Ayurvedic nutrition for weight loss (and general sanity)

11112131517

Replies

  • PeachyCarol
    PeachyCarol Posts: 8,029 Member
    miriamtob wrote: »
    Orphia wrote: »
    "Imagine consulting a physician who chooses to cast aside more than two centuries of medical progress in favor of the “science” of ancient Greece and Rome. No modern diagnostic techniques (X-rays, MRIs, blood tests, CAT scans, etc.), no well-researched medications and therapies, this practitioner instead studies your “humors,” the life forces alleged to be at the core of human physiology in the pre-scientific age (black bile, yellow bile, phlegm, and blood), and ends up suggesting you consume a herbal concoction and chant a mantra to treat your ills. This is how Ayurvedic practitioners treat millions of patients worldwide."

    Read more: http://www.skeptic.com/eskeptic/13-10-09/

    Did you read my whole post? It's integrative health
    miriamtob wrote: »
    You are trying to pin all the blame of this man's tragedy on "ebil" Aryuveda. Ultimately, we are responsible for our own health. I agree with you when you say we should approach healthcare as consumers. Absolutely. Due diligence is required when seeking out your healthcare and wellness team. Doctors are not gods; they are humans who make mistakes. This does not discredit Aryuveda, which is an elegant and complex system, a science if you will, which noone on this forum understands with any depth, myself included. Eradicating an enormous, ancient body of knowledge would be wrong. From what I've learned, in history, losing knowledge never turns out well for people. What Aryuveda offers, is a perception shift of how we look at the body. I'm for keeping this tradition alive. It may challenge your world view and I understand how that can be scary for some. We can agree to disagree.

    @Miriamtob, I'm right there with you. I'm trying to be amused by the narrowminded way people have tried to respond to this...and totally taken it away from my original post and my subsequent posts which attempted to bring it back in line with that.

    I'll repeat it one more time - I use both western and alternative modalities for health. I am NOT promoting vomiting or some of the more extreme edge-of-the-internet "ayurveda" that is posted on this page. You could also find the same thing in traditional western medicine with some quack doctor. There are quacks everywhere. Science is always evolving.

    I also posted some links to my doctors who worked in integrative health when I lived in New York (Which was attached to Beth Israel Hospital) and this was shot down as not scientific enough....so bizarre. You can post facts I suppose but this has been a lesson to me how people can see what they want to see, and choose their facts.

    I do at this point think we should agree to disagree with some folks on here (who I expect to respond with mockery), but it does bother me when my original idea and question looking for advice gets stretched to what it's not been stretched to. I would love to meet some of these folks in person and see if, upon meeting me, they would be able to say the same things to my face.

    Margaret, I think that the discussion has gone beyond your care and the team you're seeing at this point.

    Someone came in defending ayurveda in a more general way, and that opened the door to a much broader discussion.

    no, I totally agree, it has (and I like that!) but I think there is some fringe-y stuff that just annoys me and is fear-mongering. So I like to remind folks of where this started - in health. Also Deepak Chopra is not the be-all end-all of ayurveda. He's one dude.

    ^Exactly! Chopra is just a flash in the pan and he's an MD; that's why he can treat cancer and AIDs. The aryuvedic model does not treat the disease, it treats the person as a whole, taking into account all the organ systems working together. It is not a one-sized-fits-all approach to healing. People's needs are as individual as their finger-prints.

    Chopra applied his skills as an MD to David Flint to treat his leukemia:
    He also consulted Chopra, who performed pulse diagnosis and provided a mantra for "quantum sound treatment." (This is a technique—also called "primordial sound treatment"—described in one of Chopra's books as "similar to meditation, but . . . prescribed for specific illnesses, including those we consider incurable in the West, such as cancer.")

    At any rate, he no longer sees patients.

    The other fact being ignored is that another practitioner also treated David Flint.

    Yet other practitioners dispensed the formulations containing lead.
  • FunkyTobias
    FunkyTobias Posts: 1,776 Member
    jgnatca wrote: »
    Find out what is in homeopathic treatments.

    http://www.scibabe.com/the-weekly-woo-homeopathy-or-theres-no-medicine-in-my-medicine/

    FDA rules regarding homeopathic treatments.

    oscillococinum (sp?) is homeopathic and works for me. It's what everyone on film shoots uses for the first sympton of flu-like colds, sold at every deli in NYC, now at some truck stops....I wonder if it didn't work if it would be so omnipresent? I've been taking it for years...it def tastes like sugar placebos, but it dang sure knocks the yuck out of your system.

    I also thought some of the replies of the blog you posted were interesting, particularly the exchange from the 4th year medical student, and then the obnoxious person underneath them.

    PT Barnum, still right after all these years.



  • Unknown
    edited June 2015
    This content has been removed.
  • miriamtob
    miriamtob Posts: 436 Member
    snikkins wrote: »
    miriamtob wrote: »
    Orphia wrote: »
    "Imagine consulting a physician who chooses to cast aside more than two centuries of medical progress in favor of the “science” of ancient Greece and Rome. No modern diagnostic techniques (X-rays, MRIs, blood tests, CAT scans, etc.), no well-researched medications and therapies, this practitioner instead studies your “humors,” the life forces alleged to be at the core of human physiology in the pre-scientific age (black bile, yellow bile, phlegm, and blood), and ends up suggesting you consume a herbal concoction and chant a mantra to treat your ills. This is how Ayurvedic practitioners treat millions of patients worldwide."

    Read more: http://www.skeptic.com/eskeptic/13-10-09/

    Did you read my whole post? It's integrative health
    miriamtob wrote: »
    You are trying to pin all the blame of this man's tragedy on "ebil" Aryuveda. Ultimately, we are responsible for our own health. I agree with you when you say we should approach healthcare as consumers. Absolutely. Due diligence is required when seeking out your healthcare and wellness team. Doctors are not gods; they are humans who make mistakes. This does not discredit Aryuveda, which is an elegant and complex system, a science if you will, which noone on this forum understands with any depth, myself included. Eradicating an enormous, ancient body of knowledge would be wrong. From what I've learned, in history, losing knowledge never turns out well for people. What Aryuveda offers, is a perception shift of how we look at the body. I'm for keeping this tradition alive. It may challenge your world view and I understand how that can be scary for some. We can agree to disagree.

    @Miriamtob, I'm right there with you. I'm trying to be amused by the narrowminded way people have tried to respond to this...and totally taken it away from my original post and my subsequent posts which attempted to bring it back in line with that.

    I'll repeat it one more time - I use both western and alternative modalities for health. I am NOT promoting vomiting or some of the more extreme edge-of-the-internet "ayurveda" that is posted on this page. You could also find the same thing in traditional western medicine with some quack doctor. There are quacks everywhere. Science is always evolving.

    I also posted some links to my doctors who worked in integrative health when I lived in New York (Which was attached to Beth Israel Hospital) and this was shot down as not scientific enough....so bizarre. You can post facts I suppose but this has been a lesson to me how people can see what they want to see, and choose their facts.

    I do at this point think we should agree to disagree with some folks on here (who I expect to respond with mockery), but it does bother me when my original idea and question looking for advice gets stretched to what it's not been stretched to. I would love to meet some of these folks in person and see if, upon meeting me, they would be able to say the same things to my face.

    Margaret, I think that the discussion has gone beyond your care and the team you're seeing at this point.

    Someone came in defending ayurveda in a more general way, and that opened the door to a much broader discussion.

    no, I totally agree, it has (and I like that!) but I think there is some fringe-y stuff that just annoys me and is fear-mongering. So I like to remind folks of where this started - in health. Also Deepak Chopra is not the be-all end-all of ayurveda. He's one dude.

    ^Exactly! Chopra is just a flash in the pan and he's an MD; that's why he can treat cancer and AIDs. The aryuvedic model does not treat the disease, it treats the person as a whole, taking into account all the organ systems working together. It is not a one-sized-fits-all approach to healing. People's needs are as individual as their finger-prints.

    The fact that he's an MD selling Woo to desperate people with cancer and AIDs should be extremely alarming to you. Instead, you are appealing to his authority.

    No, I'm not appealing to his authority. You misread my post. I stated in two different posts that he is irrelevant.
    Oh, the condescending dig that you're challenging our world view!

    Laughable.

    I used to have a similar world view, I know how this stuff works.

    You keep moving the goalposts.

    What does ayurveda try to be? A complement or the primary form of medical care against serious disease?

    I'm not just talking about the case of David Flint, there was information provided that products marketed to ayurvedic practitioners in this country were for the "treatment" of cancer and AIDS and other diseases.

    So, again -- what is ayurveda's role? Primary intervention into serious disease or benign holistic preventive care?

    You asserted the latter, I've provided evidence that it positions itself as the former.

    There is no clinical proof that it's efficacious at ALL in treating serious disease. That sort of practice is indeed a very dangerous thing.

    You are the one moving the goal posts. I've remained firm in my stance.
  • PeachyCarol
    PeachyCarol Posts: 8,029 Member
    edited June 2015
    miriamtob wrote: »
    snikkins wrote: »
    miriamtob wrote: »
    Orphia wrote: »
    "Imagine consulting a physician who chooses to cast aside more than two centuries of medical progress in favor of the “science” of ancient Greece and Rome. No modern diagnostic techniques (X-rays, MRIs, blood tests, CAT scans, etc.), no well-researched medications and therapies, this practitioner instead studies your “humors,” the life forces alleged to be at the core of human physiology in the pre-scientific age (black bile, yellow bile, phlegm, and blood), and ends up suggesting you consume a herbal concoction and chant a mantra to treat your ills. This is how Ayurvedic practitioners treat millions of patients worldwide."

    Read more: http://www.skeptic.com/eskeptic/13-10-09/

    Did you read my whole post? It's integrative health
    miriamtob wrote: »
    You are trying to pin all the blame of this man's tragedy on "ebil" Aryuveda. Ultimately, we are responsible for our own health. I agree with you when you say we should approach healthcare as consumers. Absolutely. Due diligence is required when seeking out your healthcare and wellness team. Doctors are not gods; they are humans who make mistakes. This does not discredit Aryuveda, which is an elegant and complex system, a science if you will, which noone on this forum understands with any depth, myself included. Eradicating an enormous, ancient body of knowledge would be wrong. From what I've learned, in history, losing knowledge never turns out well for people. What Aryuveda offers, is a perception shift of how we look at the body. I'm for keeping this tradition alive. It may challenge your world view and I understand how that can be scary for some. We can agree to disagree.

    @Miriamtob, I'm right there with you. I'm trying to be amused by the narrowminded way people have tried to respond to this...and totally taken it away from my original post and my subsequent posts which attempted to bring it back in line with that.

    I'll repeat it one more time - I use both western and alternative modalities for health. I am NOT promoting vomiting or some of the more extreme edge-of-the-internet "ayurveda" that is posted on this page. You could also find the same thing in traditional western medicine with some quack doctor. There are quacks everywhere. Science is always evolving.

    I also posted some links to my doctors who worked in integrative health when I lived in New York (Which was attached to Beth Israel Hospital) and this was shot down as not scientific enough....so bizarre. You can post facts I suppose but this has been a lesson to me how people can see what they want to see, and choose their facts.

    I do at this point think we should agree to disagree with some folks on here (who I expect to respond with mockery), but it does bother me when my original idea and question looking for advice gets stretched to what it's not been stretched to. I would love to meet some of these folks in person and see if, upon meeting me, they would be able to say the same things to my face.

    Margaret, I think that the discussion has gone beyond your care and the team you're seeing at this point.

    Someone came in defending ayurveda in a more general way, and that opened the door to a much broader discussion.

    no, I totally agree, it has (and I like that!) but I think there is some fringe-y stuff that just annoys me and is fear-mongering. So I like to remind folks of where this started - in health. Also Deepak Chopra is not the be-all end-all of ayurveda. He's one dude.

    ^Exactly! Chopra is just a flash in the pan and he's an MD; that's why he can treat cancer and AIDs. The aryuvedic model does not treat the disease, it treats the person as a whole, taking into account all the organ systems working together. It is not a one-sized-fits-all approach to healing. People's needs are as individual as their finger-prints.

    The fact that he's an MD selling Woo to desperate people with cancer and AIDs should be extremely alarming to you. Instead, you are appealing to his authority.

    No, I'm not appealing to his authority. You misread my post. I stated in two different posts that he is irrelevant.
    Oh, the condescending dig that you're challenging our world view!

    Laughable.

    I used to have a similar world view, I know how this stuff works.

    You keep moving the goalposts.

    What does ayurveda try to be? A complement or the primary form of medical care against serious disease?

    I'm not just talking about the case of David Flint, there was information provided that products marketed to ayurvedic practitioners in this country were for the "treatment" of cancer and AIDS and other diseases.

    So, again -- what is ayurveda's role? Primary intervention into serious disease or benign holistic preventive care?

    You asserted the latter, I've provided evidence that it positions itself as the former.

    There is no clinical proof that it's efficacious at ALL in treating serious disease. That sort of practice is indeed a very dangerous thing.

    You are the one moving the goal posts. I've remained firm in my stance.

    I asked a question and provided evidence which challenged your assertion. That's not moving goalposts.

    But this is typical of you... throw a non sequitur into the conversation to avoid actually addressing the discussing as it's flowing when you've been backed into a corner. It's not the first time you've done it.

  • snikkins
    snikkins Posts: 1,282 Member
    miriamtob wrote: »
    snikkins wrote: »
    miriamtob wrote: »
    Orphia wrote: »
    "Imagine consulting a physician who chooses to cast aside more than two centuries of medical progress in favor of the “science” of ancient Greece and Rome. No modern diagnostic techniques (X-rays, MRIs, blood tests, CAT scans, etc.), no well-researched medications and therapies, this practitioner instead studies your “humors,” the life forces alleged to be at the core of human physiology in the pre-scientific age (black bile, yellow bile, phlegm, and blood), and ends up suggesting you consume a herbal concoction and chant a mantra to treat your ills. This is how Ayurvedic practitioners treat millions of patients worldwide."

    Read more: http://www.skeptic.com/eskeptic/13-10-09/

    Did you read my whole post? It's integrative health
    miriamtob wrote: »
    You are trying to pin all the blame of this man's tragedy on "ebil" Aryuveda. Ultimately, we are responsible for our own health. I agree with you when you say we should approach healthcare as consumers. Absolutely. Due diligence is required when seeking out your healthcare and wellness team. Doctors are not gods; they are humans who make mistakes. This does not discredit Aryuveda, which is an elegant and complex system, a science if you will, which noone on this forum understands with any depth, myself included. Eradicating an enormous, ancient body of knowledge would be wrong. From what I've learned, in history, losing knowledge never turns out well for people. What Aryuveda offers, is a perception shift of how we look at the body. I'm for keeping this tradition alive. It may challenge your world view and I understand how that can be scary for some. We can agree to disagree.

    @Miriamtob, I'm right there with you. I'm trying to be amused by the narrowminded way people have tried to respond to this...and totally taken it away from my original post and my subsequent posts which attempted to bring it back in line with that.

    I'll repeat it one more time - I use both western and alternative modalities for health. I am NOT promoting vomiting or some of the more extreme edge-of-the-internet "ayurveda" that is posted on this page. You could also find the same thing in traditional western medicine with some quack doctor. There are quacks everywhere. Science is always evolving.

    I also posted some links to my doctors who worked in integrative health when I lived in New York (Which was attached to Beth Israel Hospital) and this was shot down as not scientific enough....so bizarre. You can post facts I suppose but this has been a lesson to me how people can see what they want to see, and choose their facts.

    I do at this point think we should agree to disagree with some folks on here (who I expect to respond with mockery), but it does bother me when my original idea and question looking for advice gets stretched to what it's not been stretched to. I would love to meet some of these folks in person and see if, upon meeting me, they would be able to say the same things to my face.

    Margaret, I think that the discussion has gone beyond your care and the team you're seeing at this point.

    Someone came in defending ayurveda in a more general way, and that opened the door to a much broader discussion.

    no, I totally agree, it has (and I like that!) but I think there is some fringe-y stuff that just annoys me and is fear-mongering. So I like to remind folks of where this started - in health. Also Deepak Chopra is not the be-all end-all of ayurveda. He's one dude.

    ^Exactly! Chopra is just a flash in the pan and he's an MD; that's why he can treat cancer and AIDs. The aryuvedic model does not treat the disease, it treats the person as a whole, taking into account all the organ systems working together. It is not a one-sized-fits-all approach to healing. People's needs are as individual as their finger-prints.

    The fact that he's an MD selling Woo to desperate people with cancer and AIDs should be extremely alarming to you. Instead, you are appealing to his authority.

    No, I'm not appealing to his authority. You misread my post. I stated in two different posts that he is irrelevant.
    Oh, the condescending dig that you're challenging our world view!

    Laughable.

    I used to have a similar world view, I know how this stuff works.

    You keep moving the goalposts.

    What does ayurveda try to be? A complement or the primary form of medical care against serious disease?

    I'm not just talking about the case of David Flint, there was information provided that products marketed to ayurvedic practitioners in this country were for the "treatment" of cancer and AIDS and other diseases.

    So, again -- what is ayurveda's role? Primary intervention into serious disease or benign holistic preventive care?

    You asserted the latter, I've provided evidence that it positions itself as the former.

    There is no clinical proof that it's efficacious at ALL in treating serious disease. That sort of practice is indeed a very dangerous thing.

    You are the one moving the goal posts. I've remained firm in my stance.

    Ok. Great. It's me. Please, then, do clarify what you meant by:
    miriamtob wrote: »
    Chopra is just a flash in the pan and he's an MD; that's why he can treat cancer and AIDs.
  • miriamtob
    miriamtob Posts: 436 Member
    snikkins wrote: »
    miriamtob wrote: »
    snikkins wrote: »
    miriamtob wrote: »
    Orphia wrote: »
    "Imagine consulting a physician who chooses to cast aside more than two centuries of medical progress in favor of the “science” of ancient Greece and Rome. No modern diagnostic techniques (X-rays, MRIs, blood tests, CAT scans, etc.), no well-researched medications and therapies, this practitioner instead studies your “humors,” the life forces alleged to be at the core of human physiology in the pre-scientific age (black bile, yellow bile, phlegm, and blood), and ends up suggesting you consume a herbal concoction and chant a mantra to treat your ills. This is how Ayurvedic practitioners treat millions of patients worldwide."

    Read more: http://www.skeptic.com/eskeptic/13-10-09/

    Did you read my whole post? It's integrative health
    miriamtob wrote: »
    You are trying to pin all the blame of this man's tragedy on "ebil" Aryuveda. Ultimately, we are responsible for our own health. I agree with you when you say we should approach healthcare as consumers. Absolutely. Due diligence is required when seeking out your healthcare and wellness team. Doctors are not gods; they are humans who make mistakes. This does not discredit Aryuveda, which is an elegant and complex system, a science if you will, which noone on this forum understands with any depth, myself included. Eradicating an enormous, ancient body of knowledge would be wrong. From what I've learned, in history, losing knowledge never turns out well for people. What Aryuveda offers, is a perception shift of how we look at the body. I'm for keeping this tradition alive. It may challenge your world view and I understand how that can be scary for some. We can agree to disagree.

    @Miriamtob, I'm right there with you. I'm trying to be amused by the narrowminded way people have tried to respond to this...and totally taken it away from my original post and my subsequent posts which attempted to bring it back in line with that.

    I'll repeat it one more time - I use both western and alternative modalities for health. I am NOT promoting vomiting or some of the more extreme edge-of-the-internet "ayurveda" that is posted on this page. You could also find the same thing in traditional western medicine with some quack doctor. There are quacks everywhere. Science is always evolving.

    I also posted some links to my doctors who worked in integrative health when I lived in New York (Which was attached to Beth Israel Hospital) and this was shot down as not scientific enough....so bizarre. You can post facts I suppose but this has been a lesson to me how people can see what they want to see, and choose their facts.

    I do at this point think we should agree to disagree with some folks on here (who I expect to respond with mockery), but it does bother me when my original idea and question looking for advice gets stretched to what it's not been stretched to. I would love to meet some of these folks in person and see if, upon meeting me, they would be able to say the same things to my face.

    Margaret, I think that the discussion has gone beyond your care and the team you're seeing at this point.

    Someone came in defending ayurveda in a more general way, and that opened the door to a much broader discussion.

    no, I totally agree, it has (and I like that!) but I think there is some fringe-y stuff that just annoys me and is fear-mongering. So I like to remind folks of where this started - in health. Also Deepak Chopra is not the be-all end-all of ayurveda. He's one dude.

    ^Exactly! Chopra is just a flash in the pan and he's an MD; that's why he can treat cancer and AIDs. The aryuvedic model does not treat the disease, it treats the person as a whole, taking into account all the organ systems working together. It is not a one-sized-fits-all approach to healing. People's needs are as individual as their finger-prints.

    The fact that he's an MD selling Woo to desperate people with cancer and AIDs should be extremely alarming to you. Instead, you are appealing to his authority.

    No, I'm not appealing to his authority. You misread my post. I stated in two different posts that he is irrelevant.
    Oh, the condescending dig that you're challenging our world view!

    Laughable.

    I used to have a similar world view, I know how this stuff works.

    You keep moving the goalposts.

    What does ayurveda try to be? A complement or the primary form of medical care against serious disease?

    I'm not just talking about the case of David Flint, there was information provided that products marketed to ayurvedic practitioners in this country were for the "treatment" of cancer and AIDS and other diseases.

    So, again -- what is ayurveda's role? Primary intervention into serious disease or benign holistic preventive care?

    You asserted the latter, I've provided evidence that it positions itself as the former.

    There is no clinical proof that it's efficacious at ALL in treating serious disease. That sort of practice is indeed a very dangerous thing.

    You are the one moving the goal posts. I've remained firm in my stance.

    Ok. Great. It's me. Please, then, do clarify what you meant by:
    miriamtob wrote: »
    Chopra is just a flash in the pan and he's an MD; that's why he can treat cancer and AIDs.

    "A flash in the pan" meaning he got a lot of media attention in the late 90's, but he is not a guru amongst Aryuvedics by any stretch of the imagination. When I said he was an MD, I was simply stating a fact. He is trained in conventional modern medicine, which involves diagnosing and treating diseases. Discrediting the whole body of knowledge, which is Aryuveda, based on this one quack is like discrediting all of the yogic tradition because of Bikram Choudry, another flashy and unsavory dude.
  • This content has been removed.
  • senecarr
    senecarr Posts: 5,377 Member
    I like that no one here will actually address the problems with the central dogma and epistomology of Ayurvedic treatment.
    Instead, everyone wants to pretend that when you test "facts" in Ayurvedic medicine with the methods, dogma, and epistomology that it is somehow confirm Ayurvedic.
    Here's a simple test. What, if any, predictive power does Ayurvedic have that is unique to it and that it predicts better than evidence based medicine?
  • miriamtob
    miriamtob Posts: 436 Member
    edited June 2015
    miriamtob wrote: »
    snikkins wrote: »
    miriamtob wrote: »
    Orphia wrote: »
    "Imagine consulting a physician who chooses to cast aside more than two centuries of medical progress in favor of the “science” of ancient Greece and Rome. No modern diagnostic techniques (X-rays, MRIs, blood tests, CAT scans, etc.), no well-researched medications and therapies, this practitioner instead studies your “humors,” the life forces alleged to be at the core of human physiology in the pre-scientific age (black bile, yellow bile, phlegm, and blood), and ends up suggesting you consume a herbal concoction and chant a mantra to treat your ills. This is how Ayurvedic practitioners treat millions of patients worldwide."

    Read more: http://www.skeptic.com/eskeptic/13-10-09/

    Did you read my whole post? It's integrative health
    miriamtob wrote: »
    You are trying to pin all the blame of this man's tragedy on "ebil" Aryuveda. Ultimately, we are responsible for our own health. I agree with you when you say we should approach healthcare as consumers. Absolutely. Due diligence is required when seeking out your healthcare and wellness team. Doctors are not gods; they are humans who make mistakes. This does not discredit Aryuveda, which is an elegant and complex system, a science if you will, which noone on this forum understands with any depth, myself included. Eradicating an enormous, ancient body of knowledge would be wrong. From what I've learned, in history, losing knowledge never turns out well for people. What Aryuveda offers, is a perception shift of how we look at the body. I'm for keeping this tradition alive. It may challenge your world view and I understand how that can be scary for some. We can agree to disagree.

    @Miriamtob, I'm right there with you. I'm trying to be amused by the narrowminded way people have tried to respond to this...and totally taken it away from my original post and my subsequent posts which attempted to bring it back in line with that.

    I'll repeat it one more time - I use both western and alternative modalities for health. I am NOT promoting vomiting or some of the more extreme edge-of-the-internet "ayurveda" that is posted on this page. You could also find the same thing in traditional western medicine with some quack doctor. There are quacks everywhere. Science is always evolving.

    I also posted some links to my doctors who worked in integrative health when I lived in New York (Which was attached to Beth Israel Hospital) and this was shot down as not scientific enough....so bizarre. You can post facts I suppose but this has been a lesson to me how people can see what they want to see, and choose their facts.

    I do at this point think we should agree to disagree with some folks on here (who I expect to respond with mockery), but it does bother me when my original idea and question looking for advice gets stretched to what it's not been stretched to. I would love to meet some of these folks in person and see if, upon meeting me, they would be able to say the same things to my face.

    Margaret, I think that the discussion has gone beyond your care and the team you're seeing at this point.

    Someone came in defending ayurveda in a more general way, and that opened the door to a much broader discussion.

    no, I totally agree, it has (and I like that!) but I think there is some fringe-y stuff that just annoys me and is fear-mongering. So I like to remind folks of where this started - in health. Also Deepak Chopra is not the be-all end-all of ayurveda. He's one dude.

    ^Exactly! Chopra is just a flash in the pan and he's an MD; that's why he can treat cancer and AIDs. The aryuvedic model does not treat the disease, it treats the person as a whole, taking into account all the organ systems working together. It is not a one-sized-fits-all approach to healing. People's needs are as individual as their finger-prints.

    The fact that he's an MD selling Woo to desperate people with cancer and AIDs should be extremely alarming to you. Instead, you are appealing to his authority.

    No, I'm not appealing to his authority. You misread my post. I stated in two different posts that he is irrelevant.
    Oh, the condescending dig that you're challenging our world view!

    Laughable.

    I used to have a similar world view, I know how this stuff works.

    You keep moving the goalposts.

    What does ayurveda try to be? A complement or the primary form of medical care against serious disease?

    I'm not just talking about the case of David Flint, there was information provided that products marketed to ayurvedic practitioners in this country were for the "treatment" of cancer and AIDS and other diseases.

    So, again -- what is ayurveda's role? Primary intervention into serious disease or benign holistic preventive care?

    You asserted the latter, I've provided evidence that it positions itself as the former.

    There is no clinical proof that it's efficacious at ALL in treating serious disease. That sort of practice is indeed a very dangerous thing.

    You are the one moving the goal posts. I've remained firm in my stance.

    I asked a question and provided evidence which challenged your assertion. That's not moving goalposts.

    But this is typical of you... throw a non sequitur into the conversation to avoid actually addressing the discussing as it's flowing when you've been backed into a corner. It's not the first time you've done it.

    Hello, I'm sorry I haven't been able to answer all of your questions. I feel like I am being bombarded with flame baits, questions, and snark from 10 different people on here. You had a few good questions, which I really wanted to get to even though they were peppered with some hostility in your tone. I do want to get to your question about imbalances, but I just haven't been able to get to it yet.
    You were actually moving the goal posts like crazy, right from the get-go on here. See page 7. where Rabbitjb says, "If they are an actual illness and herbs help to resolve them there would be documentable proof, safety studies and double blind testing and the herbs would become medicine" and I post links to documentable proof. You go on to find they flaws in the study (not the point of the argument. All studies have flaws). That is one example of you moving the goalposts. I could find more, but then I won't have time to answer your questions.
  • GaleHawkins
    GaleHawkins Posts: 8,159 Member
    I find Shilajit interesting but there are scams where some are not selling the real thing. Most any system of medicine 3000-5000 years old has value in the minds of many somewhere.
  • Orphia
    Orphia Posts: 7,097 Member
    You can't reason someone out of something they weren't reasoned into.

    Ayurveda is just a collection of anecdotes. The plural of anecdote is not data.
  • margaretlb4
    margaretlb4 Posts: 114 Member
    miriamtob wrote: »
    miriamtob wrote: »
    snikkins wrote: »
    miriamtob wrote: »
    Orphia wrote: »
    "Imagine consulting a physician who chooses to cast aside more than two centuries of medical progress in favor of the “science” of ancient Greece and Rome. No modern diagnostic techniques (X-rays, MRIs, blood tests, CAT scans, etc.), no well-researched medications and therapies, this practitioner instead studies your “humors,” the life forces alleged to be at the core of human physiology in the pre-scientific age (black bile, yellow bile, phlegm, and blood), and ends up suggesting you consume a herbal concoction and chant a mantra to treat your ills. This is how Ayurvedic practitioners treat millions of patients worldwide."

    Read more: http://www.skeptic.com/eskeptic/13-10-09/

    Did you read my whole post? It's integrative health
    miriamtob wrote: »
    You are trying to pin all the blame of this man's tragedy on "ebil" Aryuveda. Ultimately, we are responsible for our own health. I agree with you when you say we should approach healthcare as consumers. Absolutely. Due diligence is required when seeking out your healthcare and wellness team. Doctors are not gods; they are humans who make mistakes. This does not discredit Aryuveda, which is an elegant and complex system, a science if you will, which noone on this forum understands with any depth, myself included. Eradicating an enormous, ancient body of knowledge would be wrong. From what I've learned, in history, losing knowledge never turns out well for people. What Aryuveda offers, is a perception shift of how we look at the body. I'm for keeping this tradition alive. It may challenge your world view and I understand how that can be scary for some. We can agree to disagree.

    @Miriamtob, I'm right there with you. I'm trying to be amused by the narrowminded way people have tried to respond to this...and totally taken it away from my original post and my subsequent posts which attempted to bring it back in line with that.

    I'll repeat it one more time - I use both western and alternative modalities for health. I am NOT promoting vomiting or some of the more extreme edge-of-the-internet "ayurveda" that is posted on this page. You could also find the same thing in traditional western medicine with some quack doctor. There are quacks everywhere. Science is always evolving.

