The difference between alternative therapies and holistic health lies in their correct use

This is the sentence I most agree with in my seventh year of doing health intervention - many people either label alternative therapies as pseudoscience, or regard overall health as "metaphysics without taking medicine." The boundary between the two is never the method itself, but whether it is used in the right place.

A client with Hashimoto's thyroiditis who I just received in the past two months is the most typical example. She heard from a health blogger that "supplements and back scraping can replace Euthyrox". She stopped taking the medicine prescribed by the doctor and tried it blindly for four months. Her neck swelling became more obvious, and her re-examination antibodies almost tripled. When she came to us crying for adjustments, we instead She did not completely abandon what she used before: she replaced the supplements with random dosages with clinically proven selenium supplements, and changed the scraping from three times a week to once every two weeks for emotional relief. The premise was that she had to take Euthyrox according to the doctor's instructions and have regular check-ups. After more than three months, she went back for a check-up. The antibodies were reduced by almost half, and her overall condition was much better. You see, selenium supplementation and scraping are exactly the same. The former regards it as a "magic prescription" that replaces conventional treatment, which is a harmful alternative therapy; the latter regards it as a supplement to evidence-based medical treatment, and it is part of the overall health intervention when combined with multi-dimensional adjustments to rest, diet, and mood.

Of course, many clinical doctor friends do not agree with this statement. They feel that as long as the method is not supported by sufficient evidence-based evidence, no matter how it is used, it should not be classified as a serious health intervention. It is essentially a variant of alternative therapy. I understand this concern very well. In the past few years, there were too many institutions on the market under the banner of "holistic natural therapy". They promoted singing bowls and bigu as being able to cure late-stage cancer. In essence, they magnified supplementary methods into alternatives. In the end, they were still "wrong used", which dragged down the reputation of overall health.

In fact, to use an inappropriate analogy, overall health is like decorating your home. Conventional clinical treatments include load-bearing walls and water and electricity pipelines. These parts must not be moved. The effective content of alternative therapies that everyone often talks about is soft furnishings and storage tools. If you smash the load-bearing wall to put storage boxes, you will definitely scold the storage tools if the house collapses. It's useless, but if you put the storage box in the right place, it can make the living experience of the whole home a lot better: for example, post-cancer patients can do mindfulness meditation to relieve the nausea caused by chemotherapy, and patients with lumbar prolapse can add moxibustion to relieve local soreness and swelling in addition to rehabilitation training. These are trivial needs that are difficult to cover with conventional medical treatment. If used correctly, they can truly improve the quality of life.

But to be honest, not all alternative therapies are qualified for "correct use". Those that have been proven harmful, such as fasting to treat diabetes, drinking fruit and vegetable juices to detoxify the liver and kidneys, are pitfalls no matter how they are combined. When we make a plan, the first step is to screen out all these that have been falsified, and then talk about how to cooperate with conventional medical treatment. This is also the most basic responsibility to customers.