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Benefits of complementary and alternative medicine
Benefits of complementary and alternative medicine
Benefits of complementary and alternative medicine
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Recommended: Benefits of complementary and alternative medicine
Alternative medicine has long been scoffed at by the mainstream medical community. People who use it, or at least believe in its benefits, are termed “wacky.” Physicians even go so far as to tell curious patients not to bother with the alternative “insanity,” claiming only hippies and desperados use it. Doctors are trusted daily with the lives of their patients, and if a doctor insists on a specific treatment, and advises against another, patients will be more than likely to do as they are told. But if a natural therapy has a positive effect on disease, then why not use it? Why not keep patients informed on all fronts: offer the details on every treatment that has shown promise, whether it pads the pharmaceutical companies’ pockets or not.
Many tests and laboratory experiments on alternative medicines based on animal venom and plants have shown promise. Some have even prevented the spread of cancer cells, or become pain killers. And that is not even the best part: natural therapies are not loaded with the chemicals so common in mainstream medicine, thus making them safer. Yet these results are stifled by the medical community, which is not only unethical, but it is potentially dangerous for those battling disease. In some cases, the pharmaceutical owned medical community goes so far as to sue or debase physicians who practice alternative medicine, thereby keeping their clientele safely in their grasp. Lives are being played with and new ideas are being stifled: in the United States. Other nations- European, Asian, and Australian- are practicing and discovering the merits of alternative medicine. Yet the nation so proud of its freedoms is shutting down research on treatments which may save lives- all for money. Because nat...
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... to discover if there is an unlikely downside, but also to discover if one venom may be used to combat multiple ailments.
Plants contain minerals and vitamins that have also been proven to do the same. It may sound like a “miracle cure,” almost too good to be true, and oftentimes, it is. Alternative therapies are safer: fewer, if any, chemicals are involved in them. Radiation, for example, is a mainstream cancer “fighter,” yet it is poisonous, so is it not insanity to treat a weakened patient with it? Whether a treatment is popular with mainstream medicine practitioners or not should not matter. What is best for the patient’s wellbeing should be the deciding factor. And if ingesting inexpensive plants or taking a vial of venom is the answer, then the pharmaceutical companies should not interfere, as more than money is at stake in the battle against disease.
Ross defines and differentiates between the terms healing and curing. She recognizes the fact that healing and curing are very intertwined and it can be hard to distinguish between the two terms. There are differences between the definitions in scholarly and general settings. She references an ethnographic study of healing versus curing conducted by anthropologists Andrew Strathern and Pamela Stewart in 1999 with native groups in New Guinea. The results of the study looked at how energy used by the different types of tribal healers to either cure or heal a patient. Eastern medicine focuses on how energy interacts with the healing process in connection within the mind. Whereas Western medicine is focused on the mind and the body separately. The practice is considered a holistic approach to finding cures. According to Ross (2013), healing is more a therapeutic process targeting the whole body and specific illness including emotional, mental, and social aspects in the treatment. The act of curing is a pragmatic approach that focuses on removing the problem all together. The life experiences of a person playing into how well certain treatments will heal or cure what is ailing them. These aspects can not be defined with textbook definitions. The interaction that the healing process has with energy is a variable in the success rate. Uncontrolled emotions can have a greater impact on the inside the body than a person can realize. The exploration of energy interaction within the body can be used for greater analysis of health care systems. (21-22). Are Western healthcare facilities purposely “curing” patients just so that they return are few years later? Is Western Medicine built upon a negative feedback loop? The terminolo...
Thesis: There needs to be regulation of herbal remedies and dietary supplements from an outside source that is not interested in the monetary benefits
Nowadays, complementary alternative medicine is very popular in the United States. It is widely used by adults and children. National health statistic reports done in 2007 shows that 38.3% of adults and 11.8% of children use some form of alternative medicine (U. S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2016). But why is this happening? Why is it becoming so popular? Why are more people turning to it? Many times, this is because conventional medicine has not work and they want to try an alternative. That is the case of the author of this paper.
For many centuries, humanity has been on an eternal quest for cures and treatments for many chronic conditions. At the present time, conventional medicine is mostly performed by doctors and other health care professionals, with the extensive use of pharmaceutical drugs, surgery or radiation treatments for disease treatment. Conversely, even though not as popular, complementary and alternative medicine and treatment options are slowly gaining popularity and becoming an addition to traditional medicine.
Homeopathy is natural form of medicine that has been around for over two hundred years. Homeopathy works by treating a symptom with the “principle of similars”.“We should imitate nature...a drug with power to provoke another, artificial disease, as similar as possible, and the former disease will be cured: fight like with like.” (Hahnerman) Homeopathy works by treating a symptom with the “principle of similars”. This means to give a substance that will elicit a healing response. Over the past couple of years, it has been discovered that conventional medicine has serious side effects which can harm a person’s health. Homeopathy was found to be a solution to this problem and can have many positive effects on a person’s health and their lifestyle.
