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[Xellos-_^]

Originally Posted by synaesthetic

You heard from a more honest and less hokey chiropractor, apparently. As long as they admit it's basically a massage for your bones and doesn't magically cure any diseases, they're okay in my book.

i think you are confusing Chiropractor with Acupuncture which does have the whole ley lines and energy flow.

[synaesthetic]

Originally Posted by Xellos-_^

i think you are confusing Chiropractor with Acupuncture which does have the whole ley lines and energy flow.

Nah. The whole idea of "subluxation" which is what chiropractic is built upon, is a qi and power lines kind of thing. The guy I went to see after my car accident was all into the spiritual and metaphysical part of it.

[Xellos-_^]

Originally Posted by synaesthetic

Nah. The whole idea of "subluxation" which is what chiropractic is built upon, is a qi and power lines kind of thing. The guy I went to see after my car accident was all into the spiritual and metaphysical part of it.

i think you just got *lucky* with this one. Most chiropractor aren't into power lines and qi lines

[Anh_Minh]

Originally Posted by Sugetsu

Not everything is solved by cooking your food. E-coli is a pathogen that can withstand high temperatures.

Oh, forgot to mention it, but guess where we got our last deadly, large case of E-coli infection?

Organic bean sprouts. Organic farming, after all, provides ideal conditions for the growth of that species of bacteria, and all it takes is one guy not washing his hands...

[SaintessHeart]

Originally Posted by synaesthetic

Nah. The whole idea of "subluxation" which is what chiropractic is built upon, is a qi and power lines kind of thing. The guy I went to see after my car accident was all into the spiritual and metaphysical part of it.

Originally Posted by Xellos-_^

i think you just got *lucky* with this one. Most chiropractor aren't into power lines and qi lines

What I realised from this argument is that, osteotherapy, like most Chinese Medicine concepts, is badly applied and misunderstood in Western culture. Some idiots learn little and try to market the hell out of it, while other idiots simply deride it as "placebo" without even trying it for the mandated period of time.

Chiropractic techniques actually came from Chinese osteopathic concepts concerning the natural position of muscles, and as they grow in stiffness and strength over time, readjust the bones in unnatural positions . The qi and power lines stuff is just a sweeping explanation of how the human body works; it is still a mystery what passes through those "meridians" and why opening or closing "gates" with super-fine needles does help at all.

It is still the best if you get your TCM from more regulated and less lobbied places like Singapore, Malaysia or Hong Kong. It isn't cheap, but at least it is better than consuming Dhasedyl syrup for two weeks for a whooping cough, and wasting $100 when a $50 TCM treatment solves it all in a week.

I'll post my personal theory when I get back from work. If it wasn't for TCM I would never walk again - some dumb noob quack doctor told me to go for another operation when I already paid a five-figure sum and went for 1 to fix my damn left leg. Thank goodness my mum is still a tiger in her own way then and sent me to a TCM instead.

[Decagon]

The TCM (and a lot of traditional medicine, really) is essentially a few thousand years of clinical testing, observation, and experimentation. Lot of modern people tend to forget traditional cures especially ones you might find in small countryside villages in Europe or the backwoods of N. America. They tend to throw it out as if it were tainted by the image of the Dark Ages when Europe lost much of the knowledge the Romans and Greeks had accumulated.

[DonQuigleone]

Originally Posted by Decagon

The TCM (and a lot of traditional medicine, really) is essentially a few thousand years of clinical testing, observation, and experimentation. Lot of modern people tend to forget traditional cures especially ones you might find in small countryside villages in Europe or the backwoods of N. America. They tend to throw it out as if it were tainted by the image of the Dark Ages when Europe lost much of the knowledge the Romans and Greeks had accumulated.

Mostly because traditional medecine was as likely to kill you as not.

Remember how we used to think Leeches were a good idea? That's only the tip of the iceberg...

Modern Medecine has given us Antibiotics and Vaccines (among other things), which I'd count to be greater then all the contributions of traditional medecine combined. Those 2 alone have saved more people's lives then anything else.

