What the heck is Naturopathic Medicine?

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My grandmother practices naturopathic medicine. When I had salmonella, she said that all I needed was to have a dead man's hat put on my face and I'd be cured. So she went on a walk through the village trying to find a house where a man had recently died so she could borrow a hat.
 
My grandmother practices naturopathic medicine. When I had salmonella, she said that all I needed was to have a dead man's hat put on my face and I'd be cured. So she went on a walk through the village trying to find a house where a man had recently died so she could borrow a hat.

uhhh...lol.

N.D.'s who graduate from accredited universities in Ontario would probably disagree with that depiction of naturopathic medicine.

That being said, I'm not sure what I think of it, but I do know that I'd rather trust hard science either way...
 
sounds like a bunch of BS to me...kind of like astrology, chiropractics and geocentric s
 
uhhh...lol.

N.D.'s who graduate from accredited universities in Ontario would probably disagree with that depiction of naturopathic medicine.

That being said, I'm not sure what I think of it, but I do know that I'd rather trust hard science either way...
:laugh: Yeah, that post was written in a joking manner, of course, but my grandma is heavy into herbs and teas and what not, so I immediately had a flashback to my childhood when we'd go pick wild strawberries and dry the leaves to make tea that's supposed to help with stomach ailments.

But I personally think it's BS. Yeah, herbs and stuff can be good for you, but then pharmaceutical companies extract the compounds that ARE useful, amplify the dose, and you get a pill that has the same effect as 2 gallons of dried bluberries that'd take you weeks to consume. And with that pill, you'd actually be able to consult your physician and/or pharmacist about the interactions with any other drugs you might be taking, as opposed to some random herbal tea.

On another note, "accredited" doesn't mean much. They have accredited astrology schools.
 
:laugh: Yeah, that post was written in a joking manner, of course, but my grandma is heavy into herbs and teas and what not, so I immediately had a flashback to my childhood when we'd go pick wild strawberries and dry the leaves to make tea that's supposed to help with stomach ailments.

But I personally think it's BS. Yeah, herbs and stuff can be good for you, but then pharmaceutical companies extract the compounds that ARE useful, amplify the dose, and you get a pill that has the same effect as 2 gallons of dried bluberries that'd take you weeks to consume. And with that pill, you'd actually be able to consult your physician and/or pharmacist about the interactions with any other drugs you might be taking, as opposed to some random herbal tea.

On another note, "accredited" doesn't mean much. They have accredited astrology schools.

haha. we have similar experiences. My mother was huge into 'homeopathy' and naturopathy and whatnot. When she would come to me with the next new 'miracle cure', I would find myself repeatedly smacking my head against the wall, trying to figure out how I'd get her to see the logic of it!

Disclaimer:
I luv u anyway mom! 😛

And yes, I agree, accredited doesn't necessarily mean much. I have talked to a few NDs from an ontario school of naturopathy and they allayes my skepticism a bit. Alot of what those particular NDs do works in conjunction with allopathic medicine. They do things like ensure that the person has a healthy lifestyle, that they are not depressed...
 
My mother was huge into 'homeopathy' and naturopathy and whatnot.

Watch this video for a good laugh. http://youtube.com/watch?v=4ZEi8l7p56I It's a "doctor" of homeopathy explaining how it works. Its amazing that when someone throws out a few scientific words from highschool biology, people are convinced.

PS, did anyone see that late night infomercial with this guy named Kevin Trudeau. He was selling book called "Cures they don't want you to know about." Pretty funny stuff, yet surprisingly scary that the book was a NY Times bestseller.
 
Watch this video for a good laugh. http://youtube.com/watch?v=4ZEi8l7p56I It's a "doctor" of homeopathy explaining how it works. Its amazing that when someone throws out a few scientific words from highschool biology, people are convinced.

PS, did anyone see that late night infomercial with this guy named Kevin Trudeau. He was selling book called "Cures they don't want you to know about." Pretty funny stuff, yet surprisingly scary that the book was a NY Times bestseller.

God forbid that health insurance ever starts paying for this scheiße
 
Watch this video for a good laugh. http://youtube.com/watch?v=4ZEi8l7p56I It's a "doctor" of homeopathy explaining how it works. Its amazing that when someone throws out a few scientific words from highschool biology, people are convinced.

PS, did anyone see that late night infomercial with this guy named Kevin Trudeau. He was selling book called "Cures they don't want you to know about." Pretty funny stuff, yet surprisingly scary that the book was a NY Times bestseller.

