A new study recently compared patient-physician relationships and relief of symptoms between complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) and conventional primary care (COM). The study was part of a Swiss evaluation of complementary and alternative medicine.
Researchers looked at more than 6,000 patients. The study included patients of 77 non-certified CAM physicians and of 71 conventional physicians.
The patients completed a questionnaire which asked questions about symptom relief, patient satisfaction, and quality of patient-physician interaction.
According to Biomed Central:
"CAM physicians treated significantly more patients with chronic conditions than COM physicians.
CAM Patients had significant higher healing expectations than COM patients.
General patient satisfaction was significantly higher in CAM patients, although patient-reported symptom relief was significantly poorer, The quality of patient-physician communication was rated significantly better in CAM patients."
The study concluded that more effective communication patterns by complementary and alternative medicine could play an important role in allowing patients to maintain more positive outcome expectations.
Dr. Mercola's Comments:
Patient-physician communication is an integral part of clinical practice, but this skill has slowly but surely eroded over the years, with insurance companies and financial incentives significantly dictating doctors' behaviors.
Most conventional physicians get paid for the number of patients they see and the number of procedures they perform – not for how much time they spend on these tasks. As a result, there's a real incentive for them to spend as little time as possible with each patient.
Lack of quality face-time with their doctor is a major complaint by most patients, and naturally, it can lead to everything from misdiagnosis, or missed diagnosis, to incorrect treatment or being improperly medicated…
So, it's no wonder most CAM patients rate their satisfaction as greater than those seeing a conventional medical doctor. CAM doctors typically operate under a different set of incentives, such as obtaining results in order to build a good reputation to build their (non-insurance-based) business, for example.
What is CAM?
Complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) refers to a wide-ranging collection of medical and health care practices and products that do not fall outside the realm of "conventional medicine."
CAM practices include, but are not limited to:
Nutritional medicine
Energy medicine
Naturopathy
Chiropractic medicine
Herbalism, homeopathy, and nutritional-based therapies
Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) and acupuncture
Ayurveda
Meditation and hypnosis
The Moral Crux for Modern Medicine
Aside from the detrimental financial incentives mentioned above, another moral crux for modern medicine is that if too many people actually improve their health, many in the medical industry would lose their jobs.
This fact cannot be ignored, and this is probably a major reason why modern medicine drags its feet when it comes to implementing preventive practices and/or recommending the use of CAM.
Quite simply, the current medical paradigm focuses on treating disease, not promoting health, and the government is complicit it spurring and promoting disease as well.
For example, government drives the obesity/diabetes epidemic by subsidizing the production of non-nutrient-dense foods and high-fructose corn syrup. And statin anti-cholesterol drugs are approved by the FDA even though they don't reduce mortality rates...
Modern medicine is an industry that wants more, not less, disease to treat.
This is why you can't get common-sense disease prevention advice from your doctor, and this is why conventional medicine has such an abysmal success rate when it comes to chronic disease (as opposed to emergency medicine, where conventional medicine truly shines).
This is also why conventional medicine is so quick to dismiss preventive therapies as "unproven."
But guess what…
More than HALF of All Conventional Medical Therapies have "UNKNOWN" Effectiveness!
Conventional medicine prides itself on being science-based, and shuns alternative medicine for being "unproven," but did you know that more than half of all conventional therapies have UNKNOWN effectiveness?
Worse yet, only a paltry 11 percent of all conventional treatments are actually estimated to be beneficial!
These remarkable statistics can be found in the journal Clinical Evidence.
The article states that "the figures suggest that the research community has a large task ahead and that most decisions about treatments still rest on the individual judgments of clinicians and patients."
Indeed!
If you get run over by a bus, the modern emergency room is a blessing. But when it comes to promoting health and treating most all chronic diseases, conventional medicine still has a long way to go, and, more often than not, will send your health into a downward spiral.
More People Opt for CAM as Drug Paradigm Shows Its True Colors
As of 2008, an estimated 38 percent of U.S. adults, along with 12 percent of children, use some type of complementary and alternative medicine.
This is not just because alternative medicine typically offers a more positive treatment experience and typically produces better results, but Americans are also increasingly distrustful of prescription medicines, and rightfully so!
Prescription drug use causes an estimated 700,000 emergency room visits a year in the US alone, and according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), adverse drug reactions from drugs that are properly prescribed and properly administered cause about 106,000 deaths per year, making prescription drugs the fourth-leading cause of death in the U.S.
Furthermore, in 2003, Johns Hopkins Medical School discovered that if you add medical errors and prescription drugs together, the conventional medical system may actually be the LEADING cause of death in the US!
It's a remarkable testament to the power of denial that a system with a track record like that can still considered the primary, and officially promoted as the best, form of "health" care…
Interestingly, the study above, published in Biomed Central, found that CAM patients had significantly higher healing expectations than those using conventional medicine. And this may be a major part of the equation –how invested you are in taking control of your health...
Taking Control of Your Health
It is important to understand that additional government involvement doesn't hold the answer to the health care crisis in the US. What is needed is more personal involvement -- your personal involvement -- in the form of a commitment to your own health.
If you carefully follow some basic health principles -- simple things like exercising, eating whole foods, sleeping enough, getting sun exposure, reducing stress in your life, and nurturing personal relationships -- you will drastically reduce your need for conventional medical care, which in and of itself will reduce your chances of suffering ill side effects.
As drug sales are now dwindling due to a depressed economy, you and your children are likely to be bombarded with increasingly aggressive pharmaceutical direct-to-consumer advertising, and lobbying for more forced drugging and mandatory vaccinations.
Don't fall for the scare tactics and disease mongering!
And don't believe the fairy tale that taking a pill with a laundry list of side effects will somehow improve your health...
The more you take responsibility for your own health -- in the form of nurturing your body to prevent disease -- the less you need to rely on the "disease care" that passes for health care in the United States in the first place.
Take if from a man who knows what he's talking about… 109-year old Bernardo LaPallo offers this sage advice:
"Your health should be your first priority, and in order to do that, you [have to] eat properly."
Indeed, promoting health and preventing disease is not nearly as complex or difficult as conventional medicine would like you to believe.
Source: Dr. Mercola
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