacies about supernatural healing• Ancient medical lore: the historical, cultural, and scientific facts• And much, much moreAlternative Medicine is the first comprehensive guidebook to nontraditional medicine written from a distinctively Christian perspective. Keeping pace with the latest developments and research in alternative medicine, this thoroughly revised edition combines the most current information with an easy-to-use format. University lecturer and researcher Dónal O'Mathúna, PhD, and national medical authority Walt Larimore, MD, provide detailed and balanced answers to your most pressing questions about alternative medicine—and to other questions you wouldn't have thought to ask.Also includesTwo alphabetical reference sections: Alternative therapiesHerbal remedies, vitamins, and dietary supplementsA description of each therapy and remedy, an analysis of claims, results of actual studies, cautions, recommendations, and further resourcesHandy cross-references linking health problems with various alternative therapies and herbal remedies reviewed in the book

PART ONE

EVALUATING
ALTERNATIVE
MEDICINE

CHAPTER 1

PURSUING
ALTERNATIVE
MEDICINE

A lternative medicine remains very popular.Several surveys have found that roughly one-third of adults in the United States use some form of complementary and alternative medicine.1 But what are these people using? Is what they are using safe? An accurate picture of the situation is complicated.

If you’ve decided to try alternative medicine, you may have had difficulty finding accurate information. Our book provides a summary of the best scientific evidence available on dozens of the most popular products and therapies. We also examine the spiritual benefits and risks from an orthodox Judeo-Christian worldview. This book may well be the only one on alternative medicine that is both evidence-based and faith-based.

Alternative medicine includes many things —some good, some bad. There is the potential for great benefit, but there is also the potential for serious harm. Before trying any remedy or therapy, give careful consideration to the whole area of alternative medicine.

First we need to define a few terms. What do we mean by “alternative medicine”? What do we mean by “evidence-based”? And what do we mean by “faith-based”? The first question we’ll examine here. The two others will be our concern in each of the next two chapters.

What Is
Alternative Medicine?

Many would like to replace the term “alternative medicine” with “complementary and alternative medicine” and its acronym, CAM. The term “alternative” suggests that people use these approaches instead of conventional medicine. However, surveys have found that most people combine all these approaches to medicine. In other words, alternative medicine is most typically used to complement (or supplement) standard health care. Hence, the term “complementary” is preferred by some. We will use “alternative medicine” since that term remains most popular in everyday discussions. We use it in its broadest sense to include therapies and remedies used instead of or along with conventional medicine.

What is included within alternative medicine varies considerably from one definition to another.The simplest definition, and the one we will use, is that alternative medicine includes any therapy or remedy that is not generally accepted or provided by the dominant medical establishment in a given culture. Alternative medicine has a number of general characteristics:

• Passed over by conventional medicine, alternative medicine includes remedies, therapies, and healing systems that conventional Western health care professionals are unlikely to provide their patients. The dominant medical establishment tends to look with disfavor (or disgust) on alternative medicine, or views its approaches as going beyond the proper domain of medicine. Sometimes, alternative medicine claims to have been pushed aside by practitioners of conventional medicine for reasons of political or financial gain.

• Holistic approaches to health care are commonly stressed in alternative medicine. This means different things to different practitioners, but in general they treat the body, mind, and spirit. It also means relying on noninvasive “natural” methods of healing with an emphasis on disease prevention. Although conventional medicine can be holistic, physicians usually do not stress that fact.

• Spirituality is frequently addressed within alternative medicine, though often in ways that are unfamiliar or alien to Christianity (and to other major religions such as Judaism and Islam). Without understanding the roots of a particular therapy, you may find yourself involved with a theology dangerously different from what the Scriptures teach or what Jesus would want his followers doing.

• Little good-quality scientific evidence is available to support many of alternative medicine’s assertions about healing. However, as we will show, some aspects of alternative medicine have excellent scientific support yet are not utilized by many conventional Western physicians. Other therapies, with proper testing, might garner support for their claims. Without such evidence, no one, not even an expert in alternative medicine, knows for certain whether the untested, unproven alternative therapies actually have healed anyone or not. All we know is that patients relate how they were helped or cured or went into remission after using an alternative therapy.

Before you embark on any path that takes you into the world of alternative medicine, even to buy an herbal remedy suggested by a friend, we recommend that you investigate the realities of alternative medicine — the prospective benefits as well as the potential costs and the risks you might face. Not all stories are positive.

Hazel (in this book, the cases are real; the names and some of the details have been changed to protect patients’ confidentiality) struggled for months with terrible pain in her shoulder. She avoided her physician, afraid she would be urged to take powerful painkillers with nasty side effects or to undergo surgery. So she went to a variety of alternative therapists who said they could massage or manipulate the problem away. Her shoulder would be a little better after each session but soon would hurt again.

Hazel tried all sorts of supplements and went on special diets. No improvement. She was told that the problem was with her energy and could be resolved if she had her energy “cleared.” She tried Therapeutic Touch and then Reiki (see Therapeutic Touch and Reiki entries). She felt more relaxed after the sessions, but then the pain would return. Overthe- counter pain relievers helped a little, and Hazel began to wonder if she should give conventional medicine a try.

