Consumer Reports and credulity towards alternative medicine

Okay, but it’s interesting that there does seem to be some wisdom in the crowd. Back pain and “fibromyalgia,” whatever it is exactly, are conditions for which medicine doesn’t have much to offer. As a matter of fact, in the case of back pain, we’re coming to learn that a lot of what has been done is counterproductive. So these don’t just happen to be the problems for which the people are choosing the alternatives. Furthermore, massage and chiropractic plausibly could actually help the symptoms in these cases. So stripped of any unwarranted extrapolation, you could see this as a useful exercise that does tell us something worth listening to, it seems to me.

Indeed, a woo-less massage therapist or chiropractor can do good things for back pain. It’s a shame the CAM crowd has pulled them into their list of “alternative” medicines, and also that there are massage therapists and chiropractors who practice woo.

Now if CR had pointed this out, that the physical therapy benefits of a woo-less massage or chiro is very much not the same as CAM, it would have been helpful. Their intro to the report didn’t appear to be too bad, to my eyes. I don’t know much about the claims of supplements so I’ll not comment on those. I’ve had some experience with woo-less massage and chiro, and CR do say that you should check with your doctor about expectations.

The full report says in the second paragraph that the alternatives were “far less helpful” than prescription medicine, and to their credit CR do point out that this report is based purely on anecdote, can’t be compared to a proper scientific study, and doesn’t take into account the placebo effect; also that just because supplements are natural they aren’t necessarily safer than prescription drugs.

If it weren’t for the last two paragraphs talking about acupuncture, and the lack of pointing out that (for example) massage therapy is physical therapy and an alternative or complement to painkiller or muscle relaxant drugs instead of being part of CAM and its woo, however much that group might like to claim that it is, this could have been a good report.

The “how to find” users guide, which is all about the woo, doesn’t seem to match the intro or the rest of the report at all. Even if they say “possibly effective” as a caveat, it still looks like promotion. A “how to find” users guide that had tips on how to separate physical therapy from woo, that would have been useful.

And, very interesting footnote at the bottom: “This report was made possible by a grant from the Airborne Cy Pres Fund, which was established through a legal settlement of a national class-action lawsuit (Wilson v. Airborne Health, Inc., et al.) regarding deceptive advertising practices”

Maybe since it was funded by a settlement on deceptive advertising, the report could use a tip on helping people spot deceptive advertising… now I want to look for CR’s contact info.

@yoga cert:

yoga and tai chi are science everywhere… just like running, cycling, swimming, massage, and a mai tai by the pool are. Exercise and relaxation are science based ways to be more healthy. Increased flexibility, strength, cardiovascular condition, decreased body fat, and decreased cortisol (i.e. stress relief) are all accomplished through these scientifically understood modalities. It isn’t a “healing art” per se, but merely part of our understanding of what it means to be healthy. Nothing mystical about it. Until you add chakras and healing energies to it – then it is woo snuck in through science based clothing.

Happy to be put to any test you choose.

It is no secret that Ashtanga Yoga is the best all round holistic and preventative health care system ever invented. It even has all of western medicine in it’s toolbox.

Many many thousands of years in the development, all tested on humans over many generations. Bad yoga caused reduced Himalayas biological fitness, good yoga increased it. Evolution itself was the father of our ‘medicine’.

blockquote fail #8

sorry

fusilier
James 2:24

Surendra – when I hear someone say “I haven’t taken western/allopathic medicine in X years” that doesn’t make me think “Wow, sCAM must really work!”. Instead, it simply tells me that you’ve ‘suffered’ with nothing more major than a cold or a tummyache during that time.

WRT – massage for fibro, of course physical attention is going to help make people with somatisation disorder feel better. That’s hardly rocket science.

While there are obviously serious issues with “alternative medicines” due to all the quack that gets spread around and the damage that is done, I disagree with lumping it all in one big pot. Just because “modern medicine” has not found evidence that some of these things work, does not mean that there is none. It depends on the individual, on the condition, on the treatment style etc, etc. I think that methodologies used in science thus far were restricted to that medicine that is least subject to inter-individual variability and confounding variables.

As science moves into new methodological territories, both experimentally and statistically, I believe that more and more of these “alternatives” will prove to be just as useful as what we today see as the gold standard. But the truly major advances that this will allow, which I think is something that you need to be more open about, is the ability to finally weed out the quack from the useful. Just as some people today lump “alternatives” and give them all a good name, the same can be said about lumping all “alternatives” and giving them a bad name.

I believe there are biases towards and against both modern and alternative medicine, and good scientists should always be as skeptical of their own view as they are of those of others’.

Perfect example of the bias I am talking about: http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/opinion/2011/07/20117313948379987.html

You know the other side of the bias 😉

@Surendra Varma,
Without scientific proof you don’t know that what you’re doing works. All you have is an opinion – which you’re entitled to, naturally. But wouldn’t it be good to know if what you’re doing actually helps keep you healthy?

To me, the disclaimer: “Respondents based their opinions on personal experience, so the results can’t be compared with scientific clinical trials”
has about the same meaning as “I’m not racist, I have lots of black friends but…” nothing good ever comes after the dots.

Yes you are correct it has been shown that where injury or illness occurrs, not only does yoga minimise the effects of injury and illness but also, people who do yoga seek medical treatment sooner. Not to mention better success and recovery rates after operations. Anyone who’s ever operated on an obese person will be slowly nodding at this point.

Yogis will get that lump checked tomorrow, we don’t crack open a bottle of wine and forget about it until it’s big enough to cause pins and needles!

Prehistorically, the only access you would have to wider medical knowledge was your fellow caveman family. Clearly if you had people still able to perform at age 80, their accumulated medical knowledge would be better than that of tribes people who never lived much past 70. Can’t write it down and pass it on, it’s 1000 BC. We know they were doing it at 1800BC, but no-one wrote it down until just before turn of the millennium. Vedic chanting was ‘good as’ writing for the time before it was written down.

If you want to know how healthy ashtanga yogis are, find some on facebook and stalk them until you know the score. If you can find a group that are healthier and happier, post it here and I will check it out personally.

If you can’t fix something with moving, breathing and diet, find the best medic you possibly can and use every knowledge-base at your disposal (ask your best doctor!). That is the rule that real yogis follow.

Sorry fusilier, I hope that answers your questions. Doing yoga means you either don’t develop the pain in the first place, or you notice it and treat it sooner and more successfully.

You don’t let me tell you what is the best treatment, I don’t tell you, Orac doesn’t tell us. One life is one shot so every medical question is a study in itself and if the patient has any sense he will try to OWN the process in it’s entirety. Trust no-one, full SWOT analysis at every move.

Of course you will find many fake yogis who don’t work it properly but we are not talking about fake yoga or ‘just stretching’ here.

Locklin what’s your point? are you suggesting we all just find a pocket of luck and sit in it to protect our health? That’s the fattest woo so far.

Yoga is great for fertility and pregnancy too!

If yoga is great for fertility and pregnancy too, then you should have no trouble presenting the evidence demonstrating it to be so. Unsupported assertions don’t have any credibility.

PMIDs will suffice.

That’s it, yoga, like all exercise, is better than nothing, but which is best?

If you only do 30, 60, 90 or 120 mins of exercise each day, then what is the best set of exercises or the best system to use?

I’m sorry but I don’t see how a PMID can help you in this situation, can’t you think of a better way to check out ashtanga yoga?

You ask which exercise system is the best to use, with the clear implication that yoga is that system. Why do you believe that? What evidence do you have that 30 minutes of yoga is better than, say, 30 minutes of running or 30 minutes of calisthenics? Has someone done a study to show this? If not, how can we take the claim seriously?

@Ashtinga, I believe you are outside of your element here. In science, you need to define your terms and provide evidence rather than assertions. First of all, what is the difference between a “function” and a “strict function”? and how does that matter medically?

As far as your assertions go, we are justified in asking for evidence. People make the same assertions you have about faith healers, magnetic bracelets, and WD40 for arthritis. I do not accept that I have to “try” these health panaceas in order to reject them. Unless you can provide reasonable evidence that Yoga is superior to similar forms of exercise, you have made no sale here.

So, wait – if someone begins a program of aerobic conditioning using running strictly for its health benefits and not to, say, avoid a hungry tiger or catch a departing bus, that’s not a set of exercises or a system?

“Running, like sitting and eating too much fried chicken, is considered to be part of the every day wear and tear that yoga addresses.”

But if you only qualify running as daily wear and tear then you’re potentially missing out on the wider function of running as a medium through which one can affect ‘strict functions’, such as breathing functions (vital volume, tidal volume, rate and endurance), cardiac functions (stroke volume, stroke consistency, pressure and power) muscle function (strength, density, endurance, resistance, tone, defintion), as well as build volition, self-efficacy, perceptual and related cognitive skills, organisation and body image.

If you can’t even grasp what running (as a form of exercise) is and what it does – why should we believe you’re capable of any deeper analysis?

@Ashtanga, you have a poor understanding of science if you think science can’t evaluate the effectiveness of a fitness routine. What you are describing is called a group-control pseudo experiment. It’s not a true experiment because the groups are self-selected (i.e., you don’t randomly assign people to them, they just happen to already belong to one group or the other). The control group should be a group that is as similar as possible to the yoga group, not just regarding routine duration, but age, gender, affluence, prior medical history, etc. A selection of health criteria need to be selected ahead of time (without which it is tempting to choose criteria that happen to place the yoga group ahead, and ignore others). In science, this type of evidence would be considered poor, but acceptable (unlike anecdote, which has been shown useless time and again). The reason it’s considered poor is because it’s difficult to ensure that the control group is identical on everything other than the yoga teachings and practice. Such psueodo experiments are, however, routinely conducted in science because they are reasonably easy ways to identify effects that are worth funding true experiments.

lol

Stop trying to split it up into individual measures. It’s too wide-reaching, you can ask 30,000 silly questions and you’ll still be none the wiser until you look at the bodies.

I’ll give you a clue, google ‘ashtanga pics’.

I believe that Tai chi is now so far removed from a fighting system that you could consider it to have no function other than health.

Licklan, We are way beyond establishing that science hasn’t got a seat on the panel, let alone fit to judge… Go amongst those who do the thing and inspect them.

Be very, very careful, though. If your inspection is too careful and you start getting objective, rigorous, and analytical, you might end up doing science which, as we know by some means not entirely clear, is not ‘fit to judge.’ Instead, the “challenge” is to do this inspection as a sort of personal vacation where you gather impressions in an easy, breezy, and good-natured way. Enjoy yourself, relax, stop being so critical and let go — jump in, the panel is fine.

Daniel Dennett sometimes talks about “deepities” — terms or concepts which trade on the ambiguity between two interpretations: one of them true but “trivial” (in the sense of being consistent with reason and science); the other one false but extraordinary. It would probably be useful to look at bit more carefully at what the yogi masters are actually claiming.

“Deepities” can also be known as the Trojan Horse, or Bait ‘n Switch.

I assert that if you look at people who swim an hour a day, you will find that they are healthier than those who practice yoga.

There, I’ve just proven you completely wrong, by the same standards you’re using. See why one has to provide actual EVIDENCE for such claims?

OMG a poster!!1! Carefully-constructed trials can’t possibly stand up to the might of teh yoga posterz!

Google searching for soft-core does not, however, provide reasonable evidence Yoga is better than exercise in general.

I shouldn’t think Google searching for ‘soft-core’ should provide any evidence of Yoga at all… for a few pages of results, anyway. 🙂

@Beamup, That old chestnut, two problems:

Swimming is not available to all
Swimming is lethal.

Otherwise, looking at those that survive their risky swimming careers and swim 30, 60, 90 or 120 mins a day, yes they are healthier and fitter than ashtanga yogis who don’t also swim.

However, swimming is potentially lethal and excludes too many people who deserve good health.

Ever tried to swim for 30 mins in the Himalayas? That’s one experiment that needs no repetition.

@Ashtanga said “yes they[swimmers] are healthier and fitter than ashtanga yogis who don’t also swim.”

Ok, so you concede that yoga is simply a good form of exercise, perhaps between running and swimming (with the added benefit of no drownings)? Boy you are a slippery devil. If we are just talking exercise here, mainstream medicine has an excellent handle on the health effects of physical activity. There is nothing “alternative” about it. Moderate exercise has a variety of positive health benefits -to a point.

Swimming is not available to all

This is irrelevant to Beamup’s statement.

Swimming is lethal.

Patently false. I have been swimming any number of times and have not died. Yoga is equally lethal, as the building you are in can collapse during the session. Don’t get me started on the inherent risks of practicing yoga outdoors.

I assert that if you look at people who eat precisely three potato chips a day, you will find that they are healthier than those who practice yoga.

I assert that if you look at people who power lift every day, you will find that they are healthier than those who practice yoga.

I assert that if you look at people who drink hard cider every day, you will find that they are healthier than those who practice yoga.

My asserting such things does not make them true or false, however.

@Nicole, yes I do suggest that students don’t drive to yoga class. I would rather they walk, cycle, swim, use public transport or to do their yoga at home.

I can afford to loose a student or two just to keep them off the roads for a couple of extra miles each day (though in all probability they will drive an extra 2 miles to go to a yoga class where the instructor isn’t so anti-cars!).

@Ashtanga London – Perhaps you aren’t familiar with what “PMID” means. This stands for PubMed Identifier, a unique key to look up a study.

PubMed comprises more than 20 million citations for biomedical literature from MEDLINE, life science journals, and online books. Citations may include links to full-text content from PubMed Central and publisher web sites.

Essentially, you’re being asked to provide a published study, preferably peer reviewed, backing up your statements. Studies are done all the time to compare the effectiveness of various exercise regimes, in terms of measurable outcome (lung capacity, endurance, strength, and so on), opinion (how people feel after performing the exercise regimen), and lifestyle changes (how likely are people to continue performing the exercise regimen, how consistently do they perform it, and so on).
I really can’t understand why you’d think that science is incapable of measuring the effectiveness of exercise.

re: If you had 30, 60, 90 or 120 mins every day, what is the best exercise and health system to practice?

For people with health problems, that would be something which minimizes chance of exacerbating the problem. For everyone else, the best answer would probably be whatever that person feels most motivated to do. Compliance is key, and people will continue to do something they enjoy, and that may be yoga, or it may not.

For myself, I choose a routine that includes low-impact high aerobic exercise, and strength training. Those two goals are best accomplished with two different activities -I swim or cycle for the aerobic exercise, and progressive loading (weight training) for the strength training. Of course I include some stretching before, during and after. Yoga may be fun for some, but I find it boring and would not be motivated to stick with it.

While I might be the outsider in this particular forum, I find it frustrating when detractors choose to confuse the discussion by comparing apples and oranges.

I don’t understand the need to ask how Yoga will help bacterial endocarditis, or a burst appendix.

Discussing alternative medicines and yoga in regards to emergency medicine is absolute hogwash, and no person in those fields would argue a yoga move or a chiropractic adjustment would cure a broken bone, or save a person from a heart attack.

It would be the same as saying good nutrition is bogus because it wouldn’t help a person with gunshot wound.

To take it a step further, dermatology must be junk science since it they couldn’t help someone with bacterial endocarditis.

As a chiropractor, I do promote nutrition, exercise, and the ideal bio-mechanics of the spine, and the understanding of superior and ideal health. In the proper context this will make sense to anyone, and allow many sick people to get well.

If I break my arm I am going to an orthopedic surgeon for a consult, but it doesn’t discount the benefits that my profession provides.

It is too bad that someone like Locklin doesn’t set up the proper study that would measure the outcomes of said alternatives.

This seems to explain it. Ashtanga yoga induces the ‘flow state’ which makes you better at managing everything in life and that includes your own health.

https://archive.uky.edu/handle/10225/242

Re: Ashtanga: “People do ashtanga, people see that they benefit, and so on. I can’t see how anyone is going to pay for the research, even though it is obviously the best system.”

Huh. I would say this is progress. You are still making an unfounded assertion, but it is a naturalistic one (as apposed to a supernatural one, so is testable by science) and it’s within the realm of exercise, rather than the new-age mess you started out with. You may have the opinion that yoga is the “best” exercise system, but their is nothing wrong with being a little biased about your favorite sport/activity, within reason.

That doesn’t explain anything. Just the two most glaring flaws obvious from the abstract, either of which renders it incapable of supporting the conclusion:

– No control group. If you don’t compare ashtanga yoga to anything else, you can’t conclude that it is superior to anything else. There was apparently some attempt to compare to practices used previously, but this is fundamentally flawed. Naturally people currently practicing something think it’s superior to what they’ve done previously, or else they’d be doing the previous thing instead.
– Measures an outcome of unknown significance. Does a “flow state” actually improve real outcomes (e.g. risk of cardiovascular disease)?

I do commend you for making the attempt to produce real evidence, though.

Real isn’t particularly my concern. RELEVANT is my concern.

Dr. Graeme Gibson, D.C.
fusilier’s comment was in direct reaction to the statement “It is no secret that Ashtanga Yoga is the best all round holistic and preventative health care system ever invented.” I believe he was point out that the statement was unsubstantiated and overly broad, and he gave an example that would probe the claims about Ashtanga Yoga.
If you were to claim that “chiropractic is the best all round holistic and preventative health care system ever invented” (which I hasten to note you have not), you too might be asked to back that up.

You fall over less

How do you know how often I fall over?

Alternative medicine does not exist. All medicine is complimentary to the core therapeutic activities of eating, moving and breathing.

I worked in Aerospace for 20 years as a radiographer. Science was my profession. I was a production manager and over the years learned that people are not automatons which can be fixed by just applying the right mechanical methods or add the right fluids. I was laided off during a downturn in the industry and studied to be a massage therapist. People are mind body and spirit. Argue science all you want, but science applied to averages of people with whom are “scientifically” are supposed to fit into what heals best.

I have worked with many clients who come to see me because the “Hard Science” based medicine is not working for them or not working well. Now I am not so woo woo that I tell them not to do conventional medicine; on the contrary the most common question I have is “Have you told your doctor this?”. Hard science sometimes forgets to ask questions in favor of test reports that simple are better looking at removing symptoms instead of discovering causes. Last reports I saw most doctors spend no more than 15 minutes of office time with there clients on the averaged. Believe it or not most people are woo woo. Most people are not “adverage” in all areas. Placebo is not “nothing” since every drug prescribed is designed to mimic a natural action in the body. The brain and organs and glands sends signals back and forth in a concert (un-scientific term) to produce health through a healing process. When this process outpaces pathogens toxins and traumas we call it health, when it falls behind we call it illness.

The problem we have is when we have non-taditional “hard science” healing discount bedside manners as part of the healing process and CAMs discount very useful heroic medicine that has enhanced healing as a whole. I believe in vaccinations and surgery when needed. The stent in my heart tells me so. But, we are not machines, and healing is a human science full of woo woo whether you like it or not .

If you are not comfortable with CR stretching into soft science I understand that. If you have a thing against CAMs, that is another thing. Cams have a hard time getting more accurate scientific testing because of the attitude you present in your blog. I myself and many other practitioners of CAM are constantly trying to work with doctors to document more objectively the combine results of our work with medical tests and documentation. The response is generally for the doctors to want more studies before they try new strategies, and you cannot get studies until you try them. Mean while the clients come because they feel heard, and valued. Most hard science medicine see them as a problem to be solved, not a person to be helped in there healing process. My job is to encourage their healing while reminding them to talk to there doctor and not discount their treatments. Sometimes being heard is the best tonic to help a doctor’s treatment.

Again, an argument that may be applied equally well to any other form of exercise such as (picking a different semi-random example this time) Tai Chi. Obviously Tai Chi is superior to any form of yoga, because its practitioners would switch if it weren’t.

Being the kind of people who like to be doing the best one, the very next thing any of us does is look for a better system.

We never find it.

What criteria are you using? How would you know a better system if you saw it?

let’s postulate an attempt at visualising a slightly different group.

This group goes out curling and they believe, rightly or not, that they have found the best sport.

Being the kind of people who like to be doing the best one, the very next thing any of us does is look for a better sport.

We never find it.

Curling is like ‘anonymous’. An idea. You cannot measure the power of an idea. We will always have the best sport because we are willing to play all sports including our core sport.

If you are unwilling or unable to play a particular sport then you are at a disadvantage of your own making.

Flow state was a psychological fad term used by those trying to identify states of mind that occur for many elite athletes. It went out of favor almost a decade ago.

