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India government's pregnancy advice: No meat, no eggs, no lust, and look at pretty baby pix
- Thread starter Alessandra Kelley
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Yeah. And this wasn't some first trimester excursion, either. This was full on 38 weeks, ready to pop.
Judas Priest, no we shouldn't. a large part of my job has somehow morphed into trying to convince parents that regular food, like the stuff that contains gluten and casein, isn't poisonous regardless of what the naturopath or the doula says.
Everyone also wants to talk about medical marijuana for kids with developmental problems.
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While in no way justifying what the yoga folks have recommended, may I say this?
As a doctor trained in western medicine, I can tell you ayurveda is not snake oil medicine and should not be 'given up on.' Should the practitioners try more evidence-based approaches? Of course. And there are 4-year, government-certified courses attempting to standardize ayurvedic practice. it is still highly unlikely that it will replace modern medicine, but the suggestion that it has nothing to contribute is extraordinarily blinkered.
Two of the oldest written medical textbooks, the Susruta Samhita and the Charaka Samhita, came from India. Atharva Veda, if you remove the chants and the hymns and the rest of the fluff, is actually a collection of remedies for ailments (seizures and menstrual cramps were among those I managed to figure out).
Yes, with the hindsight of 3-5K years, you can find plenty wrong in the books. There is still value in them, I am hoping, but researchers will need to invest time and money.
And let's not forget, we stand on the shoulders of giants.
Do you know what we call alternative/complementary medicine when there is scientific evidence supporting its effectiveness?
Scientific evidence based medicine.
Until then, being practiced for thousands of years doesn't have the best track record as an indicator of effectiveness. I can count the few ancient medicines I know about that panned out on one hand.
What do you think of the ayurvedic advice for pregnant women this group made?
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India's not going to just give up Ayurveda. China and the Chinese diaspora isn't going to just abandon TCM, even as those systems become more Westernised, adopt evidence-based protocols, etc. The reason is simple: these are culturally/spiritually appropriate elements of medical practice in these cultures. Ritual and cultural observance is important to medicine. Even in the scientific West. It's colonialist and a bit rude to expect people to hurry up and abandon thousand-year old practices just because they don't meet the evidence/science-based paradigm, IMO. Noone's demanding an end to the ritual in Western medicine (though a lot of it's objectively harmful, much more so than most complementary medicine use: e.g. the ritual of the Prescription of Antibiotics For Your Viral Illness Just In Case).
To be fair, I'm no more in support of bad Western medicine than I am of other bad medicine. But from a practitioner POV, they won't change if we don't call them on it, and that includes bad Western medicine.
I'll give you an example, hopefully one that is illuminating. Researchers are starting to challenge medical research from China. The culture of saving face has made it difficult to trust the research. But some in China are also recognizing and responding the problem. Some Chinese researchers are calling for addressing this cultural problem.
In the mean time, I witnessed the government respond during the SARS epidemic. There were cases in Shanghai and the mayor denied them, because it looked bad. The national government intervened and they were able to identify and properly stop any further spread from the cases there.
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1) Having practiced medicine for 10+ years, I am, somewhat, aware of what evidence-based means.
I will say it even in court; I would not subject my family to treatment I had no evidence would work. Perhaps, if I were desperate, but that's a different issue.
That being said -
2) Ayurveda is only starting to be studied with some amount of seriousness. What those who actually practice know is a mere fraction of the information jotted down in various texts. Some of the modern medicines we use do come from ancient practices. Digoxin, for example. And Quinine.
Mocking an entire system without having a clue of what it is about is rude.
3) Does the Yoga Center say their recommendations are based on ayurveda? Ayurveda does emphasize vegetarian diet, but they also ask patients (including pregnant women) to make sure they get lots of protein. Green gram, rice, and vegetables, with curd (yogurt) and milk. I don't know of any ayurvedic practitioner who recommends abstinence (unless there is a risk of miscarriage or some other complication).
That said, there are dumbasses. There was a judge (!) who recently claimed peacocks reproduce by having the female drink the male's tears. For a couple of days, my Twitter feed was full of Indian friends posting peacock porn to disprove His Honor.
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First, you don't know what I know about Ayurvedic medicine.
Second, the fact Ayurveda hasn't been methodically studied is not a reason to believe there will be a magical revelation when someone does study it.
