Holistic medicine

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Against allopathy

Alternative medicine

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Alternative articles
Alternative medicine people call themselves "holistic" and say it's the "whole" approach. Well, if it's the whole approach, let it be the mind as well. Use logic, use sense, use the incredible five wits you were given by creation.
Stephen Fry[1]
Whenever you see the word “holistic” being applied to a medical issue or treatment, nine times out of ten you’ll get the true correct meaning by substituting the word “quackery.”
Orac[2]

Holistic medicine is ostensibly the belief that medical practitioners should look at the "whole person" when treating a patient, meaning that the doctor should not just diagnose and treat the illness, but also consider the patient's lifestyle, stress levels, emotional situation, and other factors that could be of relevance for the person's health, as well as treat the patient with respect, rather than just dismissively diagnosing them and giving them some pills. This is a perfectly reasonable and desirable concept. However, in practice, if a practitioner calls themself "holistic", it almost always means that they believe in woo (most commonly, herbal supplements and homeopathy, though the list can certainly go on for miles). Naturopaths, homeopaths, practitioners of Reiki, Therapeutic Touch, various forms of "oriental medicine", and all sorts of other New Age types claim very frequently, if not most of the time, to be "holistic".

One site states that holistic medicine "encompasses all stated modalities of diagnosis and treatment including drugs and surgery if no safe alternative exists."[3] You can see the obvious problem with the statement that it includes all types of treatments. The claim is that "holistic" means they look at the entirety of the situation, not a mere mechanical model of treatment, which is why you can buy holistic tartar control treats for your dog off the shelf at a supermarket.

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[edit] Remedies

Holistic medical practitioners usually argue that for any ailment, there is a safe, non-prescription/non-surgery cure for it. Have cancer? Don't try surgery or chemotherapy, when overdosing on certain vitamins can cure you.[4] Vitamin supplements are especially promoted as cures to everything in holistic medicine, and overdoses of certain vitamins are usually recommended, even though (in most cases) you will just excrete those vitamins as excess.[5] (Except in the case of non-water-soluble vitamins, of course, where overdosing can make you sick.)

Holistic medical practitioners defend their treatments to the general public that there is documented proof that they work, but when faced with empirical evidence that does not support their claims, they often state that holistic medicine cannot be readily tested by scientific means.

[edit] Dangers

Often holistic healers will convince their patients to forgo proper medical care, usually combined with misrepresentations of studies or emotional appeals, to undergo holistic therapies. Since there is no valid evidence to support holistic therapies being capable of curing deadly ailments, this kind of malpractice is dangerous to offer patients.

[edit] External links

[edit] Footnotes

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