Alternatives...

On my earlier post on wellness and woo, Eliza R. Snitch left a question that I think deserves a serious answer:

Acupuncture worked for me to get rid of terrible back pain. I'm a fan of alternative treatments. I don't really care if it's placebo-- whatever works, right?

I want to keep everyone guessing, so I'm going to have to say that that's a fairly reasonable solution in this particular case. To find out why, read this article.

In a nutshell, chronic pain (and back pain in particular) is something that's not as well-understood as other conditions. Some research indicates that retraining your brain's pain response is as effective as surgery or more.

Unlike prescription pharmaceuticals, surgical procedures aren't required to pass clinical trials to demonstrate that they're more effective than placebos. (It's not clear that it would be possible or ethical to give your control group sham surgery.) And just because surgery is doing something real, it doesn't mean it's necessarily doing something useful or relevant to your condition. The article explains how it's possible for a surgical procedure to become popular and widespread without ever really being proven effective.

For chronic back pain -- between acupuncture and disc fusion surgery -- here's the score: Acupuncture may be pure placebo effect or perhaps there's something about poking the skin that affects the pain response -- but either way, it's not going to do you any real harm. Disc fusion surgery is also not really demonstrated to help, but it carries a real risk of doing serious, permanent damage. So if you have chronic back pain that resists treatment, and you've decided you're going to try either acupuncture or surgery, the acupuncture may be the better choice. Of course physical therapy is probably a better choice than either of those two.

That said, in general there are serious ethical concerns and dangers associated with promoting "alternative" treatments which are fundamentally bogus. For a simple explanation, see this cartoon about Homeopathy and my new Rational Moms post about placebos.

Wellness and woo

I've recently taken up Yoga, for a number of reasons. First and foremost, it's a type of exercise I enjoy. And it is exercise -- it's basically gymnastics for old people, with a lot of emphasis on flexibility and strength. Plus, it helps with stress relief -- and is probably more healthful that some other stress relief options. So, given the positives, I figure I can overlook it if the instructor occasionally explains things in terms of chakras.

But sometimes I wonder...

I first got the idea to try Yoga from a colleague who was always raving about it. This same guy was horrified by Sarah Palin's young-Earth-creationism and her general anti-science outlook. So I got the impression that Yoga and critical thinking are perfectly compatible. Enough of it is real to be worth the effort.

More recently, however, this same colleague was talking about how he's been taking his dog to get alternative-schedule homeopathic vaccines (instead of real vaccines). Fortunately he doesn't have any kids to endanger. (Actually, I'm a little surprised it's legal to license a dog without real rabies shots -- I know people have a lot of leeway for using faith-based treatments on their own offspring, but it's not quite the same for animals.)

Then, last week, I met a lady who is currently working on some sort of diploma in "wellness." She is an intelligent lady, interesting to talk to, speaks several languages, has had a successful career in finance, and wanted to switch to something else. The first part of the wellness program was an intensive course in different types of massage. She explained that she had to learn quite a lot of anatomy for the class, not to mention learning about a variety of health conditions which might make some types of massage risky for some clients.

Then she explained that the next course will be acupuncture and acupressure.

And part of me wanted to ask, "Um, you know that stuff isn't real, right?"

Yet somehow that didn't seem like an appropriate thing to say, under the circumstances. Even though it's theoretically a secular "alternative" treatment, it's a little like religion. It's like the time I ran into one of my friends at the bus stop and saw that she was sitting there reading the Bible. Obviously it would be impolite for me to say, "Um, you know that's all a bunch of hooey, right? Much of it rather offensive hooey..."

So what do you think I said to the lady who told me she's going to be studying acupuncture and acupressure? Can you guess?

Naturally, my pathological desire to fit in under any circumstances struck again. I told her all about how I'm taking Yoga.

Drinking woo-juice!!!

This country is full of strange and mysterious new things every time I come back here!

I keep having to adapt and re-invent my habits because all the food is different from what I've grown used to in Europe. At lunch, for example, I couldn't find any rainforest juice (apparently it's a Swiss thing even though it comes from the Amazon -- the Swiss are all about sustainable+fair+eco foods), so I had to pick something else. I decided to try

Kombucha!!! I had to try it since I've been wondering what in the world is kombucha? ever since I started reading Kombucha Chic's blog. Here's the verdict:

Pros:
* I like it even though it tastes like vinegar. Especially the green kind.
* Seems invigorating, as claimed on the label.
* I've been drinking it for the past few days, and it's starting to grow on me. (Also in me, being a "living food"...)

Cons:
* I'm not entirely convinced this stuff is safe.

I know humans safely eat some foods that contain live cultures such as yogurt and and certain cheeses, but those are foods that people have been eating for millenia. The bottle says that Kombucha is Chinese, so it's possible that people have been drinking it cold, raw, and alive for millenia, but maybe not. The ingredients are listed as "100% G.T.'s organic raw kombucha*, and 100% pure love!!!" which is probably accurate, and yet it leads me to suspect that the FDA hasn't examined this product very closely.

Then there's the list of health benefits: digestion, metabolism, immune system, appetite control, weight control, liver function, body alkalinity, anti-aging, cell integrity, and healthy skin & hair -- with a disclaimer saying that these statements have not been evaluated by the FDA. (Further evidence for my theory above!)

I just like it as a beverage, but I'm a little worried that I may be supporting the woo industry. In particular, the testimonial on the bottle about how it helped the kombucha-maker's mother in her battle with breast cancer reminded me of Julie's post How Infertility Made Me a Skeptic w.r.t. confusing the effects of "complementary" and "alternative" treatments with the effects of whatever real treatment the patient is concurrently following.

On the other hand, it's theoretically possible that it's health-promoting. And not dangerous.

Anybody else out there tried this stuff?