Does complementary and alternative (CAM) medicine have any efficacy? The answer is that no one knows for sure but most everyone has an opinion, and many are making a handsome living from the gullibility and naivety of the public combined with the lack of scientific evidence.
The fact that these therapies are expensive and lucrative is well known but do they work? Can we afford to spend on therapies that have been proven scientifically not to work when we are trying to control health care costs in general to help the economy recover?
A Wall Street Journal article The Touch That Doesn’t Heal reviews the above questions with answers that will upset the approximately 70% of Americans have tried or are currently using one of eight selective alternative medical therapies according to American Demographics. The eight therapies include acupuncture/acupressure, prayer, herb/vitamin therapy, chiropractic/message, aromatherapy, hypnosis, magnetic therapy, and reflexology.
The National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine has been funded with close to a billion dollars of tax revenue over the past decade or so bring a scientific approach to CAM. The results are not what most people want to believe. For example, Echinacea does not appear to prevent colds or other infections in most of the rigorous scientific studies. St. John’s Wort has been touted to be a natural antidepressant. Unfortunately, even though we want to believe this to be true, two large scientifically controlled studies showed that placebo and St. John’s Wort were equally effective.
Traditional medicine has known for centuries that just being kind and directing personal attention to people who are suffering and upset can make them feel better. This phenomenon is known as the placebo effect. When people think they are receiving a therapy they believe will be beneficial, there is a much greater chance that the therapy will be efficacious. This phenomenon may explain why 70% of Americans have tried CAM at some time with some success.
CAM is very expensive. An article in the National Center for Complementary and Integrated Health estimates Americans spend about $30.2 billion yearly out-of-pocket. I suspect the costs have increased dramatically in recent years. Can we continue to afford therapies that have been proven to be ineffective? Should we do scientific studies to prove or disprove word of mouth treatments?
Personally, I have tried elderberry to ameliorate the effects of an upper respiratory infection which was no doubt due to a viral infection. I like to think the once-a-day lozenges helped but I can’t be sure. I would welcome a rigorous double blind controlled study to demonstrate improvement or not. Then, we should share the results so that everyone would benefit from either using the medicine or progressing to another trail of a different therapy to help relieve the symptoms of the common cold. Health care should be utilizing this proven scientific method of first testing, then approving or discarding a therapy.
Shouldn’t we, as an ethical society demand rigorous studies? These studies eventually would protect unsuspecting, venerable, worried people from being taken advantage of by unproven and sometimes expensive therapies. Many times people who don’t even have a disease but are just worried, will get better on their own but nonetheless are sold a bill of goods. The natural course of many diseases is that they are self-limited.
Please understand that current conventional therapies are not perfect nor without side-effects. Nor are all CAM therapies without some benefits. However, by sticking to evidenced based medicine, which is scientifically supported by solid data, the future of America’s health has a much better chance of improving without bankrupting our country.