Easthope, G., 2005. Alternative Medicines. In: Germov, ed. An Introduction to Health Sociology. Melbourne :Oxford University Press, pp. 332-348.
These alternative treatments include acupuncture, meditation, and therapy among many others.There is growing evidence that the desire for alternative medicine is expanding because people undergoing procedures in today’s health care system has had unmet needs as well as feelings of being uncared for (Acari & Flanagan, 2015). Alternative medicine is able to provide patients with treatments that provide relief for hard to cure problems such as back pain, neck pain, and arthritis. Many of these alternative treatments have been shown to be successful for various problems. The use of complimentary and alternative medicine as well as the open ended communication that holistic nursing provides is gaining popularity from patients who are fed up with traditional care and hospital
Millions of animals are used to test consumer products, but they also become victims to experiments for medical research. In The Ethics of Animal Research (2007) both authors state that there have been many medical advances with the development of medicines and treatments as a result of research conducted on animals (para 1). These medical i...
Our advancements in science have enabled us to create other things that we can test on, instead of harming innocent animals. Since experiments are cruel and expensive, “the world’s most forward-thinking scientists have moved on to develop and use methods for studying
There are strong arguments for the use of alternatives. Despite the lack of scientific proof, there is a lot of anecdotal evidence to suggest that these therapies work. These treatments are not dangerous and offer very little to no side effects. One of the strongest arguments for the effectiveness of alternative therapies is conventional medicine is available without charge, many people are prepared to pay considerable sums for alternatives. If they were totally unhelpful, it would be surprising if this continued.
Modern medicine has eradicated diseases such as smallpox, polio, and malaria in many parts of the world, preventing many deaths. Yet, with many emerging alternative practices, the American society is slowly becoming more reliant on alternative medicines with little scientific evidence. However, one alternative practice, homeopathy, is slowly becoming accepted by many physicians. Now that homeopathy is sanctioned by the Federal Drug Administration (FDA), many physicians and scientists believe that this practice is as effective as allopathic medicine. Even with the acceptance by the FDA, there are still low amounts of prescription medicine based on homeopathy and many homeopathic remedies are not used in hospitals. This creates a question: If many physicians suggest the use of homeopathic medicines, does that actually mean it works; can they be equivalently compared to allopathic medicines? Although homeopathic medicines are considered as alternative medicines, approval by the Federal Drug Administration allows homeopathic medicine to be used in equivalence to over-the-counter allopathic medicine.
In summary, sick people should prefer alternative medicine instead of modern medicine. In this way, they all protect themselves from all the side effects of drugs and chemicals; they treat all body not only the disease and make their psychologies better. Also, traditional medicine has applied on patients centuries ago so it is easy for people to trust this method. Modern medicine has improved now but it will not as useful and efficient as alternative medicine.
Dietary Supplements: What (2013) founds that dietary supplement may be perceived as a harmless stimulant to health. Some of dietary supplement products have demonstrated benefits, many of which we cannot say the same. Unlike what happens with curative drugs, the FDA does not evaluate the safety and effectiveness of dietary supplements, and depending on current medications or health problems we have; "natural" supplements can have risky health effects. This lack of regulation can lead to wildly inconsistent quality and there are no guarantees that the ingredient touted on the label of a bottle will be in the supplement at all. According to federal law, dietary supplements cannot be promoted as effective for the treatment of a disease because that is not proven to be safe and effective. According with Desai, K. (2012) the consumer reports from 2007
Over the centuries, several treatment methods have been utilized by humans for remedy diseases when they caught. Two of them are modern medicine and traditional medicine. Traditional medicine, which is also called alternative treatment, is older than modern medicine. This effective treatment had been used for many centuries before modern medicine was found. On the contrary, modern medicine has been used since the 1900’s (Lyons). In this system, drugs’ tests are carefully done in the safe laboratories, and their side effects are identified before they are given to the patient. Moreover, the effects of the pills are written on the leaflets which are found in the drug packages to warn the patients for these effects. However, sometimes the side effects are not blocked, so people have to take another pill to get better. It makes people take more chemicals into their bodies. Even traditional medicine, give its place to the modern medicine when its beginning times, it is used efficaciously like modern medicine at the present time. In course of time, people will gain reliance on traditional medicine again, since alternative medicine is more efficient and powerful in order to get better and soothe the diseases than modern medicine. In fact, in traditional medicine, there are fewer drugs, side effects, holistic therapy that people can be availed.
Modern medicine is finally starting to accommodate traditional medicine, though traditional medicine is still overlooked or regarded as a primitive form of treatment, providing nothing but placebo effects. According to the American National Cancer Institute, modern medicine is: