[PragmaticPulp]

> In the Asian world, traditional Systems of Medicine focus on "holistic" treatment and the general public often calls Western Medicine, "Allopathy with side-effects". I had intuitively felt that these medicines must have an overall effect on behaviour which may always not be obvious to the observer unless the difference between the before and after were stark and noticeable.

Many traditional herbal medications also have significant side effects. It's not accurate or helpful to describe this as Eastern vs. Western medicine. All significant supplements and medications are bound to have side effects to some degree.

Good, evidence-based doctors don't care if the practice is Eastern or Western. If the practice or supplement has reasonable scientific evidence, a good doctor will incorporate it into their recommendations. I've had plenty of "western" doctors prescribe practices like acupuncture, yoga, meditation and traditional TCM supplements like ginger and turmeric.

The real problem with the Eastern vs. Western medicine false dichotomy is when it leads people to choose a side and stick with it. I've known a few people who suffered far too long with ineffective TCM or alternative medicine treatments before accepting proper, evidence-based treatment. The problem isn't limited to Eastern medicine, of course. For example, many depressed patients take Saint John's Wort for its herbal anti-depressant properties and are surprised to experience as many, if not more, side effects than highly targeted SSRI medications. Just because it's natural doesn't mean it's safer or more effective.

[truth_be_told]

You make some good points. However that is not what i meant when i said "holistic".

As an example, in Ayurveda/TCM, "prophylaxis" is given greater importance than symptomatic treatment.

We are what we eat and how we live.

The beauty of Western Medicine is that it is highly targeted and therefore provides immediate relief. However, people go overboard with no thought to other factors, consequences and ramifications. They look at it in isolation. Whereas in Eastern Medicine; controlled diet (with emphasis on stomach/gut cleansing), massage therapy (affecting the circulatory, lymphatic and nervous systems), change in environment(Summer/Winter) etc. are given more prominence. The organism and the environment in which it is embedded are looked at together.

With what we know today, both these approaches need to be harmoniously blended together for the best effect.

[crimsonalucard]

I'm asian myself and I am intimately familiar with eastern medicine.

You are largely right on western medicine, it is holistic as far as the scientific evidence is relevant. That means if there is no unbiased experiment on the 20 year effects of some effect of some drug then there is no science behind it and therefore no knowledge and no treatment. Causative treatments are established to a degree as close to absolute as possible using the scientific method. However, because scientific experiments are biased towards things that are easily observable and measurable, treatments are also biased in this direction.

In other words it is very hard to run an experiment on the 10 year side effects of some drug therefore there aren't much treatments of this nature among western medicine.

Eastern medicine is the opposite. It has no basis in science in the sense that none of it's tenants were established in scientific measurement and observation. More it's adhoc trial, error, a lot of bias and a lot of fraud. This kind of treatment can definitely be more "holistic" but this holisticness is based off vague and anecdotal evidence and is very inexact. Some eastern medicine may work and some may not and you may be being lied to.

In fact, the logical theory behind eastern medicine is utter crap. The logic talks about chi flows going through your body of both hot and cold and the logic is to eat medicine to help control balance in the chi flows. These chi flows are a fantasmic concept not observable by scientific experiment.

This does not mean eastern medicine doesn't work. THe reasoning might be off but the effectiveness of the medicine may still be valid because cultural selection would have virtually eliminated this field if it did not actually aid with survival in some form or manner. Just know that every time you ingest some medicine based of of eastern philosophy know that you are making a gamble on evidence that is anecdotal and possibly placebo induced or even fraudulent.

[truth_be_told]

When it comes to the Human Organism and Medicine, in spite of all our advances, things are quite complex, interrelated and not fully understood. While there is a lot of "woo woo" in Traditional Eastern Medicine against which we must guard ourselves, there is still a lot of empirical evidence for it though we may not subscribe to the explanatory models behind them. This is why people/hospitals are trying to introduce the reasonably well understood parts of Yoga, TCM, Ayurveda, Meditation into a more holistic approach towards well being.

The point is not to fixate on some well known negatives but take a deeper look at what has worked over the ages and employ them for good effect regardless of the theoretical models claimed for them.

[crimsonalucard]

>When it comes to the Human Organism and Medicine, in spite of all our advances, things are quite complex, interrelated and not fully understood.

And I have said, if you read carefully that some of it still works despite this. This is not the point, the point is the black box test still needs to work despite a garbage theory. ANd my point is, not only is the theory wrong, but there is very little overall scientific evidence for the efficacy of the treatment as well.

>there is still a lot of empirical evidence for it though we may not subscribe to the explanatory models behind them.

There is actually very little scientific and experimental evidence behind it. There is some but compared to the body of experimental work that is western medicine the research on eastern medicine is miniscule.

> This is why people/hospitals are trying to introduce the reasonably well understood parts of Yoga, TCM, Ayurveda, Meditation

The above mentioned things like meditation actually have scientific evidence behind them. You can google it.

>The point is not to fixate on some well known negatives but take a deeper look at what has worked over the ages and employ them for good effect regardless of the theoretical models claimed for them.

That is the problem. There is very little scientific evidence for what has "worked" for eastern medicine. The problem with anecdotal evidence is the placebo effect; people are delusional. Some people believe in scientology and who is it for you to say that a belief in eastern medicine isn't similar? The dividing line is scientific experiment. IF an experiment verifies a hypothesis then it is likely to be real. For efficacy of a treatment to be measured you cannot just ASK people, you have to conduct a massive scientific experiment in a double blind study. This simply has not been done yet for eastern medicine. You do not know the "good" just like you don't know the "negatives" because there is no scientific data.

[truth_be_told]

There IS Scientific Research being done on aspects of Traditional Medicine.

As an example, see the book "Herbal Medicine: Biomolecular and Clinical Aspects".

[crimsonalucard]

I never said there wasn't but the definition of western medicine is scientific research meaning that it is the primary method on how such treatments are developed. Scientific research on eastern medicine is not only minuscule in number but backwards in creation.

By backwards I mean that treatments are made up adhoc based off of the faulty chi logic then tried adhoc on people without rigorous double blind experiments. Only in modern times are we actually running true scientific experiments on the treatments to verify them. This is basically like the FDA allowing some random person to distribute drugs touting some miracle cure only to run experimental tests after the drug is released. More than likely most eastern medicine treatments will fail tests as this majority failure rate is already what happens in western medicine during clinical trials.

[pciexpgpu]

It is amusing to me the sort of detached love people have for Eastern medicine. It's really a feeling of grass is greener on the other side.

In India and a few other SE Asian countries, the predominant killer disease is heart disease. There is no "Eastern" medicine for that.

"Eastern" methods work really well on innocuous diseases and symptoms because they really aren't medicines nor a treatment. Sure Ayurveda and other "techniques" tackle a few simple problems. But people actively seek such treatment for important medical problems: "a little knowledge is dangerous".

The troubling fact is none of the Ayurveda nor Eastern medicine is based on a deep understanding/exploration of human beings: instead they rely on folklore and guesswork. Very dangerous after seeing the amazing progress vaccines, statins and so on have contributed to the world.

This article talks negatively about "statin" painting it as some sort of a bad word based on one potentially problematic drug: the number of lives saved by the simple Atorvastatin-like medicines is really astonishing. I really hope a nuanced discussion about important life-saving drugs can be had in forums such as this instead of quickly reverting to the tropes of Eastern magic medicines.