What therapies has Conventional Medicine adopted, that were once Alternative Medicine Therapies?

Question

Just a few decades ago our medical establishment said it was impossible to control involuntary functions, such as heart rate, body temperature, and blood pressure. Some alt. medicine doctors made such a therapy, called BioFeedback to control these involuntary functions. {Which Yogi's & devote monk's showed that they could control such functions with the power of the mind, during meditation}

Biofeedback became very popular, and what you can't stop, you accept, so the medical establishment has now accredited biofeedback, and it is used in the medical profession for controlling involuntary functions. A few of the its capabilites are: reducing blood pressure, stress, anxiety, & eliminating migraines.

Hypnotherapy was once alternative medicine, and was used by Dr. J. Estdaile, a Scottish Surgeon, practicing in 1800's, he used hypnotism in operations, before anesthesia was available.His rate of success was 10x above his colleagues, who rejected this. Clinical Hypnotherapy is now accredited

Answer 1

Biofeedback has always been done in medicine ... just not by that name. I suggest you read Galen, Celcus, and even Paracelcus for their suggestions on how to handle patients. There's a lot of stress relief going on there, and some outright flim-flam techniques that work nicely for calming a patient.

Hypnosois has NEVER been rejected by mainstream medicine, but it's too erratic to be more than marginally useful. It's not very useful to have an anaesthetic that doesn't work on half of your patients, can take up to half an hour to start working, and may suddenly quit working. It was dropped like yesterday's newspaper when ether came along, and ether was dropped when something better happened.

It's useful in obstetrics for controlling anxiety and pain during labor; the best medical hypnotist I have ever seen was an obstetrician. I use it on injured skiers and snowboarders and they don't even know I'm shoving them into a light trance for some pain relief.

Chiropractic ... as long as they stick to lower back pain, I can't think of any MD who has a problem with them. When they start claiming that they can cure diabetes by adjusting the spine that's blatant quackery. When they do a neck adjustment that causes an artery to rupture, that should be called murder.

Most of the CAM folk are flat out fools and quacks. If the universe and energy and biology and medicine and the rest of science suddenly started to work the way they claim it does ... nothing in mainstream science would work at all.  

So who you gonna believe: the ones who claim to cure with crystal energy fields  or the ones who can make a computer that works, using current so small you can actually count the electrons as they go by?  The ones who claim that liver flukes  cause all cancers or the ones who have done enough research that the survival chances for childhood leukemia have cone from a miserable 10% to over 90% in the last few decades?

Answer 2

My impression of chiropractic work is that it is actually looked down upon by some alternative and vitalistic practitioners as being too invasive and dangerous on the spine (they just crack you bones). Accupuncture seems to be coming around more. My mom starting sending me and accupuncturist when I was 7 and it was still largely considered to be very alternative, but now when I go to my NAET specialist (who is also a chiropractor and accupunturist) there are loads of people there who get their visits covered by their insurance.

I didn't know hypnotherapy was accredited. Every time I've ever heard anyone mention hypnotherapy they said something largely akin to "oh what c**p! It can't possibly work," so I am curious to see how this plays out into the wider population.

As for herbs, I think people are largely flawed in thinking that pharmaceuticals are an accurate replication of them. They omit a lot of the necessary chemicals that work synergistically with each other and just focus in on the few that do the work. I honestly had someone tell me that all herbs are dangerous because they have thousands of "untested chemicals" in them that no one knows what they do.

It seems like a lot of alternative therapies are starting to become more acceptable, but the medical establishment has yet to adopt them. The FDA has been approving some homeopathics (occilocucinum), but a lot of people still disregard herbs and energy therapies as quackery.

Answer 3

Sorry, I can't really think of any, and I don't agree with the two you mentioned.  Neither are mainstream anywhere I've ever worked.

Biofeedback is not widely used or accepted by the medical "establishment".  It does help train people to activate the mind body connection, deal with some kinds of pain and relax, as does meditation and most of the AM rituals. These things do work to a degree, I just don't think a paranormal explanation is required.