You know...I'm laughing at this, but its not because I think its funny. It's because I feel so saddened that ignorance can pervade our society at such a basic level, that the only way to cover up the disappointment and horror I feel when watching videos like this is to laugh...

Absolutely horrifying.
 
It's a whole lot of crap. Panda's blog - www.pandabearmd.com has been making a lot of posts about this lately, and some people are seriously trying to argue that homeopathy is legitimate.
 
Some insurance will already pay for acupuncture. And Homeopathy is already paid for by most of the European state run health care systems. And the word "Allopath" which is correctly underlined in red by every spell check program when I type it, was invented by a homeopath. Looks like we're in for sugar pills and needles poked into "meridians".
 
I think a lot of people turn this way when they can't get results from allopathic medicine. For example, I know a person that had a child with CP. The child had numerous problems, of which all couldn't be solved by the physicians or some drugs weren't working. This person eventually started exploring alternative medicine to help her child. The ND told her to change the child's eating habits, gave her a lot of herbal pills, and some other things (some kind of wierd) to solve the ailments. She started seeing results (or at least thought she did) and now is much more trusting of NDs. Although I don't necessarily agree with this persons choice to explore alternative medicine, it's hard to argue with someone that "believes" something is working, especially when its a "natural" approach and much less costly. I personally will always trust science more than medicine with no scientific backing. Do I think ND's are all quackery? No, I think some of the things he suggested were great (good eating habits, vitamin supplements). However, people that are not trained to look for the evidence and are easily persuaded by emotion will usually tend to go that route faster.
 
Link/proof?

The NHS pays for it.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/li...ain.html?in_article_id=451908&in_page_id=1774

It's really big in france, too. This link to the "complete idiots guide to homeopathy" lists a few countries and their reimbursement protocols.

http://books.google.com/books?id=o0...ts=JZw49hkO5H&sig=HxyRGVx1B8qxkeO0xzcJD9pVBGs


Can't find the article, but about a year or so ago, a group of physicians in Hungry protested the government's decision to include homeopathic reimbursement in their health care system by staging a mass suicide by homeopathic remedies. They essentially took massive "overdoses" of homeopathic drugs derived (supposedly) from lethal substances such as arsenic and mercury. The bottles even had warnings on them that taking too much would potentially be lethal. Nothing happened, of course, because it's only sugar pills.

Anyway, this informative video describes how the homeopaths and naturopaths will eventually take over, even now, they are amassing their forces and replacing everyone with penguins! The theories presented here sound a lot like what was said in that homeopathy video posted earlier. It starts off with a short 2001 parody bit, then comes the part which proves how penguins will advance medical science.

[YOUTUBE]nAAoUATzctQ[/YOUTUBE]
 
It's quite upsetting to know that many of you will be future doctors and you have no tolerance of or curiosity about ways of looking at health and medicine different from those with which you were brough up.
 
It's quite upsetting to know that many of you will be future doctors and you have no tolerance of or curiosity about ways of looking at health and medicine different from those with which you were brough up.


Yes... people, stop being so ignorant and intolerant in your obsession in only finding things that "work" and are backed up by so-called "evidence." Besides, it's so much cooler to say that you practice radical natural "Oriental" medicine rather than boring stuffy old Western medicine. 🙄


Seriously... us Establishment medical types constantly offer homeopaths/chiros/ naturopaths/etc etc the chance to subject their practices to the rigors of peer-reviewed, prospective clinical trials. Not surprisingly, few have put their "naturalistic" "holistic" methods up for a Pepsi challenge against real medicine.

(The one exception is acupuncture, for which some pilot studies demonstrate small yet significant benefits for some pain/stress conditions. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/e...ez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum )
 
It's quite upsetting to know that many of you will be future doctors and you have no tolerance of or curiosity about ways of looking at health and medicine different from those with which you were brough up.


I'm sorry that upsets you...are you serious? Tolerance and curiosity are noble virtues when you are on SDN. When you have a patient in front of you, you might want to consider words such as "evidence" and "effective".

Believe me, when a treatment is shown to be effective, there will be plenty of folks willing to climb aboard. Of course, then these treatments cease being "alternative" and are no longer trendy anti-establishment treatments provided by the mav's of the health care world.

Once a treatment passes the same rigorous standards other therapies must endure, people suddenly become more curious and tolerant - in that order.
 
It's quite upsetting to know that many of you will be future doctors and you have no tolerance of or curiosity about ways of looking at health and medicine different from those with which you were brough up.

