It is very hard for straightforward and presumably honest medical researchers to give us much of anything objective about something that has been labeled “alternative medicine”. Maybe there should only be two kinds of medicine. Good and not good; helpful and not helpful. I was minding my own business – well, as much as ever — when I found an article about chelation as a preventative for heart disease. It basically says that chelation seems to “work”. But it also seems that some people are ashamed to find this out and don’t want too many people to take advantage of this as a treatment option. This makes about as much sense as most of what I have read recently about medical research, but I do have one way to put it in context. I have spoken at some alternative medicine meetings where I have proselytized about the effectiveness of high dose vitamins — chelated, to pass the blood-brain barrier. I have been told that I would be skewered by colleagues. Colleagues never seem to have much worried about what I have to say. As a matter of fact, the world seems to have a pretty bad track record as far as listening to what I say. Read more on Chelation As Preventive Therapy for Heart Disease…
Filed under Disease, medicine, Research by on Nov 26th, 2012. Comment. 
There is no evidence of chelation curing autism.
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The field of alternative medicine is as wild and woolly as the old west. There are all kinds of people doing all kinds of things. Some are studied and tested, some are intuitive, and some seem to come from Uranus.
So it is no surprise that the FDA occasionally cracks down on some of the most flagrant offenders.
Please listen to someone with a lot of formal training and many years of experience in clinical trials and many treatment modalities — There are no miracle cures. If there really were, I think I could have a handle on them by now.
One hot button recently is autism. And one of the biggest misconceptions is that it is just mercury poisoning. Believe me (and a million other medical experts) – it is NOT.
There are plenty of people around who want to believe in the magic bullet. Somehow this goes hand-in-hand with believing that doctors and drug companies are hiding things that are wildly effective.
Truth, science, and the American way are effective. People are always devoted to things that will make them a lot of money. They may even convince themselves that they are on the way to miracles. Old fashioned values like responsible experimentation, even responsible observation … the heck with it.
I will not expostulate. I see it all the time. Some of my colleagues – and I mean trained and licensed MDs – seem to settle on one treatment and think it fixes everything. I suspect it is because they are basically lazy and cynical, but that may not be fair. But in my years of practice I’ve seen docs who give everybody thyroid hormone, others who firmly believe in vitamin D, the apostles of Prozac, and other things too bizarre for me to really believe. Read more on Denial, Wishful Thinking And Chelation…
Filed under Alternative Medicine by on Jan 21st, 2011. Comment.