You are welcome to believe in energy balance, it's not something I find useful. The three doshas, yin and yang, the four humors, chi, I'm not in awe of beliefs that ancient peoples created to explain their world. How do those beliefs differ from astrology or various rituals humans have used to affect the weather? If anything they get in the way of cultures progressing to medicine that actually works.
People have always sought to explain their world, but unless individuals figure out how to make systematic observations, the human brain naturally draws false conclusions. Worldwide, most individuals have yet to understand why something is a supportable conclusion and something else is not. So by that measure the human species has a long way to go.
Whatever it is about Ayurveda that you find attractive, that's your business. I'm sorry you find my dismissal of thousands of years of superstition rude. It's the conclusion I have come to.
Did you look at the center's website that produced the recommendation? You can judge for yourself.
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Y'all's exchange is kind of how I imagine doctor/nurse arguments happen IRL. 
There's also a huge difference between "evidence" and "credible evidence," and I've found that most supposed evidence-based claims of CAM are based on spurious, non-credible evidence.
That's not to say that some specific aspects of CAM can't be somewhat beneficial in a limited capacity.
I agree that it might be hasty to summarily dismiss every single thing that comes from a particular CAM practice before it has been adequately studied (because sometimes you might find a pearl in an ocean full of shit), but I do think that most CAM systems deserve to be dismissed as wholes.
However, I do think a good general rule for discussions about beliefs is to ask someone why they believe something to be true and ask them for evidence to support that belief, rather than just shitting all over it from the start. I often fail at taking my own advice, but I think that's something we can all learn from discussions like this.
That brings up an important issue that I have with so-called "complementary and alternative medicine" (CAM). Its practitioners/hucksters often take advantage of people's ignorance of science and desperation to find cures or answers.1) Having practiced medicine for 10+ years, I am, somewhat, aware of what evidence-based means.
I will say it even in court; I would not subject my family to treatment I had no evidence would work. Perhaps, if I were desperate, but that's a different issue.
There's also a huge difference between "evidence" and "credible evidence," and I've found that most supposed evidence-based claims of CAM are based on spurious, non-credible evidence.
That's not to say that some specific aspects of CAM can't be somewhat beneficial in a limited capacity.
Aspects of Ayurveda have been studied quite a bit over the last 15 years (certain practices in Ayurveda are not unique to it, so they've been studied in multiple contexts). However, there is some small evidence that two formulations of Maharishi Amrit Kalash (an Ayurvedic herbal remedy) might have slight anti-carcinogenic effects.
I agree that it might be hasty to summarily dismiss every single thing that comes from a particular CAM practice before it has been adequately studied (because sometimes you might find a pearl in an ocean full of shit), but I do think that most CAM systems deserve to be dismissed as wholes.
I disagree that it's somehow rude to mock a set of ideas. If Maeze were directly mocking actual people to their faces, then yeah that could be considered rude. But ideas don't have feelings.
However, I do think a good general rule for discussions about beliefs is to ask someone why they believe something to be true and ask them for evidence to support that belief, rather than just shitting all over it from the start. I often fail at taking my own advice, but I think that's something we can all learn from discussions like this.
Unfortunately, I know more than a few fellow scientists who still draw false conclusions from systematic observations. Accepting hard truths rather than comforting lies is difficult for everyone and even the scientific method can't always inoculate people from their biases.
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A few examples of scientists digging through “oceans of shit” in traditional medicine to discover a pearl.
Aspirin – from willow bark (used by ancient Egyptians and ancient Greeks) – not just for pain, for heart attacks and strokes.
Atropine – from belladonna
Morphine, codeine – derived from poppy
Digoxin – foxglove
Cobra venom used for treatment of pain since ancient times is under investigation
Pregnant women in India were asked not to take papaya. It has been found that Papain acts on alpha adrenergic receptors on uterus, causing contractions, and increasing risk of miscarriage and premature delivery.
Quinine – Cinchona tree bark
Reserpine – from snake weed (used as tranquilizer by Alexander the Great for one of his generals, IIRC)
Scopolamine – from Datura (datura has atropine, as well, and was given in pipes by ayurvedic practitioners for treatment of asthma, the Chinese used it for anesthesia)
Taxol (used in malignancy) – from Pacific Yew. Native Americans used it for treatment of cancer
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In drug development process the eventual success rate is less than 10%.
https://www.bio.org/sites/default/f...6-2015 - BIO, Biomedtracker, Amplion 2016.pdf
Regardless of where they go digging, success rate is low.