[Xellos-_^]

Originally Posted by DonQuigleone

Mostly because traditional medecine was as likely to kill you as not.

Remember how we used to think Leeches were a good idea? That's only the tip of the iceberg...

Modern Medecine has given us Antibiotics and Vaccines (among other things), which I'd count to be greater then all the contributions of traditional medecine combined. Those 2 alone have saved more people's lives then anything else.

actually leeches and maggots are making a come back in the medical establishment. And while i agree some folk remedies will kill you more likely then cure you. TCM aren't completely useless. Not that i am recommending people should use TCM since the majority of TCM purveyor in the west are the modern day ver of the Old West Snake Oil salesman.

[DonQuigleone]

Well, the old Humours theory was certainly bunk.

I don't trust any medecine or treatment unless it's been through several rounds of clinical trials.

[Ithekro]

The trouble with electrical fields and other type thing that deal with nerves and the brain is that we don't understand how they work, even with science. We might be able to detect them and figure out what goes where, but we've not figured out why nor how to correct problems (otherwise we'd have a lot less crippled people).

[Decagon]

Originally Posted by DonQuigleone

Mostly because traditional medecine was as likely to kill you as not.

Remember how we used to think Leeches were a good idea? That's only the tip of the iceberg...

Modern Medecine has given us Antibiotics and Vaccines (among other things), which I'd count to be greater then all the contributions of traditional medecine combined. Those 2 alone have saved more people's lives then anything else.

That's precisely why I noted the Dark Ages, as Europe lost a lot of the knowledge and culture that had been developed there until it was returned or 'rediscovered' through technological transfer with Middle/near Eastern countries in the 12th century.

I'm not criticizing modern medicine by any scope, but people have relied on traditional medicines for thousands of years. Our pharmaceutical companies large and small are going to rainforests and finding what tribal people use, what cultures that have relied on to keep their people from dying for hundreds of years. 'Natural medicine' that's been passed down has essentially been in clinical trial for the period since the inception of the use of that particular herb, animal, plant, or mix thereof. The efficacy certainly won't be the same as modern medicine primarily because we identify, purify, and pack in the active ingredient that does what it was tested to do for modern medicine. As an example, consider aspirin. Aspirin used to be a tea or powder derived from willow trees until they identified the active ingredient and set out to find the best way to produce and package it.

[0utf0xZer0]

Canadian Opposition Leader Jack Layton dead of cancer at 61:
http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/stor...-obituary.html

Damn... from campaign trail to grave in three months. Pretty much the only person in the Canadian left that could make me feel like we're anything but divided and ineffective too.

Originally Posted by DonQuigleone

Well, the old Humours theory was certainly bunk.

I don't trust any medecine or treatment unless it's been through several rounds of clinical trials.

I'd have more trust in that approach if companies were actually required to publish studies with negative results.

[Xellos-_^]

Originally Posted by Decagon

That's precisely why I noted the Dark Ages, as Europe lost a lot of the knowledge and culture that had been developed there until it was returned or 'rediscovered' through technological transfer with Middle/near Eastern countries in the 12th century.

I'm not criticizing modern medicine by any scope, but people have relied on traditional medicines for thousands of years. Our pharmaceutical companies large and small are going to rainforests and finding what tribal people use, what cultures that have relied on to keep their people from dying for hundreds of years. 'Natural medicine' that's been passed down has essentially been in clinical trial for the period since the inception of the use of that particular herb, animal, plant, or mix thereof. The efficacy certainly won't be the same as modern medicine primarily because we identify, purify, and pack in the active ingredient that does what it was tested to do for modern medicine. As an example, consider aspirin. Aspirin used to be a tea or powder derived from willow trees until they identified the active ingredient and set out to find the best way to produce and package it.
I've worked at some private and public labs doing cancer research, and have talked quite a bit with people from neighboring labs in the same buildings. You would be surprised how many are looking at compounds extracted from TCM sources. They already have extracts of baiyao and have identified what in it makes it antiseptic and makes it a coagulant. Labs have identified what in ginseng stimulates red blood cell production, what in cordyceps stimulates immune responses, etc. What you might have to worry about if you live in China is that they tend to export a lot of the higher quality materials to overseas communities, so prescription quantities can vary a lot for the same efficacy.

sorry,

meant to aren't completely useless.

