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I have long wondered about this. In the Asian world, traditional Systems of Medicine focus on "holistic" treatment and the general public often calls Western Me

I have long wondered about this. In the Asian world, traditional Systems of Medicine focus on "holistic" treatment and the general public often calls Western Medicine, "Allopathy with side-effects". I had intuitively felt that these medicines must have an overall effect on behaviour which may always not be obvious to the observer unless the difference between the before and after were stark and noticeable. We really need a lot more research on this aspect of all commonly used medicines. A lot of our mood-swings, irritability, anger, anti-social behaviour etc. might be explained by this.

PragmaticPulp 7y ago
> In the Asian world, traditional Systems of Medicine focus on "holistic" treatment and the general public often calls Western Medicine, "Allopathy with side-effects". I had intuitively felt that these medicines must have an overall effect on behaviour which may always not be obvious to the observer unless the difference between the before and after were stark and noticeable. Many traditional herbal medications also have significant side effects. It's not accurate or helpful to describe this as Eastern vs. Western medicine. All significant supplements and medications are bound to have side effects to some degree. Good, evidence-based doctors don't care if the practice is Eastern or Western. If the practice or supplement has reasonable scientific evidence, a good doctor will incorporate it into their recommendations. I've had plenty of "western" doctors prescribe practices like acupuncture, yoga, meditation and traditional TCM supplements like ginger and turmeric. The real problem with the Eastern vs. Western medicine false dichotomy is when it leads people to choose a side and stick with it. I've known a few people who suffered far too long with ineffective TCM or alternative medicine treatments before accepting proper, evidence-based treatment. The problem isn't limited to Eastern medicine, of course. For example, many depressed patients take Saint John's Wort for its herbal anti-depressant properties and are surprised to experience as many, if not more, side effects than highly targeted SSRI medications. Just because it's natural doesn't mean it's safer or more effective.
- truth_be_told 7y ago
  You make some good points. However that is not what i meant when i said "holistic". As an example, in Ayurveda/TCM, "prophylaxis" is given greater importance than symptomatic treatment. We are what we eat and how we live. The beauty of Western Medicine is that it is highly targeted and therefore provides immediate relief. However, people go overboard with no thought to other factors, consequences and ramifications. They look at it in isolation. Whereas in Eastern Medicine; controlled diet (with emphasis on stomach/gut cleansing), massage therapy (affecting the circulatory, lymphatic and nervous systems), change in environment(Summer/Winter) etc. are given more prominence. The organism and the environment in which it is embedded are looked at together. With what we know today, both these approaches need to be harmoniously blended together for the best effect.
  - mindfulplay 7y ago
    It is amusing to me the sort of detached love people have for Eastern medicine. It's really a feeling of grass is greener on the other side. In India and a few other SE Asian countries, the predominant killer disease is heart disease. There is no "Eastern" medicine for that. "Eastern" methods work really well on innocuous diseases and symptoms because they really aren't medicines nor a treatment. Sure Ayurveda and other "techniques" tackle a few simple problems. But people actively seek such treatment for important medical problems: "a little knowledge is dangerous". The troubling fact is none of the Ayurveda nor Eastern medicine is based on a deep understanding/exploration of human beings: instead they rely on folklore and guesswork. Very dangerous after seeing the amazing progress vaccines, statins and so on have contributed to the world. This article talks negatively about "statin" painting it as some sort of a bad word based on one potentially problematic drug: the number of lives saved by the simple Atorvastatin-like medicines is really astonishing. I really hope a nuanced discussion about important life-saving drugs can be had in forums such as this instead of quickly reverting to the tropes of Eastern magic medicines.
  - crimsonalucard 7y ago
