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Tsukiyumi wrote:I'd say that they're trying something with proven results, that's only outside of "medicine" because drug companies can't profit from it. Doesn't mean it doesn't work.

Mikey wrote:So, it's OK to accept use by drug companies as proof, but not use by doctors?

Cpl Kendall wrote:Do we have a WTF? smiley?

I find it odd that massage therapy has no beneficial effect, yet if I want it covered by my insurance I need to go get a prescription. A company whose entire business involves sucking every last penny out of you is willingly paying for something with no benefit?

GrahamKennedy wrote:
Doesn't that kind of answer your own question. Of COURSE insurance companies will pay for things with no benefit, the entire quack medicine industry makes them a fortune - it's the classic selling snake oil business.

You know they're arguing in the UK about which "complimentary" medicines are good value for money in these cash strapped times. Is the NHS's homeopathic hospital value for money, for instance? Only they hit a problem... you judge the value for money by looking at how much they cost versus how effective they are. And unfortunately, you can't tell the effective ones from the bad ones because when you do a proper study of them, NONE of them are effective.

Cpl Kendall wrote:Would you mind posting a study then? Because frankly this breaks my plausible/implausible meter.

At 6 months, response rate was 47.6% in the verum acupuncture group, 44.2% in the sham acupuncture group, and 27.4% in the conventional therapy group. Differences among groups were as follows: verum vs sham, 3.4% (95% confidence interval, -3.7% to 10.3%; P = .39); verum vs conventional therapy, 20.2% (95% confidence interval, 13.4% to 26.7%; P < .001); and sham vs conventional therapy, 16.8% (95% confidence interval, 10.1% to 23.4%; P < .001.

"Both groups of patients reported they believed the treatment had been invasive and effective in reducing nausea. However, 68 percent of patients who got the acupuncture experienced nausea for an average of 19 days during radiotherapy and 61 percent of the patients who got the sham treatment suffered nausea for an average of 17 days," said the study's lead researcher Anna Enblom, a physiotherapist and doctoral student at the Faculty of Health Sciences, Linköping University in Sweden.

Vomiting was experienced by 24 percent of the patients getting acupuncture and 28 percent of patients receiving the sham treatment, Enblom added.

Fifty-eight of the patients received chemotherapy in combination with radiotherapy. Among them, 82 percent of those in the acupuncture group developed nausea, compared with 80 percent of those treated with the sham needles.

"There was no statistically significant difference between the groups in the number of days with nausea or vomiting or in the intensity of the nausea, neither in the patients receiving radiotherapy alone, nor in those receiving a combination of chemotherapy and radiotherapy," said Enblom. "Our study may indicate that attitudes and expectations play a major role in the experience of the effect of the treatment."

Cpl Kendall wrote:No way in hell would I let someone stick needles in me unless it's medically required anyways.