My mom has always been a firm believer in traditional Eastern medicine. Her father’s family produced a long line of renowned Chinese medicine practitioners, and she didn’t want this legacy to be left behind in the rubble of the Chinese Civil War. I grew up watching her carry this legacy; going to the Chinese medicine doctor weekly, getting acupuncture, not letting me have iced drinks, making herbal soups, etc. however, growing up in America and being constantly exposed to Western medicine and culture I always expressed my doubts to her.
My upbringing, engrossed in fields of scientific research and fact, imbued in me a distaste towards these unproven hocus pocus magic remedies. As a result of my constant exposure to medical podcasts, YouTube channels, and wellness magazines, I ended up developing a haughty know-it-all attitude towards holistic medicine, regurgitating the beliefs of the Western doctors I looked up to. Without a doubt, I was heavily influenced by the pervasive stigma against these treatments. The case studies of people dying terrible deaths from their magic crystals made a noticeable dent in my perception of these remedies. I was convinced that traditional Eastern medicine was nothing more than the peddling of charlatans.
This viewpoint changed, however, when I was introduced to Dr. Paul Offit’s book Do You Believe in Magic? The Sense and Nonsense of Alternative Medicine. Offit is often regarded as a critic of traditional medicine, sharing the perspective that “There’s no such thing as alternative medicine. There’s only medicine that works and medicine that doesn’t.”
This quote was probably meant to put down alternative medicine believers, but it had the opposite effect on me. The way I read the quote, rather than discrediting the effectiveness of alternative medicine, it leveled the playing field. In my mind there was no longer a wall separating stigmatized holistic traditional medicine and the shining golden pillar of Western medicine. Instead, there was a simple distinction: “Medicine that works and medicine that doesn’t.” And, to me, that is the essence of what medicine should be.
Currently, the biases held against traditional medicine hinder research advancements, limiting funding, publication opportunities, and these remedies’ integration into mainstream healthcare. For example, according to the editor in chief of the International Journal of Health Sciences, with acupuncture used for relief or prevention of pain, “preclinical studies have documented its effects, but none have been able to fully explain how acupuncture works within the framework of the western system of medicine.” While investment into alternative medicine research like this study may seem risky with very little payback, there is still merit to exploring this uncharted territory. Instead of writing off the effects of these alternative medicines that have been validated for thousands of years as simply a placebo, there may be something new we can discover if we simply become more open to accepting this research.
If medicine has shown high efficacy, then they may have potential and should be tested with double-blind randomized control studies. Do I personally believe that ginseng is an all-healing herb? Not really. But do I think we should ignore this possibility and write it off as the ramblings of an eccentric meditator? Definitely not.
Furthermore, at this point, alternative medicine has become so mainstream that it cannot be avoided anymore. According to a survey by the Pew Research Center, around half of Americans report having tried some form of alternative medicine, one-fifth say they have used it instead of conventional medicine, and roughly three in 10 have tried alternative medicine in conjunction with traditional treatments. Since many alternative remedies have recently found their way into the medical mainstream, there can no longer be two kinds of medicine – conventional and alternative. For the safety of consumers, we should only distinguish between medicine that has been adequately tested and medicine that has not; medicine that works and medicine that does not.
While I believe there should be deeper research into these medicines, I don’t believe this is a green light to use them without due caution, especially for curing diseases. For instance, “natural” cancer therapies have dramatically risen in popularity, but according to Dr . Skyler Johnson, those who opt for alternative therapies and decline conventional treatments are 2.5 times more likely to die within five years of being diagnosed. There are countless more cases of alternative medicine causing serious harm, simply another reason we need to focus more on peer-reviewed research, looking into these medical possibilities.