My wife is a certified yoga instructor that also has a PhD in cognitive science yet she’ll make many of the same mistakes that Ashtongue London has attempted to make. Lack of evidence while making claims that far outreach the actual benefits of yoga, just like all alt-med wooists.

Did you even read the study you linked to, Ashtongue? Did you look at the references? What you did would be considered plagiarism in the scientific publication community.

Ashtanga London is somewhat correct, Ashtanga Yoga is the best system. However, it only works properly when you perform it in the morning in winter and the afternoon in summer.

If you perform it outside of these times, it is actually harmful. Luckily, it is so powerful in healing that as long as you perform some Ashtanga Yoga at the right time you’ll survive.

Gopiballava what goes wrong if you do ashtanga at the wrong times? The traditional 5 or 6 times a week at whatever time of morning or later suits, is what most seem to settle on.

I’ve never heard ‘morning in winter, afternoon in summer’ before? Where do you get it from please?

I do cardiovascular and weight-bearing exercise ~5x/week, with stretching. I’m in excellent health and haven’t had to see a doctor in ages for anything other than regular checkups and one broken ankle (race injury) a few years ago. (There’s some luck involved there, of course, but I stack the deck in my favor as much as I can, using interventions that have been demonstrated to increase many short- and long-term aspects of general health.)

See? Science-based interventions can give anecdotes just as lovely as interventions involving chakras and mysticism and all that other bullshit.

And unlike the bullshit, we can show they work beyond the unreliability of anecdote.

people go by experience and not by scientific proof and that is how it should be.

You’re really unclear on the concept of science, aren’t you? Take a look at the above. A handful of self-selected people can toss anecdotes of how frikkin’ healthy we are back and forth at each other all day, but we won’t know for sure what works and what doesn’t unless we:
-Evaluate the plausibility of interventions based on what we know about the natural world (e.g. homeopathy breaks some fundamental laws of physics and chemistry, so it’s right out).
-Compare interventions in the manner that gives us the greatest confidence that any differences observed between the outcomes of the interventions are genuine, and due to the interventions themselves.

There’s a lot of detail-devils tied up in those two, but that’s the basics. I’m a hippie peacenik West-Coast vegetarian, but I don’t sit around getting baked and talking about the importance of ‘eastern mysticism.’ A good thing, too – my ‘eastern’ scientist co-workers would probably laugh.

Yoga is a terrible exercise modality for me – it bores me to an extent almost as lethal as swimming.

Todd,

You’re being way too literal.

Obviously he is, as evident by his taking of Gopiballava’s comment literally. Apparently, his yoga prevents him from understanding satire.

(Does that count as a negative aspect of yoga?)

@JayK Is it experienced outside of the athletic elite and ashtanga yogis? I have had the same ‘flow state’ from dancing or aerobic exercise very occasionally but never as strongly or as reproducibly as is possible with the yoga.

Did they measure any ‘brain waves’ of these elite athletes when in ‘flow state’? I’d love to see some science on that, and if I can’t understand it maybe a bit of help too!

Ashtanga yoga is better because it is:

Any old exercise + flow state + 3 body tricks found in no other system of ‘any old exercise’.

Unless you find another exercise that does all this better, or does all this the same and more…

@Gopiballava what does it mean if someone is told to practice in the mornings at all thims, but then they always find themselves practising as the Atharvaveda proscribes, ie. in the afternoons in summertime?

Maybe coincidence. I’m keeping a suspicious mind with regard to chakras and the like. Not measurable so can’t be talked about scientifically!

Gopiballava you need to find the Mysore style self practice ashtanga yoga from Pattabhi Jois. Self practice is key. DVD won’t work so well, led classes do not work so well (but are fun!).

If you want to read, read Patanjali yoga sutras I guess. Anything that is worth knowing about yoga will be revealed to you by the physical system of moving and breathing itself.

The practice is it’s own reference. Do it and you’ll recognise it for what it is.

Yoga pre-dates writing. Imagine that. Science done across many generations and all preserved in the form of evolving forms and chanting.

Gopiballava I’ve been reading about your http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atharvaveda

3200 year old antibiotic lichen use!

Respondents based their opinions on personal experience, so the results can’t be compared with scientific clinical trials. And our results do not take into account the power of the placebo effect, the tendency of people to find even simulated or sham interventions helpful.

Funny, sounds a lot like…

“These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This article is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.”

Yoga for cancer? http://ons.metapress.com/content/3p82035477084228/

Don’t ask me if that’s good science but maybe someone can tell me?

Wasn’t yoga (the exercise aspect of it, anyway) basically made up out of whole cloth sometime in the 1950s?

Sadly, yes. The authority on pre-1950s yoga would be Eliade’s book — written after several years of first-hand experience — which describes yoga as a spiritual discipline, designed to liberate one’s mind from the demands of physical existence. So when Eliade was writing, yoga was ascetic, and quite damaging to the body… by overcoming the reluctance of your body to move into a posture for which it was not designed, and by holding that posture despite increasingly urgent pain signals, you acquired spiritual strength.

But there is never a shortage of dingbats who see something shiny in other cultures and are willing to appropriate it to serve their own obsessions. This happens a lot on colonial history. Once Westerners have stolen all the physical resources from a colonised country, then they move on to stealing the cultural resources. Hence modern-day “yoga”.

Of course there’s no law against making up an exercise regime and calling it yoga. For all I care, someone can take the 14 Stations of the Cross, turn each one into a muscle-stretching posture, and pretend that Catholic spiritual disciplines were really health-minded fitness programs. No laws against it, only a sense of intellectual honesty and common decency.

But when someone claims that their version of yoga is “Many many thousands of years in the development, all tested on humans over many generations”, that’s when they’re full of crap.

My mother found yoga kept her joints flexible, though her local church warned her she was meddling with Dark Forces (I kid you not). She kept it up for years but then she suffered a major stroke. Maybe it was the wrong kind of yoga. I do sometimes wonder whether if she had taken up something a little more cardiovascularly challenging she might be alive today.

Actually, all of the troubles with your spine come from imbalances in your ears. Ancient tribes have been piercing their ears for thousands of years to achieve proper head balance. I know this is true – after having had my ears pierced by professionals, I have had a distinct reduction in seasonal sickness, and after upgrading to 0 gauge in the lobes, I haven’t had as much as a cold. A healthy spine is all in the ears!

@Gopiballava have you even heard of Uḍḍīyāna Bandha?

You only need a description of it to know that it increases spinal strength better than exercising without it.

Doing Ashtanga without Uddiyana is dangerous.

Pilates employs an inferior version of Uddiyana.

More fundamental than this debate, is a fault in both underlying the survey article and in the mostly well-stated critique. A logically outrageous tendency exists – and has existed for a long time – in assessing medical or health treatments; namely the lumping together of a multitude of conditions under one heading. For example: “back pain.” Seriously? Back pain can include a broken spine, herniated disk, with impingement on a nerve root or not, bulging disks, syrinx, abscess, arachnoiditis, sore muscles, torn tendons, a bullet lodged in the spine, and on and on. I am truly angered and disgusted at analysis that may refer, for example, to “80% of persons reporting back pain” were helped (or not helped) by xyz treatment or therapy. In the 1980s and 1990s the insurance industry sponsored sham articles in medical and other journals to promote the idea that surgery was unnecessary because 80% of persons with back pain got better with no treatment at all. Now, we evaluate whether chiropractic treatment or medication is effective on x% of persons with back pain. This is purely stupid. IF one has a serious collapse of the spine (as with degenerative disk disease or compression fracture) it is a world of difference from a person who has strained her back lifting, and they are both a world of difference from the person who has actually torn a tendon or muscle from its attachment by lifting or twisting.
To even discuss how a treatment or even placebo affects all of these as “back pain” is meaningless… but it is also an assault on logic.
The other generalities are just as logically irrelevant… but this rant is long enough.

Ashtanga London, then I shall ignore you, and I encourage everyone else to do the same.

[rolleyes]

I used to do Ashtanga yoga when I lived in Sydney, and I’ll agree that it’s a good exercise routine. It’s considerably more active than most other forms, with things like jumping between poses and lots of continuous movement. So unlike most yoga varieties, it gets you some aerobic effect, as well as all the nice stretching and flexibility and strength benefits.

Just FYI, I’m certainly not supporting the ridiculous grandstanding about teh bestest EVAH!

@ guinness: Your posting is not a rant and is not long enough. Thank you for bringing your points to the table; many of these postings are debating the merits of alternative treatments when the subject at hand is the appropriateness of Consumer Reports “conducting a survey” about use of alternative treatments.

IMO, no matter how many disclaimers issued by Consumer Reports about the very loose survey guidelines, they did a disservice to their subscribers by stepping into this arena. And, I do foresee how alternative/CAM practitioners and the purveyors of supplements will use the survey to their advantage as the ultimate marketing tool.

What’s next for Consumer’s Reports…how about a Quinnipiac or Pew-type poll to survey readers about their candidate preference in the next presidential election? Tacky!

Augie, must you comment..like clockwork…immediately after me?

I’ve told you repeatedly that I am not your mommy…here for you to work out your animus directed to the real unfortunate woman who gave birth to you. And, cut out the crap with Venna…such behavior is totally unsolicited, unwarranted, not clever and only serves to lower our already low opinion of your character.

Really, think seriously about getting some help…you are sinking fast into your imaginary world where you are the imaginary intelligent, educated, erudite scientist…pathetic.

This has been a fun thread to read through. I have to wonder if Gopiballava is trolling Ashtanga. Ash clearly has no idea of how science works, and keeps throwing out personal anecdotes, expecting everyone to just say, “Oh, well I’m convinced then…” Gopi’s insistence on the importance of astrology in conjunction with yoga is what clued me in. Nobody who reads Scienceblogs could possibly be dumb enough to really believe that. Right…?

Ugh Troll as I mentioned to you on previous occasions; if your real mommy told you that your severe mental derangement, your deplorable lack of any education, your inability or unwillingness to stop sponging on society and become gainfully employed and your creepy anti-social behavior is caused by vaccine injury…she lied.

Get a job

Get off the dole

Get a life

Stop your stalking behaviors

Gopiballava, you have simultaneously missed my sarcasm & illustrated my point. Thank you…or are you still trolling? If so, you’re good!

@Kelian (118)

Absolutely. How many of the world’s population have reasonable access to swimming? Less than half is my guess. Whatever, even if it’s 99%, I wanna know what the other 1% are gonna do to keep up?

