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Let's just get something out of the way. Everyone is frustrated with inadequate therapies and people are still dying from  Cancer. This does not mean that there is an oraganized conspiracy in effect involving everyone from the FDA to your doctor!! There may be ignorance, but there is no active witholding of dollars for research on certain rare cancers and there are no organized efforts to keep "natural" cures from the public. It just ain't so. It would be easier if it were. There are too many different global channels of information entry and it would be much easier to deal with via legal channels. While big pharma would like to see a monopoly, there are MANY active researchers world-wide interested in natural, alternative, complementary integrative therapies.
Having said that, there is a LOT to be said for exploring natural and complementary avenues, within the concept of Integrative Medicine. This is just a primer for natural to mainstream collaboration and evolution, as well as West cooperating with East.
There are plenty of "natural" substances which were discovered, investigated and became miracle drugs. Look at Penicillin...where did it come from? Fungus!!..of all lowly things. In the cancer therapy arena, Taxol, a leading drug in the fight against breast, ovarian and other cancers, came from a ewe tree!! A current promising drug in clinical trials, Yondelis, comes from a type of sea urchin or sea squirt. So, there is no question that there are natural substances out there that have medicinal properties. We have known that for centuries. However, all must be systematically investigated and found effective as well as SAFE to take by humans! Sometimes this process is slow, but with good reason. Sometimes it is hastened a little to the public's detriment. Just look at the recent recall of Vioxx and other drugs.....found to be dangerous DESPITE an extensive investigational process. Just think what would have happened if Vioxx was released earlier. Even more people would have died!!
It is important to realize the difference between alternative, unproven, unconventional, natural, holistic, and complementary treatments. These are overlapping terms, but are quite different in practice. Please be aware of this.
Alternative or unconventional treatment is called alternative or unconventional because it has not yet been shown to be effective. If it were proven to be effective, it would be a conventional treatment, whether natural or synthetic. The key is in the proof and how that is obtained. Today's gold standard for pharmaceutical agents, to be proven effective, usually requires a randomized study comparing one treatment against another. Of course there are preliminary laboratory, animal, human observational and clinical trials in Phase I and II leading up to that point. There is always some reason given why this has not or cannot be done by the promoters of unconventional therapies. The National Institutes of Health has an office to fund and study unconventional therapies. If any are proven helpful there will be a stampede to report it, even if drug companies were not behind it, because it is the natural course of affairs with press coverage. Interesting results ARE reported no matter what. There is no conspiracy to suppress a known cure. If any of the unconventional alternative therapies being promoted actually were effective then that discoverer would likely be awarded a Nobel Prize ten years in a row.
Claims for the effectiveness of unconventional treatments are almost always limited to testimonials. A testimonial is nothing more than an unsubstantiated assertion of one's belief. It proves nothing, only what one believes.
Conventional treatment is the result of the scientific process. First an hypothesis is proposed and experiments done to confirm or reject the hypothesis. The human body and its workings are incompletely understood, and there is more unknown than known about it. But, even with this lack of knowledge the scientific process has yielded huge benefits to us. There are no good alternatives to antibiotics for aggressive bacteria, insulin for advanced diabetes, blood transfusions for emergency blood replacement or x-rays for detecting fractures. There are no advocates of alternative electricity, electronics, aerodynamics. refrigeration, chemical engineering or physics. Everything you have that the caveman didn't have in these areas is the result of the scientific process which has led to what you use effectively every day to live. On the other hand, there is every reason to explore new natural ways to do things, or even use older natural ways to prevent disease or help your body maintain health. There is an appropriate place for almost everything, within reason.
The reason that there are unconventional therapies in medicine and none in any other field of applied science is that medicine is an inexact science. There is no way to stop death from a number of diseases with today's science. This assures a large marketplace of desperate people who have one disease or another and plenty of unscrupulous people waiting to take money for treatments that do not work.
Unconventional therapies can be useful in that they can give hope where none is otherwise expected. They can allow the patient to participate more and to take more control over their treatment. General wisdom suggests that unconventional therapy should not take the place of conventional therapy as long as there is scientific proof that the conventional treatment may be helpful. Unfortunately, there are many situations in which it has been scientifically proven that conventional treatment will not be helpful. In these situations the options are no treatment, investigational scientific studies, or unconventional treatment. At this point the decisions are philosophical not medical and you have to make personal choices.
Having covered all of the above regarding ALTERNATIVE and UNPROVEN therapy, please be aware that COMPLEMENTARY and INTEGRATIVE therapy is altogether different in most cases. Complementary therapies are very broad approaches involving nutrition, exercise programs, psychological support, accupuncture, massage, music therapy and many others that can help conventional therapy work better and/or alleviate symptoms from the disease or the toxic side effects from treatment. Most information on this site will concentrate on proven or very plausible complementary options to help you in your quest for primary prevention, treatment and prevention of recurrence. It is this author's opinion that incorporating complementary treatments does NOT have to be based on randomized controlled clinical trial data exclusively. The reason is that with today's scientific capabilities we cannot fine tune what exact nutrient has exactly what effect. There is a huge nutrient interaction at the biochemical level and it is quite impossible to separate out the details to that level. Also, many complementary approaches have very subjective outcomes (i.e. pain, emotion, feelings etc) which are often very hard to measure. As long as no harm is proven or suspected, it is reasonable to pursue judicious use of such therapies,best done under expert supervision.
As of December 2007, my site is just getting started and I promise you there will be a LOT of evidence supported and reasonable options to explore as we dig deeper into what works and what doesn't. What is obviously good for you, what is obviously bad, and all that grey area in between. If you want to dwell upon the conspiracy theories, great. More power to you, but please leave! I am dedicating hours upon hours of research time to get the TRUTH out to you about what you should be considering and exploring. If you have not signed up for my FREE reports as they become available, please do so. You can opt out any time. Check it out, on the UPPER LEFT of this page.
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Natural Integrative Therapies 