    I'm asian myself and I am intimately familiar with eastern medicine. You are largely right on western medicine, it is holistic as far as the scientific evidence is relevant. That means if there is no unbiased experiment on the 20 year effects of some effect of some drug then there is no science behind it and therefore no knowledge and no treatment. Causative treatments are established to a degree as close to absolute as possible using the scientific method. However, because scientific experiments are biased towards things that are easily observable and measurable, treatments are also biased in this direction. In other words it is very hard to run an experiment on the 10 year side effects of some drug therefore there aren't much treatments of this nature among western medicine. Eastern medicine is the opposite. It has no basis in science in the sense that none of it's tenants were established in scientific measurement and observation. More it's adhoc trial, error, a lot of bias and a lot of fraud. This kind of treatment can definitely be more "holistic" but this holisticness is based off vague and anecdotal evidence and is very inexact. Some eastern medicine may work and some may not and you may be being lied to. In fact, the logical theory behind eastern medicine is utter crap. The logic talks about chi flows going through your body of both hot and cold and the logic is to eat medicine to help control balance in the chi flows. These chi flows are a fantasmic concept not observable by scientific experiment. This does not mean eastern medicine doesn't work. THe reasoning might be off but the effectiveness of the medicine may still be valid because cultural selection would have virtually eliminated this field if it did not actually aid with survival in some form or manner. Just know that every time you ingest some medicine based of of eastern philosophy know that you are making a gamble on evidence that is anecdotal and possibly placebo induced or even fraudulent.
eivarv 7y ago
There might be side effects to modern medicine, but there's no reason to assume that traditional beliefs re: health and medicine are more correct; The arguments behind them are usually epistemologically unsound, and they are often out-and-out superstitions.
- truth_be_told 7y ago
  Somewhat True, but "don't throw the baby out with the bathwater". Much of "traditional medicine" is empirically based. The models they came up with to explain the mechanisms may not be valid in light of today's Scientific Knowledge but they are instructive nevertheless (rungs in a ladder leading to better understanding etc.) As an example we still don't know how exactly Acupuncture works but do know that it works for many cases.
  - eivarv 7y ago
    "don't throw the baby out with the bathwater" Right, but we don't have any reason to assume it to be true if there's noe evidence to support it - which would be step one in determining whether its a reasonable belief, and integrating it into modern medicine. As for your example, we do not know that acupuncture works - conclusions are inconsistent in systematic reviews, which would suggest that it's not effective. Most researchers I've heard speak about the subject seem to believe any perceived reduction in pain to be due to placebo.
hhas01 7y ago
“In the Asian world, traditional Systems of Medicine focus on "holistic" treatment” [rant on] I believe the term you’re looking for here is “fabulist bullshit”. “the general public often calls Western Medicine, "Allopathy with side-effects"” Aaaand… No, it doesn’t. SCAM calls it that. Which is ironic, as “Allopathy” is a term coined by Hahnemann to mean “Everything BUT Homeopathy”, and that was in a day when “Western Medicine” was itself rank quackery still laboring under Galen’s “Four Humors” nonsense. Thus Chiropracty, Reiki, TCM, Acupuncture, etc are all “Allopathy” too. Conversely, what you so casually misnomer “Western Medicine” (the term itself is borderline racist) is just “Medicine That Works†”. (†“Within Limits”, as any sci fule kno.) I mean, the only really significant difference between Traditional Chinese Medicine’s explanation of disease and Galen’s is that TCM believes in five humors while Galenites believed in only four. [Insert Emo Philips/Picard joke here.] Otherwise “Chinese/Eastern Medicine” is the same mix of ungrounded herbalism and bloodletting that stalled out western healthcare for 2000 years. Until the Arab/Persian world, during its all-to-brief scientific golden age, came up with the brilliant idea that one should actually test one’s beliefs to find out if they’re bullshit or not… a process that Renaissance Europe finally distilled into modern scientific method 500 years later and determining Galen was full of it shortly after that. .. Of