[Decagon]

Originally Posted by Xellos-_^

sorry,

meant to aren't completely useless.

Oh, sorry then. I'll edit my post.

[ChainLegacy]

Originally Posted by Sugetsu

This is all good and dandy but we are primarily designed as herbivores. Our teeth and digestive track are build to assimilate and process plant life in a more efficient way than flesh. When you eat a nice juicy steak it may take days for it to be fully digested, this is one of the reason why eating meat makes us feel fuller faster.

Refer to this chart:



Take a perusal and you'll notice the interesting discrepancies between the human colon versus the great apes' colon, and the human small intestine vs. the great apes' small intestine. In primates, the small intestine's primary purpose is extracting nutrients from readily available sources. The colon, in contrast, is tasked with breaking down the parts the small intestine cannot - using bacteria to ferment and digest.

What are readily available sources? Meat, primarily, due to the similar cellular structure shared by all animals. What parts of food is the small intestine incapable of digesting? Fiber and starch, aka constituents of plants.

So why would the human colon shrink and small intestine GROW if humans have remained 'primarily herbivores' like our close relatives? There is no answer because that makes no sense. Humans are omnivorous and have relied on meat for sustenance since our evolution. Note the gorilla, who is the only member of the list that is exclusively herbivorous, has the smallest small intestine of them all, in stark contrast to our own species.

While I admire the spirit of vegetarians and vegans, I believe they are misguided. They are right that plants are an extremely healthy part of the human diet. But as a favorite strength coach of mine once said, "a vegetarian diet is perfect, as long as you add some meat to it."

Originally Posted by Decagon

That's precisely why I noted the Dark Ages, as Europe lost a lot of the knowledge and culture that had been developed there until it was returned or 'rediscovered' through technological transfer with Middle/near Eastern countries in the 12th century.

I'm not criticizing modern medicine by any scope, but people have relied on traditional medicines for thousands of years. Our pharmaceutical companies large and small are going to rainforests and finding what tribal people use, what cultures that have relied on to keep their people from dying for hundreds of years. 'Natural medicine' that's been passed down has essentially been in clinical trial for the period since the inception of the use of that particular herb, animal, plant, or mix thereof. The efficacy certainly won't be the same as modern medicine primarily because we identify, purify, and pack in the active ingredient that does what it was tested to do for modern medicine. As an example, consider aspirin. Aspirin used to be a tea or powder derived from willow trees until they identified the active ingredient and set out to find the best way to produce and package it.

Quoted for truth. Don't discount the effects of thousands of years of trial and error. While the rigorous truth-seeking nature of Western science will certainly portray a more accurate picture of what works and what doesn't, often knowledge passed down for centuries has been passed down for a reason. I think we still have much to learn from tribal people, specifically in Papua New Guinea where our understanding of plant life as well as mycology, and tribal customs is lower than anywhere else on the planet.

[MeoTwister5]

As Decagon and Chain said, people shouldn't forget the fact that many synthetic drugs were discovered and eventually derived from naturally occurring sources.

Common anti-arrythmic drugs? Derived from Digitalis species and eventually synthetics were made. Inotropic drugs to control heart function? Derived from epinephrine inside animal and human species. Insulin for Diabetes types I and II is currently culled from pigs, horses and other animal sources. Hell, most currently used antibiotics are derived from actual microorganisms, isolated, and produced synthetically (penicillin was discovered from mold after all).

Herbal medicines and naturally occurring drugs aren't bullshit. New drugs aren't serendipitously discovered or synthesized by mixing chemicals in the lab. Most are observed, discovered and isolated from naturally occurring sources. Nature itself is the world's first and foremost scientific laboratory.