@CathTheCook

Good to hear it! Can you vouch for the ‘flow state’? Did you ever get in it?

Quick checklist if I may please?
Did you self-practice (without a crib sheet)?
Did you do Ujayyi breath?
Did you do Mula Bandha?
Did you do Uddiyana Bandha?
Did you do Drishti?
How long did you do it for (Duration each day)?
How many times a week?
How many months / years did you practice for?
Optional – why did you take the break that you are currently having?

Namaste 🙂

This Ashtunga person reminds me of the ex-military homeopathy guy who occasionally visits. There’s never any evidence provided, except personal anecdotes (which trumps all other anecdotes), and it’s all: “try it for yourself to see how it works!” whenever the issue is pressed.

Pathetic, really.

@lilady

Thanks for getting my back. It’s obvious that augustine has something about the two of us since he finds any reason to be as rude and disrespectful as he can to us any chance he can get. Perhaps this is his only way of getting feminine attention? It’s been my experience though, that a person will accuse another of their own sins, therefore everything augustine has said about you and me, or anyone else for that matter, is what he really feels about himself and that makes me sad for him. He resorts to grade school playground tactics trying to hurt or humiliate people and only humiliates himself because we have all out grown that mentality and we all just see him as pathetic and sad. I pity you, augustine, because you really don’t have any clue how to have a civilized conversation with anyone about anything. You always have to pull out the insults and start flinging fecal matter. But ya know, it doesn’t hurt us, it’s actually entertaining for a little while, like watching the monkeys at the zoo. But eventually everyone has to leave the primate house. What will you do when you no longer have an audience laughing at you? Perhaps you should rethink your life and, well I don’t know, maybe try to find one that consists of more then playing the ‘my dad can beat up your dad’ card. It’s tiresome and boring *yawn*. On that note, I’m off to sleep. Take care all and see ya tomorrow!

@ lillady, I’ll take it that my enthusiastic list of questions was not in your area of expertise then? I’ve had medical emergencies, I know what sane people do in those situations. You seem to think you are the only person who’s not feeble-minded.

I spend 30 mins learning about statistics and I’ve scared you already?

I’ve googled it and read it now, my bad, I thought you were being stuffy and using the technical term for a tummy bug but it’s not it’s a heart infection: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infective_endocarditis#Bacterial

It says antibiotics is the treatment. It also says it affects IV drug users and I know that ashtanga can be effective in helping people to stop using drugs so indirectly yoga may prevent Infective endocarditis.

(lol – I thought ‘endo’ meant ‘stomach’!)

Why didn’t you just say MRSA in the heart? I’d have understood that? You need to work out how to speak to non-experts.

yes kelian Ashtanga Yoga definitely helps people to manage their sleep patterns and energy levels better. Well spotted!

I’m not in the Himalayas I’m in London, hence the name.

If you think my name is an attempt to obscure my true location I think you are probably a tiny bit over careful. Paranoid even. What’s the difference between sceptical and paranoid?

Absolutely. How many of the world’s population have reasonable access to swimming? Less than half is my guess.

That’s not very likely, since people need water to live and tend to cluster near large water sources. Even in deserts people build outdoor swimming pools. Indoor ones would be cheaper in terms of water use, since they wouldn’t evaporate as quickly.

And again, earlier you said there weren’t any outdoor swimming pools because it was too cold. Makes sense, but I highly doubt there are absolutely no indoor ones. And you can’t be in that remote a location, since you speak English and have a reliable internet connection (and, I can’t help but notice, post largely in North American daylight hours.)

Those have still got to be far less than 50% of the world’s population.

I have no doubt that somewhere in Tibet there’s a monk who speaks English, practices traditional meditations and exercises, lives in the cold regions, and when his connection is working, gets in edit wars on Wikipedia (“Ladysunhawke12 reversed my edits on deep breathing AGAIN! I have ten minutes before the gong goes off!” And he types furiously, the folds of his robes shaking with the force of his fingers.)

It would be awesome to meet him. But I don’t think I have. He wouldn’t be that interested in spending all of Friday night and Saturday morning vaguely arguing with skeptics. (And he’d probably be a Tai Chi practitioner.)

It’s been a really worthwhile distraction for me. Behind the scenes I’ve been finding the terminology for the problem:

As sceptics, you have to look at the effect size and the statistical power of the study.

For the individual practitioner (i.e. me) all that matters is effect size.

What is beyond me is how you would go about investigating the effect of yoga on a particular condition (how can you double-blind it?).

How many subjects need to do yoga to see if it is better or worse than placebo or running for the treatment of cancer or depression or back pain or autism?

And how many to know if yoga can prevent a certain condition? How many healthy people need to do it to be able to tell if it has an effect? If it effects 1%, do you need 2000 people to get a P value of >0.05?

I wanted to make a point about CR, but after reading all the drivel about asstangler yoga, I forgot what my point was.

Ashtanga London: The example you provided about endocarditis is so impressive in its stupidity…yet you still persist…mind boggling.

So, 30 minutes spent at Google University learning about statistics qualifies you as an expert, eh?

We are all so impressed with your “qualifications”…but not for the reasons you think.

That would suggest to me that ashtanga reduced risk of autism but what would it say to a scientist like you?

I’m not a scientist; I’m a skeptic. And since that’s total fiction, it says nothing at all to me.

Why didn’t you just say MRSA in the heart?

Oh, maybe because that’s not what endocarditis is?

I spend 30 mins learning about statistics and I’ve scared you already?

I don’t know what you did for 30 minutes, but it was not “learning about statistics”. You fail.

(lol – I thought ‘endo’ meant ‘stomach’!)

Some friendly advice – stop embarrassing yourself – now.

Qualifies me as a willing beginner

Then why don’t you act like one, instead of shooting your mouth off about stuff you know nothing about?

Well, earlier you were claiming that you couldn’t swim as exercise because it was too cold in the Himalayas, and when I pointed that out you were quite evasive at post 137…

I just want to talk to the Tai Chi practitioner who participates in Wikipedia edit wars, and instead I get this bull.

OK, from now on I’m ignoring Jarrad C, Chris and Kelian.

I’m sorry Gopi but I think you are faking it. I’m ignoring you too as you don’t appear to be a real Sanskrit scholar as you claim.

@Sastra (165) By ‘ordinary benefits’, do you mean my claim that it is superior to ordinary exercise?
By ‘woo’ do you mean the ‘flow state’ or something else? What else have I claimed?

1) Superior exercise
2) Less time ‘off sick’
3) Flow State

Which of these do you consider to be ‘woo’? All are measurable (if not already measured),

Hi, Have a look at this: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19341991

It is not meant to support any of my claims but it is a study where Ashtanga Yoga was used.

Does the study make you feel angry or happy? It makes me happy (i’m biased), it shouldn’t make you angry (unless you are biased).

Chris, ‘Alternative medicine’ does not exist except in the minds of the dangerously misguided, insane or profiteering few. I think we’ve established that.

All exercise is ‘Complimentary Medicine’.

We are asking, which 30 to 90 minutes of exercise is the best all round compliment to medicine and health in general.
All exercise being equal, ashtanga is better because of 3 extra things. Why to those 3 extra things work like they do.

Running, swimming, karate or dancing. None reduces appetite like ashtange does yoga. Why?

Jim @161,

Thanks for your story. It’s a great example of an area where chriopractic treatment works. The problem many of us have with chiropractic is when they claim that those same treatments can cure the flu, bacterial infections, depression, insomnia, cancer, or a myriad of other things that have nothing to do with joint and muscle care.

@ Jim

I don’t believe that anyone here is saying that chiropractic care, when used correctly, doesn’t benefit certain conditions. What is in dispute is their claim that chiropractic care can heal anything (E.g. my grandpa claiming chiropractic care would cure my brother of cerebral palsy, etc.) I’ve had chiropractic care that was beneficial and chiropractic care that was painful to endure and I’ve had physical therapy that wasn’t ever painful and does the same thing chiropractic care does. When it comes down to it, I’ll choose physical therapy over chiropractic care simply because it’s too easy to get sucked into that chiro-belief system that a healthy spine means a healthy body. A healthy spine really only means you have a healthy spine, it isn’t going to do anything if you have cancer, diabetes or diphtheria. Really, chiropractic care is just glorified physical therapy that is arrogant enough to believe they can heal life threatening or physically debilitating conditions, when all they can do is ease pain and correct poor posture (of course poor posture can always revert back after being fixed if you don’t strengthen the muscles that support your posture. physical therapy taught me how to strengthen those muscles, chiropractics did not.)

Ashtanga London: Cripes aren’t there any sites in London you could post on?

Apparently, a really good yogi when in a trance…such as Ashtanga…puts you in a denial state…denial of reality and denial of the derision being heaped upon him

@Gopiballava:

Once you have learnt the ashtanga yoga primary series, you are able to expand it and contract it so that it can be anything from 15 mins to 3 hours long.

The reason I say 30 to 120 mins is because the research I’ve seen over the years (on TV, in newspapers etc) seems to say we need to get between 30 and 90 mins exercise each day in order to stay healthy*. Given this, I’d like to test 120 mins too to see if it offers much advantage over 90 mins. My own yoga practice is ~100 minutes long but I’m happy with less if I’m pushed for time.

The ‘proscribed’ schedule is 5 or 6 days per week (Saturday is a day off. Also, each new or full moon is a day off). It works out at approx 5.5 times per week although it varies from year to year on a 19 year cycle. Some prefer to ignore the moon thing and take every other Sunday off in addition to Saturday off. It really makes no difference.

*For sedentary people. If you have a physical job, less exercise is needed although you may need to do special exercises to repair the damage from your job!

My understanding is that when it comes to cancer, attitude or belief doesn’t really effect how long you live. A positive, hopeful attitude will make the patient feel better — and that’s a good thing — but it will not slow down or eliminate the disease.

Small thing I thought I’d add to your point: A optimistic patient is more likely to comply with his treatment and maintain other general health practices, which is one hypothesis that can explain some better outcomes for them.

Gopi, 2+2=5 for large values of 2 and small values of 5. You’ll find that proof written on a cubical wall in one of the men’s toilets in the Physics department at Birmingham University, England.

Chris, How would you go about measuring the calories used in an ashtanga workout?