The mind-body connection is not something that science denies, in fact we make use of it.  It has been studied extensively, and it is demonstrated most clearly by the placebo response.  There is lots of really good research, from Pavlov all the way up to fMRI studies showing how powerful expectation and conditioning can be.  It is also explainable by, and fits easily within, known physiology, biochemistry and anatomy.

Hypnotherapy does essentially the same thing, for much the same reasons, and it is used as an adjunct by some doctors, mostly those who do psychiatry or counselling...the "soft sciences".   It isn't widely accepted however.  I know a lot of doctors, and maybe two who use hypnosis.  There's a "past life regression hypnotherapy counsellor" in the mall across from my office though.

As an example of how scientific medicine CAN change, think of gastric ulcers. 30 years ago the cause was thought to be from stress. We now know that most are caused by a bacterial infection.  The doctors who first suggested that were laughed at as fringe doctors.  Yet, the accumulation of evidence eventually convinced mainstream docs, and treatment of H pylori is now mainstream.  It was the cliched paradigm shift.

All I request is if you have a really "out there" idea (therapeutic touch, homeopathy, iridology, magnet healing, crystal healing, pyramid healing, reiki, craniosacral massage, EFT, acupuncture, chiropractic, osteopathy, Gerson therapy, the Orgone, the Bates Method, Dianetics, Christian Science.............)  then you provide me with some convincing evidence.   Thats' all I ask.

It's all about the evidence, not ideology.  Really.

Show me the effect is real...it does what you say it does, is repeatable in double blind randomized control trials of sufficient size and quality.

Show me it is safe.  

Come up with a plausible explanation that doesn't violate the laws of physics. It isn't strictly necessary for us to use it if it really works,  but it sure would help your case.  If your explanation has to violate the known laws of physics, then it is also your job to replace those laws that were developed by some of the greatest minds over the last 300 years.  Are you really up to that as well?  I'd be very impressed.

It is not my job to DIS-prove Alt Meds wild claims...there are over 600 different AM practices and more every month.  

As it is, I read dozens of papers on it every year ...I don't have the time to sort through all the chaff.

EDIT:

This isn't a great forum for responding to the usual nit-picking criticism, but I will clarify a couple of points.

-I do read dozens of AltMed papers/articles/books a year. There are thousands published on a wide variety of sCAM topics. It isn't physically possible for one person to read every single paper on every single topic. I use criteria to help sort through the background noise. (how big was the study, what was the dropout rate, was it truly double blinded, was it truly randomized, was it published in a high quallity peer review journal etc)   I don't claim to be an expert on every single sCAM treatment.  That being said...there is a sameness and a repetitiveness to various sCAM claims and it is usually fairly easy to identify the main claim and categorize it as reasonable or implausible, or does the main claim seem to violate known scientific principals.  I can do that without studying the therapy/device in depth.  

-I don't think it is unreasonable to ask for evidence...any evidence... when one makes extraordinary claims.  If I tell you the Invisible Pink Unicorn in my basement can cure cancer with it's breath, and I propose to sell you a jar of his breath, you might just want more than my word or testimonials.  (well maybe SOME of you wouldn't)  It is a complete copout to say that double blind studies can't be used in studying sCAM.  If they can't be studied scientifically, then they aren't falsifiable, and are no better than any other faith based system.  I do realize it is difficult to study many sCAM therapies in a truly blinded way.  Unfortunately science is sometimes difficult.  If you want to play in our sandbox as an equal,..as you seem to want... then you have to do the preliminary work of showing your premise is correct.

-Yes, modern medicine can be dangerous. Thousands of people do die or are harmed every year by drug reactions, surgeries gone wrong.  Millions more are helped or cured.

