Chinese Medicine produces a faster, better result than WM?

[GaryR]

Here you go Doc, your right, it should be separate thread....

So I guess the general question to the group, does TCM provide a "faster", and "better" result in many cases than Western Medicine? If so, what cases? What evidence do you have to support this?

To pick up where the last thread left off...

Does it really matter whether or not Chinese Medicine is 'validated' through Western scientific research? Those who demand such validation as proof of its effectiveness are generally also those who have already dismissed it as quackery, and are merely looking for documentation to support their biased opinion.

It matters to those who like evidence based medicine, and not faith based medicine, yes. It matters to real patients with real medical needs. Actually, it looks like many of the studies attempting to prove it are by people who want it to gain mainstream acceptance. I would think any person looking into spending money and effort to get treated by any type of alternative medicine would use due diligence and research its demonstrable track record for whatever ailment they have. Unless you have taken some global survey, I don't think you can honestly make such a blanket statement about the bias of others on that scale.

More relevant proof of the value of Chinese Medicine, IMO, is found instead in the real world results of expert practitioners who effectively treat the full spectrum of different physical health conditions and diseases every day in their clinics, and produce great results regardless of whether or not their patients believe that they can.

As I said before, belief is not relevant, results are. If in fact there are such "great results" as you claim, then there should be no problem proving it.

And in many cases, Chinese Medicine produces a faster, better result in comparison to the results obtained when treated by MD's of all kinds for the same conditions via medical management and/or surgical management.

In what cases? Where is the data? This is a very bold claim. A "faster, and "better" result? You were calling out Chris M on another thread about making claims, etc, even taking him out of context. While it seems you are making explicit and bold claims about TCM v. Western medicine with zero evidence to back up these claims. Is the "Doc" in Doc Stier a TCM title? Do you have some personal stake in propagating this conjecture?

Additionally, Chinese Medicine techniques such as acupuncture are also regularly applied by a growing number of Veterinarians to effectively treat a wide variety of injuries and diseases in birds, animals, and reptiles, wherein no 'power of suggestion' or 'belief' on the part of the 'patient' is a viable factor in any way.

I agree, using animals is a great idea to eliminate the placebo effect. But, just because something is "regularly applied" by a "growing number" doesn't mean its effective, again, where is the data? Do you have a peer reviewed study done on animals and how effective acupuncture is over another form of treatment? Or is this just more conjecture?

Personally I think it would be great if TCM has proved itself to be "faster" and "better" in "many cases" over Western Medicine, it seems there just isn't any concrete data to support this. Just like any other health consumer, diverse treatments and valid competition only gives me more options, and better quality health care overall. What is NOT good for the consumer are people claiming something is effective when they have no proof that it is. It would be like prescribing a medication that was untested/unknown instead for a problem that had a known/effective treatment. Not that I am equating TCM with Homeopathy, but its sad to walk into a GNC and see a homeopathic section along side real vitamins and such. Read into what homeopathy is and you will quickly realize that this is a complete snake oil sale, lock stock and barrel. But personal hopes aside, as Chris said "As a scientist, I have no choice currently but to conclude that TCM is a body of completely objectively unsubstantiated tribal/naturalist beliefs codified into a cultural paradigm to explain the internal systems of the human body and its systemic relationship to rest of the natural world that is, statistically, most likely to be grounded purely in superstition, like most other pre-Age of Reason naturalist cultural paradigms."

G

[Chris Fleming]

Not an official practitioner of either system, but got to say yes, Chinese medicine works hella better than western medicine. People who have tried the dit da jows that I brew get their pain relieved AND healed. Had several instances, including an injury of my own, where surgery was avoided altogether. Had an internal injury a couple years ago that I know no doctor would have been able to address--probably would have given me drugs and then cut me open when it didn't work. All I needed to do was to do some of a certain element in xing yi or taiji and in a week that nagging pain was cleared away. Anecdotal evidence? I'd rather call it personal experience. Western medicine is just too clogged up with their own greedy big business, need for (their own version of) scientific studies (to make themselves feel important and their excessive existence justified) and their insurance and pharma racketeering outfits to be truly effective with the patient's best interests in mind.

