Results for: homeopathy
Happy Thanksgiving!
We celebrate Thanksgiving Day in the U.S. on the fourth Thursday in November. Because I live in the U.S. and Thanksgiving falls on my regular blogging day this year, I get the day off. On this Thanksgiving Day, I am thankful for the cornucopia of blog fodder coming up as we move toward the end of 2013 and into 2014. The Bravewell...
The FDA and Personalized Genetic Testing
The company 23andMe provides personal genetic testing from a convenient home saliva sample kit. Their home page indicates that their $99 genetic screening will provide reports on 240+ health conditions in addition to giving you information on your genetic lineage. The benefits, they claim, are that you will learn about your carrier status and therefore the risk of passing on genetic diseases to your...
Separating Fact from Fiction in Pediatric Medicine: Infant Teething
Teething is one of the most common sources of parental concern in the world of pediatric medicine. All children go through it, typically starting at about 6 months of age, and the current list of signs and symptoms attributed to the eruption of teeth in infants is long and varied, with most if not all of them inaccurate if not highly suspect....
Full of Energy
Want to know what a craniosacral treatment is actually like? How about reiki? What about Eden energy medicine – do you even know what that is? Read on, because this past Sunday afternoon I experienced all three. But first, the why and where. The local Healing Arts Alliance of the Big Bend (which is what they call the area of Florida I...
Student Health Professionals and Attitudes about CAM
While I’m now two full decades out of pharmacy school, I am occasionally invited to return to give a lecture or facilitate a workshop. Pharmacy education has changed a lot since the 1990’s. For me, pharmacy was a Bachelor’s degree program you started right out of high school. Today, students must have a few years of university completed before they can apply...
How to Talk to People About CAM
Recently a correspondent asked me for advice about his parents. He said they use things like homeopathy, acupuncture, and copper bracelets. They use conventional medicine too, but it seems to be a 50/50 approach that gives each an equal weighting. He has tried to talk to them about things like homeopathy and the placebo effect, but the shutters come down hard and...
Integrative Medicine’s Collateral Damage
Integrative medicine combines the practice of medicine with alternative medicine. Proponents tend to take a paragraph or two to say this, but that is what remains when boiled down to its essence. By putting this more concise definition together with Tim Minchin’s often-quoted observation about alternative medicine, you get: integrative medicine is the practice of medicine combined with medicine that either has...
Licensing Naturopaths: the triumph of politics over science
Naturopaths shouldn’t get too excited about having a special week in their honor. The U.S. House of Representatives gave watermelons a whole month. As between naturopathy and watermelons for my good health, I’ll go with the watermelons any day. You’ll soon understand why. Today is not my usual blogging day. But when David Gorksi announced SBM’s celebration of Naturopathic Medicine Week, I...
Cancer Treatment Centers of America: Revisiting the epitome of “integrative” cancer care
Three weeks ago, I mentioned in a post that the week of October 7 to 14 was declared by our very own United States Senate to be Naturopathic Medicine Week, which I declared unilaterally through my power as managing editor of Science-Based Medicine (for what that’s worth) to be Quackery Week. One wonders where the Senate found the time to consider and...
A closer look at Dr. Oz’s 15 Superfoods
I’m sure I’m not the only health professional that bites their tongue whenever a patient starts a question with “I heard on Dr. Oz that…” More often than not, I have expectations to realign, and some assumptions to correct. I could easily devote all my posts to simply correcting information presented on the Dr. Oz show. But given I’m blogging here biweekly,...