May 20 2010
Naturopathy for allergies
Naturopathy is an unusual chimera. It is basically a collection of old fashioned medical superstitions presented under a veneer of highly speculative, quasi-scientific assertions. But given its popularity, it is important, from time to time, to evaluate specific claims made by this particular non-science-based belief system.
A reader informed me that he was advised to seek the advice of a naturopath for treatment of his seasonal allergies. Since naturopaths claim to be “doctors plus”, I was curious what they would recommend. Would it be standard allergy treatment with antihistimines and other proven medications along with some sort of vitalistic mumbo-jumbo? It turns out I was half-right.
A visit to a national (US) naturopathic association website is a painful lesson in how naturopathic believers view health and disease. No unfounded assertion would be complete without a good straw man. Regarding the difference between real medicine and naturopathy, they say of allergies:
It’s a yearly ordeal for many people, and many others struggle with these symptoms year-round due to molds, dust, and pet dander. Pharmaceutical commercials offer a promise of living clear, but is a life of pills and side effects the only solution?
Far from it, say naturopathic physicians! Allergic symptoms are your immune system’s extreme reaction to substances that are normally found, harmlessly, in your everyday environment. Very often, simple changes of diet, nutritional supplements, and homeopathic remedies can relieve this extreme reaction and the resulting inflammation that triggers most allergy symptoms.
In fact, it’s a bit more complicated than that. The pathophysiology of environmental allergies is pretty well understood. Normally harmless antigens are taken in, processed, and presented to the immune system. Plasma cells then crank out allergen-specific IgE which coats basophils and mast cells. On re-exposure to the allergen, basophils and mast cells release a soup of mediators of allergic reactions, including substances such as histamine. After this immediate (and unpleasant) reaction, a later reaction involving other inflammatory mediators kicks in.
The best way to fight allergies is to avoid the offending allergen, but for many of us, this isn’t possible. Treatments are based on the underlying pathophysiology. Antihistamines help fight the unpleasant effects of histamine release, including sneezing, itching, and runny nose and eyes. Unfortunately, they do little to prevent the release of histamine in the first place and some have significant side-effects. The oldest anti-histamines, such as diphenhydramine (Benadryl) can cause sedation and dry mouth. Newer antihistamines cause very little sedation and are quite effective.
There are also medications to help prevent degranulation of mast cells, preventing the histamine from being released in the first place. These “mast cell stabilizers” can be very effective in preventing allergy symptoms, as long as you take it regularly. Steroids sprayed in the nose can help with many of the symptoms, usually without side effects, and leukotriene inhibitors can also help blunt the immune response and improve symptoms. These medications are very well-tolerated, safe, effective, and are based on what we know about the pathology of allergies.
The naturopaths offer something else entirely.
Red meat contains a substance called arachadonic acid, which helps to produce the cytokines and leukotrines that cause your immune system to react with allergic inflammation. While you need a small amount of arachadonic acid for your immune system to function, your body can produce this amount naturally. Simply eliminating red meat from your diet can reduce the level of this acid, thus lessening your allergic reactions.
This speculative assertion has no data supporting it. It is an interesting supposition, but implausible and unproved. It is unlikely that any dietary modification could reduce a substrate of allergic reactions enough to give relief of allergies.
They also recommend omega-3 fatty acids. There is very little clinical literature on the topic. A recent review of the use of omega fatty acids in allergy prevention found that despite some promising in vitro studies, there was no significant clinical benefit. They also recommend turmeric, papaya, and pineapple, none of which have been shown to be effective treatments for allergies.
There next piece of advice is to toss money away:
For Best Results – Supplement!
A healthy organic diet low in Omega-6 fatty acids and high in vitamin E, Omega-3 fatty acids, and natural anti-inflammatory foods can help to reduce your allergy symptoms. However, your best bet is to supplement your diet with concentrated doses of anti-allergic nutrients such as those listed below:
- Vitamin C (up to 10 grams/day) is a natural anti-histamine;
- Vitamin B5 (up to 800 mg/day);
- Zinc picolinate (up to 150 mg/day); and
- Cod Liver Oil or other cold-water fish oil (look at the label and use a high quality fish oil product containing from 1000 – 2000 mg of the essential fatty acids EPA + DHA per day).
Once again, none of these assertions is backed up by evidence. Most of it isn’t even promising enough to bother with. But they really hit it out of the park with their final recommendations.
Homeopathic remedies involve taking an extremely diluted form of selected allergens in liquid or sugar-pill form sublingually (under the tongue). These miniscule doses serve somewhat like a vaccination, stimulating your immune system to an effective rather than extreme response.
Vaccination is to homeopathy as horseback riding is to unicorn wrangling. First of all, vaccination, while sometimes used as immunotherapy and immunoprophylaxis, is not used to treat type I hypersenstivity, the cause of seasonal allergies. Immune desensitization is used. Desensitization uses small but measurable amounts of allergen to induce tolerance and prevent an allergic reaction. There is nothing homeopathic about it.
They go on to mention liver detoxification, gut flora “balancing”, and chiropractic as useful treatments for allergies.
Naturopaths, it would seem, are not “medicine plus”, but “everything but.” Since they do not use proven, effective therapies, the throw unproved, implausible therapies at their patients perhaps hoping that when the allergies relent as a natural course of the disease, they might finally claim credit. That’s what all the best shamans do.
185 Responses to “Naturopathy for allergies”
It seems like, if you actually managed to limit your intake of arachidonic acid (as well as precursors linoleate and linolenate acid) enough to decrease your allergy response, you’d be in big trouble. Big trouble.
I had thought that vitamin C had an antihistamine action, and this was where it was useful in suppressing the sniffling/nasal congestion symptoms of the common cold (far from preventing or treating it, vitamin C merely suppresses the symptoms – like, you know, a medicine). I’m not saying it’s magical or a cure, but I believe there is evidence to support at least that one treatment:
* http://books.google.ca/books?id=Vi1_QobIY6IC&pg=PA189#v=onepage&q&f=false
Plus, there’s an argument that it’s simply not worth the time or money; one day of suffering less per year:
* http://www.bcm.edu/medpeds/articles/TreatmentofURI.pdf
Educate me comments section!
I like how they say, “but is a life of pills and side effects the only solution? Far from it, say naturopathic physicians!” and then go on to recommend, uh, sugar pills and pill supplements. I guess only Big Pharma pills are bad?
Absolutely! It’s always hilarious how quacks yell and scream about how pills are evil, then proceed to sell you enough of them to choke an elephant.
Mr. Utridge,
While the information on Vitamin C and allergies establishes a theoretical basis why it might work, the scientific literature is a grave yard for theories that look promising. Actual studies of the effects of vitamin C on allergy symptoms would be needed (0r did I miss these?).
As to your second reference, it was about vitamin C and infections and so is not relevant to this discussion.
If you can’t dazzle them with brilliance then baffle them with bullshit!
It makes them sound smart to the non-medical community.
Man, how I wish that not eating red meat would cure allergies. I’ve been a vegetarian for the last four years, and my allergies are just as bad as ever.
“Medicine plus” is rather perverse. These guys’ best work is the stuff that real practitioners do that isn’t medicine. Great at hand-holding. Lovely bedside manners. But they do all that minus medicine.
I second kumarei’s point. I know plenty of vegetarian’s and non-red meat eaters with allergies.
To me SCAM does not seem particularly well suited to allergies. Maybe there are some very mild/vague symptoms that come and go, but many of my symptoms are very distinct and I don’t think I get any placebo effect relief at all.
One symptom is chronic sinusitis facial pain that will stick around over a month without treatment. Benedryl-doesn’t help. Claritin-doesn’t help. Rhinocort-doesn’t help. Saline rinses a little relief. Aleve alone a little relief. The only thing that really works is a Zyrtec/Aleve combo.
So perhaps it can only convince people who don’t really have allergies or really want to be convinced and don’t mind being miserable.
I love the general theory behind naturopathy – cure deficiencies, eliminate aggravating substances from your body, maybe a little supplementation here and there to tip the balance, and BAM healthy body without direct modulation of histamines, receptors etc. ala most pharmaceuticals.
Too bad it’s hit or miss.. mostly miss (yes i believe some of this stuff works) and often the misses leave you broke and perhaps less healthy than before.
Here’s a little anecdote for you all, friends (i know you all love anecdotes, especially when it involves a miniscule sample group… aka 1). A colleague of mine who works in the same small office recently made a “lifestyle change”, as advised by an AM doc. About a month into it, he ceased his incessant sniffling, sneezing, hacking etc… all is quiet. I listened to him sniffle, sneeze, hack and ahem for the last year.. even the littlest bit of dust set him off. He commented on his allergies being “all but gone”. I thought it was interesting.
Thanks for another article on the quackery of naturopaths and allergy treatments. Any chance you could do one or two on the methods that they use to diagnose and treat food allergies? Naturopaths are begging in some areas to be allowed to conduct oral challenges, and I am frightened at the prospect.
Also, I really feel that naturopath’s “diagnosing” food allergies in kids with behavioural issues is really muddying the waters. Kids are showing up at schools with a laundry list of allergies, NONE of which require Epipens. Teachers are starting to consider allergies less of an issue, and I fear that those of us who have “true” allergies are going to have a much more difficult time getting people to take us seriously.
Seems that “milk-free, wheat-free” diets are more than an autism diet – it’s becoming a trendy lifestyle choice, and these people walk around telling people they’ve been allergic all this time. Sorry, but behaviour and digestive problems are not symtpoms of food allergies last time I checked. Difficulty breathing, sneezing, rashes, vomiting, facialy swelling … those are the things that I have seen! (You know, REAL allergy symptoms).
Thanks again!
Thanks for this (and M Crislip for his most recent) post. It is really hard to face a naturo and prove they are not educated in health care. They have little literature and make vague claims (always coated with plausible deniabilty). It is nice to see their ignorance on display.
Oh dear. Such certitude. Such arrogance. Such ignorance.
I’m sorry to be so blunt, but intellectually incurious attitudes such as this are the reason so many people have started avoiding “mainstream” physicians and flocking to “naturopaths.” It’s also the reason so many people have grown skeptical of the “pop a pill” mentality in allopathic medicine: Because too many physicians do not understand basic physiological processes and treatment strategies that can heal their patients on a more foundational level.
The result? When people actually do need a pill, they do not trust physicians. I see this fallout every day in the ADHD community, where stimulant medications can actually help children and adults to lead healthier lives but people have grown skeptical of “pill-pushers” who cast aspersions on their questions about diet. As if what we put in out bodies could never affect our brains. No wonder so many people try “alternatives” for ADHD and shun medication, because their physicians often cannot help them from a dietary standpoint.
After years of suffering allergies and allergists giving me shots (useless) and pills (who wants to take a pill 24/7 for three seasons each year?), I found myself in the middle of a severe cat allergy and had no antihistamines.
A nutritionist at this event mixed for me a drink of juice, magnesium, and B vitamins. Not wanting to be impolite, I drank it, fully expecting to keep sneezing convulsively. To my surprise, the allergic reaction stopped immediately.
Do most physicians even know why magnesium offers some allergic people this benefit? No, but the good ones do. That’s because they actually understand basic physiology, including the role of minerals and vitamins, and can apply it to their patients’ various conditions. They don’t rely solely on double-blind studies and drug reps for all of their knowledge and thus they can integrate treatment.
Frankly, I’m shocked at what you’re calling “science-based medicine” here. There are some huge gaps in your “science.”
GinaPera,
I’m intrigued. I found support on PubMed and in the Natural Medicines Comprehensive Database for using magnesium to treat asthma, but I couldn’t find anything about using it for allergic rhinitis. How did the nutritionist know to try it? Do you have any references?
GinaPera,
“I’m shocked at what you’re calling “science-based medicine” here.”
Well, Gina, I’m shocked that you don’t understand that anecdote is not science-based medicine.
Another anecdote, for what it’s worth. I used to have a cat allergy; if I was in a home with a cat my eyes would redden, I would sneeze and feel moderately miserable, and if I stroked one and then touched my eyes I was extremely miserable. I had suffered from this allergy for over ten years. This became more of a problem when I started living with someone who owned cats.
One day I was reading a book about self-hypnosis that claimed it could help some allergies, so I followed the procedure in the book, not expecting much. The technique used ideomotor signals to communicate with the “unconscious part of me” (whatever that means) that was causing me the allergic symptoms, I was to explain to it that I understood it was trying to protect me, but that it was making a mistake, and ask it nicely to stop giving me the symptoms. It sounded like hokum, but I suspended my disbelief and gave it a try.
To my astonishment the allergy disappeared instantly and completely, and never came back. After finishing the procedure I stroked a kitten and then deliberately rubbed my eyes, and nothing happened. That was over twenty years ago, and I have since spent a couple of years in a cat-free home, and the past few years living with two cats (so it can’t be some sort of antigen suppression).
Even stranger, at the time I had a friend who also had a cat allergy, worse than mine had been. He used to phone us ahead of time to ask that we put my partner’s cats out of the house before he visited. After a conversation with him in which I explained in detail what I had done, his allergy also spontaneously disappeared. Oddly he didn’t even notice until I pointed it out several months later. Coincidence? Perhaps.
So, purely on this personal anecdotal evidence, I strongly suspect that some allergies have a psychogenic element to them. Perhaps at least some allergies are amenable to psychotherapeutic approaches. This may explain the success that unconventional and implausible treatments have in some cases.
Before you dismiss this as utterly implausible, take a look at these studies that might support my anecdotes.
Pavlovian conditioning of rat mucosal mast cells to secrete rat mast cell protease II http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2911721
Pavlovian conditioning of nasal tryptase release in human subjects with allergic rhinitis http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8022900
Behavioral conditioning of antihistamine effects in patients with allergic rhinitis
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18418029
These are small studies, and perhaps the design could be improved, but they are interesting I think. I have also wondered if the sedative effect of most antihistamines, the worsening of my seasonal allergies when I am tired or anxious, and the disappearance of allergies during sleep and deep relaxation might be connected. Just wondering…
GinaPera,
With your superior knowledge of human physiology, did it not strike you as odd when the nutritionist’s potion worked “immediately,” thereby bypassing your digestive system and all the other physiological phenomena required to get the active ingredients in this drink to the right places in your body to stop your allergic reaction? Perhaps someone just put the cat out.
“Oh dear. Such certitude. Such arrogance. Such ignorance.”
Are you talking about the quotes from Natruopaths? I assume so but you are pretty unclear. For example, the way I use the term “arrogant” is a statement of “distance” between the certianty of what is said and the evidence supporting it. Unless you can point me to epidemlogical data. I’m reasonably comfortable with the assertion that none has been done and published in a peer-reviwed journal based both on my belief that Peter is capable of doing a PubMed search as well as a few checks I did on my own.
