Alternative medicines are a bunch of weird treatments. That’s what most people think, but they’re wrong: alternative medicines offer more, much more. They include their own concepts of pathophysiology, their own state of mind, and they even have their own diagnoses, virtually unknown or rejected by conventional medicine. We could call them “alternative diagnoses,” but that wouldn’t quite capture their essence. The bottom line is that they don’t exist: they are figments of the imagination. So the best name to give them is “false diagnoses.”
Alternative medicine practitioners convince their healthy patients that there is something seriously wrong with them. According to them, these false diagnoses are the cause of a wide range of symptoms, such as anxiety, brain fog, constipation, depression, dizziness, fatigue, headaches, heart palpitations, insomnia, irritability, muscle and joint pain, loss of appetite, loss of libido, and weight gain. These ailments have one thing in common: we all experience one or more of them from time to time.
Subsequently, the charlatans claim to be able to correct the alleged abnormality by administering a long series of ineffective treatments or by selling a multitude of useless but expensive remedies. Once the consumer has been sufficiently frightened and copiously exploited, the practitioner proudly announces the good news: the condition has been cured! Scaremongering is profitable and there is nothing easier than getting rid of a disease that did not exist in the first place. Here are some of the most common examples.
Adrenal Fatigue
Adrenal fatigue is a term coined by a chiropractor who believed that the stress of modern life was wearing down the adrenal glands, leading to general weariness. A completely outlandish claim: a systematic review clearly demonstrated this by concluding that “there is no evidence that adrenal fatigue is a real medical condition.”
Yet many alternative practitioners are happy to diagnose adrenal fatigue and advise their patients to address it with a range of supplements, such as fish oil, ashwagandha (Indian ginseng), Rhodiola roseathere Schisandra and holy basil, licorice, magnesium, various vitamins, special diets, lifestyle adjustments, and stress management methods. Most of these therapies have in common that their effectiveness is not supported by convincing evidence from rigorous clinical trials.
Chronic poisoning
Chronic poisonings exist, but they are rare. In alternative medicine, on the contrary, they are diagnosed very frequently, even in perfectly healthy people; in fact, it is hardly possible to identify a single alternative therapy that is not supposed to “detoxify” us. The reason given is that our body would be overloaded with all kinds of harmful substances, coming for example from the environment, our diet, modern medicines or our own metabolism.
The main goal of therapists is of course to sell various “detox” treatments. In addition to supposedly ridding us of toxins, these treatments are also said to increase energy levels, improve digestion and mental clarity, reduce stress, and promote a greater sense of balance and inner harmony. As diverse as these “treatments” are, they all have in common that there is no evidence that they remove anything other than money from the patient’s wallet.
Do we need to remind you? Our body already has powerful detoxification mechanisms, particularly via the liver and kidneys, and there is no evidence that it is possible to stimulate these processes, even less so with the techniques proposed by these therapists.
Chronic Lyme disease
Lyme disease is an acute bacterial infection caused by a tick bite. Chronic Lyme disease, on the other hand, is pure fantasy. This diagnosis is often used to explain persistent pain, fatigue, and neurocognitive symptoms, even in patients who have never had acute Lyme disease.
Once a patient has been convinced that they are suffering from this “pathology,” prolonged courses of treatment with various antimicrobial agents and a host of alternative therapies are prescribed. The range includes intravenous infusions of hydrogen peroxide, electromagnetic treatments, garlic supplements, and even stem cell transplants. Not surprisingly, none of these therapies have been shown to alleviate the symptoms allegedly caused by this false diagnosis.
Electromagnetic hypersensitivity
Electromagnetic hypersensitivity is a condition in which individuals attribute symptoms to exposure to electromagnetic fields. It is not a recognized medical diagnosis. Symptoms include headaches, fatigue, stress, sleep disturbances, tingling, burning sensations and rashes, pain, psychological distress, and many other health problems.
The real cause of these symptoms appears to be psychosomatic and unrelated to electromagnetic fields. Alternative practitioners nevertheless recommend all sorts of therapies, including chelation, detoxification, diets, tocopherols, carotenoids, vitamin C, curcumin, resveratrol, flavonoids or blue light therapy, the effectiveness of which has not been proven.
Vaccination overload
Vaccine overload is based on the idea that giving multiple vaccines at once could overwhelm or weaken a patient’s immune system. This, in turn, would lead to serious adverse effects. Children have immature immune systems and are most often affected. There is no evidence that vaccine overload exists or that it can lead to disease. For example, it has been suggested that the combined measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine would create vaccine overload.
In reality, it has not led to more hospitalizations due to infections, and it effectively protects against the pathologies targeted. This does not prevent alternative practitioners from applying or recommending all sorts of treatments for their false diagnosis. Detox diets, homeopathy and a wide range of herbal supplements such as turmeric or ginger are particularly popular. Of course, these recommendations are not supported by any solid evidence.
Vertebral subluxation
Chiropractors claim that vertebral subluxations impede the flow of “innate,” a fictional form of life energy that supposedly keeps us healthy. Chiropractors who adhere to the gospel of their founding father, Daniel David Palmer, diagnose subluxations in 100% of their patients. They are not deterred by the fact that vertebral subluxations are merely a product of their wishful thinking.
Many osteopaths and chiropractors even go so far as to diagnose Kiss syndrome (kinetic imbalance due to suboccipital straintranslated into French as “high cervical induced symmetry disorder”) in babies. They explain to parents that their newborn urgently needs manual adjustments because intrauterine constraint or birth trauma has caused subluxations of the spine, at the cervical level, of their baby. Without this intervention, they claim, the poor child risks serious developmental disorders.
The truth, however, is that Kiss syndrome is as false as the concept of vertebral subluxation, and that babies’ lives are being put at risk not because of this pseudo-syndrome, but more likely because of unsafe manual adjustments. A systematic review concluded that “given the lack of evidence for the benefits of spinal manipulation in infants and the risks, manual therapy, chiropractic and osteopathy should not be used in infants.” In Australia, this debate has made headlines, and the Chiropractic Board of Australia (the largest association of chiropractors and chiropractic students in Australia) was recently forced by the country’s Minister of Health to reinstate the ban on spinal manipulation of young children.
The imbalance of yin and yang
According to the assumptions of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), all health problems arise from an imbalance between the two vital forces, yin and yang. To restore balance, TCM practitioners use a series of therapies such as acupuncture, herbal blends, massage, etc. But these vital forces do not exist.
This notion comes from Taoist philosophy and goes against science and physiological facts. Therefore, the vital forces cannot be out of balance and, therefore, this imbalance cannot be the cause of a disease. TCM practitioners want nothing to do with this. Why? Yes, you guessed it: if they recognized these facts, they would have to stop practicing.
Edzard Ernst, Emeritus Professor, University of Exeter, UK.
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