I claim that someone who expends 500 calories doing ashtanga will have different feelings of hunger or satiation over the following three hours when compared to someone who does 500 calories of matched exercise which uses 500 cals within the same time-frame.

Different sized people use differing amounts of calories for a fixed duration and of the same exercise routine. This would need to be accounted for.

Gopi. *I* believe it because I have felt it myself (other exercise makes you hungry almost immediately. Ashtanga Yoga often delays the hunger and seems to reduce the total number of calories I need overall).

The effect is so noticeable it causes me and other ashtanga yoga practitioners to ask each other if we have the same experiences.

I guess that is why that research may have been done in Texas, to work out if the effect is real or if many hundreds or thousands of Ashtangis were somehow imagining or suggesting the effect into existence.

@Ashtanga London:

People have been repeatedly asking you for evidence. You have not provided any. It is interesting to note that you choose to ignore people right after they directly ask you for evidence. A fascinating coincidence I’m sure.

So, an “open pilot study” with twenty subjects, of whom four are reported to have increased self-esteem with this treatment, and two are reported to have decreased self-esteem with the treatment. Given the limitations of one open pilot study, I’d call that noise, rather than either encouraging or a reason to worry. (Also, it’s not difficult to induce small amounts of weight loss in almost any population for a short period. The meaningful outcomes here would be either incidence of diabetes, that being what they’re claiming to be concerned about, or overall weight gain or loss after a significantly longer period. Preferably the former: if a hypothetical intervention took significant effort, and produced weight loss but no reduction in diabetes, its value would be less impressive. If it produced weight loss and an increase in diabetes or other health issues, that would be a bad thing.)

In all seriousness, if that study is the best you can offer, it doesn’t seem like much basis for asking for a large amount of people’s time and energy.

Also, since when is exercise, any kind of exercise, considered alternative medicine? It is just a form of exercise. Nothing more, nothing less.

As far as swimming goes: within two kilometers of where I live there are three indoor pools, at least two outdoor pools and two lakes with swimming beaches. All of them have lifeguards.

The three indoor public pools have lifts for those who use wheelchairs, an accommodation that I doubt Mr./Ms. London offers. Plus they offer low cost one-on-one lessons for special populations. One has an hour a week dedicated to those who are training for Special Olympics, something else that I doubt Mr./Ms. London offers.

Exercise is healthy, and should be available to all populations. It is not alternative medicine.

@Ashtanga London:
“We are asking, which 30 to 90 minutes of exercise is the best all round compliment to medicine and health in general.”

How did you determine that 30 to 90 minutes was a reasonable duration?

Is daily, weekly, 3x/week, 15 min 2x day, or some other pattern better?

@Ashtanga London:
“I claim that someone who expends 500 calories doing ashtanga will have different feelings of hunger or satiation over the following three hours when compared to someone who does 500 calories of matched exercise which uses 500 cals within the same time-frame.”

Why do *you* believe this?

I don’t mean, what do you think will convince me, I mean what have you seen, observed, felt, read, etc. that makes you believe this is true? Also, I presume you mean that they will feel less hungry? Or do you mean sometimes and sometimes less?

@Ashtanga Yoga:
“Hi Gopi, I’ve done lots of other kinds of exercise for around 90 mins duration, some are more intense, some are less intense.”

So, you’ve tried enough forms of exercise that you can just tell how many calories you’re burning?

” I want to know why, I don’t need to prove that the effect is there I know it is there.”

Sorry, you’re skipping an important step:
A) Feel / notice / predict something exists
B) Demonstrate that it exists
C) Show why / how it exists

You’ve skipped step B. Step B is absolutely critical. Many people throughout history have made complete fools of themselves by skipping B. Homeopaths would be a fine example.

B in most cases is easier than C. There are many, many examples where B is trivial and C is tough.

If you’re fine with doing pseudoscience, you can skip straight to C. If you want to do science, and be taken seriously, don’t skip step B.

@Ashtanga London:
“If Person A and Person B both breath 20 litres of air per minute but person A does it in 20 breaths and person B does it in 6 breaths, who is the healthiest?”

1) Normal respiration rate is 12 to 20 resps/minute. Person B is outside of the normal range which is something to keep an eye on
2) 10 liters/minute is average
3) Average tidal volume is 0.5L. Person A has a tidal volume of 1L, Person B has a TV of 3.3L. Forced vital capacity for the average female is 3.7 L, 4.8L for a male. 3.3L tidal volume is *huge*.

Given the very limited information you’ve given, I’d be concerned about respiratory acidosis in Person B. Here’s some more info on it:
http://www.ccmtutorials.com/rs/mv/strategy/page16.htm

I think Person A is healthier, but both are out of spec enough to concern me.

Disclaimer: I haven’t had any EMS training in years, and my certifications have expired.

Pareidolius, awesome!

I’d get popcorn right now, but I have to go water the garden (which includes some stalks of pink popcorn).

I was wondering how the discussion came to be only about one topic when the article wasn’t about this particular topic at all?

As a middle age female, who has punished her body for most of her life (dancing, competitive swimming and suffering from bouts of uncontrollable binge over eating which caused me to gain weight over what my structure could carry) and is now paying the price for it with damaged knees, weak ankles and back and irregular blood sugar levels, I don’t feel that I have the luxury to spend time even wondering about the claims made by woo in the world. What I need, and it’s hard to find when you’re on medicaid, is a good common sense doctor who can actually help me, or direct me to medical specialists who can.

I was quite flexible at one time and given my age and the amount of children I’ve had I still am, to a point, but there is no way in heck I’m going to try and contort myself into some of the positions I’ve seen in yoga. I really don’t like punishment and when it comes to my health, I want something that will work based on scientific data, not by surveys taken from those fools who buy into the woo that’s peddled by the woomeisters. But that’s just me.

I imagine that some of this un-scientific mumbo jumbo has some merit for a few ills. But if I’m hiking in Yosemite and a grizzly mauls me, I’m gonna want a “western” doctor to sew my face back on.

And so would everybody else.

@ Venna: I tried to bring the discussion back to a more serious level in a prior post…unsucessfully. I suspect our friends are have too much fun with the Yogi’s postings..oh well.

You are too young to be having multiple joint problems without treatment or remediation. I wonder if you have explored a family practice clinic that accepts Medicaid for referrals to a PT? I know you are residing in the Northwest but I’m not aware of any shortage of doctors who accept Medicaid patients…in the Southwest there is a shocking paucity of such doctors. Are there any community or university affiliated hospitals nearby…most of them have a doctor’s referral service available on the internet or through a phone call.

There is also the “AMA Doctor Finder” website to find a doc in various specialties…however I don’t know if you can discern which ones take Medicaid or even if you are enrolled in a Medicaid HMO type of plan. My state’s health department has a listing of every licensed doctor and many of the listings are quite complete with the exact medical plans (including Medicaid) that the doctor accepts. Then too, Google is you friend if you were to key in “Doctors who accept Medicaid and your county”

You should have a doctor that you find simpatico for primary health care and also to monitor your blood glucose level and that old bugaboo of a small amount of weight loss. Your joint problems, written up correctly by your doctor, should get you a few sessions of PT…then perhaps some fitness sessions due to elevated glucose levels. Just remember that you must be healthy or the family unit caves. Sorry if I sound like a mommy here, but I care.

Anecdotally, my sister who is 15 months older than me, pushed her self working and caring for her seven children…she is now a train wreck, with arthritis throughout, three knee replacements, multiple carpal tunnel surgeries and quite impaired. Of course her yo-yo weight gains/losses stressed her joints terribly.

I’ll just read some more of yogi’s silly posts now and off to bed…just recovering from my Alaska trek.

I guess CR doesn’t understand that the plural of anecdote is not “data”.

And: I would sooner trust a science-based physical therapist over a chiropractor telling me that my condition is based on subluxations.

RE: Medicaid in OR and WA. They don’t pay for PT anymore. They will pay for drugs. Sad, isn’t it?
Doctors don’t HAVE to set limits on the number of Medicaid patients they see, but they do. Especially at some OHSU clinics. That’s Oregon Health State University. The one that gets funding from the State and all. Wonderful, huh?
Venna: What region are you looking for doctors? I might be able to hook you up with someone sensible.

Just wow, Epador…I wasn’t aware the Oregon and Washington won’t pay for PT…so sad. Does that exclusion also apply to post joint replacement PT rehab, as well? That being the case it is truly draconian and puts the patient at high risk for very poor outcomes from the joint replacement surgery.

Vanna: Some sort of to-do list is pretty much essential if you’re juggling that many things to keep track of and you have that many obligations to others. Can you just get started with putting pens and paper in the car, in coat pockets and purses, and on tables? That way when something jumps out at you as something you should write down, you can get a list started before the procrastinate-y bit of the brain knows what happened.

Post-it note blocks are invaluable, because you can stick the list right to something you know is going to an appointment. But anything is a start. And it’s a lot easier than sitting around cudgeling your brain for that last vital thing you wanted to ask.

Kelian,

That’s a great idea. I do that often, too. In the house, instead of pen and paper, I keep a small white-board on my refrigerator.

@ Kelian

Under normal conditions, yes, that would be a great and obvious solution. My situation is such that I can’t leave pens and paper lying around because my son will find them and either try to stab himself or other people with the pens, or he’ll take them apart and scatter the pieces everywhere. Paper gets shredded, essentially anything that gets left out is at the mercy of my son so nothing really can be left out. He can be quite sneaky about things too and I don’t always know he’s up to something until it’s nearly too late to save whatever has become the victim of his curiosity.

I do carry a pen with me in my bag when I go out simply because you never know when you’ll need one, but I usually only go out when I’m going grocery shopping or taking Viktor to one of his appointments. I don’t have a car, we bus everywhere. What I think will help me is to make a list each night before I go to bed using Notepad on my computer, listing everything in order of importance and leave it up. The first thing I do when I wake is check my email. If I turn on my monitor and immediately see my to-do list, I’ll remember. I guess the hard part for me is actually making the list. Once I have it I can follow it. After all I do that ever time I go shopping, hehe. I’m gonna give it a try this week since I have so much that I need to get done this week and most of it is out of the ordinary from what my routine normally is comprised of. Heh, I’m not even sure why I’m telling you all this, maybe because telling someone else helps to keep me more accountable. Anyway, since tomorrow is Monday, I need to remember to make that to do list tonight before bed. I’m just not sure I remember everything I need to do tomorrow. I’l let you know how it goes.