“I’m sorry to be so blunt, but intellectually incurious attitudes such as this are the reason so many people have started avoiding “mainstream” physicians and flocking to “naturopaths.””
Perhaps you are attempting to be artful or something but personally I don’t want my body to be treated as an object of my physicians “curiosity” (also is there some kind of “physical curiosity”? Otherwise “intellectually” is redundant). Considering that I’m not really convinced that there is any significant change in peoples habits with regard to moving to naturopaths. Even if there were, there are a myriad of reasons that could happen that are entirely independent of “curiosity” or even results. For example one study on diabetes patients using CAM http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16828133 The most common reason (86.8%) was the perception for “quick and additional relief” even though MOST (53.6%) people percieved no benefit at all.
Point being, that people can “flock” for social reasons. One of which, as is often mentioned by GP’s I’ve met is that ND’s can afford to spend more time
per patient. Clearly people want to be heard and understood, not just treated and shuffled off but when faced with the choice
“physiological processes and treatment strategies that can heal their patients on a more foundational level.”
I always find this claim kind of interesting. How does one define “more foundational”? Not to mention that isn’t that claim far more arrogant than some of the simple claims that were made
“A nutritionist at this event mixed for me a drink of juice, magnesium, and B vitamins. Not wanting to be impolite, I drank it, fully expecting to keep sneezing convulsively. To my surprise, the allergic reaction stopped immediately.”
Immediately after oral delivery? Doesn’t that mean faster than you would have been able to metabolize anything at all in that drink to any useful level? Perhaps I’m looking at this the wrong way but any immediate effect makes me infinitely more skeptical that my actions are doing anything on a physiological level. Analgesics, Anti-histamines, etc… I have trouble coming up with an oral delivery that acts as fast as you are implying.
“They don’t rely solely on double-blind studies and drug reps for all of their knowledge and thus they can integrate treatment.”
Drug reps aside. Again I’m always interested in the idea that people level some criticism at the double-blind study. I mean if there *WAS* a double-blind study showing the efficacy of Mg in alergic attacks. Then it would be medicine, if there were a double-blind study showing no real success why would you trust your own ideas over that?
“Frankly, I’m shocked at what you’re calling “science-based medicine” here. There are some huge gaps in your “science.””
All science has gaps. Especially, as demonstrated here Naturopathy – considering how easy it is to find ND literature advising something that has never been studied in a controlled way.
But let me ask you this, and this is a question I pose to a number of people: Can you have science without a quantified error-bound? In other words (and this is a rare case here I’m at odds with Feynman on scientific method). In other words if you can’t give a figure that indicates how likely your results are to be correct. Do you really think you have any right to call that science. Because, if not – try asking your ND’s for that kind of information (P-values, R values, CI, CL’s) and I’m willing to bet you get a blank stare faster than a Radio Shack employee.
Hmmm didn’t finish that paragraph:
“Point being, that people can “flock” for social reasons. One of which, as is often mentioned by GP’s I’ve met is that ND’s can afford to spend more time per patient. Clearly people want to be heard and understood, not just treated and shuffled off but when faced with the choice. I understand why a GP will prioritize time for diagnosis and treatment over making the person feel better (emotionally)”.
Geez…another one…
“I always find this claim kind of interesting. How does one define “more foundational”? Not to mention that isn’t that claim far more arrogant than some of the simple claims that were made by Peter”
i.e. “This speculative assertion has no data supporting it. It is an interesting supposition, but implausible and unproved. It is unlikely that any dietary modification could reduce a substrate of allergic reactions enough to give relief of allergies.”
Ok here we have Peter saying a specific assertion has no data supporting it. Recognizing that it might be interesting but stating significant doubts.
And we have you…echoing something I hear from various sources in and about Naturopathy. That ND’s, somehow have a generally deeper understanding of therapy and physiology than all medical science combined?
Sorry who was being arrogant again?
The irony here is breathtaking. After all, it’s naturopaths who have absolutely not intellectual curiosity – indeed, they actively AVOID information. Whereas scientists have been intellectually curious enough to test the quackery and determine that it doesn’t work.
Oh, and by the way:
I call faulty memory. Other than the purely mechanical effect of washing things down, “a drink of juice, magnesium, and B vitamins” cannot have any “immediate” effect. Even IF juice, magnesium, and vitamins were an effective treatment, they would have to be absorbed and travel to the involved site before they could have any effect.
Odds are overwhelming that what really happened was something along these lines:
1. You drink the drink.
2. Some minutes later, the symptoms resolve as normal.
3. Via a post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy, the symptom relief is attributed to the drink.
4. After some time, the usual faults of human memory forget about the time lapse.
Very interesting post!
One thing I’m curious about – is there any evidence that it’s harder to treat multiple allergies?
Last year, I lived in an older apartment that almost certainly had a significant mould problem (lots of visible mould in inaccessible spots in the bathroom, plus a lot of water damage). I was using nasal spray and Claritin almost constantly for the entire year, and my seasonal allergy symptoms were really severe; I felt like my sinuses never really cleared at all. This year I moved into a building that’s been maintained much better and has had some major renovations done as well, and although I definitely notice allergy symptoms when I go outside (itchy, runny eyes, stuff nose, consistent with the seasonal allergies I’ve had all my life), it’s been much less severe and persistent and I haven’t needed to treat them to feel like I can breathe comfortably. It could just be that there’s less pollen floating around this spring (though that seems doubtful), but I’m curious about whether being able to avoid *some* allergens is having an effect on the severity of response to others.
That said, I haven’t eaten red meat in 13 years and I suffered miserably every spring up until now, so I don’t think I’ll be trusting any naturopath’s advice. Also, 1 – 2 pills daily plus a squirt of nasal spray beats multiple pills plus cod liver oil, hands down.
Gee, there seems to be reading comprehension challenges with some of the posters. Most of you missed my points entirely.
The cognitive dissonance and selective perception seems to be so overwhelming you cannot comprehend what I actually wrote.
As for this:
“I mean if there *WAS* a double-blind study showing the efficacy of Mg in alergic attacks. Then it would be medicine, if there were a double-blind study showing no real success why would you trust your own ideas over that?”
This is exactly one of the problems. Many physicians are simply rote-learners. Proceduralists. They are not scientists. They do not understand physiologic systems and the basic sciences involved. They do not know how to read about the properties of magnesium and its effect on physiologic systems and extrapolate as to how it can sometimes alleviate certain conditions. Just because a double-blind study does not exist doesn’t mean these physiologic processes don’t exist.
In short, this type of physician is simply acting like a robot, regurgitating studies (though not always parsing them accurately) and understanding little else. And that’s why we have a healthcare crisis in this country that Congress cannot even begin to reform.
“physiological processes and treatment strategies that can heal their patients on a more foundational level.”
I always find this claim kind of interesting. How does one define “more foundational”? Not to mention that isn’t that claim far more arrogant than some of the simple claims that were made
———
Seemed a straightforward statement to me.
To treat the causes of illnesses, when possible, instead of adding more pills.
Scott, I will assume you are an oppositionally defiant troll and not actually seeking answers.
To Harriet — the only responder who both uses her real name (I assume) and asks a legitimate question (could there be causation or association?)
You ask:,
I’m intrigued. I found support on PubMed and in the Natural Medicines Comprehensive Database for using magnesium to treat asthma, but I couldn’t find anything about using it for allergic rhinitis. How did the nutritionist know to try it? Do you have any references?
—-
Yes, there is plenty of research on using magnesium to treat asthma as well as other conditions.
One helpful source for you regarding magnesium and allergies might be magnesium researcher Mildred Seelig’s work posted online here:
http://www.mgwater.com/clmd.shtml
There can be no blanket guidelines about magnesium dosage, etc. For one thing, its effect will depend on if the person is deficient. But we do know that most Americans are deficient in this key mineral.
From http://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/magnesium.asp
Magnesium is needed for more than 300 biochemical reactions in the body. It helps maintain normal muscle and nerve function, keeps heart rhythm steady, supports a healthy immune system, and keeps bones strong. Magnesium also helps regulate blood sugar levels, promotes normal blood pressure, and is known to be involved in energy metabolism and protein synthesis [2-3]. There is an increased interest in the role of magnesium in preventing and managing disorders such as hypertension, cardiovascular disease, and diabetes. …
Data from the 1999-2000 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey suggest that substantial numbers of adults in the United States (US) fail to get recommended amounts of magnesium in their diets. Among adult men and women, the diets of Caucasians have significantly more magnesium than do those of African-Americans. Magnesium intake is lower among older adults in every racial and ethnic group. Among African-American men and Caucasian men and women who take dietary supplements, the intake of magnesium is significantly higher than in those who do not
When I have a sneezing fit, a cold acidic drink typically slows it down almost instantly. Cold orange juice, cold coke, even cold beer. Cold water doesn’t help as much.
I think the effect is real, but I don’t think it’s due to any magic nutrients in a diet soda. I think it’s due to local effects on my throat and sinuses. So I would hold off on the skepticism over the “immediately,” because there are other plausible mechanisms besides B-vitamins and magnesium being absorbed and travelling to the involved site.
If magnesium actually does ease asthma, specifically atopic asthma, I see no reason to think that relief of atopic rhinitis is inherently implausible. Of course that doesn’t mean it works; it might. Just as LDN might relieve MS.
So a drink of cold orange juice with magnesium probably has an immediate effect on sneezing just because it’s cold and acidic (I can’t be the only person this works for) and possibly also has a medium-term effect due to the Mg. Or maybe it just has an immediate effect.
Back in the eighties when AIDS and treatment were new, I knew of an MD who, lacking better data, looked at a case series (his patients) and wrote down what other things people were doing to look after themselves than whatever he was telling them to do. After a while a pattern stood out: the ones who were seeing Naturopath X were doing better. He met with Naturopath X, who was probably prescribing a whole lot of silly things but was also doing something the doctor thought was plausible: prescribing B vitamins so that B vitamins would not be a limiting factor for the liver in processing the heavy load of drugs these patients were taking. The doctor invited Naturopath X to partner with him in his practice and seemed quite pleased with the arrangement.
These are anecdotes. They are plausible, not silly, but that doesn’t make naturopathy science-based as a practice: it’s clearly not. But laughing at people for thinking there might be something to some of the treatments proposed doesn’t make sense either.
I’m not saying that naturopathy has credibility. I’m saying that ridiculing people who believe they have had relief from something that is actually plausible makes no sense.
No, it just means that you can’t know what effect a treatment intended to affect those physiologic processes actually has. The human body is FAR too complex for the kind of first-principles deduction you’re advocating. Anyone who tells you that they can deduce from biochemistry and physiology that magnesium is an effective allergy treatment doesn’t actually understand the biochemistry and physiology.
In other words, you can’t actually refute any of my points so you fall back on an ad hominem.
Thank you, Alison:
“These are anecdotes. They are plausible, not silly, but that doesn’t make naturopathy science-based as a practice: it’s clearly not. But laughing at people for thinking there might be something to some of the treatments proposed doesn’t make sense either.
I’m not saying that naturopathy has credibility. I’m saying that ridiculing people who believe they have had relief from something that is actually plausible makes no sense.”
—–
Anecdotes that illustrate basic science are worthwhile.
And I never ascribed credibility to naturopathy, either; I only pointed out their appeal to people who are frustrated by physicians who are blind to basic principles of health.
As for magnesium, that’s interesting that cold drinks have that effect on your allergic reactions. In the past, growing up in the south amid abundant tree and grass pollen, I would often place a cold compress on my itchy eyes and running nose; it helped a bit, along with an antihistamine. But mostly I was miserable.
The rest of my “anecdote”: If I’d been smart, I would have researched magnesium when that nutritionist stopped my cat allergy on a dime. But back then, 1983 or so, I was seldom around cats, so the “avoidance” strategy worked for me. Plus, I was relying on the allergists. (Talk about a profession with bogus claims.)
Only 15 years later did I learn that chronic magnesium deficiency had adversely affected my health in so many ways. When I finally found a smart physician — after running through many rheumatologists, allergist, orthopedic physicians, etc. — she was disgusted that no physician had suggested magnesium and B vitamins. Basic stuff. But always overlooked by physicians who don’t understand the basics.
I can refute your points, Scott, but I choose not to waste my time on someone who only wants to attack and belittle.
You seem unable to consider ideas that don’t fit your ossified schema.
I can refute your points, Scott, but I choose not to waste my time on someone who only wants to attack and belittle.
Then refute! There’s not a single thing I’ve said that could credibly be interpreted as “attack and belittle,” so I honestly can’t reach any other conclusion than that you have no actual answers.
You seem unable to consider ideas that don’t fit your ossified schema.
No, you mean that I don’t unquestioningly accept any foolishness someone feels like spouting.
GinaPera,
You didn’t really answer my question. You didn’t provide any evidence that magnesium is effective for allergic rhinitis or any clear rationale as to why a naturopath would choose it over other treatments.
You said that “They do not know how to read about the properties of magnesium and its effect on physiologic systems and extrapolate as to how it can sometimes alleviate certain conditions.”
It seems that you think extrapolation and speculation are appropriate guides to choosing a treatment. They are notoriously unreliable, and that’s why we have to do science. For every case where extrapolation and speculation led to success, there are hundreds of cases where they misled practitioners and failed to help patients or even harmed them. Your comments make me wonder if you truly understand the scientific method and the need to put ideas to the test.
“You seem unable to consider ideas that don’t fit your ossified schema.”
Magnesium can increase your calcium loss in the kidneys, so can you really blame us for being more ossified?
(I’m sorry, I know only at high levels… but the joke was there, and I had to take it.)
GinaPera,
When you make a statement like this one, assuming you are being serious, it boggles the mind: “…treat the causes of illnesses, when possible, instead of adding more pills.”
Lots of us have careers in science where every day of our lives we investigate the fundamental biology of life and what goes out of whack in a diseased individual. We are looking for cures, and yes hopefully those will be pills that precisely treat the exact causes of the illness. If we are not treating the fundamental causes, hopefully the treatments will make the symptoms more tolerable.
I have been in research for 20 years and meet lots of dedicated people working to find cures for diseases, and you seem to paint us as pill-pushing shysters.
I assume that your intentions are good and maybe you were a little defensive.
In short, a reasonable goal to to ask people to prove that something works in a controlled study before giving people advice on a matter as important as what substances they could ingest to improve their health. After all, the world is full of toxins, the vast majority of which are “all natural” and could even be labeled “organic”. The question is always, toxic at what dose? Salt, sugar, oxygen, and everything else (including magnesium) is toxic at SOME dose.
