Dr. Shawn’s Blog

The Placebo Effect and Alternative Medicine

March 10, 2010 on 7:55 am | In General Posts | No Comments

I recently came across a post on another blog purporting to show that there is no proof that natural/alternative therapies work. This particular blog is devoted to debunking any therapy that falls outside the mainstream. The writer of this blog constantly seeks to show that there is no proof that any natural therapy ever works or helps anyone or any pet.

The post I read was submitted by a reader of this particular blog. Briefly, she shared the following information in her post.
An “alternative therapist” told the owner of a horse that she would “work on” the horse for free if the owner would give her feedback on how the horse performed following the “free therapy session.” Unknown to the owner, the “therapist” never worked on the horse but led the owner to believe she had done so.

The day following the supposed “therapy,” the owner was happy to report that the horse actually “rode better than normal.” The writer of the blog used this one example to prove that natural therapies don’t work and that the reason the owner thought the horse rode better was simply due to the power of suggestion, or the placebo effect.

While this was an interesting post to read, and it can easily deceive people into thinking that this one simple experiment proved that all natural therapies only work by the placebo effect, a more careful examination of the post leaves a lot to be desired.

First, I don’t know what an “alternative therapist” is or what one does. I assume the writer of this blog is referring to some sort of physical therapy such as massage therapy, but that is never explained.

Second, there’s a big difference between someone who claims to be an “alternative therapist” and a licensed doctor trained in integrative medicine.

Third, this particular website on which the blog appears always chastises alternative medicine for the lack of proof for alternative therapies since there are so few well controlled, double-blind placebo-controlled studies. It’s interesting that this website now uses an example of a poorly designed “study” (if an observation of one patient even constitutes a study) to prove that no natural therapies ever work!

Fourth, the observation in this case was entirely subjective rather than objective. Rather than using an owner’s observation that the horse “rode better” after a particular therapy, why not use a more objective measurement such as gait analysis or forced plate analysis? In my practice, I can objectively measure things such as a pet’s blood pressure or blood count and easily determine if my therapy (conventional or natural) is working. This can totally eliminate the subjective assessment an owner may make in determining if a pet simply “feels better.”

Fifth and finally, the same “conclusion” could easily be reached in this case if a conventional drug had been used rather than an alternative therapy. For example, suppose a doctor told the same horse owner that he was going to give the horse a pill which would improve its performance. But suppose the doctor secretly did not give the horse the medication but the owner still reported that the horse “rode better” the next day. If we follow the blogger’s (lack of) logic, we have to draw the same conclusion-namely that this one example proves that conventional drug therapy doesn’t work!

It’s interesting how much hatred and negativity one encounters among people who don’t like natural/alternative medicine. To use one example as this blogger has done as universal proof that integrative medicine doesn’t achieve successful results is ludicrous and deceiving. Fortunately, it’s easy to see through all the hypocrisy in this blog and understand the real goal of people who write this rubbish-destroy your choice in determining what kind of therapy you would like for you, your family members, and your pets.