Alternative Medicines - Why The Silence?

If there are alternative medicines and natural treatments that really work, why don't we hear more about them? I don't think there are many true conspiracies around, but this is one of those areas that makes me wonder. The movement between government posts and positions in the pharmaceutical corporations is well documented. This easy movement between the boardrooms and the FDA and other agencies certainly leaves room for abuse and "back door agreements."

More often than not, though, there is just a conspiracy-of-common-interest that prevents safe alternative medicines from coming to market, or from becoming widely known. For example, drug companies don't want the competition of safe alternatives to their drugs. Meanwhile, it is politically safer for the FDA to not allow a product, because if they approve something and it causes any problems, they get the blame. This is a convenient coinciding of interests.

Also, natural products, like silymarin (Milk Thistle Extract), which is used all over Europe to treat poisonings and to protect the liver, are legal here, but not well known. This is because, as a natural product, there is no way to patent it. Without being able to exclude others from selling it, no company can afford to spend the millions it would take to get it approved as a medicine here.

A natural product also can't be marketed heavily. Imagine if a large company spent millions to promote a medicinal herb. As soon as they got the public's attention, all the smaller companies could undercut them on the price, since they spent nothing on marketing, and a plant product is usually the same no matter what the name on the label. No company wants to spend big money on a product they don't have an exclusive right too.

When a plant isn't approved as a natural treatment, there are no pharmaceutical reps out there educating doctors about it (Didn't you know that's how doctors keep educated?). In addition, even if a doctor has read about a useful plant, he is more likely to face a malpractice suit for an allergic reaction to an alternative medicine than from killing someone with a "standard and accepted" treatment. Which do you think he'll recommend?

Companies face the same issues of liability. In addition, the companies are limited in what they can say about these natural products. This is why you can look all over the box that some plant medicines come in, and never once see a mention of what it is for. It is tough to learn about these natural treatments, isn't it?

In other words, if you want to know about alternative medicines and medical treatment, you have to look outside the mainstream for your information. You have to read the magazines that cover these alternatives, and sometimes, when it is safe, you have to even experiment a little on yourself.

As for my own approach, I like to see that there is actually some real research that demonstrates a benefit. Anecdotal evidence doesn't mean much. People get better all the time, and credit whatever they happened to be using at the time. On the other hand, if it is inexpensive and safe, like eating blueberries to improve vision, I'll try almost anything once.

Do natural treatments work? Sometimes. I have twice removed skin growths from my face that may have even been pre-cancerous. They were there for many years, yet it took just weeks to make them disappear using a simple and cheap natural product. I have also witnessed the fastest healing of a cut (on my foot) that I've ever seen, after applying a common plant to it. Some alternative medicines really do work.

Alternative Medicine to Lower Your Blood Pressure

Home remedies and homeopathic medicine have begun popular over the years as an alternative to prescription drugs.  Many people are not aware that there are also home remedies available to lower your blood pressure.  What is nice about a home remedy is the lower cost and eliminating the unfavorable side effects of prescribed medicines.  Another advantage of home remedies is that while it may be used to alleviate one symptom, it often has other health benefits.  Many home remedies can be found in your local supermarket and health food store.

If you suffer from high blood pressure, here are a few home remedies.  These remedies will not only lower your blood pressure but are good for your general health too.

Below are a few home remedies to help lower your blood pressure

· Potassium and Magnesium.  Foods high in these minerals are bananas, molasses, soy and bananas.  Some fruits such as watermelon and grapes are also a good source.  Not only will these foods lower your blood pressure but are beneficial to your overall health too.
· Garlic has many beneficial properties that improve overall health, including lowering your blood pressure.  Consumption of garlic will also reduce blot clot occurrences in individuals.  It is believed by some researches that garlic will also lower the triglyceride levels.

Therefore, you are probably wondering what a triglyceride is.  A triglyceride is a glyceride that occurs naturally in tissues and consists of three fatty acids that are bound together in a single molecule.  They are an important energy source forming much of the fat stored in the body.

You can research on how to lower your blood pressure using home remedies in many ways.  The internet has a wealth of information dedicated to home remedies and homeopathic medicine to lower your blood pressure.  Bookstores and libraries also offer an abundance of information.  With a little research, you can find alternatives to prescription drugs for lowering your blood pressure.

As with any alternative health remedies, consult with your physician before discontinuing any prescribed medicines.  Abruptly taking your prescription medicine could have serious and long-term effects on your health.

Alternative Medicine - Gaining Popularity And Acceptance

Alternative medicine has been gaining in both popularity and acceptance in recent years. Many cities now have a plethora of shops where a person interested in buying alternative medicines can go to find whatever they are seeking, in addition to being able to take advantage of many alternative medicine services at local practitioners’ offices.

Alternative medicine is simply a way of referencing a type of treatment that is not officially recognized by the medical establishment as a relief or cure. There are literally thousands of practices that fall under this category, and most people would be surprised to find some of the items that either are or were once considered to be against the grain, or categorized as “alternative” medicine.

Not too far back in medical history, doctors did not wash their hands while helping a woman through child labor. The result was thousands of contracted infections and death due to bacterial transfer. Doctors who advocated the practice of hand-washing or warned of unseen microbes were shunned and mocked by their professional peers, and only in the last century has sterilization been a common and then regulated medical practice. It is hard to believe that something we take so much for granted was once considered alternative medicine, but it was so.