I’m glad that your Mg intake (that apparently doesn’t involve a pill of any type?) has helped your health. I would caution endorsing it to the masses until there is a controlled and doubly-blinded study showing that it does some good. I would ask the same for hypnosis, or a new cancer drug coming out of my lab.
HAHAHA!!!
Second-funniest thing I’ve read all day.
@Peter Lipson
What was the most funny thing you read today?
—-
I love people who complain about “science” and then try to make it seem that their favorite unproven treatment is enough science for them! As always, the plural of Anecdote is not Data.
Harriet wrote:
“It seems that you think extrapolation and speculation are appropriate guides to choosing a treatment. They are notoriously unreliable, and that’s why we have to do science. For every case where extrapolation and speculation led to success, there are hundreds of cases where they misled practitioners and failed to help patients or even harmed them. Your comments make me wonder if you truly understand the scientific method and the need to put ideas to the test.”
Yes, I understand the scientific method. I also understand common sense.
And when you have a mineral deficiency that is epidemic, when supplementing that mineral causes no harm (except with kidney patients and select others with contraindications), and when there is a scientific reason to think that it might help, why not try it?
Why wait for the impossible double-blind study that will be the one-size-fits-all answer to allergic rhinitis while people suffer? Real medicine doesn’t work that way. Each person must be assessed individually.
I’ve sincerely offered solid, even life-changing and life-saving information. I’ve pointed to resources. To those who don’t want to learn more, who prefer to be spoon-fed false surety by a pharma rep, that’s your right. But that won’t make you smarter, more discerning, or more scientific than I am.
Professor Tom, you seem sincere but, sincerely, you miss the point.
How about you read up on magnesium science and get back to us.
Double-blind controlled studies are important. Of course. But you can’t possibly imagine they are the answer to every human ill? That is impossible! The sheer range of human physio-chemistries alone confounds such cookie-cutter approaches, not to mention the influence of diet and other lifestyle factors.
I can only re-state my point that what’s wrong with healthcare in this country cannot be fixed by congress. It can only be fixed by smarter physicians.
@zed
It was this.
And Gina’s response should be struck as “non-responsive”.
Professor Tom wrote: I have been in research for 20 years and meet lots of dedicated people working to find cures for diseases, and you seem to paint us as pill-pushing shysters.
—-
I suggested nothing of the sort. Please go back and carefully read what I did write.
Of course digestive problems can result from food allergies. As for behavioral, here’s another worthless anecdote:
About 20 years ago I was successful enough with cutting back on red meat that I got refused for blood donation. Low iron reserves are fine up to a point but that was my point, so I went about correcting it. $MD prescribed chromagen, which I dutifully took as prescribed.
That summer I was taking a CE class in artificial intelligence (hold the jokes) and something was making me miserable. Not only did I have a chronic headache, but my ability to concentrate was totally shot. As in, the mental equivalent of trying to wade through cement. Try this, try that — it turned out that elimination the chromagen did the trick, and a challenge confirmed it. By which time the class was over. Hardest I’ve ever worked for an A in my life.
Now, it’s one thing to have something like that happen to a 40yo adult. Imagine a kid with a similar chronic condition, who has no idea that it’s not normal. So, yeah, food allergies can screw up your thinking and behavior. The thing to remember is that “possible” isn’t the same as “always.”
Peter, to be so young and so sure, even when there are huge gaps in your medical knowledge.
A little humility about things you might not yet understand — and a little effort to understand them — would best serve your patients.
GinaPera on sincerity:
“I’ve sincerely offered solid, even life-changing and life-saving information.”
Gina, it may or may not be solid but you have no idea whether it’s solid or not. You don’t have a way of telling. There is nothing impossible about a randomized double-blind controlled study of magnesium for allergic rhinitis.
“Individualization” is often used as a reason that alternative remedies can’t be studied, but this excuse falls down in two places.
1) Medicine looks at the patient, looks at the evidence, and tries to make a match. Alternative practice always makes a match to the same thing. If you are an acupuncturist or a homeopath or a naturopath, then you always use acupuncture or homeopathy or vitamins to treat whatever it is. There is less individualization in alternative medicine, not more.
2) It’s perfectly possible to test individualized treatments. Homeopathy is supposed to be individualized, so one study followed children being treated for asthma at an outpatient clinic. Half the children were randomized to homeopaths who treated them individually with homeopathy in addition to the care they were receiving at the clinic. The other half just got the standard of care. The homeopathically treated children were much better in a year and could reduce their use of medication significantly. So could the non-homeopathically treated children. The standard of care was effective; children also grew out of the condition to a certain degree. Individualized homeopathic treatments added nothing.
On the popularity of ineffective remedies:
http://arstechnica.com/science/2009/04/why-snake-oil-sells.ars
On the use of the scientific method (hard science is easy; soft science is hard):
http://www.skepticstoolbox.org/hall/
That’s not what anybody here is objecting to. I think everyone would agree that if a deficiency is identified (preferably lab-confirmed) and cannot be readily corrected with proper diet, supplementation is often appropriate.
What we’re objecting to is your entirely unsupported attribution that this will result in miracle cures of allergies (or anything else). And ESPECIALLY the claim you appear to be making that magnesium will cure allergies in general.
Spell check fail, apologies. That should be “entirely unsupported assertion“.
Alison, what are you not understanding here?
And please — one study on, of all things, homeopathy??? What were the controls on homeopath-patient interaction? That must be figured in.
To the larger point, there are many potential reasons for allergic rhinitis. Magnesium deficiency is just one of many.
And how will you gather the groups necessary for such a study? How will you determine who is magnesium-deficient and by what degree? There is no way to measure this, no standard for all humans. The amount of magnesium one needs, the ability to uptake it, etc. is all highly individual.
Perhaps someone will design such a study and pull it off, at least on some minute point. But I’m not holding my breath, and neither should physicians.
Smart physicians aren’t waiting for the proof in this area they know can never be definitive for each patient. They have to use the existing data, the hard science, their own common sense, and the feedback from their patients.
overshoot on allergies I:
“Of course digestive problems can result from food allergies.”
See http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/708187
Box 2. Classification of food allergy in the gastrointestinal tract.
IgE-mediated
Type I hypersensitivity.
Rapid onset.
Positive skin-prick test and/or in vitro radioallergosorbent test.
Symptoms: itching of lips, angioedema, vomiting and abdominal cramps with or without symptoms in other targets (urticaria, rash, wheezing and anaphylaxis).
Non-IgE mediated
Type IV hypersensitivity (cell mediated).
Late onset.
Negative skin-prick test and radioallergosorbent test.
Symptoms are usually confined to the gut: vomiting, diarrhea, abdominal pain or colic and failure to gain weight.
Mixed IgE & non-IgE-mediated (allergic eosinophilic gastropathies)
Variable onset.
Peripheral eosinophil count, skin-prick test and serum results are inconclusive.
Symptoms are confined to the gut and vary according to the site of eosinophilic inflammation.
overshoot on allergies II:
“$MD prescribed chromagen, which I dutifully took as prescribed. … [S]omething was making me miserable. Not only did I have a chronic headache, but my ability to concentrate was totally shot. … Try this, try that — it turned out that elimination the chromagen did the trick, and a challenge confirmed it.”
??? And this is relevant to food allergy how???
Appropriate subjects would be selected however you propose to determine who should get magnesium for their allergies.
There is absolutely no difficulty in the study that does not at least equally defeat the “treatment.”
SMART physicians know that common sense, first principles, and feedback from their patients are not reliable. If there’s “existing data” and “hard science” demonstrating that magnesium is an effective allergy treatment, you should have no difficulty presenting it.
Scott, you obviously don’t need medication. You are quite expert at “self-medicating” with opposition and provocation. How fortunate for you.
Meanwhile, I’m heading to a Tea Party meeting. There’s more reasoned discourse there, I’m hoping.
And again, faced with entirely reasonable and polite arguments, GinaPera responds with ad hominem attacks.
This is almost invariably a single of someone who has no actual support for their claims.
I guess GinaPera wants us to trust her, because she simply knows what’s best and “feels” it. Us silly scientists, always looking for EVIDENCE. We should just rely upon her wealth of anecdotal life experiences. /rolleyes
As long as she sticks to allergy sufferers, I guess the harm is controlled. It’s an area with a HUGE placebo effect, so many people will be happy, even if she is wrong, and none of them should be much worse off. I hope that she doesn’t branch out into other areas, though, such as homeopathic cures for cancers.
Some arguments can’t be won… I try to get my wife to stop spending extra money on the boutique shampoos that tout their ability to “energize your scalp with moisturizing molecules and envigorate your hair with nature’s ions”. I have checked their labels, and the ingredient list looks pretty much like the bottle of Suave selling for 10% of the price.
Look up chromagen and you’ll see.
Still haven’t checked out the research, eh, Tom? Easier to disparage me in your attempts to remain superior. Not the stuff of good science, methinks.
The stuff of good science is to present the evidence when you make the claim, rather than demanding that your audience go do your work for you.
Yes, Gina, I have checked out the research. Scifinder lists two relevant references when keyword searching on magnesium deficiency and allergic rhinitis. One is a review paper with no primary data, from India in 1995 entitled “Clinical approach to primary chronic marginal magnesium deficiency.”
The only paper with data is a 1993 study from Germany entitled “Magnesium supplementation in allergic diseases (rhinitis)” This reference is an abstract of a report from a “magenesium conference”
Not exactly hard-hitting stuff. It seems like the studies never apperaed in any reputable journal, or really any journal at all, reputable or not.
But I’m sure that you have some nice glossy pamphlets.
Tom, your reading comprehension is shocking in an alleged researcher. Please go back and read what I’ve written — twice, thrice, as many times as it takes — to understand the gray area here.
Ah, but I suspect a cognitive inability to navigate gray area is the problem here. With virtually each responder. Wearisome. And a total waste of my time.
Overshoot,
You walked right into the trap. What you are describing is an intolerance, which is very different from an allergy. That is my whole point!!! And I should have expanded on my definition of “digestive problems”. Of course, allergies can cause acute GI symptoms. Notice the use of the word “acute”. I’ve been puked on enough times to know this. Chronic GI symptoms are a result of intolerances, which are a chemical reaction in the gut – not a result of an IgE-mediated allergy. Bothersome, yes. Dangerous, no. That’s what makes this distinction so important.
I have discussed this point with numerous allergists, and not one of them agrees that chronic behavioural issues in kids are caused by true allergies. A few even rolled their eyes.
Go ahead, blame kids’ bad behaviour on the food they eat (it’s never the parents fault, is it??) And I’m sure you can find many naturopaths who will listen, wave a magic wand, and PRESTO – determine that the child is allergic to milk and wheat. Then they will charge you tons of money for this magical diagnosis, make you spend even more money on useless supplements, and tell you that real doctors would never have figured this all out.
Just DON’T call it an allergy. Accidentally taking a bite of something with milk in it won’t harm those children. It has killed others (I know of 3 – all teenagers who died from their milk allergies here in Canada just in the past 5 years).
overshoot on food allergy:
“Look up chromagen and you’ll see.”
I looked up chromagen:
http://www.drugs.com/cdi/chromagen.html
Iron/Succinic Acid/Vitamin C/Vitamin B12/Desiccated Stomach Substance
I’m not seeing anything. Are you saying you have an IgE-mediated hypersensitivity to meat or vitamin C?
From wikipedia.org:
Allergy is one of four forms of hypersensitivity and is called type I (or immediate) hypersensitivity. It is characterized by excessive activation of certain white blood cells called mast cells and basophils by a type of antibody known as IgE, resulting in an extreme inflammatory response. Common allergic reactions include eczema, hives, hay fever, asthma attacks, food allergies, and reactions to the venom of stinging insects such as wasps and bees.
Really… not seeing anything.
As written above, allergic rhinitis and food allergies are examples of type I (immediate) hypersensitivity.
Food intolerances are not IgE-mediated responses. Sometimes they are specific metabolic problems (relative lactase deficiency), sometimes autoimmune (celiac disease), and sometimes simply multifactorial or subjective.
GinaPera on people who know a heck of a lot more about both the theory and practice of medicine than she does:
“Oh dear. Such certitude. Such arrogance. Such ignorance.”
On what basis do you think that the doctors here know less about how to interpret medical research than you do? Am I to assume that you have completed medical school and residency and therefore know exactly what is taught there? The things you think doctors and researchers don’t know are just silly. How do you know what it is that they know and don’t know?
You might be interested in this article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
“The Dunning–Kruger effect is a cognitive bias in which “people reach erroneous conclusions and make unfortunate choices but their incompetence robs them of the metacognitive ability to realize it.” The unskilled therefore suffer from illusory superiority, rating their own ability as above average, much higher than in actuality; by contrast, the highly skilled underrate their abilities, suffering from illusory inferiority. This leads to a perverse result where less competent people will rate their own ability higher than more competent people. It also explains why actual competence may weaken self-confidence because competent individuals falsely assume that others have an equivalent understanding. “Thus, the miscalibration of the incompetent stems from an error about the self, whereas the miscalibration of the highly competent stems from an error about others.””
(Incompetent people don’t realize how much there is to know, therefore they think they know a substantial amount of it and conclude that the other person must be wrong. Competent people think that if they can be competent then anyone could be competent, including the person who disagrees with them, and conclude that they themselves could be wrong.)
It’s not enough to assert that you know better than someone, or to conclude from the fact that you disagree with someone that they must be wrong.
You also need to explain how you came by more knowledge than they have. For instance, perhaps you are an MD/PhD and combine both theory and practice, whereas most poor mortals have settled for one or the other. Or perhaps you are just, you know, know. Kind of like making it up.
GinaPera on the superiority of naturopathy to science:
“To the larger point, there are many potential reasons for allergic rhinitis. Magnesium deficiency is just one of many.
And how will you gather the groups necessary for such a study? How will you determine who is magnesium-deficient and by what degree? There is no way to measure this, no standard for all humans. The amount of magnesium one needs, the ability to uptake it, etc. is all highly individual.”
1) It is simply not true that the effects of magnesium supplemenation on symptoms of allergic rhinitis are impossible to study. It’s actually quite easy to study. I don’t know why you would think it’s hard.
2) But let’s say it is true that it’s impossible to know anything about whether someone might benefit or has benefited from magnesium supplementation. How can naturopaths know it then? Magic?
With all due respect, Alison, I’ve explained all I need to explain to those who can actually parse information and have critical-thinking skills.
To the rest, there’s obviously something else going on here, and I’ll refrain from speculating on the nature of the problems.