    I also posted some links to my doctors who worked in integrative health when I lived in New York (Which was attached to Beth Israel Hospital) and this was shot down as not scientific enough....so bizarre. You can post facts I suppose but this has been a lesson to me how people can see what they want to see, and choose their facts.

    I do at this point think we should agree to disagree with some folks on here (who I expect to respond with mockery), but it does bother me when my original idea and question looking for advice gets stretched to what it's not been stretched to. I would love to meet some of these folks in person and see if, upon meeting me, they would be able to say the same things to my face.

    Margaret, I think that the discussion has gone beyond your care and the team you're seeing at this point.

    Someone came in defending ayurveda in a more general way, and that opened the door to a much broader discussion.

    no, I totally agree, it has (and I like that!) but I think there is some fringe-y stuff that just annoys me and is fear-mongering. So I like to remind folks of where this started - in health. Also Deepak Chopra is not the be-all end-all of ayurveda. He's one dude.

    ^Exactly! Chopra is just a flash in the pan and he's an MD; that's why he can treat cancer and AIDs. The aryuvedic model does not treat the disease, it treats the person as a whole, taking into account all the organ systems working together. It is not a one-sized-fits-all approach to healing. People's needs are as individual as their finger-prints.

    The fact that he's an MD selling Woo to desperate people with cancer and AIDs should be extremely alarming to you. Instead, you are appealing to his authority.

    No, I'm not appealing to his authority. You misread my post. I stated in two different posts that he is irrelevant.
    Oh, the condescending dig that you're challenging our world view!

    Laughable.

    I used to have a similar world view, I know how this stuff works.

    You keep moving the goalposts.

    What does ayurveda try to be? A complement or the primary form of medical care against serious disease?

    I'm not just talking about the case of David Flint, there was information provided that products marketed to ayurvedic practitioners in this country were for the "treatment" of cancer and AIDS and other diseases.

    So, again -- what is ayurveda's role? Primary intervention into serious disease or benign holistic preventive care?

    You asserted the latter, I've provided evidence that it positions itself as the former.

    There is no clinical proof that it's efficacious at ALL in treating serious disease. That sort of practice is indeed a very dangerous thing.

    You are the one moving the goal posts. I've remained firm in my stance.

    I asked a question and provided evidence which challenged your assertion. That's not moving goalposts.

    But this is typical of you... throw a non sequitur into the conversation to avoid actually addressing the discussing as it's flowing when you've been backed into a corner. It's not the first time you've done it.

    Hello, I'm sorry I haven't been able to answer all of your questions. I feel like I am being bombarded with flame baits, questions, and snark from 10 different people on here. You had a few good questions, which I really wanted to get to even though they were peppered with some hostility in your tone. I do want to get to your question about imbalances, but I just haven't been able to get to it yet.
    You were actually moving the goal posts like crazy, right from the get-go on here. See page 7. where Rabbitjb says, "If they are an actual illness and herbs help to resolve them there would be documentable proof, safety studies and double blind testing and the herbs would become medicine" and I post links to documentable proof. You go on to find they flaws in the study (not the point of the argument. All studies have flaws). That is one example of you moving the goalposts. I could find more, but then I won't have time to answer your questions.

    I agree with @miriamtob here, though i do think that @mamapeach has some thoughtful things to say for sure. what's the point in picking out the most inflammatory things on alternative meds and posting it as "ayurveda?" it's laughable to anyone who has gone to a good chinese medicine doctor or been to a (good) integrative health physician. Come on people. We've posted alot of studies here. It seems fun for you to make fun of folks for whatever personal reason but it's not helpful to me, the original poster. But it has been a lesson.

  • senecarr
    senecarr Posts: 5,377 Member
    I agree with @miriamtob here, though i do think that @mamapeach has some thoughtful things to say for sure. what's the point in picking out the most inflammatory things on alternative meds and posting it as "ayurveda?" it's laughable to anyone who has gone to a good chinese medicine doctor or been to a (good) integrative health physician. Come on people. We've posted alot of studies here. It seems fun for you to make fun of folks for whatever personal reason but it's not helpful to me, the original poster. But it has been a lesson.
    The denying the most inflammatory things sounds like a no true Scotsman fallacy.
    You're saying bad Ayurvedia isn't real Ayurvedia, but good Chinese medicine and good Ayurveda are good.
    Evidence based medicine that cures cancer (good) is real evidence based medicine, AND evidence based medicine that fails to do preventative care (bad) is also evidence based medicine.
    That seems a double standard to me.
  • PeachyCarol
    PeachyCarol Posts: 8,029 Member
    edited June 2015
    miriamtob wrote: »
    snikkins wrote: »
    miriamtob wrote: »
    snikkins wrote: »
    miriamtob wrote: »
    Orphia wrote: »
    "Imagine consulting a physician who chooses to cast aside more than two centuries of medical progress in favor of the “science” of ancient Greece and Rome. No modern diagnostic techniques (X-rays, MRIs, blood tests, CAT scans, etc.), no well-researched medications and therapies, this practitioner instead studies your “humors,” the life forces alleged to be at the core of human physiology in the pre-scientific age (black bile, yellow bile, phlegm, and blood), and ends up suggesting you consume a herbal concoction and chant a mantra to treat your ills. This is how Ayurvedic practitioners treat millions of patients worldwide."

    Read more: http://www.skeptic.com/eskeptic/13-10-09/

    Did you read my whole post? It's integrative health
    miriamtob wrote: »
    You are trying to pin all the blame of this man's tragedy on "ebil" Aryuveda. Ultimately, we are responsible for our own health. I agree with you when you say we should approach healthcare as consumers. Absolutely. Due diligence is required when seeking out your healthcare and wellness team. Doctors are not gods; they are humans who make mistakes. This does not discredit Aryuveda, which is an elegant and complex system, a science if you will, which noone on this forum understands with any depth, myself included. Eradicating an enormous, ancient body of knowledge would be wrong. From what I've learned, in history, losing knowledge never turns out well for people. What Aryuveda offers, is a perception shift of how we look at the body. I'm for keeping this tradition alive. It may challenge your world view and I understand how that can be scary for some. We can agree to disagree.

    @Miriamtob, I'm right there with you. I'm trying to be amused by the narrowminded way people have tried to respond to this...and totally taken it away from my original post and my subsequent posts which attempted to bring it back in line with that.

    I'll repeat it one more time - I use both western and alternative modalities for health. I am NOT promoting vomiting or some of the more extreme edge-of-the-internet "ayurveda" that is posted on this page. You could also find the same thing in traditional western medicine with some quack doctor. There are quacks everywhere. Science is always evolving.

    I also posted some links to my doctors who worked in integrative health when I lived in New York (Which was attached to Beth Israel Hospital) and this was shot down as not scientific enough....so bizarre. You can post facts I suppose but this has been a lesson to me how people can see what they want to see, and choose their facts.

    I do at this point think we should agree to disagree with some folks on here (who I expect to respond with mockery), but it does bother me when my original idea and question looking for advice gets stretched to what it's not been stretched to. I would love to meet some of these folks in person and see if, upon meeting me, they would be able to say the same things to my face.

    Margaret, I think that the discussion has gone beyond your care and the team you're seeing at this point.

    Someone came in defending ayurveda in a more general way, and that opened the door to a much broader discussion.

    no, I totally agree, it has (and I like that!) but I think there is some fringe-y stuff that just annoys me and is fear-mongering. So I like to remind folks of where this started - in health. Also Deepak Chopra is not the be-all end-all of ayurveda. He's one dude.

