Entry 976, on 2009-03-28 at 19:51:03 (Rating 3, Comments)
Many people like to take "natural remedies" to help with their medical issues. These range from treatments like herbs, to crystals, faith healing, and other methods involving a supernatural element. Actually the reason I am even discussing this issue is because of a natural remedy my wife (who is quite enthusiastic about this sort of thing) has been advised to stop taking because of potential complications.
The real question is do these treatments actually work? Actually the answer isn't simple because the question isn't well defined. It depends a lot on which particular type of alternative, natural treatment you are talking about, and how you define success.
Let's start with herbs and other "natural" remedies. There is no doubt that some herb and plant based cures work. Some conventional drugs are derived from plants (or were originally derived from plants and might now be synthesised artificially) so its clear that they work. For example, aspirin originally came from willow bark and chewing willow bark was a traditional way of reducing pain.
So if aspirin is available in a "natural" form in willow bark would we not be better to use that? Well no, actually. There is a particular component in willow bark that works but, like every active ingredient, you can take too much or too little for the treatment to be safe or effective. Chewing a chunk of willow bark will not give you an accurate dose, but taking a carefully measured amount in a pill can. Also its difficult to avoid contamination with other material in the natural form of the treatment.
So if there's a choice between what is essentially the same thing in a natural or artificial form I say take the artificial alternative. But what about herbs which don't have a conventional medical alternative? Its entirely probable that some of them work. It seems reasonable to think that there are some naturally occurring materials which haven't been isolated and therefore aren't available in conventional medicine. Is it OK to take a herbal form of these?
I don't think so. At least not without careful consideration of the potential outcomes. There are really two types of drugs (or call them natural alternative treatments or whatever): the ones which don't work and the ones which have side effects. If it doesn't work (and I'm sure the vast majority of alternative treatments are in this category) why take it, and if it does work it will have side effects so its potentially dangerous to take it.
A herb in this latter category is St John's wort. There are some scientific trials showing it does have a real effect but we also know it interacts with other drugs and can cause dangerous effects in the wrong dose. Most other herbs have no evidence at all showing they work, although there are a few studies which indicate some herbs might have limited efficacy.
There is certainly no evidence that natural remedies can prevent cancer or have any other spectacular effect of that sort. And many studies show that homeopathy, faith healing, and other "new age" treatments are useless. Well maybe not totally. Some studies show these work about as well as a placebo. In other words they do nothing but thinking they might work is enough to help by itself.
So ironically its best to use alternative treatments which don't work but they only work if the patient doesn't know they don't work (so that the placebo effect is effective). Herbs which do work can cause more harm than good through interactions, contamination, and inaccurate doses.
Unfortunately there are also two other considerations. First, people might use ineffective natural treatments instead of real ones and that will lead to them not being treated effectively. And second, many natural remedies are quite expensive so people are wasting their money on nothing (literally nothing in the case of homeopathy).
Taking those factors into account I think the only real advice I would give is to stay away from natural remedies completely. Labelling stuff as "natural" might give the impression it is safe but that's really just meaningless marketing. Don't waste your money or risk your health with that sort of nonsense!
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