Ah the debate continues. I think the question of science needs to be broadened. I feel science is a 1.group of people with similar training to start with(and this does not have to be a phd.)
2. They do similar methods
3. They make observations
4.They record and discuss observations
5.They make conclusions.
That is science, that is the scientific method in a nutshell.
Can we all agree on this.
Uh, no, we don’t know that, and the reference that you cited doesn’t say that. It says:
Substantial numbers could be thousands or even millions or tens of millions and still be a small minority of the population. The reference also says:
Funny thing: the site that these statements come from is the Office of Dietary Supplements, established by the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994—a government handout to BigSup.
The truth of the matter—the ‘hard science’—is that Mg++ is a ubiquitous ion in biology, as are Na+, K+, Cl-, Ca++, and a few others, and as such is ubiquitous in, well, foods—as is also shown in the reference that you cited. People who are truly deficient in it are those with predictable reasons to be deficient: those on some diuretics, those with some kidney diseases, infirmed people with very poor diets in general, and a few others.
It is possible, but unlikely (because, like other ions crucial to biochemistry, Mg++ tends to be tightly controlled), that taking more Mg++ than usual will do something useful. The only way to find out is to study it.
KA
And to think all of my allergies are due to lack of magnesium?
Does that include my fairly severe nickel allergy? My hand have finally healed after I seemed to have touched something with nickel a couple of weeks ago.
Alison quoted “This leads to a perverse result where less competent people will rate their own ability higher than more competent people. It also explains why actual competence may weaken self-confidence because competent individuals falsely assume that others have an equivalent understanding.”
Are you screwing with me? If I think I know something I probably don’t. If I think I don’t know something, I probably do? These kind of things kill me. It’s a paradox, enigma, etc pasty (the kind that involves dough, not tassels).
I won’t be able to have an opinion for a week…well, maybe five minutes at least.:)
Kimball, it’s not my job to educate physicians on each and every point of magnesium research and epidemiology.
As they say about horses, you can lead them to water…..
GinaPera said “it’s not my job to educate physicians on each and every point of magnesium research and epidemiology”
No, but if you present us with a claim, it’s your job to present the evidence to support that claim.
Harriet, I’m sorry but it’s really not my fault if you don’t know how to read the information at the links I’ve provided and then go on to learn more yourself.
It’s funny….. I’m detecting some strong undercurrents of autistic-like thinking in many of these comments, a failure to make connections and a rigid insistence to have everything spoon fed in irrefutable little bite-size pieces.
It might work that way in engineering, but not in medicine. The science-based kind, anyway.
Gina, why won’t you explain it? You’ve been fairly rebutted, but then throw up a wall of superiority when challenged. Why don’t you tell us what makes you able to interpret the information better than a physician? I don’t see an MD behind your name. You obviously don’t think like a scientist. You think like a journalist, and someone with an axe to grind.
LOLOLOL! Yes, my “ax to grind” is medical incompetence cloaked in superiority. Always been a bane to the profession.
I obviously DO think like a scientist. Good scientists have much in common with good journalists: Strong intellect, a perseverative nature, and a passion for understanding how things work with no love of arrogant sacred cows.
Ginapera, before you leave, do try and answer Alison’s question: “But let’s say it is true that it’s impossible to know anything about whether someone might benefit or has benefited from magnesium supplementation. How can naturopaths know it then? Magic?. ”
It is obvious to me that anything that made clinical studies prohibitively complicated would generate at least equal opportunity for error if practitioners try to adjudicate on treatment results on a patient by patient basis. Fter all, scientific studies apply the exact same logic, merely adding a variety of measures to eliminate sources of error, such as allergies coming and going of their own accord, or responding to placebos.
This is why the Naturopath Association has such a vast array of somewhat unlikely treatments for allergy, none of which, apparently, stand out over any other. The methodology is clearly unable differentiate between sometimes effective and ineffective treatments.
Of course, the trial and error approach might uncover a useful treatment if it had dramatic and consistent effects, but why would clinical studies have any difficulty in detecting that? Gina’s “physico-chemical differences” are a weak attempt to prop up an untenable, somewhat circular, argument.
Of course, any kind of medical care generates powerful illusions of treatment efficacy in the practitioner as well as probably helping some patients through non-specific influences. Whether any treatments used have intrinsic efficacy is a question that has to be addressed in isolation from some of the quirks of medical practice.
There is a difference between “behavioral issues are caused by …” (the Feingold hypothesis) and “behavioral issues can be caused by …”
Research has proven the Feingold hypothesis and found it sadly wanting. On the other hand, if you ask any pediatric ENT about the effects of chronic sinusitis on children you’ll get a laundry list of effects on learning, behavior, etc.
Ax grinding aside, I have a daughter who had a chronic fungal sinusitis (colonized by a fungus she’s allergic to) from about the age of seven to the age of twelve. It seriously screwed with her hearing, ability to concentrate, etc. None of the above is speculative; we have radiology, tissue samples, antibody titers, audiometric tests, etc.
As for chromagen, I tolerate iron sulphate, ascorbic acid, and B vitamins just fine. That “dessicated stomach” on the other hand apparently does something fierce to my system which results in some pretty impressive effects a long way from the GI tract and which are hard to distinguish from the worst ragweed season ever.
Chronic fungal sinusitis does not sound like a food allergy. I was talking about behavioural issues being blamed on food allergies, largely coming from naturopaths. I don’t disagree about the effects that chronic sinusitis may have on kids.
My “axe” to grind is clearly laid out in my original post – that it’s becoming trendy to blame behavioural issues on food allergies, some people are doing it by choice alone and calling it allergies – and it’s muddying the waters when it comes to the general public’s understanding of allergies, and potentially putting the kids with potential for anaphylaxis in danger. If it’s an intolerance, call it an intolerance.
GinaPera,
You say to Harriet:
Since you apparently insist on accepting anecdote as clinical data and lazily dismissing people who have been at this for years (decades), this casual observer can only conclude that Harriet is more likely to be the smarter, more discerning, and more scientific of the two of you.
Your style of writing reminds me greatly of a columnist for one of the major daily newspapers where I live. This is not meant as a compliment.
Finally, regarding your comment about how a good scientist is like a ‘good journalist’: I would suggest that you check the ‘Science and the Media’ category to see the rather more typical behaviour of journalists; even ones who might otherwise be accounted to be good.
On Chronic Allergies and Chronic Behavior problems.
I’m not really sure why an allergist would rule out chronic behavior problems as a symptoms of chronic allergies. Or why they would diagnose a child they haven’t seen.
Firstly, when my allergies act up I feel like *^%$. I know when my kids feel bad (sick) they act up, alot.
Secondly chronic allergies often cause otitis media with effusion in children (somethings adults) which can mild hearing loss. One of the documented effects of mild hearing loss in children is behavior problems.
Thirdly chronic allergies can cause poor sleep and sometimes even sleep apnea, which research is starting to show can cause inattention and behavior issues in children.
Bogeymama – while I genuinely sympathize with your desire and right to have school personal take your child’s severe allergy seriously, I feel the need to underscore the fact that even though an allergy or intolerence may not be life threatening, the children still need preventative measures taken by the school. They may not be the extreme measures needed with a child with severe allergies, but no child should have frequent bouts of diarrhea, just because the milks not going to kill him, nor should a child with a mild allergy to strawberries be repeatly given strawberries just because they don’t need an epi-pen.
Regardless of the fact that some parents incorrectly claim their child has an allergy when they in fact have an intolerance or that some children are misdiagnosed, I believe you will often find that the general population is quite unaware of the consequences of a severe allergic reaction.
I find that many people routinely under estimate the severity of any illness in children unless it is highly visible or cancer. If you feel they are not taking things seriously, perhaps a clearly worded information sheet with precautions and risks that each of your child’s teacher and teacher’s aid must sign would be a helpful educational tool.
Gina’s “physico-chemical differences” are a weak attempt to prop up an untenable, somewhat circular, argument.
—–
LOLOL!! More brave talk from an anonymous poster who knows as much about science as Glenn Beck does about, well, anything.
It’s not enough that I’m dressed down by, gasp, “Bogeymama,” now it’s the esteemed “Pmoran.”
I just hope few of you are actually physicians. That is a depressing thought. It’s depressing enough to witness the poor reading comprehension and critical-thinking skills in this thread.
Thanks micheleinmichigan. My child’s situation is well-known and taken care of, but I am a certified regional allergy / asthma educator, and it is a huge problem everywhere I go. Again, I don’t dismiss that seasonal allergies and pet allergies can lead to behavioural issues because the sufferers feel like crap. I am only talking about food allergies. Like I said, I deal with many allergists. The situation I am referring to is naturopath or self-diagnosed “allergies” to food because of the child’s behaviour IN THE ABSENCE of usual allergy symptoms. In other words, you will not see hyperactive or distracted behaviour as the only symptom, which is typically what the parents report. These children have no runny noses, no sneezing, no hives, no swelling, no acute vomiting, no bronchospasm, no eczema-type rashes etc when they consume a food that the naturopath has told them they are allergic to. It’s a diagnosis of convenience, and it’s becoming very trendy. It may very well be an intolerance – milk and wheat are more difficult proteins to digest than others (along with corn – eliminating those 3 foods from the diet temporarily is a common treatment for IBS), but eliminating them from the diet usually makes anyone feel better, so it’s easy to say that it worked.
Allergy vs intolerance is one of the main teaching points that I discuss in my presentations, and it would be nice if I didn’t have to spend as much time on it as I do so I could focus more on what to do in an emergency.
“It’s not enough that I’m dressed down by, gasp, “Bogeymama,” now it’s the esteemed “Pmoran.””
Some of us can’t spend time writing blogs. We actually spend our time working in health care, treating real patients, attending countless conferences and educational symposia in our specialty areas. Guess that doesn’t make as much of an authority as a journalist.
“The cognitive dissonance and selective perception seems to be so overwhelming you cannot comprehend what I actually wrote.”
…or maybe you just lack the ability to detect irony.
Anyway I find blanket responses pretty amusing. Not like you couldn’t have – like many of us are doing. Pointed out exactly how and where people have misunderstood you. That would be almost rational.
“This is exactly one of the problems. Many physicians are simply rote-learners. Proceduralists. They are not scientists. They do not understand physiologic systems and the basic sciences involved. They do not know how to read about the properties of magnesium and its effect on physiologic systems and extrapolate as to how it can sometimes alleviate certain conditions. Just because a double-blind study does not exist doesn’t mean these physiologic processes don’t exist.”
Argument by special definition for “science” aside. “Don’t know how to read?” is a weird argument. Someone who can read an “regurgitate” a study on X can read and regurgitate information on Mg. Which is all you’re doing – minus the information part.
Seriously though: one has to ask “What makes us think these ‘physiologic’ process” are there to begin with. How was that information attained?
On top of that why do we think this ‘physiologic’ process is generally effective. There are scads of treatments with huge amounts of biochemistry behind them – which failed utterly in people. Sometimes it’s cracking the delivery system, sometimes it’s just that we don’t understand the chemistry as well as we think we do. There are a myriad of reasons that something that is plausible is actually ineffective. Why is Mg any less susceptible to these limitations than any other therapy?
So that leaves us with the question: “How do we figure out what actually has clinical effect. I’ll give you a hint it’s initials are: Double-blind placebo controlled studies.
“Seemed a straightforward statement to me.”
Everything is obvious to the uncritical eye.
“To treat the causes of illnesses, when possible, instead of adding more pills.”
Define “causes of illnesses”.
I notice that you dodged my question…so I’ll ask it again:
Can you have science without a quantified error-bound?
GinaPera,
You have been hostile and insulting from your very first comment. I was polite and asked reasonable questions. Instead of answering and providing your evidence, you gave me links that didn’t answer the questions. Then you accused me of poor reading comprehension and proceeded to personally attack me and others. That is not appropriate. I think you can do better than that. Please try to be more polite and to contribute to a productive discussion instead of offering insults.
Let’s try again:
(1) Do you have any evidence (actual evidence, not just speculation, rationales, anecdotes, and the fact that a lot of people are magnesium deficient) that magnesium is effective for allergic rhinitis – either in people who are magnesium deficient or who are not? Any controlled studies such as the ones I found for magnesium and asthma?
(2) How did the nutritionist know to try it? especially in combination with juice and B vitamins? Was it just her intuition based on what she knows about physiology, or was there something more?
(3) A nutritionist who understands physiology, and someone as “smart, discerning and scientific” as you are surely knows how long it takes for magnesium and B vitamins to be absorbed and to reach a therapeutic blood level after oral ingestion: how do you and she account for the observed “immediate” effect?
GinaPera, I am allergic to both nickel and chromium. Yes, they are both metals. But they cause a painful skin reaction (itchy hives). It is genetic, my dad has the same problem. My sister is allergic to wool.
What if someone was allergic to magnesium?
(okay, they are no where near each other on the periodic table, and the allergy is related to the reaction with ones one persperation… but it is a valid question)
Harriet, I don’t know why you persist.
I can only assume, once again, that you are having trouble reading very straightforward language and cannot research this topic on your own.
I never offered evidence that magnesium is effective for allergic rhinitis. I did, however, refer you to the work of magnesium researcher Mildred Seelig, who explains how this might work. Did you read it? Obviously not. Why didn’t you read it, Harriet?
What kind of question is that, asking me to imagine decades after the fact, what the nutritionist was thinking? You can’t be serious. If you are curious, why don’t you look into the matter yourself?
Good grief. I never intended for this to be a symposium on magnesium. I offered it as one example of key “blind spot” of many physicians.
If the responses here are indicative of physicians in general (I suspect it’s not, as most competent, in-demand physicians don’t hang out on blogs reading nonsense), I have new understanding of why my scientist friends who teach med students often get so frustrated.
“I have new understanding of why my scientist friends who teach med students often get so frustrated.”
So you talk regularly with scientists? Then perhaps, you can answer the question I’ve now asked three times (and you have avoided twice).
“Can you have science without a quantified error-bound?”
Bogey — if you’re so qualified, why don’t you use your real name so that can be verified? We should just….. trust you?
Sark — the answer has to be NO.
Sark wrote:
And we have you…echoing something I hear from various sources in and about Naturopathy. That ND’s, somehow have a generally deeper understanding of therapy and physiology than all medical science combined?
Sorry who was being arrogant again?
—–
Another example of reading-comprehension challenges. Can you please show me where I have defended naturopaths? I’m confident you won’t find it.
GinaPera,
Interesting, then provide the error bound and its cite for the alleged clinical effect of Mg on allergy sufferers. Please do not resort to some of the other dodge tactics you have employed with others. Such as making it sound like this is an onerous task – although I don’t necessarily expect you to have the number at hand – it’s reasonable to expect you can find it.