I agree that we should be more open to other ways at looking at health and medicine, but only where we think it will help our patients. If a naturopathic doctor can help my patient live a more healthy lifestyle, then great! However, we also must be prepared to explain to our patients the difference between evidence based treatment and treatment without scientific evidence to back it up. As with everything, we must take the approach of "how will this help my patient?".
 
It's quite upsetting to know that many of you will be future doctors and you have no tolerance of or curiosity about ways of looking at health and medicine different from those with which you were brough up.

I have absolutely no problem with testing out new therapies and new remedies! Absolutely none at all. In fact there are some remedies used by so called 'natural' medicine enthusiasts that have some efficacy. However, I want to see evidence. I don't want a testimonial from your best friend, I don't want pseudo-science wishy washy BS. If you think a remedy works you have to be able to SHOW that it works in a controlled study. If you can't do that, forget about it.
Just because I am not willing to listen to the nonsense side of 'natural' therapies does not mean that I am not willing to listen at all. I just want what is coming out of a person's mouth to MAKE SENSE.

I agree that we should be more open to other ways at looking at health and medicine, but only where we think it will help our patients. If a naturopathic doctor can help my patient live a more healthy lifestyle, then great! However, we also must be prepared to explain to our patients the difference between evidence based treatment and treatment without scientific evidence to back it up. As with everything, we must take the approach of "how will this help my patient?".

That's a great way of looking at it. In my opinion this burgeoning pseudo-science of homeopathy and naturopathy is a reaction to the side of allopathic medicine that likes to 'medicate and forget about it'. I think that as a whole, the perception is that allopaths tend overmedicate. That's why I really would like to introduce an aspect of my practice that helps patients to enact lasting life-style changes. I think that 'whole-person' medicine is not practiced enough. Sure you can cure the disease, but if you don't attempt to help your patients understand the changes they can make in their lifestyles to live longer healthier lives, then you are doing them a great disservice.
 
My grandmother practices naturopathic medicine. When I had salmonella, she said that all I needed was to have a dead man's hat put on my face and I'd be cured. So she went on a walk through the village trying to find a house where a man had recently died so she could borrow a hat.

sounds like a witch doctor.
 
sounds like a witch doctor.

I think that was meant to be a joke. I hope.

But hey, my grandma has her share of natural remedies, and I don't scoff at them. They've been used on me countless times while growing up, and they certainly always made me feel better (even if they don't make the virus go away). I think part of the appeal of naturistic medicine is its personalized, comforting approach.

As allopathic medicine becomes more crowded and depersonalized, patients are drawn to any approach that claims to be more humane.
 
Yes... people, stop being so ignorant and intolerant in your obsession in only finding things that "work" and are backed up by so-called "evidence." Besides, it's so much cooler to say that you practice radical natural "Oriental" medicine rather than boring stuffy old Western medicine. 🙄


Seriously... us Establishment medical types constantly offer homeopaths/chiros/ naturopaths/etc etc the chance to subject their practices to the rigors of peer-reviewed, prospective clinical trials. Not surprisingly, few have put their "naturalistic" "holistic" methods up for a Pepsi challenge against real medicine.

(The one exception is acupuncture, for which some pilot studies demonstrate small yet significant benefits for some pain/stress conditions. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/e...ez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum )

there is very little funding for hmoepathic and naturapthic medicine. Most allopathic medicne is heavily funded and thats why there is so much studying being done and hence "crdibility". (note i'm not saying that homeo and naturo actually works, but you can't really say it doesn't sicne there hasn't been NEARLY enough funded studies on it)
 
Watch this video for a good laugh. http://youtube.com/watch?v=4ZEi8l7p56I It's a "doctor" of homeopathy explaining how it works. Its amazing that when someone throws out a few scientific words from highschool biology, people are convinced.

PS, did anyone see that late night infomercial with this guy named Kevin Trudeau. He was selling book called "Cures they don't want you to know about." Pretty funny stuff, yet surprisingly scary that the book was a NY Times bestseller.


Are you kidding? OMG this is I don't know what it is. its total BS...
 
there is very little funding for hmoepathic and naturapthic medicine. Most allopathic medicne is heavily funded and thats why there is so much studying being done and hence "crdibility". (note i'm not saying that homeo and naturo actually works, but you can't really say it doesn't sicne there hasn't been NEARLY enough funded studies on it)


The companies are pretty well-funded by unsuspecting consumers who spend billions on supplements, herbal remedies, acupuncture, chiropractic etc. If they (the companies) would spend some more of their cash on clinica research vs market research, they may have more firm ground to stand on.

