Is a good definition for alternative medicine "The kind of medicine that doesn't actually work"?

Question

Super Me: That's what I said. "Medicine that doesn't actually work!"

Answer 1

You are fing ignorant!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Maybe you work as a rep for a pharmaceutical company in which case you must act like your shoe size everyday kissing up to arrogant doctors....

Answer 2

I am willing to keep an open mind about some of this stuff. Without proper testing to show that all of these herbal remedies do not work, it is POSSIBLE that some do. The homeopathy, crystal, and various "cleanses" stuff is definitely out the window. I get a kick out of the people who ask about abusing prescription narcotics in this section.

Answer 3

Why do you need alternative medicine, why don't you just use magic. Magic's been used by harry potter for years.

Well I think you should at least try both. When your 15$ herb extract doesn't work for your headache go ahead and take a 2 cent ibuprofen.

Answer 4

Or is it that alternative medicine isn't good for big business. You know how powerful drug companies are and I have had plenty of medicine from the Doc that hasn't worked either.

I have had plenty of experience with some alternative medicines that have worked though. Maybe you should indeed educate yourself, or just grow up.

Answer 5

It may or may not work. The definition is that it generally has not been proven in randomized clinical trials that establish safety and efficacy.

Note: 100 years ago people did use herbs and such to treat disease. They also only lived to an average of 40 years old.

Answer 6

Why are you asking the question if you've already made up your mind?

Alternative medicine usually means outside the allopathic medicine system we've had for the last 50 years.  It includes naturophatic medicine, chinese traditional medicine, accupuncture, herbs, homeopathy and more that I can't think of at the moment.  

Answer 7

Alternative medicine is mainstream medicine. WE are all designed to use natural products to stay well. Synthetic medicines have serious side effects because they are foreign to our bodies. To get and stay well you need proper nutrition and exercise and be free of pollution (Free Radicals). This can be done naturally but not by treating symptoms. Natural cures work and are efective is a lot of cases. Hype for a product that doesn't work can effect our health. Use you own brain. It is your choice. You will pay the price. You must depend on your immune system. It is all that we have. s***w it up with vaccines and chemo therapy and yu will pay.

Answer 8

I don't think so. I used to work in a health food store and we had people who were HIV+ or had been battling cancer for years (some 20+ years), beat the odds over and over again. We even had someone come in who had a fused artery and vain in his intestinal tract, and needed blood transfusions a lot. We gave him Floradix Iron + herbs, and instead of going every 2 months for blood, he only needed to go every 6 months.

Not everything works for everybody, even conventional medicines. Open your mind. I used conventional medication, and have too many side effects, I take herbal supplements, and it works for me. Only when I am really bad (I have a genetic immune system disorder), do I go back on antibiotics. The herbs and vitamins have cut my sickness frequency from every 4-6 weeks, to once every three months or so. Doesn't seem like much to you, but when you get sick so often, and sometimes you just finish getting over one thing, you get sick with something else, once every three months isn't bad at all.

Answer 9

No, it's not a good definition.

See:

http://nccam.nih.gov/

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/compl...

http://www.cancer.gov/cam/

http://www.whccamp.hhs.gov/

Answer 10

Before conventional medicine was invented they used herbs for healing. Asprin is actually a chemically engineered version of White Willow Bark. If you take white willow bark you will get the same results as taking an aspirin with out the side effects that you can get from asprin. So a good definition for alternative medicine would be "the kind of medicine that works with out the negative side effects!"

Answer 11

The "Alternative" means "alternative to having to actually do studies to show that it works".  

Yes, alternative medicine has been around for hundreds of years.  People today live much, much longer than they used to.  As a result, a lot of diseases that are more common to people of older age are more common today (cancer, etc), because people are living long enough to have to worry about diseases that effect people of older age groups.  But the "alternative" to that idea is to say "modern medicine is causing all the diseases".

The other "alternative" is to make stupid slogans that mean absolutely nothing, like calling non-alternative medicine (IE evidence based medicine) "allopathy", and saying it "treats the symptoms, not the person".  

They also accuse evidence based medicine of being run by "big pharma".  What they don't realize is, there's a ton of profit in the field of Supplements, Complementary and Alternative Medicine ("SCAM"), that the pharmaceutical companies own a lot of the alt-med market now.  If they can charge super high prices for a product with no active ingredients, and they don't have to do any tests to verify it's relatively safe first, why not?  Thanks alternative medicine!

Answer 12

It is not a definition. It is pride and prfejudice.

Answer 13

Today's your lucky day as I've made college professors look like fools in front of dozens of student when they speak BS like you. Cut your finger slightly ans then with a napkin fold it and soak it with Tabasco sauce and put it on the cut,but make sure you soak the cut in Tabasco. It will burn like h**l for ten seconds and then numb the nerve and stop the bleeding. Make sure after the bleeding stops you clean around the cut or your skin will burn for days.

There's your proof. Also anyone and I mean anyone shoot me an e-mail if you want to challenge me for proof about any situation about herbal claims.  

Answer 14

No no no no no no.

That is a stupid and completely incorrect.

Alternative medicine is the use of herbs, homeopathy, vitamins, essential oils to ""assist"" with healing the whole body.

Please try to educate yourself.

What do you think happened 100 years ago when someone got sick?

They used herbs.