RE: Allergic conditions and LArge scale studies

[Guest guest]

Alon,

 

 

 

I have a hard time following your logic.

 

 

 

1) You mentioned that it is impossible to correlate negative effects of

treatment strategies without a large scale study. Yet you mention that you

know " some people " that eat these 30 oranges and do not have " such issues " .

First what are " such issues " and is this a large scale study (as you mention

we need)?

 

 

 

So I am curious. You state that:

 

a) we cannot trust experts in China that write about negative effects of

certain treatment strategies. (I think we can, especially when we find

multiple sources and they support our own clinical findings!)

 

b) we cannot trust our own clinical experience, because our clinics are too

small. (I strongly disagree)

 

c) we need large scale studies, yet you have on numerous times said that the

large scale Chinese (and Western) studies are not very reliable, for

multiple reasons. (I agree)

 

 

 

Therefore what can we believe in? No one is saying to just believe in

everything (without thinking), but clearly Chinese medicine has figured out

quite a bit without large scale studies. Such knowledge principally comes

about through doctor's observations in the day to day clinic. As mentioned

before, if one is observant, one can figure out all sorts of things that

work and don't work. I have no question about this, and in my own

experience, theory is an important component to dissecting clinical reality.

 

 

 

 

We actually do this for almost every patient (if we are good). Patients come

back and mention some side-effect, we use our brain and theory to figure out

why, and tweak the treatment. Overtime you make correlations. One's

treatment strategies then change and people improve. Once one starts to make

correlations, you then discuss these findings with colleagues (which I

regularly do) and you have more (or less) support for your findings. This is

in the trenches (peoples) medicine.

 

 

 

Large scale studies have a large amount of their own kind of problems. I do

not think they are superior to an attentive clinician. They very rarely

impress me.

 

 

 

2) What issues are you referring to? Are we still talking about excessive

sour causing damage? An orange is much different than wuweizi or wumei, it

is not really that astringent. I think you have a hard sell to convince me

that eating excessive amount of a flavor (or a single food) does not cause

problems. I have seen it happen way too many times. (This is from my

clinical experience and not a large scale study). Again the question is it

" can " it doesn't happen to everyone in the same period of time. Sometimes it

takes years, sometimes less.

 

 

 

3) It is much harder to correlate no problem (people who eat 30 oranges and

are fine) with problems that arise from such eating habits.

 

 

 

I think this topic is well worth exploring, because I think too common we

rely on some grand production study (western trend) that is actually fraught

with errors. Our clinical experience can be incredibly informative for our

development in medicine. That is, if we learn how to be present and think

clearly. This aspect of medicine takes development and energy just other

aspects, and not discussed that much in school. It is something I use quite

often in my practice.

 

 

 

-Jason

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

_____

 

 

On Behalf Of alon marcus

Sunday, June 08, 2008 12:07 AM

 

Re: Allergic conditions and modern pharm

 

 

 

I know of people that eat 30 oranges a day and have not such issues.

But who knows maybe