I’m jumping into this a bit late, so please forgive me if I repeat something already covered. It’s been a busy day.
@GenaPera (12:29 pm),
I read your earlier comments, but thought I would start with this one.
I looked up Mildred Seelig’s reference that you cited as a “helpful source for you regarding magnesium and allergies”. It looked like a summary article about a book she had written about chronic fatigue syndrome and magnesium. It talked mostly about CFS and a few other conditions but didn’t seem to mention asthma or allergies.
I also looked up the NIH fact sheet on magnesium. I copied it into a word processor and did a word search for “allerg” which should cover allergy, allergies, allergens, etc. No hits.
What was that about “reading comprehension challenges with some of the posters”?
I also went to PubMed and did a search on magnesium and allergies and got 528 references. One was from “Medical Hypotheses”! Several referred to using intravenous magnesium sulfate to avoid having to stick a tube down the patient’s throat to get air into the lungs or perhaps cutting open the trachea (which I think Dr Ray referred to having done once in an emergency situation on last night’s CSI.).
This Greek study was the first such reference, but there were others. That obviously is not what your nutritionist did when she offered you a juice cocktail.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19911854
Another was this Bastyr study, which sounds vaguely familiar. (Has it been discussed elsewhere in this blog?)
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20100026
They looked at 55 subjects who “were randomly assigned to consume 340 mg(170 mg twice a day) of Mg or a placebo for 6.5 months.” There was no mention in the short abstract of blinding or controlling to ensure the two groups were medically equivalent. They reported significant improvement in “Subjective validated questionnaires on asthma quality of life(AQLQ) and control(ACQ)” but didn’t say how much improvement was “significant”.
They also noted that “Despite these improvements, there were no significant changes in any of the markers of Mg status.” So, it is difficult to tell if magnesium status had anything to do with the improvement.
And, this was a study on a possible preventive or mitigating effect of magnesium, not a one dose treatment for an acute event.
You also stated that “There can be no blanket guidelines about magnesium dosage, etc.”
Curious! Your NIH reference in table 2 gives “Recommended Dietary Allowances for magnesium for children and adults “. Of course that’s only a dietary allowance, not a medical treatment dosage, but it does sound like a blanket guideline.
You also said “But we do know that most Americans are deficient in this key mineral.”
The results you referred to from the “1999-2000 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey suggest that substantial numbers of adults in the United States (US) fail to get recommended amounts of magnesium in their diets”.
It also notes that “symptoms of magnesium deficiency are rarely seen in the US”. Since RDA’s are aimed at avoiding effects of nutritional deficiencies, not providing medical therapy for specific conditions, we don’t seem to be doing too badly. But, since seizures are one of the symptoms mentioned and I am taking medication to control seizures, perhaps I will discuss it with my neurologist in a few months. Since my current control is pretty good, I would be surprised if I really have that problem. But, I may try to eat a few more peanut butter sandwiches on whole wheat bread (2 good sources of magnesium).
But, more importantly, “substantial” is not the same as “most”. If only 10% of Americans had magnesium deficiency, that would be about 30 million people which I certainly consider substantial. However it would take 5 times that many people plus 1 to get to most.
What was that about “reading comprehension challenges”?
I also looked up magnesium and allergic rhinitis. There was a very small study (15 subjects) on “intranasal hypertonic dead sea saline spray and intranasal aqueous triamcinolone spray in seasonal allergic rhinitis”, which showed that “improvements were seen in both active-treatment groups; as expected, the corticosteroid spray was the more effective of the two treatments.” This was published in 2005 and there doesn’t seem to be a lot since.
Finally, you mentioned being asked “I mean if there *WAS* a double-blind study showing the efficacy of Mg in allergic attacks. Then it would be medicine, if there were a double-blind study showing no real success why would you trust your own ideas over that?”
I didn’t see where you answered that question.
Dr Hall asked “I couldn’t find anything about using it for allergic rhinitis. How did the nutritionist know to try it? Do you have any references?” I didn’t see anything more about the nutritionist, but you did give some references which I have reviewed. But, they don’t discuss allergic rhinitis which seems to be what you were suffering from, so again no answer.
Instead of answering why you would trust your own experience in one incident over a randomized double-blinded controlled study, you stated
“This is exactly one of the problems. Many physicians are simply rote-learners. Proceduralists. They are not scientists. They do not understand physiologic systems and the basic sciences involved.”
Yes, most working physicians are not working as scientists doing scientific research. Except perhaps for monitoring patients participating in a controlled study, most physicians are too occupied with their real work which is treating and, hopefully, curing their patients.
Becoming a medical doctor requires a lot of rote learning. There are a lot of facts, relationships and biochemical processes to cram in, memorize, and internalize before they can get on to the real hands-on work of learning to become a good doctor. Which is why medical doctors get a lot more academic and residential education than naturopaths and even more so than nutritionists. I wouldn’t be too quick to belittle that knowledge.
Being a proceduralist can be a very good thing. Following proper procedures can go a long way to minimize bad results. Just read Mark Crislip’s blog today for some examples.
http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/?p=5273
But when you state that “They do not know how to read about the properties of magnesium and its effect on physiologic systems and extrapolate as to how it can sometimes alleviate certain conditions”, it sounds like you are talking about education in a medieval university 500 years ago. They did a lot of reading about properties from documents handed down from antiquity and using logic and philosophy to extrapolate to develop further ideas. But then we made a major breakthrough. We discovered how to take those ideas and look at them in the real world and do tests, experiments and studies to see if they were true or not. Fundamentally, that is what science is all about. And, we discovered that a lot of those ideas and extrapolations were wrong.
And, we discovered that one described incident (an anecdote) can sometimes give us a clue to how nature really works. But, it takes a lot of carefully set up, carried out and described incidents to figure out if our extrapolations are true or not. That is the difference between an anecdote and a study.
Unless you show some understanding of that difference, I think as you said, “I choose not to waste my time”.
And, thanks to all of you who have the fortitude to actually read all the way through this comment!
“Another example of reading-comprehension challenges. Can you please show me where I have defended naturopaths? I’m confident you won’t find it.”
Ta da…
“I’m sorry to be so blunt, but intellectually incurious attitudes such as this are the reason so many people have started avoiding “mainstream” physicians and flocking to “naturopaths.”””
(Note: You may well appeal that you are not ‘defending’ them. However that’s irrelevant to my original argument)
“Bogey — if you’re so qualified, why don’t you use your real name so that can be verified? We should just….. trust you?”
Because I have no blog to promote, and no book to sell. And no, you don’t have to trust me. But thousands of patients do, and that’s all I care about.
Nah, Bogey….bullies always attack best when they are cloaked. They feel safer that way.
For your information, I’ve been an unpaid advocate for ten years, helping people to navigate around clueless physicians and find legitimate medical help. And anyone who thinks writing a book is a path to making money is sadly clueless.
Your attack, I’m afraid, apparently speaks more to your own dark nature than to my own.
I have a long comment in moderation. It’ll show up some time.
In fact, when I read all the rest of the comments and scrolled over it, I was even surprised at how long it was. Almost long enough for Dr Gorski’s “friend”.
To Scott, Professor Tom, Dr Hall, Alison, Michelle, pmoran, Chris, sarkeizen and several others who beat me to the punch, thanks for fighting the good fight.
In retrospect, it was interesting how much of what I had written proved to be germane to the discussion.
@GinaPera,
You asked “if you’re so qualified, why don’t you use your real name so that can be verified? We should just….. trust you?”
Q1, perhaps you should ask Dr Offit that one. When people will stalk and threaten your children because they disagree with your statements, using a pseudonym as I do can be a reasonable precaution.
Q2, actually no, you should not just trust me. As I told my children many years ago, nothing is true just because I say it (except as an expression of personal opinion). If what I say is true, it is because it is supported by the references I give to relevant scientific studies and because my conclusions follow from the logic of my arguments which, I hope, are free from fallacies. You don’t need to know who I am to judge those things. You merely need to read them.
And, if you don’t understand or disagree, you may ask a direct question and I will try to give you a direct and, as best I may, correct answer.
Scott, could you please site where exactly I wrote this? Is it a reading-comprehension issue or willful distortion? It’s one or the other.
“What we’re objecting to is your entirely unsupported attribution that this will result in miracle cures of allergies (or anything else). And ESPECIALLY the claim you appear to be making that magnesium will cure allergies in general.”
Chris wrote: GinaPera, I am allergic to both nickel and chromium. Yes, they are both metals. But they cause a painful skin reaction (itchy hives). It is genetic, my dad has the same problem. My sister is allergic to wool.
What if someone was allergic to magnesium?
(okay, they are no where near each other on the periodic table, and the allergy is related to the reaction with ones one persperation… but it is a valid question)
Sorry Chris. I have no idea. Perhaps you should ask a nickel or chromium scientist — or a metallurgist.
ta da blah blah, Sark. Keep reading that paragraph. Taking points out of context like that is reserved for Fox TV bloviators.
“Q1, perhaps you should ask Dr Offit that one. When people will stalk and threaten your children because they disagree with your statements, using a pseudonym as I do can be a reasonable precaution.”
—–
Been there. Done that. Educating about the validity of ADHD as a medical diagnosis is a risky endeavor.
I didn’t resort to anonymity. And if I did, I wouldn’t expect people to take me seriously.
Squirrel wrote:
You don’t need to know who I am to judge those things. You merely need to read them.
——
Precisely. Which is why it’s so amusing to be taking to task by anonymous bullies who demand to know why I could ever presume to know more than (or as much as) an MD.
Waving the “I’m an MD” flag is proof of nothing. Except perhaps narcissism.
“Gina’s “physico-chemical differences” are a weak attempt to prop up an untenable, somewhat circular, argument.
—–
LOLOL!! More brave talk from an anonymous poster who knows as much about science as Glenn Beck does about, well, anything.”
I am hardly anonymous, and it is obvious which one of us is avoiding debate.
Peter Moran
sarkeizen,
“Can you have science without a quantified error-bound?”
That’s not fair.
How can Gina be expected to give an answer when she doesn’t understand the question.
GinaPera,
“Sark — the answer has to be NO.”
But she can certainly have a guess at what the answer MUST be.
Alison quoted: “This leads to a perverse result where less competent people will rate their own ability higher than more competent people. It also explains why actual competence may weaken self-confidence because competent individuals falsely assume that others have an equivalent understanding.”
micheleinmichigan responded: “If I think I know something I probably don’t. If I think I don’t know something, I probably do? These kind of things kill me. It’s a paradox..”
You are probably kidding, but for Gina’s sake, I will explain…oh, hold on, that’s not going to work, is it?
Anyway…
For what it’s worth, here is Gina Pera’s reasoning:
What is a normal magnesium level for one person is magnesium deficiency for another person. Therefore, it is impossible to test for magnesium deficiency. Therefore it is impossible to obtain any patients for a proposed double-blind placebo controlled trial of magnesium supplements in the treatment of allergic symptoms due to magnesium deficiency.
Therefore, the solution is to treat individual patients who have allergic symptoms with magnesium supplements and see if they respond. If they do respond, their allergic symptoms are due to magnesium deficiency regardless of what their actual magnesium level might be
But the fallacies have already been spotted by many of the posters responding above to the high priestess of the telling anecdote, Gina Pera.
Been a vegetarian for all my life. Still have sneezing fits for no reason. I don’t have allergies but I still react to dust in the air.
Maybe I’m allergic to meat and just don’t know it.
billyjoe – I am kidding and not kidding, kinda it’s funny cause it’s true. I’ve always kinda envied folks like Gina Pera, seems it would be great to go through life blissfully without compulsion to self-analyze or question their conclusions.
But then, maybe I am one of those people and I just don’t know, because I’m not self-analyzing enough…grrr.
As to allergies and magnesium deficiencies, I see no reason that science could not observe and study the effects of magnesium on allergies regardless if there is a standard test for magnesium levels.
I believe that thyroid disfunction diagnoses and thyroid hormone replacement was brought about in medicine well before there where standard blood tests for thyroid function.* It was all done symptomatically. There was probably more error, but it does not mean it can’t be studied by science.
*feel free to correct me if I’m wrong, weing
. I recall reading that but don’t have time to google it. The kids want breakfast.
Bogeymama – thanks for clarifying. Since the article was about allergies I thought you where talking about allergy type symptoms alongside behavior issues.
Gina,
Nobody’s bullying you. They are trying to teach you how to think about science and medicine and you are being really, really obnoxious.
If you worry about anonymity, many commenters link their screen names to urls. If you like, you can follow the url and discover that they are either not in the least anonymous, or partly anonymous in that it’s quite easy to discover who they are.
“ta da blah blah, Sark. Keep reading that paragraph.”
How about you explain it to me…perhaps your writing skills are the bigger problem here. I confess that I really don’t know much about the world of journalism so it’s possible that your hand-waving arguments are considered adequate there. In the world of science, and especially math…not so much.
Again, no dodges – no big sighs about the ardor of pushing the big heavy keys on your keyboard. You run on at the mouth enough – how about directing some of that into making your argument rather than pretentiousness and invective.
It’s also pretty interesting that I’m still waiting on your error information with regard to clinical effect of Mg. You seem pretty ready to pronounce some things (and people) as not being or performing science (and imply other things – including clinical effect info about Mg – to pronounce them as “science”). As this is identified – BY YOU – as a crucial piece of information in order to be recognized as science. It follows that you must have read and understood the error information about all of these topics. It follows that you refusing or failing to provide said info undermines your position – since if we – the readers of a science blog – it stands to reason that we would expect a scientific argument. Which by your own logic, you have not provided.
QED.
…and once again no dodges – no claims to having already provided said info, no pointing to some large block of links and stating the answer is there or complaints about the workload.
State the error figure(s). State the source. I’m waiting.
@BillyJoe “That’s not fair. How can Gina be expected to give an answer when she doesn’t understand the question.”
That is what remains to be seen. Just how much and how deeply she understands that question.
“could you please site where exactly I wrote this? Is it a reading-comprehension issue or willful distortion? It’s one or the other.”
Argument by false dichotomy – just sayin’
@GinaPera,
” Juliet:
“What’s in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet.”
Romeo and Juliet (II, ii, 1-2) ”
Since it’s important to you, I thought I would look up your name.
and got this link:
http://ginapera.com/biography.html
Is this you? I will assume so for the moment, but please correct me if I am wrong.
In closing, how do you distinguish between a fair question or an honest rebuttal and a bullying attack?
Just looking at this comment thread, I suspect the tone degenerates to the latter when commenters don’t get a clear and direct response to the former.