course, getting the actual institutions to change took a lot longer; it wasn’t until Pasteur gave us a working model of disease that Galen’s bollocks and its attendant “worse than doing nothing at all” so-called treatments were finally buried down a very deep hole. Germ Theory gave us sanitation, vaccination, and surgical hygene. Untested herbalism was usurped by pharmacognosy, modern chemistry, and reliable mass manufacturing. And so on. Alas, China was been quite so lucky. Thanks to Mao and his vast “barefoot doctor” scam (which got around the problem of not having enough real doctors or money to provide everyone else with medicine that worked), TCM/Acupuncture is still around, not least as the CPC is now selling it for export as much as for use at home. Incidentally, Mao himself (like most wealthier Chinese nowadays) had no truck with that homegrown crap and happily availed himself of your “Western Medicine”, thankyouverymuch. (You might want to take note of that.) Incidentally #2, just as TCM was, and is, badly-tested herbalism marketing often poor-quality and fraudulent product, pre-Mao acupuncture was really just Galenic-style bloodletting sticking bloody great bamboo trocars into people. Worse, it had almost (rightly) died out until Mao reinvented it its modern form using fine steel needles, bad sterile practice, and total Qi bollox. “Distracting the patient while nature all does the work” as Voltaire used to say. Incidentally #3—and considering that western researchers invested decades in figuring out how to reliably blind acupuncture studies before finally producing results showing it no better than placebo—every acupuncture study out of China is still positively glowing. Someone recently posted a FP link regarding China’s massive ongoing medical research crisis; I’m sure you can dig it up if you want. .. TL;DR: You can take your “holistic treatment” and “traditional Systems of Medicine” and stick ’em where the pathologist’s light does shine, because that is where they all belong. [rant off] -- Real medicine does in fact study and treat the whole person. Unfortunately, it’s also a victim of its own and industrial nations’ success. General practices and hospitals are slammed with demand, increasingly with inevitable diseases of very old age (since so few of us die young now) and diseases of sedentary urban lifestyles. And while doctors can tell us to eat less and exercise more till they’re blue in the face, they can’t make any of us do it; so it’s not surprising things like statins get widely (over?) prescribed as a workaround for our fat lazy butts. I’ve no doubt too modern medicine desperately wishes more public would understand that all Medicines (that is, pharmacologically-active compounds) have multiple Effects; and that the only meaningful distinction is between Effects that are advantageous in treating a patient for a particular condition and Effects that are disadvantageous in that same patient. We commonly call the latter “side-effects” [not counting intolerance and allergies], but that’s misleading. For instance, aspirin (descended from willow bark) is commonly used both as an NSAID and as an anticoagulant; thus what is a “side-effect” in pain patients is the therapy in those with blood disorders. (And vice-versa. And, of course, aspirin’s other common effect of giving you stomach ulcers isn’t a benefit in anyone. Although if you think aspirin is bad, just try original willow bark instead.) Thus, we should not be surprised that modern pharmaceuticals have multiple effects across a wide range of biochemical and physiological systems; if anything, it’s a minor miracle they don’t have way more unwanted effects. Alas, familiarty does breed laxness, if not contempt, even in scientific and medical professionals; so it can never be re-stated enough that education, awareness, and due dilligence are essential to keeping that system operating as well as it can. Think of it like this: Medicine [which works] is just a rolling bug-patching process of the most heinously complicated, tightly-coupled, under-documented Big Ball Of Mud known to man, and proceed accordingly. And that even that thing we call “self” is just a synthesized fiction, the product of countless biochemical and electrical interactions constantly occurring in just one[-ish] of numerous intricately interconnected organs, which together make up “Us”. -- Dear Dog, I really need a drink now. Never been so glad I that crashed out of premed and landed up in software dev instead. :)
jiofih 7y ago
You’re right, but I’m quite sure the “Asian world” doesn’t use that term, since homeopathy / allopathy / osteopathy are all western invented classifications.

