In defense of alternative medicine and Dr. Oz

Recently there has been a backlash against people like Dr. Oz who endorse alternative medicine. John Oliver was one person in particular who called Dr. Oz "the worst person in scrubs who has ever been on television". As someone with Dsythymia who has tried numerous medications and alternative treatments, I am annoyed at this because it kind of misses the big picture. If one considers the bigger picture one sees "science" endorsing antidepressants and a uncertain serotonin theory which has in turn stolen huge sums of money from people who have depression. For some reason when pharmaceutical companies deceive billions of people it is quietly goes unnoticed in comparison.

The makers of antidepressants like Prozac and Paxil never published the results of about a third of the drug trials that they conducted to win government approval, misleading doctors and consumers about the drugs’ true effectiveness, a new analysis has found.
In published trials, about 60 percent of people taking the drugs report significant relief from depression, compared with roughly 40 percent of those on placebo pills. But when the less positive, unpublished trials are included, the advantage shrinks: the drugs outperform placebos, but by a modest margin, concludes the new report, which appears Thursday in The New England Journal of Medicine.

I have occasionally watched Dr. Oz's show and for the most part he seems to endorse healthy eating and lifestyle. I see him mainly as an entertainer and not an informer since he is a cardiac surgeon. For the most part, I wouldn't go to a cardiac surgeon to discuss general health problems. I don't know why other people can't dismiss his more questionable advice. It seems like his critics( some allied with Monsanto) are worried that his advice will be taken as gospel.

Now, if Dr. Oz had endorsed diet/supplements over medicine for heart disease than there might be a problem since one would expect a cardiac surgeon to be somewhat of an expert in this area. My father, by the way, had two carotid arteries blocked (one 80% and the other 20%) after about ten years of taking blood thinners and cholesterol lowering medications. My father might have benefited from relying less on medication and more on diet.

I think it would behoove his critics to do a Google search on any health condition and see what sites are the most popular. The ones that seem to be first on most of my searches are the Mayo Clinic and Web MD, two of the most conservative sites there are. For the most part people are searching for the most trusted and objective information. This alternative medicine scare is a non issue.

With regards to alternative medicine I have had some success, more than I have had with traditional medicine. My experiments with sleep and diet augmentation have been helpful to a greater degree than pharmaceuticals. Personally at this point, I wouldn't place excessive faith in any cure, alternative or traditional. One needs to question everything and follow the money trail whether it is someone like Oz, doctors in general, or the pharmaceutical companies. In the end, I have more of an issue with my psychiatrist who tried to push Cymbalta (samples supplied by the pharmaceutical company) that would have cost me $500 a month, than Dr. Oz and his peddling of fish oil for stress.