Are you still a “Consulting editor to Shape magazine”?
As someone who presumably knows more about web design and html than I do, you might suggest to their web programmers that their search engine could use some work. It doesn’t support searches for names! I searched for your name and got no hits. I searched for Kim Kardashian who was on one of the front page articles today and didn’t get a hit. I got 17 hits for magnesium, one of which was written by Julie O’Hara but when I looked for her name I didn’t get a hit either.
And, as an “Editor with 25 years experience”, wouldn’t you agree that something was missing in this sentence?
“Studies show you need about 4,000 mg of potassium (found in fruits, vegetables, legumes, and yogurt) a day to keep blood low.”
Oh no, sounds like an ancient Roman suicide procedure. I’m pretty sure I saw a scene in a movie, maybe Spartacus, where one of the Roman senators (I think he was played by Charles Laughton) was caught conspiring against Crassus and forced to commit suicide or be executed. He chose to commit suicide by cutting open his veins and slowly bleed to death.
No thanks, I want to keep my blood if you don’t mind.
On the magnesium articles, most of them didn’t have even a pseudonym attached to them. Should we just ignore them?
One of them puzzled me though.
What is “energy-producing magnesium”?
I was especially struck by this one.
http://www.shape.com/healthy_eating/nutrition_101/healthiest_nuts
It lists pistachios, almonds, hazelnuts, walnuts and Brazil nuts.
I like nuts. Personally I’ve always had a fondness for pecans because my grandfather had a huge pecan tree in his back yard. But, I don’t like Brazil nuts and am especially leery of them because they are very high in radioactive radium 226. In fact if you eat the 1 oz mentioned in the list every day, you will ingest 1-7 nanocuries of radium every month!
Here’s the link:
http://www.physics.isu.edu/radinf/natural.htm
Oops,
I have a comment in moderation.
I had the cursor in the wrong place and inserted my 2 closing paragraphs in the middle of the comment.
Me Bad !! (
)
GinaPera said
“I never offered evidence that magnesium is effective for allergic rhinitis. I did, however, refer you to the work of magnesium researcher Mildred Seelig, who explains how this might work.”
You most certainly DID offer anecdotal evidence that magnesium was effective. I was trying to find out if you had anything more substantial than that one anecdote. You could have just said “no.” Instead, you offered the speculation of someone who has an idea how it “might” work and you seemed to be saying that that speculation should convince me that it “does” work. And you insulted me.
I asked you to be polite, but you are still insulting my reading comprehension, my ability to do research, and my entire profession.
You seem to be advocating a less rigorous scientific standard for medicine, while the whole tenor of this blog is that we should be more rigorous. Perhaps you would like to clarify what standards you think we should be following. I accept that your anecdote and the theoretical speculations suggest that magnesium be tested as a treatment for allergies. That is a valid point, and I don’t think anyone here would argue with that. But we do not accept that doctors should prescribe untested remedies on the basis of anecdotes and theoretical speculations. Do you?
GinaPera:
Finally an honest admission about your expertise in allergies.
Unfortunately, it further reveals your lack in knowledge when you tell me to consult a materials scientist instead of a person with medical training in contact dermatitis.
Allergies to nickel are fairly common, especially in women (due to wearing more jewelry, my allergy stemmed from ear rings and wedding ring set, plus my sewing hobby — if you look you will see gold plated tapestry needles due to the allergy being common with needle workers). It is not really an allergy to nickel itself, but due to a reaction with the contents of perspiration from the skin.
It is most likely genetic, and there is no cure. I have something in my DNA that has decided that the proteins in my sweat combined with nickel requires an immune response. Consumption of some mineral, vitamin or magic potion will make me be able to wear regular gold jewelry. Though with time I may have a reduction in sensitivity.
So if you have learned anything here, it is about the vast array and variation in allergies. In other words: it is complicated, and your simple little treatment will not work for most people.
The psychopathology on this thread is staggering. Are you all Glenn Beck fans?
Truly, there are medical treatment strategies for these conditions other than badgering and being obtuse and sadistic. And the strategies are based on science.
And Harriet, you still have not read in good faith what I’ve written. Plenty of physicians do understand what I’ve tried to communicate. The fact that you won’t even try speaks volumes about you, not me.
So long, bullies. You can find a new target for your self-medication.
“So long, bullies. You can find a new target for your self-medication.”
I don’t even understand how anyone here can be a “bully”. To me, anyway a “bully” is someone who uses a strength to compensate for reason…or perhaps more generally someone who uses a strength in one “arena” to attain victory in an unrelated “arena”. So if for example Gina’s comments were getting edited by the moderator that would be a fair label of “bully”. However that gives me pause, because here – apart from are words. What possible advantage can we have over Gina.
Here’s another definition of bully – and I’m almost quoting Ayn Rand here – Someone who expects you to accept argument or criticism on something other than rational or evidential grounds.
Who does that sound like?
Oh and Gina…
I note that you still haven’t got me any kind of error data on your alleged clinical benefits of Mg on allergies and from your parting shot I shall assume you won’t post in this thread again (until you want some more attention I guess). Ergo by your own definition you have left out something from your arguments without which they can not be “science” and you seem surprised that people aren’t receptive.
Gina, I’m afraid you don’t understand SBM at all.
Back to your original post:
(because you seem not to have moved beyond it!)
That is an anecdote.
Anecdotes are NOT science.
Anecdotes may raise questions but…
…they are NOT the answers to these questions.
Similarly, basic science may raise questions but…
…it cannot answer these questions!
The answers come through SBM via the double-blind trial.
And, frankly, I am shocked that after 25 years of writing on the subject, you still do not understand that anecdotes and basic science do not constitute Science Based Medicine.
I am shocked that you still do not understand that anecdotes and basic science are only the starting of points of Science Based Medicine, a process that ends with sytematic reviews of double-blind trials which attempt to answer the questions posed by your anecdotes and the basic science.
Go buy a spool of magnesium tape. Light it. You will achieve enlightenment.
Finally, because we seem to have another difficult-reading problem”:
Squirrel — I looked up Mildred Seelig’s reference that you cited as a “helpful source for you regarding magnesium and allergies”. It looked like a summary article about a book she had written about chronic fatigue syndrome and magnesium. It talked mostly about CFS and a few other conditions but didn’t seem to mention asthma or allergies.
—
I guess you don’t know how to do a term search?
As for the rest, you really are a silly, silly person. Imagine having nothing better to do with one’s time.
I haven’t seen so much cognitive confusion, antisocial personality disorder, and blame-placing since I wandered into an anti-psychiatry forum…… wait, maybe this one is mislabeled?
I really wish I were a betting person, because every time someone announces they’re not coming back to a thread, they always come back.
GinaPera:
If you want to claim superiority to anti-psychiatrists, you should not throw around personality disorders as insults. Some people truly suffer from them and it belittles their experience.
If you want to claim superiority to the commenters in this thread, you are doing it all wrong. Nobody is trying to personally attack you. Everyone simply disagrees with your statements. No one is going to change their mind by being compared to Glen Beck, and no one has called you any names for disagreeing with them, either. The more you try to belittle people, the more apparent it is that being told you’re wrong hurt your feelings, and it does not come across as fiery righteous indignation as much as you’d think.
Sorry I didn’t have anything actually useful to bring to the discussion, but all the name-calling got to me.
@overshoot,
Actually I was thinking of the opening sequence in the 1951 version of The Thing where they find the alien space ship and its magnesium hull goes up in flames in the Earth’s oxygen atmosphere.
One of the things I really appreciate about SBM and Respectful Insolence (I don’t notice it as much on a couple other blogs I regularly follow because the threads are not usually as long and disputatious or else I just don’t have time) is how much effort the commenters will put into explaining scientific and medical processes in careful detail to even the most obtuse and perverse commenters. I have learned a lot from reading those comments even if the people to whom they were directed too often refused to read and learn and understand.
It is quite a contrast with GinaPera’s approach to questions which seems to alternate between complaints about “reading comprehension” and simple name calling.
I guess she got as far as the fourth paragraph of my 12:02 am comment which she responds to with the following:
“I guess you don’t know how to do a term search?
As for the rest, you really are a silly, silly person. Imagine having nothing better to do with one’s time.
I haven’t seen so much cognitive confusion, antisocial personality disorder, and blame-placing since I wandered into an anti-psychiatry forum…… wait, maybe this one is mislabeled.”
The first part shows she didn’t get as far as the fifth paragraph where I stated:
“I also looked up the NIH fact sheet on magnesium. I copied it into a word processor and did a word search for “allerg” which should cover allergy, allergies, allergens, etc. No hits.”
or the seventh paragraph:
“I also went to PubMed and did a search on magnesium and allergies and got 528 references.’
And, in my 12:10 pm comment I noted:
“As someone who presumably knows more about web design and html than I do, you might suggest to their web programmers that their search engine could use some work. It doesn’t support searches for names! I searched for your name and got no hits. I searched for Kim Kardashian who was on one of the front page articles today and didn’t get a hit. I got 17 hits for magnesium, one of which was written by Julie O’Hara but when I looked for her name I didn’t get a hit either.”
Oh yes, reading comprehension <> that explains everything!?!?!?
I guess I was stubborn enough to go back to the CFS article she referenced and used the built-in google search engine to look for asthma. I got 10 hits. One of them was to pubmed where I found the Dead Sea water study I had mentioned. One mentioned intravenous magnesium sulfate which I also mentioned. Another was a summary which gave several other cross-references. And another was the Mildred Seelig article which offered this little gem:
“Whether allergies in CFS patients and abnormal response to antigenic challenge are results of low Mg remains to be proven.”
(
)
Oh yes, reading comprehension!
The comment about “a silly, silly person” reminds me of a game my son liked to play with me. He would point to something and try to direct my attention to it and when I looked he would say “gotcha”. In other words, by paying attention to Gina Pera’s comments and trying to respond to them, I lose. Oh well, so be it. I write mostly for my own amusement anyway although I sometimes hope others will find them interesting or useful.
The third comment about “cognitive confusion etc.” just leaves me cognitively confused because I can’t tell if she is referring to me alone or everyone on this blog thread or what.
Oh well.
I guess I shall never learn if the GinaPera on this comment thread turns out to be the Gina Pera I linked to or not to be that person. I may even wait to die without learning so, but I don’t think it will make it hard for me to sleep. Perchance I shall dream of a world without journalists like Gina Pera! Ay, there’s the back rub that makes for a good night’s sleep.
I think Gina Pera qualifies for the Henry Cavendish response (the 18th century British physicist who discovered hydrogen and measured the gravitational attraction between lead balls using a torsion balance). I found this little tidbit in Wikipedia:
“The contemporary accounts of his personality have led some modern commentators, such as Oliver Sacks, to speculate that he had Asperger syndrome, though he may merely have been painfully shy. His only social outlet was the Royal Society Club, whose members dined together before weekly meetings. Cavendish seldom missed these meetings, and was profoundly respected by his contemporaries. However his shyness made those who “sought his views… speak as if into vacancy. If their remarks were…worthy, they might receive a mumbled reply.”"
Gina Pera, I haven’t seen any of your remarks that are worthy of even a mumbled reply, so I shall not trouble you with any more. Welcome to the Jake Crosby club.
My previous comment probably should have read, “Nobody is trying to attack you except for me in this comment.” I accidentally proved myself wrong.
@KB,
C’est la vie!
Perhaps the name-calling got to me too. Mostly, though, it completely failed to contribute to an interesting and informative discussion.
Gina,
“As for me, I am really a silly, silly person. ”
Yes you are…
…because you haven’t learnt a thing.
Hmm -Insomnia strikes and I’m trying to remember a particular quote or saying about insults. It went something like insults are for when you have run out of reason…but it sounded much better. Anyway had to google search and although I did not find that saying I did find these tidbits.*
First
“The first human who hurled an insult instead of a stone was the founder of civilization.” -Sigmund Freud
So we should be happy she didn’t throw a rock at someone.
Then
“Insults should be written in sand, compliments should be carved in stone”–Arab Proverb
not sure where the internet lays between sand and stone.
Or
“A gentleman is one who never hurts anyone’s feelings unintentionally.” –Oscar Wilde
Make a note, don’t offend Oscar Wilde. Should be easy.
On handling insults, Moliere said“A wise man is superior to any insults which can be put upon him, and the best reply to unseemly behavior is patience and moderation.”
But, Thomas Jefferson said“One insult pocketed soon produces another”
And Shakespeare wrote “Methink’st thou art a general offence and every man should beat thee.”
But I have to say for this situation my favorite is
“To be insulted by you is to be garlanded with lilies”–Aristophanes
*It’s a hobby. Some people collect clown figurines. So it could be worse, possibly.
Thanks, Michelle!
A great way to start the day!
Since we’re quoting:
“Ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible propositions. Ideas must be distinct before reason can act on them” — Thomas Jefferson
I can only assume micheleinmichigan’s quotes are intended for Gina, and overshot’s quote is intended for the rest of us.
GinaPera wrote:
BillyJoe replied:
BillyJoe, you were too nice. There is nothing in basic physiology to predict that ingesting more magnesium than usual “offers some allergic people this benefit.” That was the point of my previous comment, which GinaPera answered with a complete non sequitur.
Sounds like she had an interesting and productive life:
http://www.jacn.org/cgi/content/full/24/5/305
After watching and participating in these exchanges I think it’s pretty obvious what Gina is:
She’s obviously self-educated and her knowledge is ankle deep on the things she decided to lecture on. According to her self-written biography she holds a BSc in Journalism (I’ll try to avoid shaking my head at how Journalism is a BSc and not a BFA). So she simply doesn’t have the tools to talk about the details of a study or even what constitutes good evidence.
Her opinions, while possibly rational are not “transparently rational” i.e. she doesn’t clearly state her conclusions and her evidence for supporting them. This says two things to me. She isn’t confident in her beliefs and she isn’t capable of learning anything (by talking here that is, not in general).
So I think, perhaps that she somehow enjoys conflict (something on her site she attributes to a ‘self-medication’ that ADD sufferers user). Perhaps we don’t do her much of a favor by indulging her in this masturbatory exercise.
sarkeizen – “According to her self-written biography she holds a BSc in Journalism (I’ll try to avoid shaking my head at how Journalism is a BSc and not a BFA”
Umm – BFA speaking here. Firstly, there’s no way she could last through a project critique without having a melt down. Temper Tantrum’s are the professor’s prerogative, not the students’.
Secondly, How do you think that someone who throws around mental health diagnoses like pejorative’s is going get along with a bunch of “tortured” artists?
Thirdly, we do not accept journalist in art school because we are honest about the fact that we are making everything up. We (generally) do not pretend that the squishy purple canyon is reality.
