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Tag: alternative medicine

  • Antihistamines: Are There Better Options?

    Antihistamines and decongestants are often the last line of defense for those poor souls suffering through seasonal allergies and colds.

    While the medicines that use these ingredients such as Claritin or Allegra boast effectiveness, sometimes there are some unpleasant side-effects to deal with.

    For instance, it’s commonly known that antihistamine medications can cause dizziness or drowsiness, if the medicine doesn’t put you completely to sleep!

    If you’re taking these types of medicine in an effort to be active, then it seems to work against your intended goal.

    This leaves sufferers to ask, “Are there any alternatives out there?”

    Well, actually there are alternatives to over-the-counter antihistamine or decongestant medications.

    Watch What You Eat

    Dr. Lisa Lewis of Naturopathic Physicians claims that nutrition can be a major factor in aggravating or eliminating allergy symptoms.

    She writes, “To reduce allergy symptoms, eat a moderately low-fat, high-complex-carbohydrate diet.”

    Dr. Lewis also suggests the elimination of certain foods, such as dairy products, peanuts, chocolate, food coloring, and red meat from your diet.

    In their stead she suggests adding foods like garlic, ginger, carrots, dark green leafy vegetables, and yams to your diet. Dr. Lewis also suggests being sure to stay hydrated by drinking plenty of water.

    Drink More Green Tea

    Green tea is a great way for coping with seasonal allergies. It is a natural histamine blocker and over time will help boost your immune system.

    Other benefits of drinking green tea include the lowering of (bad) cholesterol and improvement of blood circulation.

    It’s one of the best things you can take, not only for things like hay fever, but for your overall health.

    Grapefruit/Lemon/Raw Honey Mixture

    This remedy suggestion calls for boiling grapefruit and lemon (the fruit only, not the rinds) in one cup of water for about 15 minutes. When the mixture has cooled, stir in raw honey.

    Taking this mixture is said to greatly relieve hay fever symptoms.

    Know of any natural or homemade remedies to fight allergies/hay fever? Share in the comments below!

    Image via Wikimedia Commons

  • Wikipedia’s Jimmy Wales Calls Bullsh*t on Alt-Medicine Petitioners

    If you look up “Emotional Freedom Techniques” on Wikipedia, you’ll see that it is “is generally characterized as pseudoscience and has not garnered significant support in clinical psychology.”

    If you look up “Thought Field Therapy on Wikipedia, you’ll find that “there is no scientific evidence that [it] is effective, and the American Psychological Association has stated that it ‘lacks a scientific basis.’”

    One alternative medicine group is upset with Wikipedia and its founder Jimmy Wales over what they call “inhibition to open discussion,” and has petitioned the online, crowd-sourced encyclopedia to change its policies. The only thing is that Jimmy Wales has absolutely no time for “lunatic charlatans.”

    The petition from the Association for Comprehensive Energy Psychology, on the popular change.org, asks Jimmy Wales to “create and enforce new policies that allow for true scientific discourse about holistic approaches to healing.”

    “Wikipedia is widely used and trusted. Unfortunately, much of the information related to holistic approaches to healing is biased, misleading, out-of-date, or just plain wrong. For five years, repeated efforts to correct this misinformation have been blocked and the Wikipedia organization has not addressed these issues,” says the petition.

    The group outlines a handful of examples of practices which are current receiving the wrong end of the Wikipedia stick–things like Energy Medicine, Energy Psychology, Emotional Freedom Techniques, Thought Field Therapy, and Tapas Acupressure Technique.

    Here’s the beef:

    Energy Psychology, Energy Medicine, acupuncture, and other forms of complementary/alternative medicine (CAM), are currently skewed to a negative, unscientific view of these approaches despite numerous rigorous studies in recent years demonstrating their effectiveness. These pages are controlled by a few self-appointed “skeptics” who serve as de facto censors for Wikipedia. They clothe their objections in the language of the narrowest possible understanding of science in order to inhibit open discussion of innovation in health care. As gatekeepers for the status quo, they refuse discourse with leading edge research scientists and clinicians or, for that matter, anyone with a different point of view. Fair-minded referees should be given the responsibility of monitoring these important areas.

    Jimmy Wales, never shy to speak his mind, has responded in truly incredible fashion. In essence, his response is put up or shut up.

    “No, you have to be kidding me. Every single person who signed this petition needs to go back to check their premises and think harder about what it means to be honest, factual, truthful,” said Wales in a response to the petition.

    “Wikipedia’s policies around this kind of thing are exactly spot-on and correct. If you can get your work published in respectable scientific journals – that is to say, if you can produce evidence through replicable scientific experiments, then Wikipedia will cover it appropriately. What we won’t do is pretend that the work of lunatic charlatans is the equivalent of ‘true scientific discourse’. It isn’t.”

    Well, there you go. Science or GTFO, says Jimmy Wales.

    As of now, the petition has yet to reach its 10,000 signature goal. It’s about 3/4 the way there.

    Image via Wikimedia Commons