Vanna: Yeah, it sounds like paper won’t work at all for you. To every tidy solution, there are two or more problems! A white-out board sounds like a good backup, because you can move it someplace you can reach it easily, but it sounds like you’re already onto a winner with the computer thing. (The downside is printing it out.)

Maybe part of the solution’s making sure you have a few chances built into the day to get to the computer to write your list down. (I have to say, if I had just pens and no paper I’d end up with my lists all over my arms!)

Hang in there.

MESSAGE BEGINS——————-

Shills and Minions,

Squabbling over the efficacy of exercise routines my be amusing, but remember, we have work to do. And as Minion Venna reminds us, there are other minions with more pressing problems than whether the proper astrological signs are holding court in the sky whilst one is forming oneself into a mammalian pretzel.

That, and there are quacks to be made into roast duck. I do, however, commend our vexatious vedics for their pluck and verve. But I find it rather like arguing whether Superman or Darth Vader is more powerful (correct answer: Darth Vader).

Return to your duties and our best wishes for a swift recovery to Minion Venna.

And lest I forget, congratulations to freshly-minted Shill, Class VII (with the wreath of the Keldan League) Chris. Your dedication is surpassed only by your keen intellect and charm.

Lord Draconis Zeneca, VC, iH7L
Forward Mavoon of the Great Fleet, Suzerain of V’tar and Pharmaca Magna of Terra and SeedFather Progenitor of the Creche of 36

PharmaCOM Orbital HQ
0010101101001

There’s more healing in that yoga than you can possibly imagine 😉

Except all that extra healing can’t be demonstrated in controlled circumstances. Hmm the powers of yoga are strange indeed.

Also, are you sure it’s the yoga that is doing the healing and not the actual medical treatment you encourage people to get alongside the yoga?

@Ashtanga London:

What are your thoughts on whether Person A or Person B is healthier in your example?

Ashtanga London is the most entertaining troll i’ve seen in a long time. She makes a refreshing change from Augie, Thingie and Jacob. I’m sure she’ll get tiresome soon enough, but right now she’s very amusing. Good work.

Honourable mention to Gopiballava, for some delightful troll-baiting, as well.

@Scotty

That’s a really good idea, thanks. I hadn’t thought of something like that. Of course the first thing is finding a doctor and then going from there. I’ll need to do some pricing out if I get something like that to figure out how long I’ll need to save up to buy it. We shall see if that works. In the mean time, I’ll have to do the list on the computer idea. That’s the best I have so far, it’s just remembering to do it that’s tricky, heh.

I’ll need to do some pricing out if I get something like that to figure out how long I’ll need to save up to buy it.

100 bucks is on the very upper limit of what you could/should expect.

$40-$50 is probably more along the average from what I see on Amazon

Thanks everyone for the advice! It’s nice to know so many people are willing to help me out. Particularly since I’ve felt so isolated the past few years, even when I was going to work during the week, and even when I had a car.

Right now things are busy because I’ve committed myself to the Autism Speaks walk next month and I’m finding it difficult to get out and do what I need to do to raise funds. I just need to get through August and I think things will even out for me a bit. On the plus side, going through this now will help me know what works and what doesn’t for next year’s walk so I’ll be able to get started much sooner and will hopefully have raised the funds I set as my goal long before this time next year! So I’m trying to find the time to go and talk to people about donations, trying to find a company sponsor for our team and also getting to Viktor’s appointments and time to go grocery shopping, not to mention laundry, dishes, dinner and then Viktor’s therapy during the day at home. Sometimes it can be hard and I feel over whelmed and I push myself sometimes beyond what I am physically able to do and I start feeling it in my knees and my back and my ankles and feet. And as soon as I get Viktor down for bed I collapse into a chair and cry because I want to be the super mom, but physically I am wearing myself out. This is why I need to find a doctor so badly. I’ve always put myself and my own health last, but it’s getting to the point where I can’t do that if I expect to be able to care for Viktor still. I would do anything for him, and I want to make sure I’m physically able to. I need to make finding a doctor a higher priority then it has been, but I keep doing everything else first out of 40 years of habit. *And my mom always told me I was selfish.* As if…

Vanna, if your body is sending you such strong hints that you need to chill, you might also consider asking the organizers if there’s another form of volunteering you can do (covering tables, etc) that will let you help without burning up your time until then and your energy.

If the walk-a-thon is helping you hang on to your health, go for it! But if it’s just eating up your resources when you have so many other demands, maybe it’s time to get involved in a different way. Caregivers have got to play a bit of “me first” or else they can’t help anyone.

Jarred C that was a really helpful contribution.

Sick and dying people must love you when you have your childish fun instead of helping them.

Grow up. You know damn well that I was using the word tongue-in-cheek.

I put it to you, Jarred, that you feel personally very insecure when confronted with ashtanga yoga or even the discussion of it.

If you were really able to ‘stretch’ muscle fibres, they would have to be elastic, if they were elastic, you would not be able to write neatly.

The tension in a muscle is controlled by the nervous system via calcium bonds.

The ‘limit’ you feel when you try to touch your toes is an arbitrary safety limit imposed by your nervous system.

If you pull or push hard enough against this limit you will eventually tear muscle fibres. This is known as ballistic ‘stretching’ and is a technique employed by martial arts and dance schools to attempt to wear out young bodies. If you do this everyday, your muscles will get longer. If you stop, your muscles will get shorter and be full of broken fibers (surrounded by 6 new slightly shorter ones),

Does everyone agree so far – shall I go on or would you like to correct anything before I go on to explain how Ashtanga Yoga ‘stretching’ really happens?

Chris it is not off topic. If you are feeling threatened just stay out of it.

I’m sure a bit more definition will help us all. There is NO WOO in my ashtanga yoga.

The word ‘Yoga’ is meaningless if you don’t actually specify what is done under the label of ‘doing some yoga’.

I’ve always wanted to do a Jedi master. I hear they can do amazing stuff with them litesaver thingies!

How ridiculous it would be if all medical research was done on ‘The Medicine’ or ‘The Drug’ without ever specifying which chemicals are in the medicine or the drug?

But what about the pancakes? I want a study on the health benefits of pancakes, dammit!!!!111one!!!

So from now on Mr Orac / Lord Draconis, any talk of yoga in future please open that can of worms fully and let them wriggle a bit more.

But what if the worms eat the pancakes? We could all go hungry. What about that smarty pants?

There’s more healing in that yoga than you can possibly imagine 😉

Oh, I don’t know. Pancakes have healing power too. Especially the ones that look like the Virgin Mary, or the Virgin Madonna, or Elvis, or something.

Thank you all!

Glad to be of service! Now all we need is some good Canadian maple syrup for our pancakes!

P.S. I’m nothing to do with any Yoga businesses in London that might have names similar to ‘ashtanga london’.

Lie! I saw you doing yoga on the campus of UWO!

it’s recognised by me and anyone who is insane like me as the best yoga

Thanks for the heads up. You could have mentioned that early on.

Ashtanga @237: That’s right, you still need to define your terms (“what is really going on,” as you put it). Otherwise you’re walking into a biology lab and asking me to calculate the specific heat of a striped tachyon.

It’s past time you went over to blogspot or somewhere similar and set up your own blog for a discussion of the benefits of yoga and how best to study it. I think you’ve done an adequate job of demonstrating the subject of this post, namely credulity towards alternative medicine.

Oh, and can I have some lingonberry syrup for these crepes?

Sick and dying people must love you when you have your childish fun instead of helping them.

I don’t work in a field where sick and dying people are at my mercy, so they have nothing to fear from me. However, on the rare occasion that I do have to deal with sick and dying people, I can usually get them to laugh with my snark.

Grow up. You know damn well that I was using the word tongue-in-cheek.

Actually, I thought it was a typo, and that you forgot to proof-read, or when you did proof-read, you missed it (Things like that can happen all the time, which is why we’re supposed to have other people proof-read our work in formal occasions).

I put it to you, Jarred, that you feel personally very insecure when confronted with ashtanga yoga or even the discussion of it.

Are you getting mad that I’m derailing your topic? I hope so, because maybe then you will know why others were getting mad in the BLF/JM thread, where you derailed the topic back to your personal favorite.

Now, if you would like me to be serious and not be foolish to you, I can be. Here’s some food for though:

When a real scientist does work, (s)he uses scientific methods in order to prevent themselves from being fooled or tricked. Since oneself is the easiest person for one to fool, it’s vitally important that we do not allow ourselves to be tricked by what we want to believe. That’s the point of science: to weave out the truth from a myriad of untruths.

You absolutely must be brutally honest with yourself while doing the research; you must never allow yourself to manipulate the data. But, even if you fall into the traps of humankind, it’s still okay, because your published work will be heavily critiqued by your peers, and your work will be replicated by your peers. And between all of that, after many replications have been done, all the biases of all the different researchers will be washed away, and the truth of the matter will come out. This is the point of peer-reviewed research: to help your fellow scientist’s work overcome the scientist’s biases.

Science is a brutal field, and it is not for those who cannot handle criticism. We critique each other harshly, and often. And if we don’t then things like pseudo-science come out (ever notice how the purveyors of pseudo-science never critique each other?)

With all of that, now let’s discuss your Ashtunga Yoga. Be honest with yourself. What do you know about A. Yoga which is backed by evidence? What do you know about A. Yoga which is not backed by evidence? What do you believe about A. Yoga which has been shown to be false, yet you still believe it? What do other A. Yoga practitioners believe about A. Yoga which has been shown to be false, yet the ideas are still persistent among your A. Yoga peers?

Are there areas you can test it in comparison to other techniques (other Yoga styles, or non-yoga exercise routines which are similar)? Have those tests (a.k.a. research) been done? How many times? What biases are there in the research? Do the author’s conclusions match what the data says? Were the authors able to compare their test subjects to a control group? Did they control for biases in their subjects and in themselves?

A lot of your own biases seem to be based around the idea that only if you could teach a person A. Yoga, then they too would believe all these things about it that you do. There are huge problems with that idea. It’s akin to stating that only if you would take aspirin, then you too would know that it alleviates pain. Statistically, you only have an n of 1 (and in statistics, many equations require you to divide by n-1. If n=1, then 1-1=0. You have to divide by 0, which is simply nonsense). Philosophically, a test subject of only 1 means that you have no idea how accurate that 1 person is to the average. Are they right on the average, or are they exceptionally above or below the average. Large n values allow for better analysis, and when people don’t have large values of n, further research leads to a phenomenon called “regression to the mean.”