I agree wholeheartedly with Baylor's earlier post. We (legitimate medical profession) aren't helping ourselves as patients grow more disenfranchised with the way we treat them. They become easy prey for niche providers who purport to "care" more for them than the mean ol' doctor.

I think it's important not to shut everything out, BUT I think it's even more important we don't let it all in. We still have a lot to learn about these new therapies. Until rigorous study and scrutiny (on par with mainstream medicine) is done, it is irresponsible for us to advise patients to pursue them.

You, of course, can recommend them. However, as you will be doing so without the support of a body of evidence, you risk placing yourself among the other faith healers of the world.
 
Doing a google search I found the principles of naturopathic medicine : http://www.naturodoc.com/cardinal/naturopathy/nat_principles.htm

Naturopaths use alot of "natural" remedies. Some have been subjected to peer reviewed research. For example , Policosanol is one thing they recommend for arteriosclerosis and hyperlipidemia. A search at PubMed reveals 128 articles on the subject including ; http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/e...ez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum

and comparing it to atorvastatin : http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/e...ez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum

Reviewing all the studies shows a mixed bag - but a fair amount of research has been done on some of their ideas.

However my biggest complaint is their scope of licensure in some states. In Arizona they can prescribe drugs ( morphine, etc), do minor surgery (pretty much anything as long as they do not penetrate the thoracic body cavity), so many procedures such as casting fractures, deliver babies, adjust the spine like an osteopath or chiropractor, to acupuncture, as well as natural therapies like plant medicines and homeopathy. In 4 years, with no residency they can do anything a family medicine MD can do, a chiropractor can do, an acupuncturist can do etc. It takes 4 years (plus a residency for medicine) for a normal person to be able to learn any one of these things - yet these supermen can do all of it in 4 years. In Arizona too, where an insurance equality law exists, they have to paid at the exact same level as an MD for any service that an MD could do (for any insurance issued in the state of Arizona, not including Medicare). I just find it unbelievable that they can actually do more than the average MD can in some states (some states an MD could not recommend homeopathy if they wanted to - but of course why would they want to - but still).
 
there is very little funding for hmoepathic and naturapthic medicine. Most allopathic medicne is heavily funded and thats why there is so much studying being done and hence "crdibility". (note i'm not saying that homeo and naturo actually works, but you can't really say it doesn't sicne there hasn't been NEARLY enough funded studies on it)

Who should do this funding? The government? Actually the NIH CAM division is currently wasting tons of money studying a lot of this kind of useless stuff. But if a person makes a claim and creates a product for it, it is on them to prove that it works. You can't just say, "hey, this herbal stuff I created cures cancer, go study it!" Nothing works that way. If a drug company creates a pill, they have to prove it works. They don't start selling it and then complain that there's no funding to prove anything. This is a ploy. So-called alternative medicine makes plenty of money. They don't study it because it would invariably limit their market. But they complain that it's not being studied and cry poverty and oppression if anyone suggests they fund it. But really, why would they want to study it? Without a study, they can continue to claim it as a cure-all and people will buy it in droves. With the study, it will be proven limitedly effective or possibly completely bogus or even harmful. Why would they do that? When the NIH concludes that something like [FONT=sans-serif, helvetica, Times New Roman, Times]Echinacea .or [FONT=sans-serif, helvetica, Times New Roman, Times] Ginkgo biloba. is completely useless, no one listens anyway. They claim the studies are flawed and continue selling them as they did before. Assuming, for the sake of argument, that those acupuncture studies are correct, do you really think that acupuncturists are going to say, "well, lets remain evidence based and only treat symptoms that have evidence." Do you really think they are going to limit their practices? Just talk to one. They claim it is effective for all kinds of stuff that no one has studied.


How do you know eating live aphids won't cure your flu? Have you studied it? I implore you not to reject this out of hand. Try it, it worked for my cousin. Perhaps the NIH will get around to running a trial someday with your tax money.
 
That homeopathy video was.....something. She made it sound like Einstein endorsed homeopathy.

I cannot say I knew much about homeopathy prior to watching that video - but I had heard somewhere that homeopathy was the idea of "like treating like" - kind of like a vaccination in which you use trace amounts of inactivated Rubella to prevent Rubella. I am just making up this example, but I thought homeopathy was where they used small amounts of something like caffeine for example to treat insomnia or something - I just made that example up, I have no idea if that is right or not. Or used trace amounts of syrup of Ipecac to stop vomiting - again I am just trying to imagine a situation of like treats like, but I thought it was something like that.
 
