On 1/24/06, Jent Lynne <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> > In a message dated 1/23/2006 11:00:11 PM Eastern Standard Time,
> > [log in to unmask] writes:
> >
> > If natural medical
> > practitioners are in possession of "the truth" why don't they have
> studies
> > to back them up?
>
> I'm only going to add that as an individual, *I* don't have "studies" to
> back
> up what I find works for my body, either. What I DO have is a realization
> of
> what works for me, and what doesn't.
I have no problem with anyone here saying "Hey, this worked for me".
The thing I objected to, and continue to object to, is when people make
sweeping statements about what they believe to be true for the majority of
the population, with no evidence to back them up.
If someone wants to say "taking my kid of milk cured his
asthma/bedwetting/excema/etc and it worked for 3 of my friends' kids too"
that's great too. It's only when someone says "80% of <whatever problem>
in this society is caused by milk" that I start asking for "evidence".
When people start suggesting that other people are idiots for consuming or
giving their children milk, when those individuals/children do not show any
ill effects, then you are going to offend people. And it would help if you
(not "you" but whoever is making the claims) have some evidence to back it
up, and pointing to websites that rant about stuff without offering any
evidence, doesn't count as evidence in my book.
When it comes to my dairy problems, and
> the other health issues I've had for years, those WITH the "studies" have
> not
> been able to help me AT ALL. What eventually I found that HAS helped me,
> is
> totally discounted by those with the studies. Isn't that interesting? I
> can
> say, "When I do this, this result happens in my body. If I stop doing it,
> the
> result goes away." THAT is a "study"! A mini-study, yes, but certainly one
> that works within my body (and truly, that's what's most important to ME -
> MY
> health!)
Sure. And for something like drinking milk or not, doing your own empirical
study is probably the way to go if you have reason to believe that milk may
be having a negative impact on your health. For things like eating a
particular food, testing it on your own can be a good approach, and it
really doesn't matter what works for others. Even if the studies are "true"
for 99% of the population, they might not be true for you. However, for
things like deciding between chemotherapy and megadose vitamins, where you
may only get one chance to get it "right", you might want to find out what
worked for others first.
Yet when I've presented my "mini-studies" to those who supposedly swear by
> studies, they poo-poo it because it doesn't agree with what they have
> already
> decided is "truth".
It's not that I disagree with your results, just that I don't believe they
are *necessarily* generalizable to the general population. If milk has a
certain effect on your body, is that because milk always has that effect on
humans, or is it something about your body that makes it react to milk in an
atypical way? A single "case study" doesn't tell me. It raises a
possiblity, but it doesn't "prove" anything other than how milk affects you.
When my own experience differs from yours, which of us is in the minority?
If we care, we can look to other' experiences and other published studies to
"break the tie".
--Robyn
|