Another problem with your “if only you would learn A. Yoga, you would know what I mean” idea is that a factual claim should be able to stand on its own merits. It shouldn’t matter that I do not practice A. Yoga; if your claims about its health effects are true, I should be able to see it in the data and the statistics, without having to practice it myself. This is the case in science-based medicine; we can see the effects of medical techniques without having to practice them ourselves. I don’t need to be a surgeon or have surgery to know that certain techniques work and others don’t. I don’t need experience in or have been submitted to a lie-detector test to know that they don’t work. The evidence in the research stands by itself.

As I’ve mentioned early, although in snark, I’m not a fan of practicing yoga, I’m a fan of practicing jujitsu and judo. I don’t care if others practice yoga, I just don’t want to, myself. Now, I’ve never been one to hit another person. I don’t like to hit people. I prefer to control their movements by joint manipulation. When I happen to be involved in a fight (and when I was in my 20s, it happened more often that I would have liked it to), the ability to lock a person’s arm behind their back was much more effective in stopping the fight than it would have been to punch them. However, I don’t need to have you practice jujitsu in order to show you that claim. I could test it, run statistics on it, etc., and then if I’m correct, I could show you in writing. If it turns out that I was wrong, then I would admit that I’m wrong and I would stop making the claim. But without the research to back it up, I have to admit that I don’t really know for certain – I think it’s true, I’ve seen it happen in my past, my own experiences back up my claims, but I could be wrong. I could have been allowing myself to be fooled this entire time. The point is that until I put my claims to the test, I don’t really know for certain.

And neither do you.

Science is the intellectual and practical activity encompassing the systematic study of the structure and behavior of the physical and natural world through observation and experiment.

Logically, my claims are correct even if they have not been experimentally verified.

Mathematics is science. Logically 1 + 1 = 2, do you need to stack two stones to prove it?

Yoga is just exercise = 1
All exercise = 1
Add Ujjayi breath = +0.1
Add Uddiyana bandha = +0.1
Add Mula Bandha = +0.1
Add Drishti = +0.1

Exercise is 1
Ashtanga is 1.4

So we look at pilates:
Exercise = 1
Uddiyana bandha = 0.1
Pilates gets 1.1

Do you know of any other lands-based (non swimming) exercise systems which employ Ujjayi breathing and/or bandhas?

If not, then logically there is no competition.

You might need measurement to tell you that Pilates is not as effective or efficient as Ashtanga Yoga but to me it is evident, logical, and unproven.

I’d like to see that proof happen one day. More than that, next time Orac reviews something ‘yoga’ he may realise that we can’t be lazy in describing it and the sanskrit terms make people think we are talking about chakra type woo.

To me a chakra is a wheel. That’s all. 5000 years ago they were magically groovy. So much so that they called plexi chakras, they also called sweet spots chakras.

The words ‘cake’ and ‘cart’ both come from chakra. Only modern woo-yogis believe in the multi-coloured wheels inside their bodies.

I don’t teach my students anything I haven’t heard, seen or felt myself.

Yes I’ve got records but I can’t use them here. Student privacy.

Trolls ted to starve if they are ignored. Please ignore the off topic troll,

Definitions are certainly helpful, but can you show that it’s actually happening? Otherwise, you’ve just got a bunch of sciencey sounding words. And unless you’re psychic, I suggest not assuming that we feel threatened.

@Ashtanga

This does not become the ‘yoga thread’ simply because you say it is. This article isn’t about yoga, it’s about CR using surveys to determine the best woo to use. In essence it is a warning that a previously respected organization who used science to determine what their recommendations for consumers would be is now relying on opinions of brain washed groupies who partake in quackery. Yoga is not science and it never will be. Are you going to claim I’m another man feeling threatened? I might take issue with that if you do. Nobody wants to hear your off topic ranting so you need to go away. You are not in control here, as evidenced by the quick hand of Orac when it got too ridiculous on today’s blog comments. If you aren’t careful, you’ll become the next Jacob.

Kelian is right:
“Caregivers have got to play a bit of “me first” or else they can’t help anyone.”

This is an important thing to remember. If you’re tired and burnt out you can’t help.

EMS people are under strict instructions: don’t become an extra patient. Help out, but don’t do something dangerous. You’re just going to give the next team another patient.

On airplanes, they always remind you: put your oxygen mask on first, then find somebody to help.

Being a caregiver is tough. Often it seems “tougher than it should be”, whatever that means. Don’t beat yourself up thinking that Mary Poppins would do a better job; she doesn’t exist.

Did you bother to read the definition you cut and paste? If you had read the article or definition, you’d know why personal testimonies aren’t science. Tell me, are you infallible? Are you omniscient? Do you believe that any idea that you have must be correct, and that you don’t need to test it? Do you realize that for many years, bleeding as medicine was considered perfectly logical?

Correct Venna, Your Hair is about as relevant to this thread as that anti-vax troll augustine. Also, when you say that science can’t prove yoga, I assume you are talking about the bullshit woo parts of yoga that don’t actually exist.

In which case, you need to be arguing with Yogis on a Theology forum.

When Yogis come to a science forum, it is with the ultimate aim of getting scientific descriptions of what we do (for you and for us).

You know as well as I do that the scientific community has been rather slow on the uptake when it comes to yoga research. Masses of research has been done in India but I doubt you would accept it for obscure racist reasons.

LOGIC:

Uddiyana bandha is ‘keeping your lower belly drawn gently inwards and upwards’

So imagine your ordinary exercise routine. However, you are doing a ‘sit-up’ in every position. That’s your +0.1
It also (think about it) helps to prevent back injury. If you are going to willhle your spine back and forth like a paperclip, you can’t have a floppy lower back. The back is protected from the danger of Asthanga Yoga by employing Ujjayi breathing for heat and Uddiyana bandha for strength.

No doubt you can find someone who hurt their backs doing Ashtanga Yoga.

They are invariably people like Venna and possibly Orac who would reject the funny sanskrit named parts as potential woo, not realising they were actual physical actions which can be described, repeated and measured.

There is NO WOO in my Ashtanga Yoga.

Thank you Jarred for pointing out the relevance to the original post. I don’t think Venna actually read it!

Finally: Augustine, It’s obvious why you are really anti-vaccine. Stop it, it’s mean and it won’t even work – not nowadays anyway!
Venna, I don’t want you to go away. I want you to know that there is an exercise system which can help with your back and your knees.
Back pain is a big problem for modern medicine. Not a big problem for 5000 year old medicine.

Come to think of it, does he have any explanation that “Uddiyana bandha = 0.1” other than his personal intuition. For all we know, it could be 0 or a negative number. Then again, he declared “All exercise = 1”, which anyone with a basic understanding of the human body knows is false.

@ AL

Why do you feel the need to bring my hair into this discussion? I didn’t mention it and nope, I don’t think I will go away because I am here to learn and to share my experience and knowledge with those who have sincere questions about science vs. non-science. Now, can we please get back on topic because you are arguing something you can’t win here because you are unable to provide any science to back up your claims and opinions. Please try to remember that just because you believe something, doesn’t mean everyone else does, or will, nor do they have to, particularly if you can’t provide science based evidence to back up your claims. That is what this blog is about, science, fact that can be proven methodically, not your opinion and religious belief system. Your argument is circular and you prove this by your own definition:

“Science is the intellectual and practical activity encompassing the systematic study of the structure and behavior of the physical and natural world through observation and experiment.”

Very good getting your definition from Google. You fail in the next statement:

“Logically, my claims are correct even if they have not been experimentally verified.”

Can’t be scientifically verified, there for it is not science, period. Can you see how this is circular? You claim to know what science is and that yoga is science, but you admit in the same sentence there is no science to back it up. There isn’t anything logical about your claims and they are only your claims. I could claim I have x-ray vision, but just because I claim it doesn’t mean it is true and if science is used to experiment and observe, it would become pretty clear that I don’t actually have x-ray vision. At best, yoga is a placebo used to make people feel warm fuzzies. At worst it is deceiving people to believe it can cure things that it really can’t.

Venna, to be fair, I don’t think Ashtunga’s yoga talk is off topic. Yoga was mentioned in the original post, and Orac usually harps on people who go too off topic (we’ll note that he has not done so in this thread, while he has done so in a thread where yoga was not mentioned at all).

Mr Bacon, did you try that Ujjayi breathing? How did you get on?

Hello Interrobang,

I know an awful lot of differently-abled people who don’t have your victim mentality.

Yes of course you can benefit from yoga and who cares how you came to be the way you are? Just move forward and take whatever it takes to make your life the best you can possibly have.

All the best, don’t assume that I’m not disabled too, just because I am a yoga teacher.

Even paraplegics have benefited from ashtanga yoga. Now excuse me I am going to read up on Cerebral Palsy.

Mr./Ms. London, why are you still here?

Hi Chris, I am a He, sorry if I overlooked something, I thought we’d agreed and disagreed:

1) Swimming is great – agree
2) Swimming is more dangerous than Yoga? – it depends on the yoga teacher.
3) We all know what swimming is? – agree
4) We cannot confirm that anyone on this blog actually understands what I mean when I talk about my definable system of woo free ashtanga yoga.
5) I claim that swimming is unavailable to a significant proportion of global society whereas yoga is available to more people (but not all, some prisoners are prevented from practising yoga). So we disagree.

All things being unequal, the average person is going to have to spend longer on getting in an hour of swimming than an hour of yoga, because there are more 8′ by 6′ flat spaces than there are swimming pools or suitable bodies of water within a given distance of many people’s domestic arrangements.

So may I ask Chris, have you tried The breathing and the bandhas? I assume you’ve swum and so have I. Were my explanations unclear? Have you tried the breathing and/or the bandhas?

Dude I’m learning loads.

Ashtanga is a form of exercise but you fail to offer an example of another exercise system which employs the techniques I specified.

You’re not accommodating my disability (if I have one) because I have not disclosed one. I think that other guy was your troll sock puppet trying to catch me out. Nice one but I can see through you.

OK Chris, do you have a large number of steps or a hill near where you live?
You can see for yourself what Ujjayi breathing does to your physiological experience.