Ha! That was a well-spent 8 minutes of my life. Actually, if you go to www.naturopathyonline.com, you can "Find a Physician". Is that legal?

I clicked around there. This idea about cold wet socks sounds awful :


clear.gif
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]
WARMING SOCKS TREATMENT
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Return to Hydrotherapy.[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif].
.​
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Warming socks are a simple, yet effective way to give quick relief to many minor illnesses such as colds, flus, sinusitis, sore throats, and insomnia.

The warming socks treatment can be repeated for three nights in a row.



.​


[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Procedure:.

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]1. If your feet are cool or cold it is important to warm them first. This is very important as the treatment will not be as effective and could be harmful. Warming can be accomplished by soaking in warm water for 5-10 minutes.

2. Next, take a pair of thin cotton socks and thoroughly wet all but the ankle portion with cold water.

3. Place the cold wet socks on your feet. Cover with thick wool socks. Go to bed with plenty of blankets. Avoid getting chilled.

You will find that the wet cotton socks will be dry in the morning. Many patients report that they sleep much better during the treatment.
.
 
It's a whole lot of crap. Panda's blog - www.pandabearmd.com has been making a lot of posts about this lately, and some people are seriously trying to argue that homeopathy is legitimate.

I find Panda as entertaining as the next guy but I think it weird how many people on SDN reference his blog like it's UpToDate. He's just one guy with an opinion. One cranky guy indeed. 😕
 
That homeopathy video was.....something. She made it sound like Einstein endorsed homeopathy.

I cannot say I knew much about homeopathy prior to watching that video - but I had heard somewhere that homeopathy was the idea of "like treating like" - kind of like a vaccination in which you use trace amounts of inactivated Rubella to prevent Rubella. I am just making up this example, but I thought homeopathy was where they used small amounts of something like caffeine for example to treat insomnia or something - I just made that example up, I have no idea if that is right or not. Or used trace amounts of syrup of Ipecac to stop vomiting - again I am just trying to imagine a situation of like treats like, but I thought it was something like that.

Try this site for an overview of the beliefs of homeopathy:

http://www.quackwatch.com/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/homeo.html


Edit: PT2MD! Dude! You beat me to it!
 
Yeah, herbs and stuff can be good for you, but then pharmaceutical companies extract the compounds that ARE useful, amplify the dose, and you get a pill that has the same effect as 2 gallons of dried bluberries that'd take you weeks to consume.

um, no. pharmaceutical companies IMITATE the natural compounds with desirable properties (Taxol, synthetic imitations of Mucuna Pruriens). in all these cases that REAL thing is more effective than the synthesized version because of all those apparently "useless" compounds along with it.

see, this is my problem with "modern" Western medicine. 👎 they think they know everything. and we really don't know (cancer survival rates have not budged since 1950).
 
um, no. pharmaceutical companies IMITATE the natural compounds with desirable properties (Taxol, synthetic imitations of Mucuna Pruriens). in all these cases that REAL thing is more effective than the synthesized version because of all those apparently "useless" compounds along with it.

see, this is my problem with "modern" Western medicine. 👎 they think they know everything. and we really don't know (cancer survival rates have not budged since 1950).

Hahahahaha :laugh:


oh wait.... you were being serious, weren't you. 🙄
 
and we really don't know (cancer survival rates have not budged since 1950).

You think sCAM therapies could have done better over the same period of time? I'd ask you to cite research in support of your statement, but then we know where that would lead us...
 
um, no. pharmaceutical companies IMITATE the natural compounds with desirable properties (Taxol, synthetic imitations of Mucuna Pruriens). in all these cases that REAL thing is more effective than the synthesized version because of all those apparently "useless" compounds along with it.

see, this is my problem with "modern" Western medicine. 👎 they think they know everything. and we really don't know (cancer survival rates have not budged since 1950).

Um, have you been reading the news? Cancer survival rates are currently INCREASING. People are living longer and recovering more often.

http://www.mayoclinic.org/news2006-mchi/3733.html
 
see, this is my problem with "modern" Western medicine. 👎 they think they know everything. and we really don't know (cancer survival rates have not budged since 1950).
That's not true, I just did a search on cancer survival rates and the top 3 documents (didn't look past) all showed improvement in survival rates since the 70s.
 
I find Panda as entertaining as the next guy but I think it weird how many people on SDN reference his blog like it's UpToDate. He's just one guy with an opinion. One cranky guy indeed. 😕

I agree. I wouldn't hold his opinion (I reiterate the word *opinion*) as the Bible of the medical field.
 
