Popular fallacies of alternative and complementary medicine

In the most recent issue of the magazine "Skeptic", Harriet Hall, also known as "SkepDoc" writes about three fallacies that you will encounter very frequently if you engage in discussion about alternative or complementary medicine. I will of course not plagiarize Hall's article, but what I am writing here is her article, filtered through my brain (I have written about related matters here and here)...

The fallacies that you will inevitably hear are the following three;
(1) It is "natural" (and hence better for you)
(2) It has been used for a long time (and if it didn't work people would have stopped using it)
(3) It works for me (or a friend or a spouse or a friend of a friend...)

So natural is good by default ehh? In this form the statement sound very categorical, and hence, put in this fomr, the claim can be falsified by a single unambiguous counter-example, and there are plenty... Curare, a compound extracted from nature (and thus a natural compound?) will paralyze you and hence is not recommended unless you need to be still during a surgery. There are many different, naturally growing mushrooms, which will kill people who try to eat it. There is also the fen-phen scandal where a product which was advertised as an alternative medicine was later shown to have severe side effects, despite the fact that the active ingredient was "natural".

Ok, sure, there are a few extreme counter-examples, but still, isn't natural products better in general? Well this is certainly debatable and I would not jump to verdict just yet, however, the evidence to date actually tells the opposite story, namely that natural is often worse than "synthetic" (or whatever you won't to call it). Plants which are sprayed with pesticides are protected from potential predators and therefore they can use all their energy to grow. Now that I think of it, it is rather similar to us humans, in peacetime we can spend our energy on building schools and being nice to children and that sort of stuff... Plants which are not sprayed are not given their protection and therefore they have to use allot of energy on chemical warfare (or the plant-equivalent thereof). Basically they produce chemicals which will make the predator (us), sick.

But don't synthetic pesticides make you sick too? In large quantities they might (just like natural pesticides). However, pesticide control is rather strict and the chemicals used are tested so that they are of minimal danger to us... I have written more about this issue here.

The second argument says that if something has been used for a long time then it is because it is good. Again there are many counterexamples. Some people persist in using astrology even though it has been falsified over and over again. Astrologers cannot do what they claim to be able to do, and add to that the fact that their quackery is based on an astronomical model that is very out-dated. Still people are still using it… If we would have strictly gone by the "old is good" rule we would still be drilling holes in people's head to relieve headaches (here you can buy your own drill kitJ), and what about all new techniques and medicines that are developed? Are we to discard them because they are new? The fact of the matter is that we cannot rely on tradition. The way to test whether a therapy is good or bad is to do a proper, scientific test where it is possible to isolate the effect of the medicine from other factors such as placebo.

The last argument (it works for me), is the one that I have most sympathy for. In my opinion we should have respect for individual differences as well as the power of people's belief to cure them or at the very least make them feel better. If someone starts taking extra vitamins to bolster their immune system and then they do not get sick for a long time then everything is great (as long as they don't overdose which could be dangerous). Similarly, when I tell people that I am studying the brain I am often told about some therapy or mental training that I have never heard about before but which has changed their life. In those cases I normally just say that I am happy for them. However, the mistake that is often made is to assume that just because you have experienced miracles everyone else will too. Even with most conventional medicines which have a proven effect that is greater than placebo, it doesn't work for everyone. The point is that what works for you might not work for other people. Most alternative therapies have not been tested (or they have been tested with no effect). The responsible policy if you ask me is that doctors advocate therapies which have a proven effect, but do not prevent people from spending their money on other therapies (as long as they are not harmful)…

Medical myths

Rational as I may be I sometimes engage in superstitious behaviors because of advice I have heard a long time ago and then stuck. For example, when I have a flu I usually overdose on C-vitamin. I believe that this piece of advice was made famous by Nobel prize winning scientist Linus Pauling who asserted that C-vitamin could cure the common cold. According to other sources that I trust more on this particular issue, such as Harriet Hall, also know as the "Skep Doc", a C-vitamin overdose will at best shorten the common cold for a day, and that is for people who do not eat a lot of C-vitamin in the first place (I am one of them why I may perhaps benefit somewhat), at worst a C-vitamin overdose can make you quite sick.

Two other behaviors which I sometimes engage in is drinking coca cola when my stomach is upset, and eating garlic when I have the common cold. Quick google searches did neither prove or disprove the efficiency of these two questionable treatments. Perhaps someone out there know something about it (in which case I hope you will share your knowledge).

What I really wanted to write about in this post is an article published in the British Medical Journal in which widespread myths, often reinforced by doctors were punctured. Some of these myths I believed in firmly until I saw the article. For example I have thought for a long time that reading in dim light is bad for your eyes. Now, becuase of this article, I know that there is no good evidence to back this claim. I had been wrong, but now I have changed my provisional world model to fit the new data (I stand corrected to put that more simply).

However, I am proud to say that I never bought into the myth that you only use 10% of your brain. Then again, I am a brain researcher so perhaps I cannot brag to much about this accomplishment. The idea, though popular in books such as Uri Geller's "Little Mind Power Book", is completely absurd. Would evolution allow 90% of our brain just sit there and do nothing, I think not. By the way, the claim can be easily disproved by sending a person into an FMRI and watch how the entire brain lights up which is an indication of energy expenditure (maybe with the exception of people like Uri Geller). Furthermore, in contrast to predictions of the "we only use 10% of our brain" hypothesis, removal of almost any part of the brain will result in clear symptoms,


The entire list of medical myths which are debunked in this nice article are as follows. Take a look at the article if you are not willing to take my word for it (there are nice references as well).

1. People should drink at least 2,5 litres of water per day
2. We only use 10% of our brains
3. Hair and fingernails continue to grow after death
4. Shaving hair causes it to grow back faster and be coarser
5. Reading in dim light ruins your eyesight
6. Eating turkey makes people especially drowsy
7. Mobile phones cause electromagnetic interference in hospitals