[Strange]

her her sir you sound like my grandma
her story:
as a young girl in fujian, she went up to the roof to make some repairs. there where brick up their to hold stuff in place.
she slipped and fell; and a piece of brick also came down and crush her forearm. compound fracture but somehow no internal bleeding.
she was brought to the local chinese doc. he takes a look and say ok no problem. you guys need to go hunt a small crane, double boil it
in the herbs i prescribe.

so the family hunted down a crane and prepare the medicine. after taking it she felt better and in the following weeks, small bits and
pieces of bone began to "float" up to the surface. i have never heard her complain about any residual pain in her arm; at 90 her grip is
powerful. her only complain is that she is living for too long

[Alexander]

Not an official practitioner of either system, but got to say yes, Chinese medicine works hella better than western medicine. People who have tried the dit da jows that I brew get their pain relieved AND healed. Had several instances, including an injury of my own, where surgery was avoided altogether. Had an internal injury a couple years ago that I know no doctor would have been able to address--probably would have given me drugs and then cut me open when it didn't work. All I needed to do was to do some of a certain element in xing yi or taiji and in a week that nagging pain was cleared away. Anecdotal evidence? I'd rather call it personal experience. Western medicine is just too clogged up with their own greedy big business, need for (their own version of) scientific studies (to make themselves feel important and their excessive existence justified) and their insurance and pharma racketeering outfits to be truly effective with the patient's best interests in mind.

Perhaps it works better in your experience, but that appears limited (no offense).

And you are only referring to dit da jow... So what of the thousand other conditions that plague modern society? Asthma, arthritis, cancers, heart disease, and so on.

I'm not trying to pick a bone with anyone, in fact, I'm going into alternative medicine and i've never taken an aspirin in my life. Just trying to consider all the sides of an argument.

[canard]

Gary - this is such a minefield really....I'm sure I'm preaching to the converted here but part of the problem lies in how difficult it is to set up experiments and double blind trials of TCM using a western basis. In the west, we would say - here is new drug for migraine so lets get a bunch of people with migraines together and test the drug. With TCM, as I'm sure you are aware, a migraine could fall into many different TCM classified diseases, so unless the trials are changed to say "This formula treats Liver Qi stagnation" and these are the patients who have Liver Qi stagnation let's test the formula....

How will we ever cross the divide between a western medicine classified disease and a TCM classified disease?

[Kevin_Wallbridge]

I find the distinction between "evidence based" and "faith based" to be interesting. Since when is emperical observation faith? To be able to make a definitve explaination of a process the scientific method is very useful, but not the sole means of observing the world in a practical and objective way. Do we need to know why stimulating a point on the inside wrist moderates feelings of nausea and eases motion sickness? There is no debate that it does, the mechanism is unknown, but so what? Utilizing an observation, especially an observation repeated tens of thousands (at least) times over more than two millenia isn't exactly the same as something that is faith-based.

The distinction between evidence and faith is actually more appropriate for a religious argument, oh wait, science has a funny way of letting its Chirstian roots come forward when facing any other method of knowledge. If it isn't done with a double-blind experiment it must be heresy! Double blind experiments often fall flat on their face anytime we try to do anything that involves more a single metabolic process. Isn't it faith to believe that the mind and attitude of the people involved in the healing process is irrelevant? Where is the evidence that we actually are able to understand the full funtioning of the human totality by using double-blind methods? As Dr Andrew Weil once said, to dismiss the role of the mind as placebo is to miss the esential fact that the placebo effect is not despite the healing process, it IS the healing process.

btw, Here in British Columbia we don't consider TCM to be alternative medicine, its complementary. There are areas where each system has its strengths, and weaknesses. Sure biomedicine dominates, but it doesn't rule alone.

One thing that always strikes me is that it seems poorly understood how pragmatic the history of TCM has been. Modern Western people are in general much more mystical in their language and thinking that most of what I read in the medical classics (a recent poll suggested 40% of Americans believe that the earth is only 10,000 years old!). The most important texts have always been largely deeply practical and sceptical enough for any scientific observer to recognize. When I go through the science shelves at a bookstore I see lots of books arguing for or against God in science. If its so clearly about evidence then why is the debate still so hot even within the scientific coommunity?

The idea that by isolating out components and processes we will be able understand biology is unproven. Its the belief that science is based on. What if its wrong? What if the details don't tell us everything? Logical positivism is as much a faith as any religion. Its proven its ability to isolate details, and this is really really useful. Yet to elevate it to the level of being beyond criticism or competition may be as grave an error as trying to read the future in the liver of a sheep.

Just a thought

[Chris McKinley]

Kevin,

Not a half-bad apologetic for, not so much TCM, but any as-yet-objectively-untested paradigm. For the most part, it doesn't attempt to directly negate Gary's points, which would be folly in this instance regardless of what one feels about the style of his presentation. More interestingly, it adds to them. It says, essentially, "Yes, those are valid concerns, but we must also keep in mind these additional factors...".