You are incorrect if you think that Ashtanga Yoga is equivalent to other exercise and you are unable or unwilling to comprehend what I have written about it.

Exercise / healthy lifestyle counts as preventative medicine (as opposed to woo which is a con, and is no kind of medicine).

Chris you’re description of what I am doing here is wrong and you are just looking like a fool who can’t read or breath through his nose.

Gray Falcon.

No, unless you want to get into a silly argument that no PMIDs can resolve. Assuming the real world exists and is here for all of us, no I do not think that my perceptions define reality.

If you’ve ever gone to a psychology website and read about how the mind plays tricks, misses things and fills in the gaps, you’d be a fool to believe something if you were the only person who’d had that experience.

I had such a high fever a few years back I was seeing centipedes everywhere. Knowing that centipedes don’t really ever hang out with me much I kind of figured they weren’t real.

Why do you ask? I’m just defining a system of moving and breathing, mainly because it shows that the word ‘yoga’ is an oversimplified concept for a whole bunch of different practices, some of which are just exercise, and some are just !”£$%^&*()_+!!!

Again, I say, it is not any kind of medicine, but just another form of exercise. Exercise of all kinds are part of a healthy lifestyle.

Why are still here? You obviously are not here to learn, but to push your silly stuff — and you still don’t have accommodations for folks disabilities.

Stop troll like behavior.

Chris you’re description of what I am doing here is wrong and you are just looking like a fool who can’t read or breath through his nose.

I don’t really read your spam, because I truly don’t care what you have to say. You’re just a another version of Jacob.

The spammer has previously stated that he wants us to help him prove it. He seems to miss that without proving it, he doesn’t have any grounds for the statements he makes. Also that it’s his burden to provide the proof if he wants to make the claims.

Vicki, would you allow a yoga teacher who does not charge any fee to go to your friend’s house and help them if that person was an MD with a 3 year yoga therapy degree, £10 million public liability insurance and offered only yoga that was free from woo and also free from stretching i.e. completely outside of Orac’s definition of yoga.

Also assuming the yoga teacher would contribute more heat to your friend’s house than would be lost by letting the Yoga teacher in and out?

I just read the piece critiqued here and think Orac was a bit disingenuous. First, the article explicitly points out that this might all be placebo effect *and* explicitly draws a comparison with sham interventions! Let’s be at least a little fair in our critique.

Second, I think Consumer Reports has a pretty even hand here, and is simply presenting the evidence for their (mostly intelligent) readers to make their own decisions. Imagine you have a medical problem for which there is no very effective prescription medication (take fibromyalgia or rheumatoid arthritis). If you’ve never had either of these, you are lucky. If you have, you know that if you’re in enough pain, at some point you’ll try almost anything.

I took the point of this article to be, “if you’ve exhausted options in terms of prescription meds or have some kind of objection to them, you’ll want to do something else. Let’s work together to find out which other things could at least possibly help you, and which are a total waste of money for sure.” That is helpful to consumers.

Et tu, Orac? As a member of the traditional medical community, are you only interested in supporting medical interventions from which you materially gain? Or is the goal still to help patients find solutions – and above all do no harm?

As usual when replying to any poster, in this case Interrobang who has spastic cerebral palsy, Yogi provides a citation number about an off topic meta study of manual lymph drainage.The citation number provided is invalid and begs the question “What does “manual lymph drainage” have to do with treatment of spastic cerebral palsy?

This troll is clueless about any physical diseases and disorders, and in this particular case by recommending yoga for spastic cerebral palsy might result in bone fractures and dislocation of every joint in the body.

@ MetaCritique: Your point being? Orac stated that he has a subscription to Consumer Reports, has enjoyed reading them even before he was making any purchases in his teen years, because he is not an expert on consumer products such as mattresses, appliances and cars. In addition, Orac has no room in the cramped lab where he studies breast cancer, for the driving oval to test new car handling, braking and rollover capabilities or the giant rollers that evaluate the usable lifespan of mattresses…he leaves that to the “experts” at Consumers Reports.

Orac’s expertise is the design of unbiased randomized double-blind placebo controlled studies…the “gold standard” of research studies and analysis of the data produced. He is eminently qualified to evaluate other studies based on the strictness of adherence to the “gold standard” and to offer his opinion about the results of such studies.

So do tell us where and how Orac was so “wrong” and we would also be interested in your analysis of the Consumer Reports Reader Subscriber survey…using the “gold standards”; please in your analysis remember the “gold standards”:

1. The design of the study by “qualified” researchers

2. The randomization of study participants

3. The double-blinded component of the study

4. The placebo controls component of the study

Et tu, MetaCritiqe? As a member of the CAM community, are you only interested in supporting CAM interventions from which you materially gain? Or is the goal still to help patients find solutions – and above all do no harm?

Ugh Troll shows up again, with another dopey nasty comment, whenever I post.

Ugh troll is in general a misogynist who directs its venom at all female posters here…truly a “textbook” case. I only conjecture here, but IMO the troll has a particular hatred for me due to his unsuccessful attempts to drive me off the site when I first started posting here. I remember only too well the number and occasions when troll took potshots at me and the specific topic (case criteria, case finding, contact investigation and prophylaxis used by epidemiologists to investigate pertussis cases) when he first called me “a liar”.

He also posed the questions: Where did you go to school? and
Where do you work? That is when I first questioned troll about his education, his college education and his gainful employment.

After a number of other posters started questioning the troll, who would suddenly “disappear” or go off topic with his ramblings, we collectively realized that troll is uneducated, has no gainful employment and is on “the dole”.

During the intervening months posters have persisted with these queries directed at the troll and troll totally and deliberately ignores them with his usual tactics of “disappearing” or rambling off topic tactics. Of course the questions are useless and rhetorical in nature, because of the exceptional ignorance he displays of a basic science skill set.

Troll also has determined I am a bit older, so troll now latches on to me, a total stranger from the internet, to vent because of his mommy complex and the hatred it feels for the hapless woman who gave birth to him. Another textbook head case.

He has busted so many times by posters here I lose count, but he still persists for his masochistic satisfaction (jollies), because he has a psycho-sexual disorder and “needs”.

He is also a hypocritical christian…I despise hypocrisy, especially religious hypocrisy.

lilady perhaps you are confused because I am not sick? Or you are a troll.

They’re not called ‘patients’ for nothing you know.

All the ‘students’ (we don’t like to call them patients) who have practised yoga under my guidance over the last couple of decades have not been without illness or injury during their often lengthy spells in my classrooms. Not all (if any) of their injuries were obtained in my classroom. Actually, I can’t think of any that were? No-one has ever sued me or tried to get a settlement out of me. On the contrary, I’ve been hurt a few times by yoga teachers, other exercise instructors and doctors alike, so things aren’t so clear cut as you’d like them to be. I’ve never sued or sought a settlement.

Occasionally I get to see them before and after they have taken a break from yoga to seek out conventional treatment for things that are not fixed by yoga itself.

“YOU did that to you! Now your injury is your teacher. I’m not interested anymore.” – anonymous yoga guru, BC

@ Jarred C: You are being too kind to Yogi. It is a troll, and quite possibly a sock puppet of pothead Jacob. Notice how Yogi gives advice even on spastic cerebral palsy with a bogus dead end citation? Yogi is not naive. Firstly naive people acknowledge their lack of knowledge, don’t interject their phony knowledge on each and every thread and then back down without further comment or explaining “what he meant”.

Troll immediately checks out Wikipedia whenever a disorder or a condition is discussed, stuffs factoids into its brain and then spouts off…totally ineffectively because it does not even understand what it just read from Google U…typical troll behavior.

Orac has been patient with this “Yogi”, I am not.

I’d agree, Beamup, except AL has enough neurons firing to avoid constantly providing URLs to a commercial site, which I think would trigger Orac’s “Nevermore” subroutine. Intellectually, however, AL is totally a spammer.

Jarred C @198

If you really want to figure out if A. Yoga really is the best exorcise system there is, then dedicate yourself to the research aspect.

Shouldn’t the evidence of demons be required first? 🙂

@Vicki I think we agree, actually. I was mostly interested in the massage ratings, because massage is something I sometimes recommend to patients (usually in conjunction with prescription meds, but not always). I’ve seen evidence (in journals, in individual patients) that it seems to help alleviate pain. I agree that if patients can’t afford it it’s not a good idea, but a massage school in our city occasionally accepts “volunteers” for students to practice on. These sessions still typically aren’t free, but the cost is greatly reduced and it seems that the school gives preference to volunteers there for medical reasons, which is very kind of them. I also agree with you that people need to prioritize in their lives, and if getting a massage means not meeting their basic needs then it’s not helping either. But I do think that even if the massage per se isn’t doing a lot, it can help people simply to step out of their houses for a few hours and interact with the world. I believe it helps prevent symptoms of depression, and that’s very important for both mental (obviously) and physical health.

@lilady. Actually, relatively few of the research papers I read in medical journals truly fit the gold standard. Often times, they’ll throw in some subjective measures. I’ve seen lots of regression discontinuity designs, and lots of medical studies are (necessarily) not true experiments because it’s impossible to have random assignment to conditions in many cases (I have a PhD in statistics so I know my way around an experiment too.) My originaly point was that CR never claimed this *was* a true experiment. They went out of their way to say it was *not* a true experiment. So, I think some of the original criticism was a bit overblown. Obviously, if we can have double blind studies all the time with random assignment to treatment and conditions and we can test for Hawthorne effects by including sham internvetions, and, and, and… then that’s awesome! But that kind of study tends to be the exception, not the rule. And I for one wouldn’t really want to see us throw out any study that didn’t meet the strict criteria you outlined because frankly it wouldn’t leave us with much. I personally think it’s a question of weights.

lilady hit it right on the head “first do no harm”. Does anybody really listen to the drug advertisement side effects? Find me a patented drug that has no dangerous side effects. Mainstream medicine never uses the word “cure”. They “treat’ disease with a pill or pills for the rest of your life. They try to stamp out all competition, not because they want us to be able to make wise choices as they claim, but because they want you on their drugs for life. The CDC reports that no one has ever died from any natural or alternative medicine. Of course the same cannot be said for main stream medicine. Mainstream medicine is the number one cause of death in America. We are 35th in the health of our citizens compared to other countries that spend far less per citizen. Research it for yourselves.