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And let’s not forget, evidence-based medicine is not settled. It wasn’t too long back that beta blockers were considered contraindicated in heart failure. Then, it was discovered they have mortality benefits in the long term. The debate over Aspirin as a primary prophylactic has been swinging wildly. Currently, the FDA does not recommend it, while the NHLBI does recommend it in certain populations. I believe the CDC’s answer to controversy has been to say, “We don’t know.”
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Re: rudeness. I should have used a better word. I should have said - To dismiss all alternatives as “superstition” is shortsighted.
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You'll notice that I did not selectively cut/edit anything you said in your post in order to misrepresent it and fit a biased narrative, which is exactly what you did to my quote.
When you read my full quote (without chopping it up and robbing it of some necessary context), you'll see that I said:
Bolding mine, in order to emphasize the crucial piece you disingenuously decided to chop out.
Why is correcting your misrepresentation important?
Because your response (quoted above) does not refute the point I was making. It actually supports it. Your response also doesn't say what you think it says.
Everything that you listed is just an example of modern medicine examining an old remedy with scientific rigor, identifying the component of it that is actually efficacious, and then taking out, improving it, and using that single new/improved component while discarding the rest of the useless bullshit attached to it. Thus, my point about finding the "pearl" while discarding the shit that is the overall system.
That's often how science works.
You're also conflating modern medicines that were derived decades ago from ancient remedies and "folk medicine" with what is currently classified as CAM (Complementary and Alternative Medicine) systems, which is what my post was addressing, and I was specific in my word choice.
So, no, you have not at all proven that Ayurveda or any other CAM system, as a whole, is effective or useful at all. The relief that one might feel from chiropractic is the direct result of placebo response and the fact that a few of their treatments hew very close to those used in legitimate physical therapy. Accupuncture is 100% placebo. Homeopathy is 100% placebo.
If one of Ayurveda's herbal remedies is found to contain an efficacious medicinal substance, then great. Real scientists will extract it and manufacture it so that real doctors can use it (such as MAK-4 and 5 that I mentioned previously, even though the results so far have been small and mixed).
However, that would be, as I said earlier, "a pearl in an ocean full of shit," especially given how absolutely dangerous and potentially toxic most Ayurvedic remedies are because they incorporate heavy metals, because much of Ayurveda is based on an Iron Age understanding of the world. My point wasn't that large systems can't contain anything useful (by pure accident). But those few-and-far-between instances of something useful don't redeem the systems (as wholes) from being largely useless overall, if not harmful.
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I was not supporting or refuting your point. I was making my own. That serious scientists do not dismiss old ideas out of hand as superstition. They take time and effort to study them.
Yes, there are harmful suggestions in ayurveda and other traditional practices.
But consider -
FDA approved Nesiritide later got a black box warning
Wonder drugs Vioxx and Celebrex (for pain management) now not recommended in patients with CHF
Diabetes meds Avandia and Actos proven harmful.
For every medication that comes to market, 9 are discarded. Then, from the ones out on the market, some get withdrawn.
We would like to think scientists develop medications after studying the chemical makeup of the organ and/or pathogen concerned, and there is quiet a bit of research going on where they do exactly that. But a lot of it is also by painstaking study of what has been seen to work over the last few millennia. Rapamycin was discovered because tetanus was not as prevalent on Easter Island as it should have been. Today it is used in treating transplant patients and is used to coat coronary stents. Was this known? Of course not. But it was not originally developed in a lab. There are many more drugs that were developed this way, and many more still under research.
The idea is that these traditional systems have nothing to contribute and that all the new applications that the FDA gets are for purely lab-developed medicines is not accurate.
That isn't what either poster said, and deliberately using partial quotes lifted from their original context, isn't OK.
Use the quote button, and don't do that again.
I had already edited that quote out (because it was unnecessarily snarky) and added further clarification.
That is a total strawman. It also confuses/conflates the usefulness of one component used in a system with the usefulness of the entire system as a whole.
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Traditional Chinese medicine is also endangering animals: http://www.economist.com/news/inter...e-fuels-demand-endangered-beasts-prescription