The only point of factual disagreement I have with your post is your erroneously equating a call for double blind studies with supposed Christian roots of science. Not only is that in and of itself an illogical association, it also mistakenly places the roots of science in Christendom. The roots of science are in Greek philosophy and the concept of logos. In fact, long before Christianity finally began to embrace science, a process which still hasn't yet completely happened, certain cultures in Islam were nearly single-handedly responsible for salvaging the teachings of the Greeks, including the basis for modern science, from being lost to the obscurity of history, something which the Church at the time was happy to allow to happen.

[RobP2]

Well I'm still confused - will eating tiger dong help me get a stiffy or not?

Seems to me there's good and bad in each. There are unscrupulous drug companies just as there are unscrupulous high street acupuncture clinics (where people have caught hep). There's commercialism and there's superstition. And what about Western Complimentary Medicine? My nan swore by lots of old remedies.

It pays to be a bit discriminating and do your research wherever you go.

[Darth Rock&Roll]

I don't have any issue with any medical practice so long as it can provide imperical data in regards to it's methods and the intended results.

TCM fails to do this on almost every level you get to.

The fact that the body eventually heals itself and quite well doesn't help tcm's cause either.

yep, there are remedies that really work for bruises and bone-setting etc etc etc.

But surgery. Who wants to undergo a traditional chinese liver transplant? Who wants to drink dubious drafts in the hopes of alleviating their cancer etc etc.

aches and pains, bruises and sores, sure, almost any culture has folk remedies for those..
But for serious diseases and chronic illnesses, well tcm is as good as any western medicine so long as there is not an effective treatment in the west for it. But, if there is a western cure or treatment, I would opt for that because of the stringent and hard policies around western medical practice that ensures that what you are told you are getting is what you are getting.

there have been numerous scientific examinations of tcm and it failed quite frequently. Especially in the area of herbalism where most of the materials to come out of that data set were at best dubious.

So, folk remedies for minor maladies, sure,tcm is as good as grandmas teas and such.
But for pathogenic disease, cancer etc. tcm has zero answers and cannot provide data to support many of the remedies it lays claim to.

I wouldn't paint it black and white either. People who proclaim tcm as quackery without investigation are at a loss because there is a lot of stuff in it that is great! Especially for preventative practices for better living. Exercise and good nutrition are advocated by both tcm and western medicine, but in tcm, they are seen as treatments and in western medicine, they are seen as common sense practices that you should be doing whether you are ill or not.

and to be fair, western doctors are open to pursuing solutions from other angles such as tcm when there is not adequate treatment available from the arsenal of western medicine.

[Darth Rock&Roll]

also, there are a great deal of people out there who are practicing tcm but couldn't cut it in a first year physiology class. especially amongst kungfu circles where you have a lot of black sashes who know their sifu's jow formula and now figure they are miracle healers when in reality, they are less qualified than a registered massage therapist by western standards.

These are the worst kind of tcm practitioners in my opinion. Reckless, dangerous and lazy minded.

[Chris Fleming]

"And you are only referring to dit da jow"

Well for one thing I did mention in my post a condition I had which was NOT healed with dit da jow, it was healed by being shown how to use the elements in xing yi or taiji to self heal a specific issue.

As for the other issues you listed, arthritis can be helped and healed by dit da jow. I, and I'm sure many others on RSF, have some good herbs. As for anything else, I do not practice acupuncture, but know some excellently skilled people who have dealt with such more serious issues to amazing effects. Since these are not my accomplishments or experiences I won't list them here. But having seen with my own eyes, the effects are amazing. You don't need drugs, chemicals and radiation to treat cancer. That shit will kill you just the same.

[Kevin_Wallbridge]

Hi Chris, well met.

I hate side tracking, but we are in BTDT so I feel less bad about it.

I think I read "the facts" in a different way. While science loves to look back to the Greeks, as you point out Europe lost the knowledge of those thinkers in the dark ages. What is often glossed over in the study of the history of science is that it was Christian philosophers who interpreted the Greek writings and created modern science, and well into living memory these people dominated the debate. To say that the lens of faith was objectively set aside is one of the greatest conceits of science. I wasn't meaning to equate double-blind experiments to Christian faith. Only that the idea that one paradigm must satisfy the criterion of proof of another paradigm is acted out in the scientific community in the same way that struggles over faith were divided between believer and heretic. The style of comparison is old in our culture and to think that we have so easily risen above it may be wishful thinking. Personally I see examples of it everyday in politics and intellectual debate. This all began with evidence vs faith, and I argue that this either-or framing is a feature of our culture. We don't expess our viewpoint, inside our stance we define the other as heretic, becuase to do oterwise is to leave ourselves open to the heresy accusation. However, maybe my read on our culture is completely wrong.

