I think the article does a good job of pointing this out. At the same time, an inability to determine causality correctly doesn't mean that symptoms aren't alleviated. Standing in a Faraday Cage is a piss-poor way to avoid the phone, avoid the computer and focus on more restful things... but it will have a positive impact on your life if you're spending too much time talking on the phone, working on the computer and watching game shows on television. I'm not going to pretend I have all the answers. I will say that if someone finds their life more restful by living off the grid near a giant radio telescope, they should go do that.
This leaves the patient temporarilly satisfied, "I finally know why I always hurt", but soon they realize that a name is not a cure or a causation.
She hates being a naturopathic doctor. The only people who see naturopathic doctors are those who have pretty much tried everything they could with every doctor they could find and still not found relief. In other words, every patient she gets gives her a case of "two general practitioners and three specialists haven't been able to help me, what do you got?" Considering she graduated a mere two years ago, being arrayed opposite the whole of the medical establishment is intimidating. Yet she gets plenty of repeat clients because the simple act of giving people instructions on how to live their lives better, foods to eat and avoid, exercise to perform and stress-reduction to incorporate generally works wonders with patients like this because it empowers them. Above and beyond "curing" chronic ailments, patients with bizarro complaints often improve dramatically simply by gaining some initiative in their health. The interface between "mind" and "body" as it relates to "health" is a big, nasty can'o'worms that I've spent many an hour battling over. Suffice it to say that placebo effect or no, telling someone to "do something" for their health often has a greater impact than "doing something to them" does and often, the more that is required of the patient, the greater the impact.
"telling someone to "do something" for their health often has a greater impact than "doing something to them" does and often, the more that is required of the patient, the greater the impact". -Agreed. The problem is that people tend to know what they should be doing but refuse to do so. -But this is another WHOLE can of worms :) I'd be interested in hearing more about naturopathy. Perhaps as we interact on hubski, I'll have cause to ask some questions. Hope you don't mind. But seriously... midwives rule!
http://www.reddit.com/r/skeptic/comments/ct1xb/the_wootastic...
There are some similar common misconceptions about traditional Chinese medicine too. Some people equate it to throwing chicken bones, I think. Chinese traditional medicine isn't all effective, or scientifically based, but there are some treatments that have thousands of years of application, and compelling evidence of efficacy behind them. I know that this sounds crazy, but we get a medicine from China that cures the flu. I'm talking about: you start to feel feverish, bones are aching, you take this stuff, and the next day you feel great. The flu never sets in. I got my PhD in Medical Physics. I need evidence. I doubted that this medicine would work, but it has, time and time again. The medicine comes as granules that taste like donkey ass (well as I imagine donkey ass might taste), and it contains about 11 different ingredients. It's the best thing in the world. Funny thing, the company that makes it also provides a pill form. -It doesn't work. I don't know what they do in the pill-making process, but it just doesn't work. As an aside, it's interesting because institutes often look for the 'active ingredient' in traditional Chinese medicines, but never find it. -The complete medicine has an effect in cell assays, etc, but no component ever matches up. Unfortunately, pharmaceutical companies and agencies like the FDA don't like synergistic effects very much. I think it has to do with requirements for patenting and clinical trials. As a result, some medicines never make it to market, because no one can find the component to be tested in a clinical trial, or get a strong patent.
Integration of the two disciplines seems the key to me. Too often western pharmaceuticals have taken the place of diet/exercise because people are either too complacent or lazy to make big life changes. Do most naturopaths believe in using modern medical science in conjunction with a natural approach? Or are they mostly hard core naturalists? -Not sure if this is the right terminology? I have heard that in CA naturopaths are able to prescribe all forms of medicine, is this true? If so, are they well equipped to do so?
http://naturopathic.org/ ...but know that, as with most industry trade groups, there's dissent about pretty much every part of it. I can also tell you that my wife's training regimen, as do all licensed naturopathic doctors' training regimens, included organic chemistry, gross anatomy, pharmacy, pathology, immunology, genetics, etc. As far as prescribing, my wife's ability to prescribe in California is heavily curtailed compared to Washington, where she took her boards. In Washington, the argument was made that if a naturopathic doctor intended to take a patient off prescription medication, they needed to prove their proficiency with pharmaceutical treatment well enough to qualify to put a patient on prescription medication. In Washington, if you can buy it at a pharmacy she can prescribe it. In California, it's pretty much vitamins and herbs.
I suppose there are many paths to becoming an effective healer/consultant/doctor whatever you'd like to call it. For my healthcare, I would prefer council with an MD that has had some serious training in naturopathy and would take the most natural, non-invasive and proactive path to health possible. Thanks for the link, I will begin my studies tonight. Be well.