It is a fallacy to assume that Alt Med is inherently safe or safer than scientific medicine. There is lots of harm from Alt Med documented.  People have allergic and toxic reactions to herbs, people with serious illness delay getting proper care. Chiropractic neck adjustments have caused strokes and death. ( I hate anecdotes, but I personally have had two patients who had cancer who could have been cured with surgery as their disease was at an early stage, but opted for Naturopathic treatment and died)

-Lightening....you are probably a very nice guy and do a good job, but osteopathy is only slightly less woo woo than some of the other things I mentioned. It was invented by Civil War era surgeon Andrew Taylor Still who became despondent when several of his children died of meningitis after receiving what was conventional therapy of the day (pre Germ Theory of Disease and pre Antibiotic Era).  He claimed he could cure disease by shaking patients. There is no evidence that his idea of "structural integrity" or restoration of harmony and equilibrium has any basis in reality.  Osteopathy was one of the ideas that inspired DD Palmer to invent chiropractic a decade or so later only he changed the terminology to Innate Energy.  Modern osteopaths do have good fundamentals in anatomy and usually offer sensible diet and exercise advice.  There's even one in my town I occasionally send backpains to,(SHOCK) and every single person he's ever treated has "myofascial dysfunction" which he "corrects"  Is it woo woo...sure.  Is it harmful, no.  I don't send him my cancer patients though

ADDENDUM.  For the record, he is a UK trained osteopath and has an MD as well.  I don't know about licensing of osteopaths in Canada.  It's not my fault if you aren't familiar with the history of your profession, but I think you have taken undue personal offense because I lumped osteopathy in with other woo.  However, I use the same criteria to "judge" your branch of woo as all the others, and the evidence for its (lack of meaningful) effectiveness is equivalent.  At best, it is simply a form of massage that makes people relax and feel good for a while. It does little else.  If you claim your profession can't be examined scientifically (as you seem to be in several comments) then you essentially saying it is supernatural.  

And I agree, science is not able to examine the supernatural.

-Bottom line.  The more rigorous the scientific investigation of a sCAM claim, the less likely it is to show a positive effect.  It is only in the last decade or so that there have been really good, high quality studies of some forms of sCAM. There are literally hundreds of types of things out there that have never been subject to ANY testing.

Science isn't a body of knowledge or an ideology. It is simply an objective way of looking at the world and deciding what is truth and what isn't.  Scientists are human, and subject to human error/bias/pet theories etc...but science itself is self correcting.  The cream inevitably rises.

Answer 4

Chiropractic is one of the big ones... massage (often used in some types of physical therapy)... many chemicals in drugs originally came from natural herbs... there are quite a few.

[edit]:  Yes, it's true that some doctors still don't believe that Chiropractic work is effective... but those are normally the doctors that don't suggest a multivitamin (which many do "to cover the basics") and who scoff at Biofeedback. Chiropractic practice has been much more widely studied, researched, and tested in the medical community and many more doctors recommend it than they did in the past. Heck, medical insurance covers Chiropractic care now, too.

And yes, you're absolutely right about about the drugs... that they use only one active constituent and don't have the synergy that removes many of the "common side effects" from the equation. But that was exactly my point. Yeah, it probably doesn't fall under the same category as what you were thinking, but still.

Answer 5

One of my favorite and least known examples would have to be cat scans (which technically aren't "therapies").  They were developed by a company in england, which first tried to introduce them to the US market.  The FDA refused to allow them, and the AMA gave it a cold shoulder.  Then the company folded, those same parties bought their stock up for pennies on the dollar and cat scans became legalized and common practice in the US.  I actually met one of the people who use to work with the original company and hates the US gov with a passion for that ("they don't pull that type of bollocks in england").

A lot of alternative medicines are accepted in various places, by doctors for certain usages, but the acceptance is not consistent.  Doctors are very conservative, so it's nearly impossible to find any one alternative medicine which has complete acceptance, heck there are very few conventional medicines like that.  Truthfully though, at least in this current time period, I sincerely believe the primary thing which determines if a medcine gets widespread usage is if it can be profited off of.  That's been the historical example.

For instance, many like to cite the example of all the herbs which were turned into medicine by pharma companies (which also fulfills your question).  Yet many also criticize the companies (anti holistic) approach of isolating the active ingredient in an herb and synthesizing it instead of using the herb, as new concentrated form without the extra parts can often make people become sick and also is less effective than the normal one.  So despite this trend, why did companies continuously do that approach to making drugs?  Pretty simple, no money to be made in herbs everyone can grow, but the new patented pill can be!

As far as your question goes, personally, my favorite current thing is chinese medicine.  Originally, it was mocked ridiculed, and completely refused acceptance.  Gradually people started waking up to it's efficacy and using it, while the medicinal establishment spewed every piece of propoganda imaginable to claim china's population gets better health than the US's trillion dolar medical system off the placebo effect.  Now it's shifted to weaker attacks, the conservates still holding out, research validating it cropping up, and many doctors starting to recommend it to their patients, and places like Kaiser giving it to their customers.  Can't wait to see how much further it will go in 10 m ore years.

*it should be noted that something similar to this happened with chiropractic, although it was a bit different.  The AMA went after with in law suits, and told all their practicioners to not under any circumstances recommend chiropractic to their patients.  The Chiros banded together and sued the AMA.  Courts ruled the AMAs suppression of chiro was illegal, and since then more and more doctors are working with chiros since they are trained to fix a set of problems doctors know nothing about beyond "more painkillers!"

Lastly in regards to skep doc!

I always love watching your logical fallacies presented on the pretense of  reasoned objective discourse.  Let's see what you dug up today.

Making proclamations about subjects that one has not studied!  There's quite a bit more that biofeedback does, it is used clinically, and there's a tremendous amount of research validating it.  Feel free to read this!

http://www.aapb.org/files/public/Yucha-G...

I don't really think you can claim the evidence isn't satisfactory; on their 1-5 scale, very few approved drugs have gotten above a 2.

Second,

If people having A causes B, and A going away makes B go away, and it's later discovered that C causes B, does that mean A is trivial and inconsequential?  That's essentially what you're arguing with stress and ulcers.  Antiobiotics can be given to cure them, but stress treatment still works well, especially in the 20% which are not uclers.

Third;

All I request is if you have a really "out there" idea (therapeutic touch, homeopathy, iridology, magnet healing, crystal healing, pyramid healing, reiki, craniosacral massage, EFT, acupuncture, chiropractic, osteopathy, Gerson therapy, the Orgone, the Bates Method, Dianetics, Christian Science.............)

That's basically a straw man argument.  Crystal healing is "out there new age garbage" (a fact we basically agree on), but lumping it with osteopathy, which is a liscened doctor degree in the US (the history of that is rather interesting, when osteopaths were trying to get liscened, the AMA threw a fit about it, and claimed to the state legistlature that it was quackery and did not work; unfortunately many of the officials had already been treated with osteopathy, and thus allowed it become a liscenced profession).

Third

"then you provide me with some convincing evidence."

"It is not my job to DIS-prove Alt Meds wild claims...there are over 600 different AM practices and more every month.

As it is, I read dozens of papers on it every year ...I don't have the time to sort through all the chaff."

You claim there is no evidence, yet you admit selectively choosing to ignore viewing evidence which proves your ideology to be incorrect.  Your sentiment is exactly why many claim science behaves as a religion.

In many of the alternative medicines you slandered, there is actually a wealth of evidence available (it just tends to "not be read" by conservative scientists who want to cling to their viewpoint of the world).  At this point in time, I'm completely a senior seminar for my degree (I had to do research on 2 therapies, biofeedback was first), where I'm studying Orgone stuff (mom used it to cure cancer so I figured it would be worth taking a look at).  Interestingly, there's actually tons of work (and really well done research) that's been done on it, and I've  actually independently confirmed one part of it which was "impossible and disproven" by the conventional community.  If you have any interest in learning about the topic you present yourself as being informed on, you might want to look at results done by researches that tried to replicate Reich's experiments!

The other parts of evidence based medicine are pretty much rehashes of what you've been told before.

1) Double blind trials do not work well for testing anything besides drugs, and require a lot of funding which only large profit based institutions have.  Additionally, many rushed to the market are later shown to have been doctored to fit the agenda of their funder.  It's a nice mantra to cling to for proof, but it's really not the end all decided of truth the way god used to be.

2) If you want to cling to evidence based medicine to support your ideology, at least be fair and view pratices you are biased against through the same lens you give to ones you like instead of just dismissing them.  "Hey I have magic glasses that always show the truth when you look through them."  "What do you do when you see something you don't want to believe"  "Well obviously I close my eyes."  "Then why do we take what you magic glasses say to be the truth in everything?"  

