As I start my second cup of the day (just woke up), the thought occurred to have a quick look at sugar and epilepsy. Just a browse through the search results on google makes it clear that there's evidence of some link between sugar and seizures, and that research into this is ongooing. I'm assuming, without having gone any more in depth, that there are results showing links etc. And of course we have the anecdotal evidence of Tam, right here, which is not to be dismissed or put down.

It's clear then that, although the sugar/cancer link has not shown any evidence, blanket statements concerning sugar should be avoided - by me that is, everybody else can think and say what they want, of course.

The thing that grips, concerning alternative treatments though, is the absolute certainty of its advocates. A large number of people insist that their tried version is definitely curative, for all cancers, and that the rest of us are fools for not agreeing.

Raw vegetables is one. Now I suggest that the benefits of raw vegetables in general, are widely accepted. To me however, as well as being so unpalatable I'd be unable to keep them in my mouth and actually eat them, they'd be injurious. I'm only able to tolerate small amounts of vegetables, and then they have to be cooked to such a degree that most vitamin is lost anyway.

You can see then, that while a proponent of juicing might be giving generally positive advice for many, at least not harmful anyway, to me, he's talking nonsense and because he doesn't know about my personal circumstances, is recommending something harmful.

While I'm able to ignore such advice, there'l be many people who'll try anything that they've read about on the internet, convinced that it must be good because it's not sold by 'big pharma'.

And that's the thing about the scientific approach. Anything is noted as having a percentage risk/benefit, in particular circumstances that have been trialled. There is no insistence that anything will work at an individual level.

In conclusion then, while maintaining my opinion of man's inherent idiocy, and I include myself, there's no implication of idiocy at a personal level and I'm not trying to belittle anybody. I do like to challenge individual opinion though and I like having my opinion challenged.

I also recognise that, like evrybody else, especially experts, I must be wrong a lot of the time.

Have a good day everyone

Taff

Hey, I made that extra cuppa...but had to drink it myself! Yummy :D

I think this might be a good point to clear up the differences between alternative and complementary medicine, because many people confuse them, although the underlying ethos is quite different.

Alternative medicine is exactly what it says - an alternative to conventional medicine. In addition to the 100% certainty of its advocates in their outrageous claims, there is a necessary dissing of conventional medicine, along the lines of "chemo is poison", "vaccines are poison", "big pharma", and that old chestnut that there really is a cure for cancer, but it's only for the rich. (Presumably Steve Jobs wasn't rich enough). Of course, they also gloss over the massive prices that they charge for their particular brand of snake oil. 

Complementary medicine may or may not have a scientific basis, but its proponents and practitioners know that they have to work alongside conventional medicine. When I was diagnosed with prostate cancer, my acupuncturist emailed me to say that I needed a radical prostatectomy - and she was quite right. Of course, that doesn't stop some of them making overblown claims for their treatments, but with most of them the worst that's going to happen is that your wallet ends up a little lighter. 

Like many people who claim to be scientific, I am full of contradictions. Hence I regularly have acupuncture and cupping, and they seem to make me feel calmer and more able to cope with life's vicissitudes, even though they're probably just leveraging the placebo effect. I've also seen osteopaths and a medical herbalist, and gained benefit (see above note about placebo effect). Being pragmatic, does it matter if this is just a placebo if I actually feel better? 

"Outrageous claims" such as that outrageous list of side effects that big pharma has to include in my country with every RX? The warning on vaccines listed by the maker? All outrageous. Sometimes meds help sometimes they don't. That's just a fact and sometimes when they help one thing they cause another health problem. And then there are people thank goodness that conventional medicine does help and they escape all of those side effects that big pharma states conventional meds can cause. Surgery saves some people's lives while others do not survive. Thank goodness for the surgeries that saved both my husband and my life at times.

Or maybe it was just outrageous of my doctors to stop the meds that were giving me some serious side effects except for one, I stopped myself. My husband thank goodness he hardly ever has any reactions to conventional medicines. But the doctors have been wrong a couple of times in their diagnosis. If it were a perfect world all doctors, vets, scientists, nutritionsists would all agree on what helps us and what can harm us (and get every diagnosis correct) but since it's not it leaves us with the hard job of deciding for ourself.

Maybe my vet missed it when he says the alternative remedies helped my dog and instead it's just her positive attitude LOL

A claim that actually works by definition can't be outrageous ;)

I was actually thinking of the outrageous claims that laetrile, amygdalin, vitamin B17, sodium dichloroacetate, sodium bicarbonate, Gerson therapy, coffee enemas, flax and cottage cheese, cascara and potassium iodide, gravila and paw paw, Essiac (?) tea, inositol hexaphosphate, cannabis (of course, man), caesium chloride, "organic sulphur", UV light, "Antineoplastons", salvestrols, turmeric, and lime flavoured Tic Tacs can all cure cancer. 

Important foot note: if you have a coffee enema then you're pouring it into the wrong orifice. :D

Seems like you just really hate it when anything other than conventional methods actually work even though I am not saying everything works you wrote as I have not done research into all of them to state an opinion either way :) But if they did work for someone I would be just as happy for them as I am for the person conventional treatments work for and I sure would not belittle the natural treatments they use that helps them :)

Your sense of humor with the coffee enema I can do without! LOL so I shall go enjoy my tea and leave you to continue your bashing of alternative treatments with someone else :)

I'm all for the placebo effect and if something doesn't harm the individual, I've no prblem with. Even things that can be harmful may be ok, like alcohol/smoking, if it aadds to quality of life.

Hi SillyGal. 

I completely understand that you have found some alternative/complementary therapies helpful BECAUSE SO HAVE I!  I have friends who are complementary practitioners, and I've even done the websites for some of them. I have directed friends and colleagues to complementary practitioners, SO DON'T RUN AWAY WITH THE IDEA THAT I HATE COMPLEMENTARY MEDICINE.

However, I DO hate those vile scumbags who direct people with life threatening diseases away from conventional medicine and persuade them to spend thousands of dollars/pounds on useless, unproven therapies. Such people aren't worthy of the name human being. They are evil and wicked. 

Those are the people I'm criticising. 

Thanks for clarifying :) I agree no one should tell another to stop conventional medicine so I can agree with you on that. I also agree that no one should tell someone to not do natural treatments if that is what they choose and I would never imply it wouldn't work when it has. If someone is doing it just for the money I agree that wicked and evil but sometimes someone gets judged for that when they sincerely believe that natural alternatives are safer and work, too. Those people are not evil if they sincerely believe natural is better :) Conventional methods is not cheap, either. Some doctors care more about money than they do patients but unless I have a personal experience with them that leads me to believe that, I don't like judging them, either. There is good people on both sides and evil people on both sides. It cost a lot to survive no matter what treatment is used or at least it does in my country. 

The thing is SillyGal, that while alternatives can appear to work in some instance, there's no way of telling whether they actuall did or if some other thing/process actually caused the positive effect.

And because there's no extensive list of possible side effects of alternative therapies, people could be doing irreperable harm to themselves by trying or using them.

Have a research to find out how many people are killed or seriously damaged by chiropractic.