The business partner she just left, however, didn't believe in germ theory. Granted, she was a midwife and acupuncturist, not a naturopathic doctor. But it takes all kinds. My personal philosophy is that the US does things exactly wrong. The corner doctor should be the guy who tells you what you can do to fix your problems cheaply. He ought to know your health history pretty well. You ought to be on a first-name basis with him, and he ought to be well-paid by the government to keep all small health maladies small and to refer more vexing maladies to specialists. If my wife could have gotten an MD in "old country doctor" she would have. I dated a psychoanalyst's daughter for 4 years. He worked in public health. And every day of a 2-week rotation, he'd go to a new clinic, spend 7 minutes meeting with patients, and then 4 minutes consulting with the nurses there to find out what medication the nurses thought he should put those patients on. That's a clinic a day, 40 patients a day, every day for two weeks. Rinse, repeat. Shit ain't right.
One question I have is about tue process of becoming a naturopathic dr. -is it as intense a process? Can you specialize? For example, become a naturopathic cardiologist etc?
In order to be licensed by any state medical board that licenses, you have to graduate from a program that takes a minimum of 4 years, requires a minimum of 1 year of cadaver study anatomy, and will give you the tools you need to pass medical boards. These boards are similar and parallel to the medical board exams, but not entirely equivalent; the NPLEX takes four days and is taken all at once, while the medical boards take (I believe) 5 days and are taken in three intervals. Compare and contrast: http://www.nabne.org/nabne_page_23.php http://www.usmle.org/Examinations/step1/step1.html There is also no residency requirement to be a naturopathic doctor, primarily because there aren't enough residencies available. Of my wife's graduating class, approximately 1/3rd went into a 1-year residency, and about half of them did a 2-year. As far as "specialization" it's more a "parallel degree" approach, and those are truly rare. My wife's class graduated 140 NDs but only two ND midwives and only 3 ND-AOM (asian-oriental medicine). The ND Midwifery program takes 5-6 years, full time, while the ND-AOM takes 6 years full-time. And while we're reaching the limits of my understanding, I would hypothesize that since naturopathic health is very much holistic, specializing in "naturopathic cardiology" would run contrary to the basic philosophy. That said, most naturopathic doctors have their "specialties" based on the clients they see. My wife has specifically moved towards treating children and away from cancer patients and palliative care. She has a colleague that emphasizes weight loss etc.
Nutrition, for example, is so obviously a vital part of health. This everyone agrees on it. But people have seen so much hogwash come from the "nutritional gurus" that even a scientifically sound book, such as The China Study, will initially only be lumped in with all the crap. Holistic medicine seems to have this problem as well... a lot of people seem to equate it with homeopathy. Maybe because they both begin with an "h" and are propounded by hippy-dippy types? 'Tis a shame, for when you look at what holistic medicine really is, there's nothing wrong with it, and you'd expect the so-called skeptics to actually be strong supporters.
And most naturopathic doctors - including licensed members of the AANP - prescribe homeopathic remedies. I've been prescribed them four times, and find arnica gel to actually be irritatingly effective on bruises, despite the fact that there is exactly zero scientific reason for it to be so. Most doctors start this with "how do you feel about homeopathy?" and go from there. Many naturopathic doctors don't believe in them (my wife doesn't, for example) but still prescribe them (my wife does, for example). Scientifically, an exorcism is about as likely to produce results. Empirically, however, there's something about those magic little sugar pills. It's not even something that merits "further study." Any study you care to run will demonstrate that homeopathy does fuckall compared to placebo. Which is usually where people like me start saying "yeah, but 'placebo' doesn't mean 'nothing' so maybe what we should be doing is studying this here 'placebo effect' because if 'sham medicine' gives you even half the efficacy with none of the side effects, maybe we should start prescribing more 'sham medicine' as a first line of defense." It's about here that I get burned at the stake most of the time.
I won't light the match. :) Oddly some anti-depressants aren't significantly better than placebo, but they come with bonus side-effects.
http://www.webmd.com/mental-health/news/20080227/antidepress... Somewhere I erroneously heard that prescription of placebo wasn't allowed in the US, but it seems that many doctors use it: http://health.usnews.com/usnews/health/healthday/080103/almo...
We're just getting started on a scientific understanding of mental health. The dark ages of mental health treatment weren't 300 years ago, 200 years ago or even 100 years ago; they were the decades between the rise of surgery and sulfa drugs and the discovery of thorazine (1930-1953). fMRI and the like have been really helpful in figuring out what, exactly, drugs do to the brain, but even then, it's a pretty pragmatic field. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c2/Thorazine...