Frustrated, in constant pain, and unable to use her arm, she consulted Walt. A brief history, a physical exam, and an X-ray quickly revealed a condition called “chronic bursitis.” An injection of a nonabsorbable steroid into the bursa — a common and proven conventional treatment — gave Hazel full use of her crippled shoulder within fifteen minutes.Hazel cried, realizing she had needlessly suffered chronic pain for so long while trying alternative medicine.

We don’t label alternative medicine as good or bad. Our book points out the proven benefits and the unproven claims. We expose and explain the risks that many purveyors of alternative therapies appear to be concealing. We will present the background out of which various alternative therapies and remedies arose. And we will also look at what the use of alternative therapies could mean for a Christian. We have tried to anticipate your heartfelt questions and concerns so we can provide objective answers.

We have nothing to sell (except this book). We want you to have the best information, the best evidence, so that you can make the best and wisest decisions for your health.

In Part 2 we will discuss each of the most popular alternative therapies available today in North America. Many of these are also popular in Europe, Asia, and Australia. The entries in this section explain the origins of the therapies, give evidence of effectiveness, and list reasons for caution or concern.

Part 3 will give detailed information on popular herbal remedies, dietary supplements, and a few vitamins. We have chosen those popularly used as a form of self-help and available without much direction in health food stores, drugstores, and many supermarkets and on the Internet. Here, too, you’ll be able to read our recommendations along with any cautions and concerns.

We know that some people will disagree with our conclusions. Some will reject our insistence on high-quality evidence, saying it’s not available yet or can’t be provided for particular therapies and remedies. Some claim research costs too much. Yet supplements are now big business, producing large profits, some of which should be put into properly testing the products to protect people using them.

Others may agree with us in general but disagree with specific recommendations. Understandably,21 those who practice, promote, or sell therapies and remedies will not want to see criticism of things they value or on which they base their living. We accept such disagreements and welcome discussion about our conclusions. We stand ready to change our opinions on one condition: that high-quality evidence be produced that persuades us to change our recommendation. Those familiar with our first edition will see that we have changed some recommendations, based on new evidence. But heartfelt stories or impassioned pleas or appeals based on flawed research will not persuade us to change our recommendations — nor should they persuade you.

Conventional Medicine
Takes an Interest
in Alternative Medicine

As more research is done, we believe that conventional medicine and alternative medicine will increasingly be used together (hence the move toward CAM). Some alternative therapists recognize the potential of a holistic approach in contemporary conventional medicine and work in tandem with medical physicians to give high-quality care. And many conventional medicine practitioners recognize that one or more alternative therapies might benefit their patients when used in tandem with surgery and pharmaceuticals.

Increasing numbers of doctors, nurses, and other health care professionals are incorporating the best of both approaches into what is called “integrative medicine.”²Professional continuing medical education (CME) courses also are providing information on alternative medicine. In fact, some of the most popular CME courses for doctors, nurses, and pharmacists focus specifically on alternative medicine.Pharmacies are increasingly making alternative remedies available, although natural food and health food stores, the Internet, and mail-order companies still account for most of these sales. Some areas of alternative medicine have become more popular even while sales in other areas have decreased. In 2003, overall herbal remedy sales in the United States dropped, but homeopathy sales grew by 3 percent overall and by almost 50 percent in mainstream outlets such as drugstores.³In addition, pharmaceutical companies have begun distributing alternative remedies and are doing some testing.

Interest Grows
among Christians

Interest among Christians appears to mirror — and sometimes exceed — these general trends. Christian radio stations carry advertisements for herbal remedies and nutritional supplements even more commonly than the secular media. We have serious reservations about most of these “infomercials.” Our God is a God of truth, and claims made in Christian media should be supportable and true. A Chris tian company should have the courage to insist that its advertisers support the accuracy of their claims.Those who declare that their therapies and remedies can treat or cure conditions should provide the sort of verifiable evidence of effectiveness and lack of harm we discuss throughout the book — we’ll explain why as we go along.

Specific “Christian” alternative therapies are also promoted. One entrepreneur claimed to have figured out the recipe for manna and alleged it would protect people from all forms of illness, just as the original manna protected the Israelites in the wilderness. An other is the “Genesis 1:29 Diet,” based on God’s declaration, “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food.” Believers in this diet teach that people will be most healthy when eating a biblically based vegetarian diet.

Are there really “Chris tian therapies”? We frequently hear Chris tian “success” stories promoted to encourage Chris tian involvement in alternative medicine. Some Christians claim to have found particular ways to cure or alleviate cancer.⁴One prominent Chris tian author wrote about the benefits he experienced from an alternative cancer therapy available only in Europe.⁵

Highly sophisticated medical studies have been conducted on the effectiveness of prayer for healing.Results of research into the impact of spirituality and religious faith on health and healing have been published in mainstream medical journals.⁶Some Christians now cla...

Table of contents

• COVER PAGE
• TITLE PAGE
• COPYRIGHT
• DEDICATION
• CONTENTS
• FOREWORD
• ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
• NOTE FROM THE AUTHORS
• PART ONE EVALUATING ALTERNATIVE MEDICINE
• PART TWO ALTERNATIVE THERAPIES
• PART THREE HERBAL REMEDIES, VITAMINS, AND DIETARY SUPPLEMENTS
• ABOUT THE PUBLISHER
• SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS