IS THERE EVIDENCE FOR COMPLEMENTARY MEDICINE?

A criticism often made of holistic practitioners is that we have no evidence that our treatments work. The truth is that some complementary therapies have a great deal of high quality scientific data to support their use, alongside anecdotal, historical and case study use.

EVIDENCE FOR ACUPUNCTURE?

When people think of acupuncture they think of an ancient, mystical, eastern therapy with cures disease by the rather strange sounding technique of ‘stimulating the flow of Chi along meridians’. Sounds a bit ‘far out’ doesn’t it…but if you translate ‘chi’ to energy and ‘meridians’ to nerves and blood vessels things sound more normal to our western ears. Studies have shown that needling certain points can alter heart rate and brain activity in areas relating to pain perception (1). Various studies have also looked at the effect of acupuncture on pain scores of human patients with knee pain (2). Blinding and placebo control are really hard in acupuncture trials as it’s difficult to devise a convincing ‘sham’ needling technique which might not have some effects itself. It has also been shown that acupuncture increases blood flow in the skin and muscles (3) which could help with healing in injury cases.

EVIDENCE FOR HERBAL MEDICINE?

Perhaps the most simple proof that herbs can have an effect on the human or animal body is that many plants are poisonous! One doubting pet owner suggested that there was nothing in herbs. Vicky offered him a cup of Foxglove tea and he backtracked a little. But there is a lot more evidence out there on the effects of herbal extracts. Echinacea has been well studied both in clinical situations and at a physiological level, showing not only an effect on the immune system, but the actual part of the immune system being affected (4,5)! Another well studied herb is Milk Thistle with good evidence for its use in protecting the liver from damage (6). Pharmaceutical companies provide an awful lot of information on the effects and safety of herbal medicines as many are being examined for their potential to supply the next wonder-drug. However history has shown that synthetic versions of plant compounds can be more toxic, as well as more effective, than the natural plant extract (7).

EVIDENCE FOR HOMEOPATHY?

At Four Seasons Holistic Veterinary Care we don’t offer homeopathy because, as yet, there is not sufficient scientifically rigorous evidence for how it works, or even that it works. Most published research looks at case studies without adequate blinding or controls, and though there are some promising results at first glance the improvements seen could often be attributed to the disease following it’s natural course (as in ringworm in cattle which usually self cures) or to environmental changes such as the resolution of flooding in a leptospirosis outbreak (8). The challenge for homeopathy is that improvements can be attributed to the ‘method’ (a long consulations examining diet, lifestyle etc and advice on changes which can be made to those) rather than the medicine and this has also been an excuse in the past for the lack of scientific trials. That said, some researchers are looking at homeopathic remedies and methods for testing them in a scientific way which may one day give this are of complementary medicine the evidence base it needs to be taken seriously (9).

ENOUGH EVIDENCE?

For us the biggest driver behind us using a particular therapy is that it has worked on similar patients before and been well tolerated. We never offer miracle cures and we take a truly holistic view of your pets health using modern diagnostic tools and medicines alongside diet, behavioural and lifestyle advice, acupuncture, physical therapies and herbal medicines to improve health. That makes pinpointing the cause of the improvement a bit tricky….but if it works we’re all happy!

REFERENCES:

We don’t normally reference or add links as we want you to stay and enjoy our website but if you want to know where we found our evidence here goes!

1) http://pubs.rsna.org/doi/abs/10.1148/radiology.212.1.r99jl04133

2)http://rheumatology.oxfordjournals.org/content/46/3/384.full?referer=www.clickfind.com.au

3)http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00421-003-0825-3

4)http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00421-003-0825-3

5)http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0166354209003192

6)http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0166354209003192

7)http://www.eao.chups.jussieu.fr/polys/certifopt/saule_coxib/theme/1vane2003.pdf

8)http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1475491610000585

9)http://www.biomedcentral.com/1472-6882/7/1%20?iframe=true&width=100%&height=100%