I really enjoy listening to the angry tone you use when you write.

Answer 6

All of the ones that were scientifically tested and shows efficacy and safety.

Answer 7

Good question and some very well thought out answers.

Skep Doc you've actually given a good well thought out answer here but i do have to disagree with you on a couple of things.

###All I request is if you have a really "out there" idea (therapeutic touch, homeopathy, iridology, magnet healing, crystal healing, pyramid healing, reiki, craniosacral massage, EFT, acupuncture, chiropractic, osteopathy, Gerson therapy, the Orgone, the Bates Method, Dianetics, Christian Science.............) then you provide me with some convincing evidence. Thats' all I ask.###

There are plenty of studies out there but they are not liked by the allopathic profession. Also, because of the reasons stated below, its very difficult to provide the evidence as you want it. Allopaths are coming around to the idea of multiple factors affecting the outcome.

##It's all about the evidence, not ideology. Really.##

###Show me the effect is real...it does what you say it does, is repeatable in double blind randomized control trials of sufficient size and quality.###

Who should control these tests? How should they be conducted?

During Osteopathic treatments I do a combination of manipulations, soft tissue teqniques, articulations, positional release techniques and Involuntary motion techniques.

I rarely use only 1 technique in isolation. How can you design an experiment that proves the whole package is effective when the reductionist model is looking for one thing affecting everything?

Asking me to participate in a study where I have to exclude all but one technique is at odds with my practice.

Why should I change it when i have lots of patient wanting to see me because of the way i currently work as I have a good reputation of being a no BS practitioner whose treatments aim to get patients fixed and as independant of me as soon as possible?

Why should I limit my treatments to one technique only, when I believe a combination of the listed ones (not necessarily all of them. It depends on the patient which i use) would be appropriate depending on the presentation?

Why should I change my practice to fit in with your model if I think your model is flawed?

Most osteopaths agreed with Dr Ernst when he declared that spinal manipulation does nothing to cure back pain except provide a short term fix. That is why we do so many other techniques as well because a combination is effective, a technique in isolation is far less effective.

###Show me it is safe.###

Statistically allopathy kills a far higher percentage of patients than any altmed therapy. If you don't agree with me show me some valid statistics and make my a liar.

The third biggest killer in the US is adverse drug reactions from prescribed medication.

MD's pay $100,000 in liability insurance. Chiropractors pay $2000.

SHOW ME THAT ALLOPATHY is SAFE.

###Come up with a plausible explanation that doesn't violate the laws of physics. It isn't strictly necessary for us to use it if it really works, but it sure would help your case. If your explanation has to violate the known laws of physics, then it is also your job to replace those laws that were developed by some of the greatest minds over the last 300 years. Are you really up to that as well? I'd be very impressed.###

If someone can prove a treatment modality or discovery is at odds with current mathematical, engineering or physics therory, it is not up to the discover to explain why the theory is wrong it is up to the posulators of the theory to look at it and see where the holes are.

What you are suggesting is equivalent to someone making a bold statement like "heavier than air machines will never fly" and then asking the Wright brothers to come up with a new mathematical theory after their maiden flight already proved the theory wrong.

###It is not my job to DIS-prove Alt Meds wild claims...there are over 600 different AM practices and more every month.

As it is, I read dozens of papers on it every year ...I don't have the time to sort through all the chaff.###

Correct.

It is important these things are discussed but they should be in a reasoned manner objectively.

Edit :

Thank you Alex you've raised some interesting points.

Scep doc. I'm not going to answer all your points just the ones relevant to my profession.

####-Lightening....you are probably a very nice guy and do a good job, but osteopathy is only slightly less woo woo than some of the other things I mentioned. It was invented by Civil War era surgeon Andrew Taylor Still who became despondent when several of his children died of meningitis after receiving what was conventional therapy of the day (pre Germ Theory of Disease and pre Antibiotic Era).####

Firstly osteopthy in Canada is unregulated. a butcher can do a weekend course in manipulation and call themselves an Osteopath. Some canadian osteopaths are very highly trained others are not. This is not the case in the UK or Australasia where i trained/ practice. Registering in new zealand involved jumping through many hoops + exams. I fully support that as its good for the public and the profession.