Fourthly, cause, we don’t want her, she’s a complete buzz kill.
But, I’m in the midwest. I can’t speak for LA or NY, maybe they’ll take her.
Hey, LA is not volunteering–we’ve already got an oil spill. (Unless you meant Los Angeles, that might be OK.)
I hear Alaska has some nice people, dontcha know? And apparently she’s a fan of Republicans, so she’ll fit right in!
And no, I wasn’t aware of any high road, as a matter of fact.
# sarkeizenon:
Ack… blockquote fail!
This is the response: At my local university it is simple BA in communications with a journalism specialty.
Her behavior here makes me think that she is inflating her qualifications.
If she is the Gena Pera I linked to, (she didn’t confirm that, either) it looks like she shuttles back and forth between San Francisco and San Diego.
I happened to be out shopping and saw a copy of Shape magazine on the shelf and opened it to skim the credits, but I didn’t see her name as a “contributing editor”. Perhaps she didn’t contribute to that particular issue or maybe that one of her current activities isn’t so current anymore.
Shape magazine is pretty much Sunday supplement/waiting room table level stuff, but at least a few of the bits I looked at mentioned possible negative effects like drug interactions.
I still think it’s funny that they picked Brazil nuts as one of the “healthiest” nuts!
In Gina Pera’s defense, I looked on her website, and under “Portfolio” she says she was “consulting managing editor for the launch of Shape’s new Fit Pregnancy magazine,” so maybe it was a temporary position. She does list it under projects that “have included,” suggesting the past tense.
I think you’re right KB.
I should have clicked over there to double check, but I was in the middle of writing the comment and didn’t want to lose my work. It doesn’t seem to be happening as much lately, but several months ago I lost a few comments I had spent some time on by clicking in the wrong place or bumping my palm on the touch pad, so I’m a little nervous about that.
Her main current project seems to be writing a book.
The Summary page is a little confusing because it starts with July 1993-Present and then lists “Projects have included:”
Squirrelelite: Yeah, it would have been clearer if she’d listed an ending date like all the other categories, but I don’t think she wants our advice on organizing a resume. : )
I have to wonder what potential employers would think, were they to Google GinaPera and find this thread. I can’t imagine it would be good.
Scott – I have to point out, unless the personality of the Gina Pera on the website seems similarly provocative to the one posted here, there is the possibility of a malicious co-worker, ex-friend, ex-significant other posing as Gina Pera to create mischieve for her.
One of my old co-worker’s had a stalker for awhile who would do such things.
KB – I meant Los Angelos and New York City, two cities were aspiring artist go to “make it big.” Sorry for the confusion. We won’t be so heartless as to foist GP on you right now.
Quite true. Such things are, however, unfortunately effective.
Bogeymama – “Thinks like a journalist”…oh please, how lame and inaccurate! You do know that it was journalists that cracked Watergate? Sure there are quacky journalists but there are also ethical and very hardworking ones (they’re just not as employable by the mainstream media), just as there are quack doctors. No doubt there are quacks in whatever profession you practice as well…guess we should assume that you’re a quack too? What this person thinks and talks like is a supplement salesperson or a quack MD pushing pseudoscience (spot the difference!)…or a creationist.
Ah, right, just another person pimping a product with an anti-medicine slant. Just more pop pseudoscience and self promotion! More bias and vested financial interest in perpetrating pseudoscience…this is to journalism what naturopaths are to medicine…
Of course, like all unscientific and quackery based attempts to push mega-dosing on supplements, there’s a total lack of knowledge about what science has actually show us about how vitamins and minerals work. (And we have a lot more research to do still.) What’s always the most hilarious is that these people obviously have no understanding of the holistic and synergistic manner in which most vitamins and minerals work! (We really do have to reclaim these words from the idiots in CAM that clearly don’t actually understand what they mean.) Magnesium, calcium and vitamin D work together – you screw with one and you’re effecting how your body can access and use the others. This simplistic and binary thinking – all good vs all bad (which is equally reflected in the childlike medicine=evil, CAM=good silliness that doesn’t reflect the complexity of reality) – is a sign of intellectual and emotional immaturity. It’s like a child that really, really wants to be a grown up and taken seriously but is obviously (still) incapable of doing more than playact and mimic adults (or, in this case, science and reasoned argument).
She also sounds like she takes her talking points and style from Scientology….which is not surprising considering how involved in both promoting and creating supplement quackery, and selling supplements, Scientology is.
Fifi, if you want to impress people on this blog you would do better to point out that the made-of-awesome Brian Deer is a journalist.
Hey Fifi! Missed you.
Interesting about the Scientologisms. (I’m quite impressed with your journalistic acumen: I couldn’t distinguish
any talking points, Scientological or otherwise, among the foam.) I don’t know enough about it to make a link.
Anybody know much about hookworm treatment for allergies?
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19128351
Nord – I’ve read something like that before and Dr Novella mentions something similar (except auto-immune disease) in the article “Evolution and Medicine. ”
“The authors also provide examples of how evolutionary principles can direct future research. They reference new research looking into the role of intestinal parasites and autoimmune diseases. The research is based upon the premise that humans co-evolved not only with our intestinal flora, but with certain parasites, such as intestinal worms. Now we live in a largely hygienic environment, and have even taken steps to eliminate parasites. This may have unintentionally deprived our immune systems of needed stimulation, resulting in poor immune regulation, and subsequent increase in auto-immune diseases like asthma and multiple sclerosis.”
http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/?p=3637
I guess it may be just like they say “everything in moderation” even intestinal parasites.
Good to see you back, FiFi. I agree about journalists, like other professions, some are excellent and some not so much. I tend to think the thoughtless, market driven business model of many news outlets has caused much of the poor quality we see today. Those are executive decisions, not those of the journalists.
“sarkeizen – “According to her self-written biography she holds a BSc in Journalism (I’ll try to avoid shaking my head at how Journalism is a BSc and not a BFA”
Umm – BFA speaking here. Firstly, there’s no way she could last through a project critique without having a melt down. Temper Tantrum’s are the professor’s prerogative, not the students’. ”
Hey Michelle,
Loved the comment. BFA was a typo I meant BA – the idea being a general degree (which may well have components in the sciences) and not a specialized science degree.
I also hope it was clear that I mean no disrespect for the Fine Arts – I work for a BFA granting institution and I have nothing but kudos for the students who make it through crits each year.
sarkeizen – no worries on my part, I thought you were using BFA to say that this particular journalists gets too creative with the facts.
But I was just taking the opportunity for a bit of humor.
Bogeymama:
I know your focus on allergies and asthma, but you shouldn’t dismiss intolerances so casually. My cousin has a severe case of celiac sprue — gluten intolerance. Unlike the mythical gluten intolerance that some blame for autism, real gluten intolerance does more than make a person cranky. It actually can kill, and if left untreated in any more than a very mild case, that is its likely outcome, eventually.
Celiac sprue is not like most intolerances; the immune system has a genetic defect which makes it incapable of distinguishing between a “kill me now!” signal and the alcohol that is produced by the digestion of gluten and a few related molecules. The result is that if the affected person eats food containing gluten, their immune system will promptly spring into action (without needing to be sensitized first, which is another way it differs from allergy) and go medieval on the cilia. Diagnosis hinges upon seeing the destroyed tissue on a biopsy of the intestine. My cousin was lucky; hers was diagnosed when she was only 6 months old (after her first experience with grains), after several agonizing weeks in the hospital. Her digestive tract had shut down; she had an ileus. Others, who go undiagnosed for longer or have less dramatic symptoms, manage to do considerable damage to their GI tracts. They may end up needing a bowel resection to prevent the ultimate complication: a ruptured intestine and acute peritonitis.
So it may not be an allergy, but that doesn’t mean it’s less serious. In fact, it’s *more* serious, because there isn’t a damn thing you can do to help the person once the gluten is in their system. Benadryl doesn’t help. Epi-pens are useless. You can’t use desensitization therapy (allergy shots), because there’s no sensitization in the first place. The only treatment is complete avoidance of gluten. And I do mean complete. Gluten and gluten-derived molecules are in a lot more things than a lot of the GF/CF pushers realize.
I don’t mean to dogpile on you or anything. I entirely, 100% agree with and share your frustration with the people who want to blame all psychological and behavioral problems on allergies, and who conflate allergies and intolerances. I just want to be sure you don’t run into trouble down the road when you find someone with celiac sprue, and assume it is not really serious since it’s “only” an intolerance. If my cousin gets a tiny bit of gluten, she will require hospitalization until it clears (which could be a while, as she’ll likely get an ileus again). By contrast, my friends with severe food allergies can generally get ambulatory ER care and go home the same day. Sure, the allergy can kill much faster — but it’s at least treatable after it starts.
Calli – I’m curious, steroids are used for some auto-immune disorders, lupus, rheumatoid arthritis, to supress the immune response. Do you know if they are at all effective for celiac sprue?
As I understand it, cortisone may help in the short term, but depending on the severity of the case, it is not usually sufficient. Basically, it depends on how aggressively the person’s immune system is attacking the cilia. My cousin has the most extreme form of it; suppressing her immune system would still leave enough of a response to do serious harm to her intestines.
Thanks Calli, good to know.
If you wish to maintain your own ignorance and misinformation, please do not read the review of clinical research on the homeoapthic treatment of respiratory allergies at:
http://altmedrev.com/ (see Article #6, in the April 2010 issue).
For the record, this review highlights the research primarily published in high impact journals, and it makes reference to which studies have been deemed to be “high quality” studies by independent parties in meta-analyzes published in the BMJ and the Lancet.
Warning: If you want to keep your mind closed as a steel trap or if you want to maintain your own misinformation about homeopathy and high quality research, you are not recommended to read this article…
You will now have to admit that you’re simply “deniers” and medical fundamentalists. I have too high of a regard for the term “skeptics” (and sadly, there are not many skeptics at your site here)…but you dinosaurs do like to roar.
Hi Dana,
It’s funny (in the sense of both amusing and curious), and indicative, that your article cites only a single word of the 2006 Cochrane Review CD001957 (available at http://www.mrw.interscience.wiley.com/cochrane/clsysrev/articles/CD001957/frame.html) on influenza and homeopathy. The word you cite is “promising”, but the full quote is:
“Though promising, the data were not strong enough to make a general recommendation to use Oscillococcinum for first-line treatment of influenza and influenza-like syndromes. Further research is warranted but the required sample sizes are large. Current evidence does not support a preventative effect of Oscillococcinum-like homeopathic medicines in influenza and influenza-like syndromes.”
Note “the data were not strong enough to make a general recommendation to use Oscillococcinum for first-line treatment of influenza”, “the required sample sizes are large” (meaning the effect is so small, it’s hard to detect at all), and “Current evidence does not support a preventative effect of Oscillococcinum-like homeopathic medicines in influenza and influenza-like syndromes”. Pulling the single positive word out of that review and eliminating the rest of the context is pretty much the definition of egregious cherry-picking. That’s like me summarizing your post as “[H]omeopathic treatment of respiratory allergies…[a]re…dinosaurs.”
In other words, you can’t claim this paper as vindication that homeopathy works; the best legitimate claim you can make is, more research is required to truly test if it works because to date it is not conclusive.
So after 200 years of research, the outcome is still “more research”. After 200 years of research and a complete lack of mechanism (which is it, information? Or quantum theory? If the former, how is it conveyed, how does the system know how to “read” it, and how is only “good” information conveyed? If the latter, how does it avoid being smeared-out once it reaches molecular and larger sizes, since quantum effects aren’t expected to be seen at anything larger than a single atom?) the difference between homeopaths and scientists is scientists are willing to say “no, that’s enough research”. The only other topic which is still being discussed without progress after 200 years, is theology. A comparison I consider funny (in the amusing sense) and instructive.
William,
Thanx for proving my point(s). First, the article above is on ALLERGIES…and the article to which I linked is on ALLERGIES. So far, so good. You’ve successfully kept your mind closed (no surprise). And you’ve successfully avoided any reference to research on homeopathy and respiratory allergies.
Secondly, you’ve acknowledged that you’ve read the Cochrane Report on the flu, and thus, you now KNOW that this research confirms that there IS a difference between Oscillococcinum and placebo in the treatment of the flu. You (and anyone else) can no longer say that there is “no research” that confirms the efficacy of homeopathy.
Try harder to keep your mind closed…and try harder to never admit any benefit from homeopathy. You let one slip. Thanx…
I don’t suppose it matters to believers in homeopathy, but there is no such thing as Oscillococcinum. That word was coined by a man who looked at duck liver through a microscope and saw little vibrating particles and thought he had discovered a new bacterium. No one else ever found it. Turns out he was confused by Brownian motion. Pretty funny, actually.
And now they use duck liver and dilute the duck out of it. What about the law of similars? Does duck liver produce the symptoms of colds or flu? None of this adds up, especially since all the molecules of duck liver are diluted out of the remedy, leaving nothing but the quack.
The article Ullman recommended: A Review of Homeopathic Research in the Treatment of Respiratory Allergies Dana Ullman, MPH; Michael Frass, MD
The only response to that is The Dull-Man Law.
“Thanx for proving my point(s). First, the article above is on ALLERGIES…and the article to which I linked is on ALLERGIES. So far, so good. You’ve successfully kept your mind closed (no surprise). And you’ve successfully avoided any reference to research on homeopathy and respiratory allergies.”
Oh, I’ll read it. I have already read part of it, checked a reference, and found a flaw within five minutes of opening the pdf. That’s not keeping my mind closed, that’s weighing the evidence – in this case the evidence that your referencing appears questionable.
“Secondly, you’ve acknowledged that you’ve read the Cochrane Report on the flu, and thus, you now KNOW that this research confirms that there IS a difference between Oscillococcinum and placebo in the treatment of the flu. You (and anyone else) can no longer say that there is “no research” that confirms the efficacy of homeopathy.”
Oh good Lord. I know the Cochrane Review didn’t find a clear difference, and also that it didn’t recommend use of the remedy as either a preventive or treatment agent. That you took the single positive word out of the review, and ignored the rest, is precisely what underscores my previous point. Your ability to parse a source or argument is not being enhanced here, nor is your defence of the arguments for homeopathy – where is the information? What stores the information? What receives it? How do quantum effects influence more than a single atom?
“Try harder to keep your mind closed…and try harder to never admit any benefit from homeopathy. You let one slip.”
Based on the evidence, I have changed my mind on acupuncture from “utter nonsense” to “some use for pain and nausea” and actually recommended it to someone who had no other effective treatments to draw upon. Because there is evidence. Attempting to call me to task for failing to accept the extremely dubious evidence for homeopathy, when you’ve never shown the slightest evidence of ever wavering in your support, is hypocritical. I’m open to homeopathy being proven more than placebo – all I’m waiting on are multiple well-designed trials converging in a common finding that homeopathy is effective. It happened for lots of other drugs, vaccines, surgery, vitamin deficiencies, so what’s the problem with homeopathy? Again, 200 years and still an evidence base best described as “questionable”. That’s not science, that’s religion.
William,
He illustrates, quite nicely, the barriers to acceptance of science posted recently.
http://www.theness.com/neurologicablog/?p=1994
He’s also flagrantly promoting his own article.
@weing
I did notice that he was an author of the paper. Some amazing subtlety there, though were I the author I wouldn’t necessarily brag about it.
The link you posted, I will probably check out a lot sooner.
Hello,
I would like to bring up something that it seems only a few Naturopaths or MD’s would recommend called Beta Glucan 1,3 it is a long chain polysaccharide found in mushrooms and yeast. Properly prepared extracts no known toxicities, side effects or drug interactions.
“Alleviation of seasonal allergic symptoms with superfine beta-1,3-glucan: a randomized study”
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19994586
“Effects of glucan treatment on the Th1/Th2 balance in patients with allergic rhinitis: a double-blind placebo-controlled study.”
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15941684
Beta glucan 1,3 binds with the Dectin-1 and Compliment Receptor-3 (among others) on Macrophages, Neutrophylls and NK cells.
“Pattern recognition: recent insights from Dectin-1″
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19223162
This describes the mechanism by which the Dectin-1 receptor controls the Th1/Th2 balance in allergic response.
“Dectin-1 directs T helper cell differentiation by controlling noncanonical NF-kappaB activation through Raf-1 and Syk”
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19122653
This really isn’t new, it has been known in Chinese medicine for a few thousand years that the hot water extracts or tea from a multitude of mushroom sources does something to help the body cope with disease in general. We now know that there is a real physiological effect on the cells of the innate immune system, via the receptors. Mushroom BG 1,3 products are widely prescribed for cancer in Japan and China, some of the popular brands are Maitake D-Fraction and Lentinan from shitake. The research is very interesting and I know of at least one BG1,3 pharmaceutical preparation called Imprime PGG for use with monoclonal antibody treatment. It is in Phase 2 trials at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in NYC.
http://www.mskcc.org/mskcc/html/2270.cfm?IRBNO=09-052
“Combined yeast-derived beta-glucan with anti-tumor monoclonal antibody for cancer immunotherapy.”
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19454271
“Yeast beta-glucan amplifies phagocyte killing of iC3b-opsonized tumor cells via complement receptor 3-Syk-phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase pathway”
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16849475
“A phase I/II trial of beta-(1,3)/(1,6) D-glucan in the treatment of patients with advanced malignancies receiving chemotherapy.”
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2570358/?tool=pubmed
The research really doesn’t stop at cancer and allergies, here is a decent free review.
“Beta Glucan and the Immune System”
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17895634
Please take the time to look at some of the research cited above, there are at least a thousand more studies on PubMed. Other studies have shown efficacy in reducing cholesterol, inflammation, aid in surgical and burn wound healing, speeding recovery from radiation, helping to prevent post surgical infection and as an adjunct therapy for HIV/AIDS. I am extremely skeptical in general, but there really is quite a lot of published research on this, from every corner of the globe, showing a positive direction against a broad array of challenges.
Do not be fooled into thinking I am saying this is a cure all, I am in no way saying that, it just seems to give the immune system a strong push in the right direction, which is why it is interesting as a possible adjunct therapy for many treatments. It is relatively cheap and with no side effects, toxicities or drug interactions, it does not seem that many things this positive come our way often, natural or synthetic.
I am interested to know what people think of this research,
Take care, Jason
Harriett shows incredible disdain for randomized double blind trials when they do not give her a result that supports her own point of view. How typical.
And Weing asserts that I am “flagrantly promoting” my own article. Jeeez, don’t you hate it when someone promotes a review of research primarily drawn from high impact journals, especially when independent researchers define these studies as “high quality”? Don’t you hate it when your own point of view is dissed?
Don’t you hate it when “science based medicine” has become simply “deniers of science” and “medical fundamentalism”? Don’t you hate it when it become so obvious? Yeah, I hate it too.
“Don’t you hate it when your own point of view is dissed? ”
Can’t stop talking about yourself, can you?
Dana, the issue is that you consistently fail to show any evidence of considering the flaws of the research you cite and promote, as well as ignoring results that are critical of homeopathy. You show every evidence of ideology driving your decision making rather than experimental results. The best research, the highest quality trials, and the highest-impact summaries of the research all point to homeopathy being little more than placebo – the results are so equivocal, even if homeopathy does work it has almost nothing clinically meaningful to offer. What use is a treatment that improves symptoms 1% faster, that makes your cold go away 2 hours earlier, that alleviates pain by some miniscule fraction, particularly when compared to aspirin which actually does so in a noticeable way? If homeopathy was really as powerful and effective as it is claimed and promoted, why is it so hard to see these results? Why is it so difficult to show that unbiased observers can distinguish, on an ongoing basis, between homeopathic remedies and simple water? Why is there still a fight over the basic existence of the phenomenon? These are all reasons why scientific investigation of homeopathy is seen as futile; even if it exists, what’s the point? Yet it’s still presented to the public as if it were adequate treatment for HIV, cancer, malaria, let alone the common cold. This is why people want homeopaths to stop promoting, and start doing good research. Good research isn’t hard in principle – high-quality blinding, control groups, adequate randomization, meaningful population sizes, and publication of all results, even if negative. You’re giving people pills and liquids, all you need to do is run a trial where people get the exact same treatment, right up until the remedy is handed over; split the groups so one gets simple water or sugar, and the other gets a homeopathic remedy. Blind the test, and you’ve got a rigorous trial. Not hard!
DanaUllman said “Harriett shows incredible disdain for randomized double blind trials when they do not give her a result that supports her own point of view.”
Harriet (not Harriett – please dilute out the excess t) did not even mention randomized double blind trials in her comment. She merely revealed that Oscillococcinum is the name of a bacterium that does not even exist, and questioned how the homeopathic law of similars applied to duck liver and flu/colds.
If Oscillococcinum were a rationally chosen remedy according to homeopathic principles, Dana could have educated us instead of offering this nonresponsive misinterpretation of my comment.
Notice how he complained that the article dealt with allergies and accused someone of being closed minded about it. Then he sings the unwarranted praises of Oscillococcinum. I guess what’s good for the goose is bad for the gander.
Wow…Harriet, I’m impressed that you’ve (again) proven your embarrassing ignorance of homeopathy…and of Oscillococcinum.
Ummm, have you ever heard of the “bird flu.” Is it really possible that ducks are birds? Do you NOT understand that Oscillococcinum is taken from the heart and liver of ducks? Do you NOT understand that biologists and epidemiologists have long recognized that ducks are reservoirs of various flu viruses?
Does it REALLY not make sense to you to give small doses of a pathogen in order to augment an immunological defense to that pathogen? The fact is that four large double-blind and placebo controlled trials have consistently found a greater benefit from taking Oscillococcinum as compared with a placebo. The fact also is that you’ve developed a very cynical view of science, unless it supports your limited view of the world (and of health). Yikes.
Do you have no respect for biology, epidemiology, and immunology? Wow, you’ve take cynicism to a new depth. It is impressive how much your rational mind contorts to blind yourself and to try to maintain your point of view…but THAT is what happens when you adopt medical fundamentalism.
I hope that EVERYONE here learns from Harriet’s mistakes. Such behavior is an embarrassment to medicine and science.
Harriet, you’re good when you talk and try to convince the uneducated masses…but when you run up against someone who is a bit knowledge, your ignorance shows…
If what you are babbling about you call knowledge, then I prefer ignorance.
DanaUllman,
Thanks for explaining. Now I understand. Your syllogism is:
Some birds carry bird flu.
Ducks are birds.
Therefore diluted liver and heart taken from any duck will immunize us against flu.
This is really an epic sillygism. You don’t really believe this makes logical sense, do you?
I don’t understand the vaccination analogy. Oscillococcinum comes as a 200C dilution, so there are no duck particles left. Immunization requires the presence of actual antigens. After vaccination, people are protected from getting the disease, but Oscillo is recommended for treating symptoms – repeatedly, in successive illnesses. And why would a “vaccine” against flu also protect from other flu-like illnesses and colds?
Ducks act as reservoirs by carrying the virus in their intestinal tract. See http://www.adb.org/BirdFlu/faqs.asp
So why do homeopaths choose to use liver and heart?
Why do they use an unselected duck rather than a bird that has been diagnosed with bird flu?
Please, educate me further.
Hi Dana,
“Does it REALLY not make sense to you to give small doses of a pathogen in order to augment an immunological defense to that pathogen?”
Well, for one thing, homeopathy doesn’t involve giving small doses of a pathogen. That would be vaccination. Homeopathy involves giving sugar pills, splashed with water (or sometimes water or alcohol) that has zero doses of a pathogen. For another thing, not all influenza is “bird flu”. There are three influenza viruses (A, with several serotypes, as well as B and C) and only influenza A is found in an avian reservoir. So Oscillococcinum would, if it’s based on a real understanding of biology, first of all not work because there is no pathogen involved, and second would not work in all cases because 2/3 of the types are unrelated to birds.
Regarding the four trials that purportedly demonstrate Oscillococcinum is effective, may I remind you the actual findings of the Cochrane Review found that Oscillococcinum research was promising but couldn’t be recommended for prevention or treatment. So apparently those four studies were not sufficiently convincing for the most respected research body on the planet to support its use. Only further research.
It’s also funny that you accuse someone of lacking an understanding of biology, given how homeopathy, if it is actually effective, violates so many laws of biology.
Also, I’ve been reading the study you are responsible for – I’ve not yet finished the first page, but checking the references so far, you’ve already overstretched Linde et al 1997 by failing to mention that in 1999 they essentially withdrew their findings. Your two references to Frass 2005 (being effective for sepsis and bronchial secretions in COPD) are both small-N pilot studies with questionable findings that haven’t been independently replicated. I’ll keep you updated as I continue to check your references. You don’t have a slam-dunk here, I haven’t even finished the introduction and lit review and I’ve already found reason to question your ability to reference.
Oh…that is right…what was I thinking…why oh why should I have ever mentioned that there have been four large trials showing positive results in the treatment of the flu? You folks are NOT interested in science based medicine! How foolish of me.
And gosh, the subjects of biology, epidemiology, or immunology are even more foreign to you all. How foolish of me to bring these boring subjects into this mix.
I mentioned the source of Oscillococcinum because Harriet thought that it was very strange to use a duck as a medicine. Perhaps it would be better to use a mold (penicillin) or the piss from a pregnant horse (like Premarin), or an explosive (like nitroglycerin). Who is the witch now?
And I love it when Harriet says that homeopathic manufacturers use “unselective” ducks…what foolishness…she just pulls things out of the air to sound smart…but she does make me laugh…
Yeah…slam dunk.
Dana,
You have not answered my criticism of your sillygism: can you possibly believe that logic makes sense? You have not answered my criticism of your vaccine analogy. You have not answered my questions. I’ve seen you do this before: you don’t have an answer so you try to divert our attention and go on the attack. I won’t be distracted by your insults. Answer my questions, please.
I was not even talking about the studies. I was trying to understand why homeopaths had chosen duck liver. It’s not that it seems strange to use a duck for medicine; it’s that it seems strange to pick a medicine without any good reason. I understand perfectly well why doctors chose to use penicillin, Premarin and nitroglycerin. I don’t understand the rationale for choosing duck liver. I asked why homeopaths would use an “unselected” duck (not “unselective”) that had not been tested to see if it carried bird flu, instead of a bird that had documented bird flu. I asked why they would choose liver and heart over the parts of the duck that were known to be reservoirs for the virus. I asked how protection against bird flu could protect against other flu viruses and colds. Answer my questions, please.
I still don’t understand what duck liver has to do with allergies. And we are interested in science based medicine. We are not interested in fantasy based quackery.
weing, it is a silly bit caused by not knowing about Brownian Motion. Peter Lipson wrote about it: “Petit canard, grand canard
“Oh…that is right…what was I thinking…why oh why should I have ever mentioned that there have been four large trials showing positive results in the treatment of the flu? You folks are NOT interested in science based medicine! How foolish of me.”
Sarcasm just underscores that you haven’t addressed any of these substantive points. For instance, as I have said twice now, Oscillococcinum isn’t recommended by the Cochrane Review you claim as evidence. The Cochrane Review, by aggregating evidence, actually produces better science than single studies, and their conclusion was that Oscillococcinum could not be recommended. Are you going to address this?
“And gosh, the subjects of biology, epidemiology, or immunology are even more foreign to you all. How foolish of me to bring these boring subjects into this mix.”
We all find these subjects quite fascinating, part of the reason we read this blog. You haven’t invoked any of them, you have used the words, but when challenged, have not been able to justify how biology, epidemiology and immunology actually intersect with homeopathy at all. What is the biological mechanism by which homeopathy works? How does homeopathy activate the immune system in humans? What experimental trials, replicated and extended, support your claims?
“I mentioned the source of Oscillococcinum because Harriet thought that it was very strange to use a duck as a medicine. Perhaps it would be better to use a mold (penicillin) or the piss from a pregnant horse (like Premarin), or an explosive (like nitroglycerin). Who is the witch now?”
Mold, pregnant horse urine and nitroglycerine all have well-understood, well-measured, purified components that are biologically active in the human body. They are produced in measurable quantities, with tested, verified purities that exhibit dose-response curves in empirical testing. Penicillin is the byproduct of molds that inhibit bacterial replication – these chemical pathways are known. Premarin contains equine estrogens which when consumed are converted to human estrogens in the body, and estogens have well-studied effects. Nitroglycerine is a potent vasodialator, useful in heart attacks. Again, tested, replicated, in bench and human studies. Homeopathy can not claim an equivalent research base, or even a theoretical base.
“And I love it when Harriet says that homeopathic manufacturers use “unselective” ducks…what foolishness…she just pulls things out of the air to sound smart…but she does make me laugh…”
Since homeopathy and Oscillococcinum is often at the 200C level, homeopathic manufacturers actually don’t use any duck, since there is no “duck” left in the remedies. Belittling and making fun of people who are actively trying to engage with your points does nothing to support your claims. It just makes it look like you can’t justify your claims so instead you try to divert the argument with ad hominem attacks – and that’s a well-known logical fallacy.
‘Yeah…slam dunk.”
Slam duck? Tee hee…