    ^Exactly! Chopra is just a flash in the pan and he's an MD; that's why he can treat cancer and AIDs. The aryuvedic model does not treat the disease, it treats the person as a whole, taking into account all the organ systems working together. It is not a one-sized-fits-all approach to healing. People's needs are as individual as their finger-prints.

    The fact that he's an MD selling Woo to desperate people with cancer and AIDs should be extremely alarming to you. Instead, you are appealing to his authority.

    No, I'm not appealing to his authority. You misread my post. I stated in two different posts that he is irrelevant.
    Oh, the condescending dig that you're challenging our world view!

    Laughable.

    I used to have a similar world view, I know how this stuff works.

    You keep moving the goalposts.

    What does ayurveda try to be? A complement or the primary form of medical care against serious disease?

    I'm not just talking about the case of David Flint, there was information provided that products marketed to ayurvedic practitioners in this country were for the "treatment" of cancer and AIDS and other diseases.

    So, again -- what is ayurveda's role? Primary intervention into serious disease or benign holistic preventive care?

    You asserted the latter, I've provided evidence that it positions itself as the former.

    There is no clinical proof that it's efficacious at ALL in treating serious disease. That sort of practice is indeed a very dangerous thing.

    You are the one moving the goal posts. I've remained firm in my stance.

    Ok. Great. It's me. Please, then, do clarify what you meant by:
    miriamtob wrote: »
    Chopra is just a flash in the pan and he's an MD; that's why he can treat cancer and AIDs.

    "A flash in the pan" meaning he got a lot of media attention in the late 90's, but he is not a guru amongst Aryuvedics by any stretch of the imagination. When I said he was an MD, I was simply stating a fact. He is trained in conventional modern medicine, which involves diagnosing and treating diseases. Discrediting the whole body of knowledge, which is Aryuveda, based on this one quack is like discrediting all of the yogic tradition because of Bikram Choudry, another flashy and unsavory dude.

    You didn't read the article on him. His reach and influence into the practice of ayurveda in this country exceeded him merely writing a book and being on Oprah.

    The evidence doesn't support your easy dismissal of him.

    And, once again, you've sidestepped the issue of you persistently misrepresenting ayurveda as a benign complementary practice when it's been demonstrated that it isn't.

    I'm not talking about the type of integrative center Margaret is going to. I'm sure they'd never dream of trying to treat cancer. But to assert, as you did, that ayurveda is this hippy-dippy holistic approach to vague feelings of unwellness rather than acute medical conditions and that ayurvedic practitioners would not attempt to treat acute disease states? How can that claim hold water?

    In case you won't look up the information yourself, Chopra, founded a company that marketed preparations for the treatment of acute disease through advertisments in an industry publication to other ayurvedic practitioners on a national scale.

  • PeachyCarol
    PeachyCarol Posts: 8,029 Member
    Orphia wrote: »
    You can't reason someone out of something they weren't reasoned into.

    Ayurveda is just a collection of anecdotes. The plural of anecdote is not data.

    True dat.

  • margaretlb4
    margaretlb4 Posts: 114 Member
    edited June 2015
    senecarr wrote: »
    I agree with @miriamtob here, though i do think that @mamapeach has some thoughtful things to say for sure. what's the point in picking out the most inflammatory things on alternative meds and posting it as "ayurveda?" it's laughable to anyone who has gone to a good chinese medicine doctor or been to a (good) integrative health physician. Come on people. We've posted alot of studies here. It seems fun for you to make fun of folks for whatever personal reason but it's not helpful to me, the original poster. But it has been a lesson.
    The denying the most inflammatory things sounds like a no true Scotsman fallacy.
    You're saying bad Ayurvedia isn't real Ayurvedia, but good Chinese medicine and good Ayurveda are good.
    Evidence based medicine that cures cancer (good) is real evidence based medicine, AND evidence based medicine that fails to do preventative care (bad) is also evidence based medicine.
    That seems a double standard to me.

    after reading this a few times I'm not sure what you mean? Aren't you saying the same thing I am?

    Also, at this point, in response to many of these threads, I'm not just talking about ayurveda. I'm talking about complementary integrative health. In my original post, I was asking a question about ayurveda and digestion. And it has spiraled into this sometimes ridiculous argument about if integrative and ayurvedic health is good.

    I am not an ayurvedic practitioner, but I do have my wits about me and if someone prescribed me vomiting as therapy, I probably wouldn't do it. Just like if my normal doc prescribed me a bunch of antibiotics, I would not necessarily take them, as some not so great western doctors have done that in my past, and I got pseudomembraneous intercolitis from over prescription of antibiotics. After much suffering over many months, it took a gastroenterologist in my family to figure out what was going on, and that I was getting sick from the antibiotics. If I had gone to my integral doctor, he would have looked closer and most likely not prescribed antibiotics as the first thing. I say "most likely" because my integral doctor is trained in both western and alternative/eastern modalities and it has been my experience that they try to prescribe herbs and less invasive things first. But then again, maybe he would have. I dunno, not a doctor. But at least he has both to call on. THIS IS ALL I'M SAYING HERE. How can that be bad?

    ps. I am currently speaking to an nutritionist about issues with my digestion, and she has given me some ayurvedic recipes, as I have had digestive issues since the pseudomembraneous intercolitis over 10 years ago now. They are working out GREAT, not as much pain and gas. Hm, dont think that's a placebo. Again, I'm thin and fit, losing weight is not my primary goal of being on here, improving my health and getting stronger is. I am trying to lose about 8 pounds as a secondary measure but mostly i'm working on digestion. These ayurvedic recipes have pretty much rocked my world. So I'm gonna stick with it. And I'm sure someone on here is gonna tell me that Im just dreaming this up, I'm here to tell you I love these dreams if they can prevent stomach upset, heartburn and pain. That's some pretty strong sugar water.

  • sofaking6
    sofaking6 Posts: 4,589 Member
    Orphia wrote: »
    You can't reason someone out of something they weren't reasoned into.

    Ayurveda is just a collection of anecdotes. The plural of anecdote is not data.

    True dat.

    Mama, you have the patience of a saint to still be involved in this thread. The woo, it burns...
  • margaretlb4
    margaretlb4 Posts: 114 Member
    edited June 2015
    sofaking6 wrote: »
    Orphia wrote: »
    You can't reason someone out of something they weren't reasoned into.

    Ayurveda is just a collection of anecdotes. The plural of anecdote is not data.

    True dat.

    Mama, you have the patience of a saint to still be involved in this thread. The woo, it burns...

    Hey, I'd love it if you could respond to what is being discussed here (maybe my post directly above yours) instead of insulting us on this thread? This is the tone I'm talking about - condescension.

  • FunkyTobias
    FunkyTobias Posts: 1,776 Member
    sofaking6 wrote: »
    Orphia wrote: »
    You can't reason someone out of something they weren't reasoned into.

    Ayurveda is just a collection of anecdotes. The plural of anecdote is not data.

    True dat.

    Mama, you have the patience of a saint to still be involved in this thread. The woo, it burns...

    Hey, I'd love it if you could respond to what is being discussed here (maybe my post directly above yours) instead of insulting us on this thread? This is the tone I'm talking about - condescension.

