A Surprising Fact about Alternative Medicine

Suppose you had an ailment and were inclined to seek help from an alternative medicine practitioner. Many do. Who should you go to? Should you consult an osteopath, a chiropracter, a homoeopathist, an acupunturist or a herbalist or one of many more alternative medicine specialists? I imagine you might like to choose the one most likely to help your particular problem. But which is that?

The answer - no-one knows! An extensive review of published literature turned up no trials where one form of alternative medicine was compared with another. Whatever ails you will be treated exclusively by the method of the specialist you go to. No acupunturist will ever tell you that for your complaint a herbalist might be better, no chiropracter will tell you that you would be better off seeing a homoeopathist for there is no known difference in the effectivenes of the different modalities of alternative medicine. That seems an unlikely situation, but it is true - and for a simple reason- they are all similarly effective for they all rely totally on what orthodox medicine describes as the placebo effect. We all, when afflicted by a wide variety of conditions can get a degree of relief when someone listens to us and shows some kindness and gives us something that they tell us confidently will help. And that is all that alternative medicine has to offer. It is no more than normal medicine can do - and with less fuss and less cost. Normal medicine can also help with ailments caused by much more serious disorders. Trust your normal doctor. She can help in most situations and will be honest enough to tell you when she can't. Good Luck and keep well.

Expensive Healthcare

American healthcare is the most expensive in the world. That seems to be established. Is it the best? Debatable. How would we know? By looking at specific aspects we as users would value - accessibility, timeliness, cost, effectiveness, kindness, safety confidentiality and so on.
A recent study by the Commonwealth Fund using such an approach suggests it is not the best - indeed it came last in study of a number of countries worldwide. Other studies have found similar results when looking at the health of the citizens but wrongly make the jump from healthcare to health. Expensive health care should mean a healthy populace they seem to expect. Wrong! Even excellent albeit costly healthcare cannot make a population healthy. It can help those whose ill  health becomes a major issue. It cannot beyond advice, education and exhortation make a society behave in a manner which will promote good health. And here is the kicker - if we live badly and make poor choices we will have poor health, we will make extra demands on healthcare which will in turn cost more!
Expensive healthcare is not just about inefficiency, profligacy or exploitation - it is also about levels of demand which in turn are driven by the health of the population.