Serveral years ago, 2002 to be precise, we were told HRT was dangerous and that no woman should be taking it. As a natural therapist this news did not surprise me. It’s not rocket science, if you put an un-natural substance into your body to block a natural process, then there is going to be some sort of side effects. Now in 2009 according to Choice Magazine the research was wrong and it’s all okay again. What’s more Choice has pronounced that natural remedies are no better than placebo. In scientific circles placebo is a dirty word and implies that the substance is useless and of no value.
Can we really trust this change of heart? Can we really trust the placebo pronouncement from a system that keeps changing it’s mind? Perhaps scientific research is not all that it’s cracked up to be!
Think about it for a minute, today your partner tells you I love you, tomorrow he/she has changed their mind and then a couple of months later he/she loves you again………..can you trust this person? The answer would be no. Yet we are expected to swallow and accept constantly changing “truths” and evidence from the scientific community. What’s more if all of this was all happening in a court of law, constant changing of truth would be viewed very dimly indeed…………I think they call it purgery!
I believe that most scientists want to search for the truth and are constantly seeking to understand the truth of things, but when money becomes involved there are lots of vested interests that skew the research outcomes. Besides that who said that the current research methods are absolute and infallible? That’s a bit like saying that something is true just because it is written in a book.
Even Choice Magazine contradicts themselves. In the “In Brief” box they state that “of the alternatives to HRT, Black cohosh appears to be the most effective option” yet later they dismiss black cohosh as being not much better than placebo.
The following is an exert from my January 2009 newsletter:
“Did you know that Randomised Controlled Trials (RTC) and particularly the randomised placebo controlled double blind trial was originally developed to trial new pharmaceutical products? Therefore the methodology of the trials were very particular in terms of isolating one substance and its effects. They were never designed for complex substances. Yet the RPCDBT is considered the gold standard for validation of the therapeutic effect of complex substances and therapies as are used in Complimentary Medicine.
It is therefore no surprise when medical researches say that there is no supportative evidence for Complementary Medicine”
One good point made by Choice Magazine is that trials conducted in China are desiged to assess the effectiveness of traditional herbs are very different. The approach is to assess individual responses to herbal formulations that are uniquely prescribed for the individual rather than isolated substances that are expected to suit everyone. May be one day western clinical trials will be designed that are able to measure the effectiveness of the complex medicines of natural therapies. In the mean time I guess they will keep trying to put a round peg into a square hole. Only problem with that is that they keep making out that the round peg has a problem.
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