In a trial of Pain Reprocessing Therapy (PRT), 2/3 of patients with chronic low back pain reported significant pain relief with psychotherapy that helped them reconceptualize the pain as nondangerous. Impressive if true, but flaws in research design make the study untrustworthy. I don’t usually get my medical information from Reader’s Digest, but when I read
Nugenix Total T is one of many so-called testosterone boosters on the market. Vague claims, insufficient evidence. The commercials insult my intelligence. They show men on a golf course commiserating with each other about how their performance had gone downhill since the good old days of their youthful manhood, and some telling others how Nugenix
It’s common knowledge that Prince Charles is a persistent and outspoken champion of alternative medicine, but the full story has never been told until now. Edzard Ernst reveals all the shocking details in this unauthorized biography. The shocks come from Charles’ own words, which Ernst quotes extensively. It is beyond ironic that Charles’ supporters were
Socks that lower blood pressure? The claims for Boliav socks are too incoherent to make sense of. I can’t take them seriously. Speaking of her childhood home in Oakland, Gertrude Stein famously said “There’s no there there” because the house no longer existed. The phrase has come to mean that nothing significant exists in that
Prince Charles is a strong advocate for alternative medicine and is proud to be “the enemy of the Enlightenment.” For the first time, Edzard Ernst tells the full story of Charles’ ignorance and folly. Prince Charles, proud to be the Enemy of the Enlightenment. Edzard Ernst has a new book out: Charles, The Alternative Prince: An
Purveyors of so-called complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) don’t have any credible scientific evidence. If they did, their treatments would not be called “alternative” but would have been accepted into mainstream practice and would just be called “medicine.” They tend not to appreciate science or even to understand it. They don’t need or want scientific
[Este artículo está disponible en español. La traducción al español apareció por primera vez en la revista Pensar.] What are green-lipped mussels? My imagination conjures up a SpongeBob SquarePants episode featuring a clam-like creature with green lips, and I can’t help wondering what would happen if they applied red lipstick? Imagination can be fun; but
[This article is also available in English. Thanks to Pensar for the Spanish translation.] ¿Qué son los mejillones de labios (o bordes) verdes? Mi imaginación evoca un episodio de Bob Esponja con una criatura parecida a una almeja con labios verdes, y no puedo evitar preguntarme qué pasaría si se aplicaran lápiz labial rojo. La
What do you know about Mark Twain? That he was a famous humorist? That he wrote Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn? Maybe you know he questioned many conventions like organized religion. What you may not know is that he was an enthusiastic proponent of “alternative medicine” long before the term was coined. Mark Twain, the
The (Un)Well documentary series on Netflix asks “Wellness: does it bring health and healing, or are we falling victim to false promises?” But instead of answers, it offers false balance and confusion. Netflix: a good source of entertainment, not a good source of medical information Netflix recently produced a reprehensible documentary series on “The Goop Lab”. It