PragmaticPulp 7y ago

> In the Asian world, traditional Systems of Medicine focus on "holistic" treatment and the general public often calls Western Medicine, "Allopathy with side-effects". I had intuitively felt that these medicines must have an overall effect on behaviour which may always not be obvious to the observer unless the difference between the before and after were stark and noticeable. Many traditional herbal medications also have significant side effects. It's not accurate or helpful to describe this as Eastern vs. Western medicine. All significant supplements and medications are bound to have side effects to some degree. Good, evidence-based doctors don't care if the practice is Eastern or Western. If the practice or supplement has reasonable scientific evidence, a good doctor will incorporate it into their recommendations. I've had plenty of "western" doctors prescribe practices like acupuncture, yoga, meditation and traditional TCM supplements like ginger and turmeric. The real problem with the Eastern vs. Western medicine false dichotomy is when it leads people to choose a side and stick with it. I've known a few people who suffered far too long with ineffective TCM or alternative medicine treatments before accepting proper, evidence-based treatment. The problem isn't limited to Eastern medicine, of course. For example, many depressed patients take Saint John's Wort for its herbal anti-depressant properties and are surprised to experience as many, if not more, side effects than highly targeted SSRI medications. Just because it's natural doesn't mean it's safer or more effective.

truth_be_told 7y ago
You make some good points. However that is not what i meant when i said "holistic". As an example, in Ayurveda/TCM, "prophylaxis" is given greater importance than symptomatic treatment. We are what we eat and how we live. The beauty of Western Medicine is that it is highly targeted and therefore provides immediate relief. However, people go overboard with no thought to other factors, consequences and ramifications. They look at it in isolation. Whereas in Eastern Medicine; controlled diet (with emphasis on stomach/gut cleansing), massage therapy (affecting the circulatory, lymphatic and nervous systems), change in environment(Summer/Winter) etc. are given more prominence. The organism and the environment in which it is embedded are looked at together. With what we know today, both these approaches need to be harmoniously blended together for the best effect.
- mindfulplay 7y ago
  It is amusing to me the sort of detached love people have for Eastern medicine. It's really a feeling of grass is greener on the other side. In India and a few other SE Asian countries, the predominant killer disease is heart disease. There is no "Eastern" medicine for that. "Eastern" methods work really well on innocuous diseases and symptoms because they really aren't medicines nor a treatment. Sure Ayurveda and other "techniques" tackle a few simple problems. But people actively seek such treatment for important medical problems: "a little knowledge is dangerous". The troubling fact is none of the Ayurveda nor Eastern medicine is based on a deep understanding/exploration of human beings: instead they rely on folklore and guesswork. Very dangerous after seeing the amazing progress vaccines, statins and so on have contributed to the world. This article talks negatively about "statin" painting it as some sort of a bad word based on one potentially problematic drug: the number of lives saved by the simple Atorvastatin-like medicines is really astonishing. I really hope a nuanced discussion about important life-saving drugs can be had in forums such as this instead of quickly reverting to the tropes of Eastern magic medicines.
- crimsonalucard 7y ago
  I'm asian myself and I am intimately familiar with eastern medicine. You are largely right on western medicine, it is holistic as far as the scientific evidence is relevant. That means if there is no unbiased experiment on the 20 year effects of some effect of some drug then there is no science behind it and therefore no knowledge and no treatment. Causative treatments are established to a degree as close to absolute as possible using the scientific method. However, because scientific experiments are biased towards things that are easily observable and measurable, treatments are also biased in this direction. In other words it is very hard to run an experiment on the 10 year side effects of some drug therefore there aren't much treatments of this nature among western medicine. Eastern medicine is the opposite. It has no basis in science in the sense that none of it's tenants were established in scientific measurement and observation. More it's adhoc trial, error, a lot of bias and a lot of fraud. This kind of treatment can definitely be more "holistic" but this holisticness is based off vague and anecdotal evidence and is very inexact. Some eastern medicine may work and some may not and you may be being lied to. In fact, the logical theory behind eastern medicine is utter crap. The logic talks about chi flows going through your body of both hot and cold and the logic is to eat medicine to help control balance in the chi flows. These chi flows are a fantasmic concept not observable by scientific experiment. This does not mean eastern medicine doesn't work. THe reasoning might be off but the effectiveness of the medicine may still be valid because cultural selection would have virtually eliminated this field if it did not actually aid with survival in some form or manner. Just know that every time you ingest some medicine based of of eastern philosophy know that you are making a gamble on evidence that is anecdotal and possibly placebo induced or even fraudulent.

eivarv 7y ago

There might be side effects to modern medicine, but there's no reason to assume that traditional beliefs re: health and medicine are more correct; The arguments behind them are usually epistemologically unsound, and they are often out-and-out superstitions.

truth_be_told 7y ago
Somewhat True, but "don't throw the baby out with the bathwater". Much of "traditional medicine" is empirically based. The models they came up with to explain the mechanisms may not be valid in light of today's Scientific Knowledge but they are instructive nevertheless (rungs in a ladder leading to better understanding etc.) As an example we still don't know how exactly Acupuncture works but do know that it works for many cases.
- eivarv 7y ago
  "don't throw the baby out with the bathwater" Right, but we don't have any reason to assume it to be true if there's noe evidence to support it - which would be step one in determining whether its a reasonable belief, and integrating it into modern medicine. As for your example, we do not know that acupuncture works - conclusions are inconsistent in systematic reviews, which would suggest that it's not effective. Most researchers I've heard speak about the subject seem to believe any perceived reduction in pain to be due to placebo.