    LsiGaVk.png

  • miriamtob
    miriamtob Posts: 436 Member
    1372692997-402_88MGT10.jpg
  • senecarr
    senecarr Posts: 5,377 Member

    after reading this a few times I'm not sure what you mean? Aren't you saying the same thing I am?
    No, I don't pick and choose. I take everything evidence based medicine says, within the limits of how well it proves it.
    Also, at this point, in response to many of these threads, I'm not just talking about ayurveda. I'm talking about complementary integrative health. In my original post, I was asking a question about ayurveda and digestion. And it has spiraled into this sometimes ridiculous argument about if integrative and ayurvedic health is good.
    It isn't good, it has an unsound foundation. Saying you follow Ayurvedic for when its advice makes sense and ignoring all the bad stuff is like taking financial advice from someone because he's rich, while ignoring he's rich only because he won a lottery, and actually is going broke. Then you're turning around and saying someone who's actually beaten the market with his investments doesn't know what's he's doing because he doesn't give great investing advice - except he is giving great advice, it is just so simple (pick stocks for the long term, invest in what you know) that you don't even think it is advice.
    I am not an ayurvedic practitioner, but I do have my wits about me and if someone prescribed me vomiting as therapy, I probably wouldn't do it. Just like if my normal doc prescribed me a bunch of antibiotics, I would not necessarily take them, as some not so great western doctors have done that in my past, and I got pseudomembraneous intercolitis from over prescription of antibiotics. After much suffering over many months, it took a gastroenterologist in my family to figure out what was going on, and that I was getting sick from the antibiotics. If I had gone to my integral doctor, he would have looked closer and most likely not prescribed antibiotics as the first thing. I say "most likely" because my integral doctor is trained in both western and alternative/eastern modalities and it has been my experience that they try to prescribe herbs and less invasive things first. But then again, maybe he would have. I dunno, not a doctor. But at least he has both to call on. THIS IS ALL I'M SAYING HERE. How can that be bad?
    If someone prescribed vomiting for me, I'd do it though, is the thing. Mainly because I wouldn't let someone prescribe for me without evidence based medicine behind it. It isn't merely that Ayurvedia can give bad advice, it has a poor way of determining what advice to give. I'm fine with vomiting therapy someone has proven it reduces incidence of heart disease via controlled study, but I'm not fine with doing it because someone tells me my fire level is excessive and vomiting will let air element even it out.
    Your anecdote is post hoc justification. I can just as easily make up a story that if you had gone to your integrative doctor, he'd have prescribed you herbs that made you sicker than any antibiotic. There is nothing about herbs that make them any safer than synthetically made treatments. In fact, I'm inclined to say the opposite, most of nature is actually pretty happy or at best indifferent to seeing human being dead.
    ps. I am currently speaking to an nutritionist about issues with my digestion, and she has given me some ayurvedic recipes, as I have had digestive issues since the pseudomembraneous intercolitis over 10 years ago now. They are working out GREAT, not as much pain and gas. Hm, dont think that's a placebo. Again, I'm thin and fit, losing weight is not my primary goal of being on here, improving my health and getting stronger is. I am trying to lose about 8 pounds as a secondary measure but mostly i'm working on digestion. These ayurvedic recipes have pretty much rocked my world. So I'm gonna stick with it. And I'm sure someone on here is gonna tell me that Im just dreaming this up, I'm here to tell you I love these dreams if they can prevent stomach upset, heartburn and pain. That's some pretty strong sugar water.
    "It can't be placebo effect because I don't believe it is placebo effect." Perhaps you're unaware, but being aware of, or even actively disbelieving in something, doesn't make you exempt from placebo effect. Heck, even dogs, that can't understand they're being given medicine can experience the placebo effect.
  • miriamtob
    miriamtob Posts: 436 Member
    senecarr wrote: »

    after reading this a few times I'm not sure what you mean? Aren't you saying the same thing I am?
    No, I don't pick and choose. I take everything evidence based medicine says, within the limits of how well it proves it.
    Also, at this point, in response to many of these threads, I'm not just talking about ayurveda. I'm talking about complementary integrative health. In my original post, I was asking a question about ayurveda and digestion. And it has spiraled into this sometimes ridiculous argument about if integrative and ayurvedic health is good.
    It isn't good, it has an unsound foundation. Saying you follow Ayurvedic for when its advice makes sense and ignoring all the bad stuff is like taking financial advice from someone because he's rich, while ignoring he's rich only because he won a lottery, and actually is going broke. Then you're turning around and saying someone who's actually beaten the market with his investments doesn't know what's he's doing because he doesn't give great investing advice - except he is giving great advice, it is just so simple (pick stocks for the long term, invest in what you know) that you don't even think it is advice.
    I am not an ayurvedic practitioner, but I do have my wits about me and if someone prescribed me vomiting as therapy, I probably wouldn't do it. Just like if my normal doc prescribed me a bunch of antibiotics, I would not necessarily take them, as some not so great western doctors have done that in my past, and I got pseudomembraneous intercolitis from over prescription of antibiotics. After much suffering over many months, it took a gastroenterologist in my family to figure out what was going on, and that I was getting sick from the antibiotics. If I had gone to my integral doctor, he would have looked closer and most likely not prescribed antibiotics as the first thing. I say "most likely" because my integral doctor is trained in both western and alternative/eastern modalities and it has been my experience that they try to prescribe herbs and less invasive things first. But then again, maybe he would have. I dunno, not a doctor. But at least he has both to call on. THIS IS ALL I'M SAYING HERE. How can that be bad?
    If someone prescribed vomiting for me, I'd do it though, is the thing. Mainly because I wouldn't let someone prescribe for me without evidence based medicine behind it. It isn't merely that Ayurvedia can give bad advice, it has a poor way of determining what advice to give. I'm fine with vomiting therapy someone has proven it reduces incidence of heart disease via controlled study, but I'm not fine with doing it because someone tells me my fire level is excessive and vomiting will let air element even it out.
    Your anecdote is post hoc justification. I can just as easily make up a story that if you had gone to your integrative doctor, he'd have prescribed you herbs that made you sicker than any antibiotic. There is nothing about herbs that make them any safer than synthetically made treatments. In fact, I'm inclined to say the opposite, most of nature is actually pretty happy or at best indifferent to seeing human being dead.
    ps. I am currently speaking to an nutritionist about issues with my digestion, and she has given me some ayurvedic recipes, as I have had digestive issues since the pseudomembraneous intercolitis over 10 years ago now. They are working out GREAT, not as much pain and gas. Hm, dont think that's a placebo. Again, I'm thin and fit, losing weight is not my primary goal of being on here, improving my health and getting stronger is. I am trying to lose about 8 pounds as a secondary measure but mostly i'm working on digestion. These ayurvedic recipes have pretty much rocked my world. So I'm gonna stick with it. And I'm sure someone on here is gonna tell me that Im just dreaming this up, I'm here to tell you I love these dreams if they can prevent stomach upset, heartburn and pain. That's some pretty strong sugar water.
    "It can't be placebo effect because I don't believe it is placebo effect." Perhaps you're unaware, but being aware of, or even actively disbelieving in something, doesn't make you exempt from placebo effect. Heck, even dogs, that can't understand they're being given medicine can experience the placebo effect.

