[cdf]

I am biased as an ethnic Chinese, but I feel modern medicine is afraid that it's approach, the sum of parts empiricism may be incomplete, in that we dont understand all the parts yet.

The human body is not just human DNA organs working together, but also an ecosystem with myriad bacteria, and we are still in infancy when it comes to understanding the bacteria.

TCM seeks a black box metaphorical approach, which sounds like quackery but I do think it is capable of addressing _some_ blindspots in modern medicine, eg why some medication would work on a yin body but not a yang body... the difference is in the bacterial ecosystem.

That said, I see TCM (and other traditional approaches) as a last resort when modern medicine fails, and I certainly agree the approach is incapable of resisting shamanic beliefs.

[genman]

Why not apply scientific method to Traditional Chinese Medicine and use double blinded placebo controlled trials to test its validity? In the end also modern medicine is using exactly this method and can treat substances using the black box method.

[FooBarWidget]

They are doing that — in China, in Chinese papers. Not everything has been researched yet, but there's quite a lot of active research going on.

[0xDEAFBEAD]

This is already being done and in many cases the RCTs show that the TCM treatments are effective.

[soco]

There's a whole article about exactly this and it can be accessed by clicking the title of this page. And guess what it's saying.

[0xDEAFBEAD]

Do you know what "RCT" stands for?

[cdf]

The fundamental problem is TCM acknowledges individual differences that cannot be measured or even dont exist in the eyes of modern medicine, eg identical twins with different diets will have different responses to the same treatment, so going double blind will mean the results will be inconsistent.

[IAmBroom]

Ah, the old "if you try to test for results, the results won't show up" problem.

Ghosts and ESP suffer from the same issue.

[BigGreenJorts]

This is why sample size is important tho. With a large enough sample size, you can ignore differences in individuals bc the trend of the control will be smaller than the experiment (or not)

[cdf]

That's the fundamental problem right there.

You have no problem accepting eg a treatment can only work on a man, but not on a woman. But modern medicine have no concept of a yin body type and a yang body type, which may or may not be male and female.

The whole idea of TCM is balance, and it varies with the individual, unlike modern medicine, where there is a right and wrong answer to everything. Bacteria bad, antibiotic good. Fever bad, paracetamol good.

Take fecal transplants for example. I dont think it is well understood how it works or it will be a pill by now, and is a last resort when all else fails. And it doesnt involve killing all the bacteria, but restoring balance to the bacterial ecosystem.

[genman]

Is this yin, yang somehow measurable? If not then there is a fundamental problem.

Also Western medicine is very well aware of side effects, it's actually one of the fundamental concepts. For example it knows that taking Paracetamol is good against pain, but increases risk to the liver, especially when taken with alcohol. It's also very well aware of causes of fever and doesn't recommend lowering it for the sake of it, only from certain dangerous level. It also knows that taking antibiotics affects gut bacteria, so it's often recommended to take also probiotics. It knows that some medicine could affect women differently, especially when they are pregnant or are breast feeding. The list goes on, it's never black and white.

[cdf]

Most religions have the concept of ritual cleanliness for thousands of years, esp touching dead bodies make them unclean and yet at some point, doctors have to be reminded to wash their hands after performing autopsy.

How did we get there? Because "modern science" rejects superstitious beliefs and ritual cleanliness is superstition. Right?

I chose antibiotics and paracetamol as examples precisely because it is well understood _now_ . You go back 50 years before we understand gut bacteria or the difference between male and female bodies and suggest the same, the then modern medicine will laugh at you and call you a witch doctor.

[adgjlsfhk1]

you could design a study to do any of this. it isn't done because a proof of failure kills sales more than a lack of proof.

[FooBarWidget]

I am also Chinese and this is exactly how I feel. The experience of going to a doctor with minor ailments, only to be sent away with the attitude of "take some paracetamol and come back when symptoms worsen" is maddening. In the mean time TCM practitioners have answers that often work for these kinds of things.

In people's zeal to point out TCM's problems (due to its pre-modern scientific roots), I feel like they're also throwing away its potential. Skepticism shouldn't be about wholesale dismissal (which is just intellectual laziness masked as rightenousness) but about improving outcomes.

[cyberax]

> In the mean time TCM practitioners have answers that often work for these kinds of things.

You can also take some homeopathic remedies and do a couple of chiropractic adjustments meanwhile. I've also heard that some Christian Science practitioners work wonders if you give them all your Earthly belongings.

The ability to say: "It's likely a viral disease. Wait and see if it worsens" - is a pretty powerful point _in_ _favor_ of modern medicine.

[FooBarWidget]

And just who here is rejecting the viral model? Saying "other practitions have stuff worth exploring" is not at all the same as "the regular western medicine model should be abandoned". Why do you feel threathened? This makes no sense to me.

Yet the inverse is not true: the prevailing attitude on HN here is not "western medicine is here to stay as staple but other practitions can add value on top", but to dismiss other practitions wholesale based on their inability to conform to intellectual standards, regardless of measurable outcomes. This is "my god is the only god" all over again.

A chiropractor was able to heal my back problems where months of going to a physiotherapist failed to do so. Aren't we supposed to stay humble and curious for new avenues of scientific exploration, rather than dismissing everything we don't understand?

[0xDEAFBEAD]

Chiropractic was invented in the the US, in the 1800s, by a spiritualist. It's not TCM, it's TAM (Traditional American Medicine) :-P

[IAmBroom]

Yes, chiropractic has gotten an overly negative internet image.

It truly is mostly quackery (varying by the practitioner, and how much kool-aid they've drunk), but there are problems that it can fix.

I had pain going up and down steps for over a year; one THUNK! adjustment by a chiro, and that pain was gone forever (or at least the last 30 years).

That being said: chiros can't fix most of the things its most ardent supporters claim... who are quacks, and very vocal, unfortunately.

[cdf]

The unspoken part is the human mind is a big part in health, and treatments that does nothing medically but fools the human mind can work wonders too. There is a lot we do not understand yet, just as blood letting was conventional medicine a few hundred years ago, and it isnt even entirely wrong since we still use leeches and some treatment, I think we have much to gain if we are not hasty in dismissing alternative approaches.

That said, I fully agree homeopathy and chiropractherapy are full of bullshit and potentially dangerous. TCM, as practiced in a certified scholarly environment in Asia, expects the practitioner to have a considerable basic knowledge in modern medicine too, and is humble enough to acknowledge TCM cannot solve everything. A good TCM practitioner will refer you to a GP when they know modern medicine is more effective.

[dheera]

This is also how I feel as well.

There are symptoms and idiopathic conditions I've had that multiple specialists at top-tier hospitals were unable to diagnose, but mostly because they were too-narrowminded in their approach (blood tests, etc.) to see the big picture.