hhas01 7y ago

“In the Asian world, traditional Systems of Medicine focus on "holistic" treatment” [rant on] I believe the term you’re looking for here is “fabulist bullshit”. “the general public often calls Western Medicine, "Allopathy with side-effects"” Aaaand… No, it doesn’t. SCAM calls it that. Which is ironic, as “Allopathy” is a term coined by Hahnemann to mean “Everything BUT Homeopathy”, and that was in a day when “Western Medicine” was itself rank quackery still laboring under Galen’s “Four Humors” nonsense. Thus Chiropracty, Reiki, TCM, Acupuncture, etc are all “Allopathy” too. Conversely, what you so casually misnomer “Western Medicine” (the term itself is borderline racist) is just “Medicine That Works†”. (†“Within Limits”, as any sci fule kno.) I mean, the only really significant difference between Traditional Chinese Medicine’s explanation of disease and Galen’s is that TCM believes in five humors while Galenites believed in only four. [Insert Emo Philips/Picard joke here.] Otherwise “Chinese/Eastern Medicine” is the same mix of ungrounded herbalism and bloodletting that stalled out western healthcare for 2000 years. Until the Arab/Persian world, during its all-to-brief scientific golden age, came up with the brilliant idea that one should actually test one’s beliefs to find out if they’re bullshit or not… a process that Renaissance Europe finally distilled into modern scientific method 500 years later and determining Galen was full of it shortly after that. .. Of course, getting the actual institutions to change took a lot longer; it wasn’t until Pasteur gave us a working model of disease that Galen’s bollocks and its attendant “worse than doing nothing at all” so-called treatments were finally buried down a very deep hole. Germ Theory gave us sanitation, vaccination, and surgical hygene. Untested herbalism was usurped by pharmacognosy, modern chemistry, and reliable mass manufacturing. And so on. Alas, China was been quite so lucky. Thanks to Mao and his vast “barefoot doctor” scam (which got around the problem of not having enough real doctors or money to provide everyone else with medicine that worked), TCM/Acupuncture is still around, not least as the CPC is now selling it for export as much as for use at home. Incidentally, Mao himself (like most wealthier Chinese nowadays) had no truck with that homegrown crap and happily availed himself of your “Western Medicine”, thankyouverymuch. (You might want to take note of that.) Incidentally #2, just as TCM was, and is, badly-tested herbalism marketing often poor-quality and fraudulent product, pre-Mao acupuncture was really just Galenic-style bloodletting sticking bloody great bamboo trocars into people. Worse, it had almost (rightly) died out until Mao reinvented it its modern form using fine steel needles, bad sterile practice, and total Qi bollox. “Distracting the patient while nature all does the work” as Voltaire used to say. Incidentally #3—and considering that western researchers invested decades in figuring out how to reliably blind acupuncture studies before finally producing results showing it no better than placebo—every acupuncture study out of China is still positively glowing. Someone recently posted a FP link regarding China’s massive ongoing medical research crisis; I’m sure you can dig it up if you want. .. TL;DR: You can take your “holistic treatment” and “traditional Systems of Medicine” and stick ’em where the pathologist’s light does shine, because that is where they all belong. [rant off] -- Real medicine does in fact study and treat the whole person. Unfortunately, it’s also a victim of its own and industrial nations’ success. General practices and hospitals are slammed with demand, increasingly with inevitable diseases of very old age (since so few of us die young now) and diseases of sedentary urban lifestyles. And while doctors can tell us to eat less and exercise more till they’re blue in the face, they can’t make any of us do it; so it’s not surprising things like statins get widely (over?) prescribed as a workaround for our fat lazy butts. I’ve no doubt too modern medicine desperately wishes more public would understand that all Medicines (that is, pharmacologically-active compounds) have multiple Effects; and that the only meaningful distinction is between Effects that are advantageous in treating a patient for a particular condition and Effects that are disadvantageous in that same patient. We commonly call the latter “side-effects” [not counting intolerance and allergies], but that’s misleading. For instance, aspirin (descended from willow bark) is commonly used both as an NSAID and as an anticoagulant; thus what is a “side-effect” in pain patients is the therapy in those with blood disorders. (And vice-versa. And, of course, aspirin’s other common effect of giving you stomach ulcers isn’t a benefit in anyone. Although if you think aspirin is bad, just try original willow bark instead.) Thus, we should not be surprised that modern pharmaceuticals have multiple effects across a wide range of biochemical and physiological systems; if anything, it’s a minor miracle they don’t have way more unwanted effects. Alas, familiarty does breed laxness, if not contempt, even in scientific and medical professionals; so it can never be re-stated enough that education, awareness, and due dilligence are essential to keeping that system operating as well as it can. Think of it like this: Medicine [which works] is just a rolling bug-patching process of the most heinously complicated, tightly-coupled, under-documented Big Ball Of Mud known to man, and proceed accordingly. And that even that thing we call “self” is just a synthesized fiction, the product of countless biochemical and electrical interactions constantly occurring in just one[-ish] of numerous intricately interconnected organs, which together make up “Us”. -- Dear Dog, I really need a drink now. Never been so glad I that crashed out of premed and landed up in software dev instead. :)

jiofih 7y ago

You’re right, but I’m quite sure the “Asian world” doesn’t use that term, since homeopathy / allopathy / osteopathy are all western invented classifications.