    Really?! It couldn't possibly be that the phytochemistry within herbs works with the dog's physiology.
  • margaretlb4
    margaretlb4 Posts: 114 Member
    senecarr wrote: »

    after reading this a few times I'm not sure what you mean? Aren't you saying the same thing I am?
    No, I don't pick and choose. I take everything evidence based medicine says, within the limits of how well it proves it.
    Also, at this point, in response to many of these threads, I'm not just talking about ayurveda. I'm talking about complementary integrative health. In my original post, I was asking a question about ayurveda and digestion. And it has spiraled into this sometimes ridiculous argument about if integrative and ayurvedic health is good.
    It isn't good, it has an unsound foundation. Saying you follow Ayurvedic for when its advice makes sense and ignoring all the bad stuff is like taking financial advice from someone because he's rich, while ignoring he's rich only because he won a lottery, and actually is going broke. Then you're turning around and saying someone who's actually beaten the market with his investments doesn't know what's he's doing because he doesn't give great investing advice - except he is giving great advice, it is just so simple (pick stocks for the long term, invest in what you know) that you don't even think it is advice.
    I am not an ayurvedic practitioner, but I do have my wits about me and if someone prescribed me vomiting as therapy, I probably wouldn't do it. Just like if my normal doc prescribed me a bunch of antibiotics, I would not necessarily take them, as some not so great western doctors have done that in my past, and I got pseudomembraneous intercolitis from over prescription of antibiotics. After much suffering over many months, it took a gastroenterologist in my family to figure out what was going on, and that I was getting sick from the antibiotics. If I had gone to my integral doctor, he would have looked closer and most likely not prescribed antibiotics as the first thing. I say "most likely" because my integral doctor is trained in both western and alternative/eastern modalities and it has been my experience that they try to prescribe herbs and less invasive things first. But then again, maybe he would have. I dunno, not a doctor. But at least he has both to call on. THIS IS ALL I'M SAYING HERE. How can that be bad?
    If someone prescribed vomiting for me, I'd do it though, is the thing. Mainly because I wouldn't let someone prescribe for me without evidence based medicine behind it. It isn't merely that Ayurvedia can give bad advice, it has a poor way of determining what advice to give. I'm fine with vomiting therapy someone has proven it reduces incidence of heart disease via controlled study, but I'm not fine with doing it because someone tells me my fire level is excessive and vomiting will let air element even it out.
    Your anecdote is post hoc justification. I can just as easily make up a story that if you had gone to your integrative doctor, he'd have prescribed you herbs that made you sicker than any antibiotic. There is nothing about herbs that make them any safer than synthetically made treatments. In fact, I'm inclined to say the opposite, most of nature is actually pretty happy or at best indifferent to seeing human being dead.
    ps. I am currently speaking to an nutritionist about issues with my digestion, and she has given me some ayurvedic recipes, as I have had digestive issues since the pseudomembraneous intercolitis over 10 years ago now. They are working out GREAT, not as much pain and gas. Hm, dont think that's a placebo. Again, I'm thin and fit, losing weight is not my primary goal of being on here, improving my health and getting stronger is. I am trying to lose about 8 pounds as a secondary measure but mostly i'm working on digestion. These ayurvedic recipes have pretty much rocked my world. So I'm gonna stick with it. And I'm sure someone on here is gonna tell me that Im just dreaming this up, I'm here to tell you I love these dreams if they can prevent stomach upset, heartburn and pain. That's some pretty strong sugar water.
    "It can't be placebo effect because I don't believe it is placebo effect." Perhaps you're unaware, but being aware of, or even actively disbelieving in something, doesn't make you exempt from placebo effect. Heck, even dogs, that can't understand they're being given medicine can experience the placebo effect.

    You're only answering parts of my questions, and the ones that suit you so I don't really know how to respond to you, and don't think it's worthwhile to continue. Good luck with your weight loss and journey on here!

  • senecarr
    senecarr Posts: 5,377 Member
    edited June 2015
    miriamtob wrote: »
    Really?! It couldn't possibly be that the phytochemistry within herbs works with the dog's physiology.
    You're putting up misguided critique about placebo effect in dogs from a study I mentioned but didn't link? No. No phytochemistry affected the dogs in the experiment because they used actual proper placebo pills. The study wasn't about Aryuvedic medicine, it was about actual placebo effect. Heck, it isn't even just one study. There are several on using placebo effect in dogs!
    Do you realize how desperate to cling to your beliefs that remark sounds?
    Some examples:
    http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19912522
    http://www.appliedanimalbehaviour.com/article/S0168-1591(14)00188-9/abstract
  • miriamtob
    miriamtob Posts: 436 Member
    No, you didn't mention a study before or link to any, so I inquired for more information to back up your claim. I had been wondering about the placebo effect in dogs, newborns, horses, etc... So thanks, I'm always learning.
    Also, no. It still seems like you believe that herbs only work by placebo effect. Or else, I don't know what your point in even bringing it up was. Your argument this entire thread has been based on unwarranted assumptions. You don't even understand Aryuveda well enough to use the proper vocabulary to describe its methodology.
  • jgnatca
    jgnatca Posts: 14,464 Member
    The scientific method is a methodology that is intended to extract truth from speculation. Religious rituals and methodologies are intended to elicit a particular state of being or mind and there is no scientific rigor demanded or expected.

    The problem arises when religious or traditional practices tread in to scientific territory, claiming the same validity without the same scientific rigor. One cannot demand the skeptical inquirer to understand or follow all the rituals of a particular religious or traditional belief to declare it invalid.

    Now, there are scientists who have shown interest in religious/traditional practices and beliefs, and have applied hypotheses and experiments exploring the significance of these beliefs. Not about food, but beliefs and morality, have been admired and studied by Haidt.
  • sofaking6
    sofaking6 Posts: 4,589 Member
    sofaking6 wrote: »
    Orphia wrote: »
    You can't reason someone out of something they weren't reasoned into.

    Ayurveda is just a collection of anecdotes. The plural of anecdote is not data.

    True dat.

    Mama, you have the patience of a saint to still be involved in this thread. The woo, it burns...

    Hey, I'd love it if you could respond to what is being discussed here (maybe my post directly above yours) instead of insulting us on this thread? This is the tone I'm talking about - condescension.

    If a system of treatment based on astronomy works at all, it is purely by accident.

    Determining the value or truth of a practice based on its age is horrifying. Infanticide is a very ancient practice, does that mean it's a better practice than more modern ones such as taking prenatal vitamins or, you know, just not leaving babies in the wilderness to die? Poor logic is illogical.
  • senecarr
    senecarr Posts: 5,377 Member
    miriamtob wrote: »
    No, you didn't mention a study before or link to any, so I inquired for more information to back up your claim. I had been wondering about the placebo effect in dogs, newborns, horses, etc... So thanks, I'm always learning.
    Also, no. It still seems like you believe that herbs only work by placebo effect. Or else, I don't know what your point in even bringing it up was. Your argument this entire thread has been based on unwarranted assumptions. You don't even understand Aryuveda well enough to use the proper vocabulary to describe its methodology.
    You know the placebo effect I mentioned for dogs is placebo effect in general, right? You seem to acting like I'm saying the placebo effect is specific to an herb that I don't even recall the person saying a specific one.
    I don't know if the herb works beyond placebo effect or not. Neither does the person taking it. No one can know unless the particular herb is clinically studied versus the effect of a placebo. What I do, most definitively know, is that the reasoning used to prescribe it is invariably wrong. The central dogma of Ayurvedia is wrong, we don't operate on 5 elements that cause only 7 types of tissues in the human body to mix in certain quantities.
    As far as if I understand Aryuvedic medicine and its vocabulary: by that standard, you don't know me well enough to level any criticism at anything I say, so you're wrong! See how that works? I know the basis of it is false. That's enough. Even if it accidentally produced results for someone, it is still unethical to provide someone with a medical treatment that works correctly but does so for the wrong reasons.
  • miriamtob
    miriamtob Posts: 436 Member
    jgnatca wrote: »
    The scientific method is a methodology that is intended to extract truth from speculation. Religious rituals and methodologies are intended to elicit a particular state of being or mind and there is no scientific rigor demanded or expected.

    The problem arises when religious or traditional practices tread in to scientific territory, claiming the same validity without the same scientific rigor. One cannot demand the skeptical inquirer to understand or follow all the rituals of a particular religious or traditional belief to declare it invalid.

    Now, there are scientists who have shown interest in religious/traditional practices and beliefs, and have applied hypotheses and experiments exploring the significance of these beliefs. Not about food, but beliefs and morality, have been admired and studied by Haidt.

    Please, noone on this thread is demanding anyone follow any rituals; only asking for some tolerance. I've tried to educate on how the Aryuvedic model works, but my words always get spun.
This discussion has been closed.