Do You Believe In Magic?

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misslux
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Do You Believe In Magic?

Post by misslux »

Currently reading this. It's pretty good and cuts through a lot of "woo" in CAM. I think it is worth reading for anyone with a chronic illness since there is so much snake oil out there.
Do You Believe in Magic?: The Sense and Nonsense of Alternative Medicine by Paul A., M.D. Offit

In Do You Believe in Magic?, medical expert Paul A. Offit, M.D., offers a scathing exposé of the alternative medicine industry, revealing how even though some popular therapies are remarkably helpful due to the placebo response, many of them are ineffective, expensive, and even deadly.

Dr. Offit reveals how alternative medicine—an unregulated industry under no legal obligation to prove its claims or admit its risks—can actually be harmful to our health.

Using dramatic real-life stories, Offit separates the sense from the nonsense, showing why any therapy—alternative or traditional—should be scrutinized. He also shows how some nontraditional methods can do a great deal of good, in some cases exceeding therapies offered by conventional practitioners.

An outspoken advocate for science-based health advocacy who is not afraid to take on media celebrities who promote alternative practices, Dr. Offit advises, “There’s no such thing as alternative medicine. There’s only medicine that works and medicine that doesn’t.”
THX1138
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Re: Do You Believe In Magic?

Post by THX1138 »

Clearly an "alternative" to health care that relies on doctors that only receive, on average, 23.9 hours of training in nutrition is needed.
Status of nutrition education in medical schools
Results:
A total of 106 surveys were returned for a response rate of 84%. Ninety-nine of the 106 schools responding required some form of nutrition education; however, only 32 schools (30%) required a separate nutrition course. On average, students received 23.9 contact hours of nutrition instruction during medical school (range: 2–70 h). Only 40 schools required the minimum 25 h recommended by the National Academy of Sciences. Most instructors (88%) expressed the need for additional nutrition instruction at their institutions.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/article ... ool=pubmed

Living beings run on and are built out of nutients, not drugs.
misslux
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Posts: 37
Joined: Fri Jul 04, 2014 6:26 pm
Location: Canada, eh!

Re: Do You Believe In Magic?

Post by misslux »

The point of the book, should you choose to read it, is highlighting harmful therapies, unfounded claims and "cures", etc. No one is disputing that good nutrition is beneficial.
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