I find the argument that TCM has no surgery so its not medicine pretty low-brow. The complement each other. There is a hell of a lot less iatrogenesis of disease in TCM for one thing. I had a patient with lower abdominal pain for 5 years, so severe she was on disability. They took out her gall-bladder, opened her up for exploratory surgery, the works. No relief, none. As the port of last resort she comes to a TCM clinic (I was still a student doing my practicum). In TCM terms her case was pretty straight forward. I few needles and a 900 year old formula (completely "unproven" hocus-pocus to be sure). The next week dramatic change in her pain levels. After the second treatment she returned to work. I'll bet she was glad she stuck with "proven" medicine so long.

[bigphatwong]

Well I'm still confused - will eating tiger dong help me get a stiffy or not?

Not only that...it will give you an irrepressible urge to yell out "They're GrrrRRRREAT!!!" when you orgasim.

[GaryR]

Great discussion thus far, but where is Doc Stier? He requested the move.....

Anyhow I think this went unadressed:

Gary - this is such a minefield really....I'm sure I'm preaching to the converted here but part of the problem lies in how difficult it is to set up experiments and double blind trials of TCM using a western basis. In the west, we would say - here is new drug for migraine so lets get a bunch of people with migraines together and test the drug. With TCM, as I'm sure you are aware, a migraine could fall into many different TCM classified diseases, so unless the trials are changed to say "This formula treats Liver Qi stagnation" and these are the patients who have Liver Qi stagnation let's test the formula....

How will we ever cross the divide between a western medicine classified disease and a TCM classified disease?

Agreed. It is a minefield! The initial problem is that we have no evidence that "liver Qi Stagnation" actually exists. Qi as in the context of flowing through "meridians" hasn't been proven.

So for someone to come in and say "I have an ulcer", and for a TCM to say, well, clearly you have a stagnation of Qi in your bladder meridian, here is your treatment. We can only look at the result and ask, did the TCM cure the ulcer? The TCM could have said, "there is a microscopic invisible four eyed frog hiding in your anus and this will kill him clearing up the stagnation and ulcer". Do you see the issue? TCM hasn't proven its underpinnings. This also goes to the absurdity of the diagnostics a WM Doc talks about:

"In 1998, following a lecture I attended at a local college, an experienced TCM practitioner diagnosed me by taking my pulse and looking at my tongue. He stated that my pulse showed signs of "stress" and that my tongue indicated I was suffering from "congestion of the blood." A few minutes later, he told a woman that her pulse showed premature ventricular contractions (a disturbance of the heart's rhythm that could be harmless or significant, depending on whether the individual has underlying heart disease). He suggested that both of us undergo treatment with acupuncture and herbs—which would have cost about $90 per visit. I took the woman's pulse and found that it was completely normal. I believe that the majority of nonmedical acupuncturists rely on improper diagnostic procedures. The NIH consensus panel should have emphasized the seriousness of this problem.

A study published in 2001 illustrates the absurdity of TCM practices. A 40-year-old woman with chronic back pain who visited seven acupuncturists during a two-week period was diagnosed with "Qi stagnation" by 6 of them, "blood stagnation" by 5 , "kidney Qi deficiency" by 2, "yin deficiency" by 1, and "liver Qi deficiency" by 1. The proposed treatments varied even more. Among the six who recorded their recommendations, the practitioners planned to use between 7 and 26 needles inserted into 4 to 16 specific "acupuncture points" in the back, leg, hand, and foot. Of 28 acupuncture points selected, only 4 (14%) were prescribed by two or more acupuncturists. [24] The study appears to have been designed to make the results as consistent as possible. All of the acupuncturists had been trained at a school of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM). Six other volunteers were excluded because they "used highly atypical practices," and three were excluded because they had been in practice for less than three years. Whereas science-based methods are thoroughly studied to ensure that they are reliable, this appears to be the first published study that examines the consistency of TCM diagnosis or treatment. I would expect larger studies to show that TCM diagnoses are meaningless and have little or nothing to do with the patient's health status. The study's authors state that the diagnostic findings showed "considerable consistency" because nearly all of the practitioners found Qi or blood stagnation. However, the most likely explanation is that these are diagnosed in nearly everyone. It would be fascinating to see what would happen if a healthy person was examined by multiple acupuncturists." http://www.quackwatch.org/01QuackeryRel ... s/acu.html

G

[shawnsegler]

I've said it before and I'll say it again. Qi isn't a thing...it's an idea. Why it hasn't been proven is people keep looking for it like it's something they didn't know about or couldn't see. It's a way of portioning off a set of ideas about how "energy" *(and that's just regular kinetic energy moving the body around...no magic cosmic rays.) moves through the body and through 3 dimensional space and using that as a lens to look at how things are in a given situation and draw some conclusions about what's happening.

Qi as in the context of flowing through "meridians" hasn't been proven.