Anyway the reason humans cannot breakdown cellulose is because we lack the genes that encode the enzyme Cellulase. Cellulose is a very long chain polysaccharide and the enzymes we possess such as amylase can only break down long chain sugars up to a point. Sugars going into the cullolse length require a different enzyme mostly in bacteria. Likewise humans can't produce our own Vitamin C because of a defect in the genes for L-gulunolactone enzyme required to transform glucose to VitC.

[DonQuigleone]

Originally Posted by MeoTwister5

As Decagon and Chain said, people shouldn't forget the fact that many synthetic drugs were discovered and eventually derived from naturally occurring sources.

Common anti-arrythmic drugs? Derived from Digitalis species and eventually synthetics were made. Inotropic drugs to control heart function? Derived from epinephrine inside animal and human species. Insulin for Diabetes types I and II is currently culled from pigs, horses and other animal sources. Hell, most currently used antibiotics are derived from actual microorganisms, isolated, and produced synthetically (penicillin was discovered from mold after all).

Herbal medicines and naturally occurring drugs aren't bullshit. New drugs aren't serendipitously discovered or synthesized by mixing chemicals in the lab. Most are observed, discovered and isolated from naturally occurring sources. Nature itself is the world's first and foremost scientific laboratory.

Obviously everything is eventually derived from the natural world. The great thing about the medical establishment is that it creates a mechanism to test a wide variety of different medecines from a variety of sources and systematically quantify their effects. That's not to say there aren't faults, but it's the medical system that's ever existed, and I'll trust a doctor before any kind of traditional stuff. That's not to say that it's not fertile ground for research, but it certainly shouldn't be prescribed by doctors until it's gone through several rounds of testing.

[MeoTwister5]

Well of course drugs need to go through multiple phases of pharmaceutical testing, but one must also consider that drugs can take nearly 10 years in the testing cycle before it's even approved, and even those could get pulled a year into release. Drugs are expensive, that's almost a fact, making even the most common drugs to treat easy conditions beyond the means of many people in poor countries. Either that, or the drugs may come cheap but with a ton of adverse effects in tow (like the antibiotic Chloramphenicol). Many people go to traditional herbal medicines because they are cheaper more available.

For example, here are the ten herbal medicines approved by the Philippine department of health, tested and trialled before approval.

[DonQuigleone]

Originally Posted by MeoTwister5

Well of course drugs need to go through multiple phases of pharmaceutical testing, but one must also consider that drugs can take nearly 10 years in the testing cycle before it's even approved, and even those could get pulled a year into release. Drugs are expensive, that's almost a fact, making even the most common drugs to treat easy conditions beyond the means of many people in poor countries. Either that, or the drugs may come cheap but with a ton of adverse effects in tow (like the antibiotic Chloramphenicol). Many people go to traditional herbal medicines because they are cheaper more available.

For example, here are the ten herbal medicines approved by the Philippine department of health, tested and trialled before approval.

To be fair, there's a whole host of older drugs that are a lot cheaper for developing countries to access(for one thing they're out of patent), and they collectively cure most of the worst illnesses between them. Furthermore Indian companies are operating a kind of racket where they're manufacturing western drugs for much cheaper prices because India "conveniently" does not cover reverse engineering in their patents. IE an indian drug is not covered by a pre-existing patent if it's manufactured in a different manner.

India actually has the second largest pharmaceutical industry in the world almost purely due to this fact. They almost never develop any new drugs of their own. However the patent law recently changed. Indian companies still specialize in manufacturing drugs more cheaply though...

I'm not sure whether it's ethical or not, but a lot of those drugs would never have gotten to the people the indians are selling to so...

[ganbaru]

Originally Posted by 0utf0xZer0

Canadian Opposition Leader Jack Layton dead of cancer at 61:
http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/stor...-obituary.html

Damn... from campaign trail to grave in three months. Pretty much the only person in the Canadian left that could make me feel like we're anything but divided and ineffective too.

I am but worried for his party, as so much of them are a bunch of nobody.
How know, sadly, that might have saved the Bloc Québecois.