In the 21st century, alternative medicine is not as frowned upon by the medical profession as it once was. Treatments such as acupuncture are common, and many other forms of alternative medicine are gaining acceptance. Even watching weekly magazine shows like Dateline on NBC, observers can see radical alternative medicine practitioners curing patients with terminal illnesses to the wonderment of experts. Some are scams to be sure, but some are simply inexplicable, and professionals who witness the events tend not to endorse them, but neither do they dismiss them.

Part of the reason for the increase in acceptance of alternative medicine is the recognition of the powers of the mind over the body. There is increasing evidence that a patient’s attitude can sometimes shape the physical response, and this in part helps to illustrate why alternative medicine is more well received than it used to be. A patient who believes he or she is doing better, often will.

Before going out to walk on coals or ingest an ear tuft of a koala though, it is important to do some research into the practice or practitioner one is considering for advice. Alternative medicine, by its definition, is not regulated and that leaves a lot of room for quacks to take advantage of people’s ills to make a quick buck. Don’t rush into anything, and if it appears shady, do not partake of it.

Alternative Medicine is Preventive; Western Medicine Has Harmful Side Effects

 Alternative Medicine is Preventive; Western Medicine Has Harmful Side Effects

Have you heard the term “wellness?” It has two contexts, one in alternative medicine and one in Western medicine. In the alternative medicine world, wellness means taking care of yourself so you don't get sick. Let's find ways to avoid cancer, heart disease, mental illness. We can do this through changing our diet, exercising more, and changing our energy fields. In Western medicine, we wait until we get one of these diseases, then we rush heroically to “beat the disease.” In Western medicine, the term wellness means “early detection” of disease.

If you walk into a “Wellness Center” in a hospital, you'll see mammogram screening rooms, MRI machines and other tools to scan for the existence of disease. Is that wellness? To me, it's not. Wellness is about staying well, it is about avoiding disease in the first place. When a person is told “You have cancer,” it is a major blow to their psyches, and their lives. Why go through that if you don't have to? Why not do whatever you can to avoid that terrible day?

 Western medicine treats the “pre-detection” part of life as a kind of random soup of nothingness. You can't really do anything about any of these diseases, you just get them or you don't. No rhyme or reason to it, it just hits you, and then you deal with it. Genetics is a big factor in the Western medical model. If you get cancer, ah, well, it was in your genes that you'd get it. You see, your great grandfather had cancer, so it was inevitable that you'd get it too. Huh? Unfortunately, Western medicine can't explain why siblings get or don't get diseases supposedly passed on from their parents.

One sister dies of cancer at a young age (because of genetics) and the other sister lives to be 100 (genetics). For my part, I'm going to take the best care of myself possible, and not play a silly waiting game for disease.

Alternative Medicine is Holistic, Western Medicine is Reductionist

Alternative Medicine is Holistic, Western Medicine is Reductionist

The major difference between alternative medicine, or what I'll call holistic health, and Western medicine, is in approach.

A Western doctor, or MD, sees his duty as searching out disease, diagnosing it, and treating it. If he does that correctly and effectively, he's done his job. Most often, this means the doctor prescribing a pharmaceutical drug or a surgical procedure to remedy the situation.  The patients is passive in all of this.

A holistic health practitioner sees her duty as an educator and a facilitator. She feels that the body can heal itself, and it doesn't necessarily need outside influences (drugs, surgery) to heal from an illness or to prevent an illness. In holistic health, the patient is an active participant.

This is the best and the worst thing about holistic health! The patient is actively involved in the healing process.  Everything you know about your body says that this is the right approach. It makes so much sense.  That's the good part.  The bad thing about this is that it is HARD WORK for the patient.  In most cases, the patient must make changes to their lifestyle.  Change your diet, do more exercise, stop using sugar, do these stretches, stop negative thoughts, meditate twice a day, etc.
Making lifestyle changes is immensely difficult.  The only time it's easy is when you are faced with a life-threatening disease.  When you find out you have lung cancer, it's pretty easy to quit smoking.  However, it's far too late by that time.  Lifestyle changes need to come before the illness becomes manifest.

Let's examine one of the big differences between holistic health and Western medicine: holism versus reductionism.

Holistic versus Reductionist

This is a major shift in perspective.  Taking a holistic perspective means that you cannot understand a single problem with a single part of the human body without looking at the whole person.  We use the short-hand “mind, body, spirit” to refer to the whole person.

This is not how a Western doctor is taught to see a patient.  He sees the patient <i>as</i> the disease.  “This is an epileptic,” it is not a whole person who has epilepsy. He feels that he can administer a drug or perform a surgery that will cure a person's liver without making any difference to the rest of the person.  Of course, this is never possible, so when the inevitable “complications” arise, the Western doctor deals with those one at a time, often causing additional problems for the person, whether in body, mind or spirit.

Even those three parts of the person are treated by separate people in Western society.  The body is the domain of the medical doctor.  The mind is the domain of the psychiatrist. Spirit is left to the priest, rabbi or pastor.  There is no overlap in roles, except for referrals from one to the other.  In our bodies, of course, there is tremendous overlap.  A loss of connection to God or the universe will cause no end of mental and physical problems.  Mental stress causes many physical diseases, as we well know.  Who can coordinate between these in the Western system?  No one.  Problems falling “through the cracks” between mind, body and spirit is a common failure of Western medicine.
A holistic practitioner understands the interconnections between mind, body and spirit.  They work on the connections, and, although the practitioner may not be an expert in all three, they focus on the overlaps rather than ignoring them.

In my opinion, a holistic approach is better in almost every case for almost every person. Understanding the linkages between mind, body and spirit is essential to understanding how to stay well and how to heal.  Western medicine can play a part within the scope of holistic health by offering emergency solutions to problems that arise quickly and need to be fixed immediately.