This is a little off-topic but I find it funny when "All Natural Ingredients" are advertised for foods. Feces is all natural. Chlamydia is all natural. Mercury is all natural. Everything comes from "nature" at some point.
 
You see, this is the kind of crap they like to pull. "Cancer death rates haven't budged in X many years" when that's simply not true. But for some people a "widely believed fact" is better than a truth.
 
um, no. pharmaceutical companies IMITATE the natural compounds with desirable properties (Taxol, synthetic imitations of Mucuna Pruriens). in all these cases that REAL thing is more effective than the synthesized version because of all those apparently "useless" compounds along with it.

I'm not sure what you mean by "imitate". A molecule is a molecule. Either you've made the correct molecule, or you have not. In drug development the natural compounds are often just a starting point. Analogs are then created that are much more specific/targeted than anything found in nature.

see, this is my problem with "modern" Western medicine. 👎 they think they know everything. and we really don't know (cancer survival rates have not budged since 1950).

If "western medicine" truly believed that it knows everything, then why are we spending billions on research? And survival rates on certain cancers, such as colorectal, prostate, and breast have improved as recently as the last 10 years or so.
 
see, this is my problem with "modern" Western medicine. 👎 they think they know everything. and we really don't know (cancer survival rates have not budged since 1950).



Perhaps he was referring to European cancer survival rates, which are much lower than the US for pretty much every kind of cancer. But this is not due to "Western medicine", rather do to poor access because of their socialist health care systems. This link has a nice graph that compares western countries' cancer survival rates.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/08/21/ncancer121.xml
 
Not trying to upset anyone. I believe that cancer survival rates have increased in the US due to better treatment. However, doesn't some of this have to do with earlier diagnoses in patients due to better technology. From what I have learned in some cases people survive for just as long as they normally would, but are said to have survived longer just because survival time is usually only taken from the date of diagnosis and not from when the cancer first developed in the patient's body.
 
Not trying to upset anyone. I believe that cancer survival rates have increased in the US due to better treatment. However, doesn't some of this have to do with earlier diagnoses in patients due to better technology. From what I have learned in some cases people survive for just as long as they normally would, but are said to have survived longer just because survival time is usually only taken from the date of diagnosis and not from when the cancer first developed in the patient's body.

So you're saying that survival rates have increased because they catch the cancers earlier, thereby moving the diagnosis dates earlier to a time when the patient is healthier and better able to combat it? Sure it would improve 5 year survival rates if cancers are caught earlier when the patient is healthier and the cancer is smaller, even if the patient was ultimately killed by the cancer in the same absolute time frame as when he is diagnosed later, but how is that a bad thing? Instead of saying that US data is skewed higher because they catch it earlier, making 5 year survival rates better by moving the starting point back to a healthier time in patient history, I would argue that European cancer survival rates are skewed lower because they are less able to aggressively target cancers in earlier stages when they are easier to treat and recover from.
 
I just finished defending my thesis on colorectal cancer, and I can say that the 5-yr survival rate for colorectal cancer is 5-7%. Think about that. That is NOTHING. After decades of research - you have a 95% chance of dying from colorectal cancer (you could almost say that with statistical significance). It's easy to say survival rate increased 500% when you started out at 1% survival...

I'm as much for pharmacological treatment as the next guy, but we shouldn't pretend like we know everything there is to know. Drugs have LOTS of side effects that we don't really know about, and oftentimes, using extractions of natural herbs will reduce those extraneous reactions (while providing the active drug, albeit at a potentially lower dose).
 
I just finished defending my thesis on colorectal cancer, and I can say that the 5-yr survival rate for colorectal cancer is 5-7%. Think about that. That is NOTHING. After decades of research - you have a 95% chance of dying from colorectal cancer (you could almost say that with statistical significance). It's easy to say survival rate increased 500% when you started out at 1% survival...

I'm as much for pharmacological treatment as the next guy, but we shouldn't pretend like we know everything there is to know. Drugs have LOTS of side effects that we don't really know about, and oftentimes, using extractions of natural herbs will reduce those extraneous reactions (while providing the active drug, albeit at a potentially lower dose).
Or higher. That's the danger of herbal meds, there's no consistency. Nor is there any need to prove efficacy under the FDA as they're considere food/supplements. I'm all for looking into other cures for diseases, but they need jump through the same hoops as other medical treatments if they are to be considered as such.
 
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