Secondly, at the time Still founded Osteopthy "doctors" were using things like mercury poltices, very poorly trained and 1/2 were illiterate.

These same people tried to stop Still practicing when they formed the AMA.



####He claimed he could cure disease by shaking patients.####

Where did he make this claim? I've never seen it.

There is a technique called harmonics which professor Eyel Lederman has done many studies on. This involves gently picking up an limb and articluating it within its elastic rebound to gentle improve range of motion. I suppose this is shaking the patient. QUITE DIFFERENT FROM PICKING THEM UP BY THE SCRUFF OF THE NECK AND SHAKING THEM LIKE A RAG DOLL EH? Is that what you implied?

Stills ideology and teaching are often taken out of context. His most fundimetal claim was that by removing restictions enabling the blood to flow freely and the nerves to be free nature could be allowed to do its work and let the body heal itself. An osteopaths role is to assist nature.



###There is no evidence that his idea of "structural integrity" or restoration of harmony and equilibrium has any basis in reality.### You mean there is no evidence you like?

I'd like to add there is no evidence from your camp THAT IT DOESN"T DO WHAT IT SAYS ON THE TIN!

###Osteopathy was one of the ideas that inspired DD Palmer to invent chiropractic a decade or so later only he changed the terminology to Innate Energy.### Not my field. I don't know about the intimacies of chiropractic philosophy A chiro may want to comment.

###Modern osteopaths do have good fundamentals in anatomy and usually offer sensible diet and exercise advice. There's even one in my town I occasionally send backpains to,(SHOCK) and every single person he's ever treated has "myofascial dysfunction" which he "corrects"###

I'm sure every patient i see has myofascial dysfunction but this is rarely my diagnosis as this is usually not the primary lesion. Like I said Canadian Osteopathy is unregulated. In the UK the tissues causing symptoms model is how we are examined and we are all capable of doing decent clinical tests and diagnosis.

If you are ever in New Zealand you are welcome to come and see me, look at my notes to see my working diagnosis and logical case history taking + clinical testing so you can see how i have come to that diagnosis. All UK/ Australasian trianed practitoners can do this. You can even sit in and see me practice if you like.

##Is it woo woo...sure. Is it harmful, no. I don't send him my cancer patients though##

I probably wouldn't send him any cancer patients either. Don't worry you can send them to me. They will be safely treated as a COMPLEMENT to allopathic medicine, not instead of.

###-Bottom line. The more rigorous the scientific investigation of a sCAM claim, the less likely it is to show a positive effect. It is only in the last decade or so that there have been really good, high quality studies of some forms of sCAM. There are literally hundreds of types of things out there that have never been subject to ANY testing.###

I agree. I I just don't agree with the Allopathic testing model. its very flawed and subject to abuse. Just look at all the recent scandals of drugs being taken off the market after its been established that the testing was flawed. I've said repeatedly test our therapy just do it with a decent model.

##Science isn't a body of knowledge or an ideology. It is simply an objective way of looking at the world and deciding what is truth and what isn't. Scientists are human, and subject to human error/bias/pet theories etc...but science itself is self correcting. The cream inevitably rises.###

I guess that is why inspite of all the money and effort that has gone into condemning altmed practice, professions like mine continue to grow.

I don't think you quite understand who we are or where we are coming from.

We don't need to be in your sand pile.

We never did.

People will come to see us whether you approve of us or not. We don't need you and inspite of your best efforts you have never been able to stop us practice.

You choose, see what we are actually about and maybe work with us, or shun us.  

I'd prefer us not to be at odds and work together but will happily plod along without the approval of you and others like you.

Edit2

###ADDENDUM. For the record, he is a UK trained osteopath and has an MD as well.

If he trained prior to 1998 before uk regulation came into force he may well have a ttended a few weekedn course in Osteopathic technique. this course alone would not entitle him to register now. A common mistake Physicians make is because they learn osteo