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Comment by chiefalchemist | Hacker News Reader

The gut is the new "great unknown." Understanding it takes a more holistic approach. Western medicine / science is typically not very holistic-centric.

It's not going to surprise me if many of the cures / remedies offered by "non traditional medicine" (read: lessons from human history) little by litte get more credit for their worthiness.

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This is a very dangerous way of thinking. I can think of at least five people in my social network who have died as a direct result of seeking naturopathic medicine for their serious illnesses instead of proper medical care. Please do not encourage more people to do this.

I can think of 250,000 people in the United States alone who died last year because they sought proper medical care but died because of medical mistakes and bad prescriptions. In addition there were those that were harmed, but not fatally (of whom I know several).

https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/news/media/releases/study_su...

That's a very misleading statistic, many of these people might have lived with the best possible care but would have still died without treatment. Heathy people rarely seek major surgery for example.

I think both examples need to provide a denominator.

Any particular naturopathic medicine in common?

There are conditions that are considered incurable by "proper" medicine (e.g. Alzheimer's disease) and discouraging people from looking elsewhere (e.g. http://www.aging-us.com/article/100690) in those cases is just as dangerous. People are capable of considering multiple options simultaneously, and should be encouraged to inform themselves about the available treatments. In cases when two medical theories are truly incompatible, give people the right to decide what gamble they want to take, and understand that, in both cases, outcomes are uncertain.

A "more holistic approach" doesn't necessarily mean "naturopathic medicine" or not seeking proper medical care.

Exactly. Thank you.

I did not say naturopathic medicine. What I said was, things that were "scientifically" dismissed are rventuallt redemed. Acupuncture comes to mind. As do other approaches that help strengthen the gut. Etc.

That said, how many people have died, suffered or lived otherwise uncured from the tunnel vision of traditional medicine? I wish I had $20 for every time I heard "...the doctors aren't sure what it is..."

Your point is a good one. Let's just be fair to apply it evenly to all those who offer cures.

Oh! And let's not forget the "opioid crisis." Not only is that driven by the misunderstanding of pain, but the so called cure kills time and time again.

Let's be fair. Please.

The medical establishment offers the best preventative cure for many of these diseases: eat a variety of food and exercise regularly. Further; be born through the vagina, drink brest milk, and eat dirt.

The problem is people aren't educated about the Hygiene Hypothesis and often succumb to bad habits and addictive food.

I don't know why people are downvoting you. Things like microbiome, calorie restriction, diet, and water fasting are very promising "non-traditional" areas for dealing with systemic inflammation, and they definitely can work. Researchers should be paying more attention to those areas. Doctors often have no good answers for those diseases -- they often don't even diagnose them promptly and correctly.

There is some research, but not enough yet. And some of the previous studies were not designed well. I'd put water fasting in a "non-traditional" approach that should be looked at more closely, though many other "non-traditional" things, like homeopathy, have been debunked.

This is very interesting:

https://news.usc.edu/63669/fasting-triggers-stem-cell-regene...

I'm a skeptic, but knee-jerk skepticism is sometimes as bad as woo. I'm guessing that the downvoters have no experience with these kinds of conditions or what it's like to deal with the medical system around autoimmune conditions.

I could tell you many stories about it. I know one person who didn't get his autoimmune disease correctly diagnosed for 20 years. He now has serious problems due to lack of treatment for all that time. Even today, many doctors do not know basic information about those conditions (or sometimes even basic anatomy). The current state of autoimmune diagnosis is still absolutely terrible.

Woo is dangerous, but so is knee-jerk skepticism. I'm not complaining about modern medicine -- just that you shouldn't necessarily be so quick to downvote something if a medical doctor hasn't given their stamp of approval. Science does not have enough information yet to confidently and safely treat these problems, and it has provided many clues about the microbiome, intestinal permeability, and water fasting on the immune system. If you haven't heard of those things, I suggest reading some studies before downvoting.

As a matter of fact, I do know what you're talking about (AS). And I can't downvote, but I would ! ;) Promising mountains with "diets" is as bad or worse than doctors not really considering what's it like to live with autoimmune diseases / having trouble establishing diagnosis. Please link to peer-reviewed, serious papers showing results in double-blind studies if you wish to convince fellow hackers.

You're reading too much into what I'm saying. I didn't promise mountains with "diets". I said that "Researchers should be paying more attention to those areas." I'm definitely not saying that the answer is going to be "just stop eating" or curing yourself with woo like homeopathy and goji berries.

I don't think that something like water fasting will cure the autoimmune conditions of most people, but it's something that has such a dramatic effect on some autoimmune conditions that there should be more research in that area.

Have you ever done 3-5 day water fasts with nothing but water? Hold your reaction until you have investigated the dramatic effects (but not cures) it has on many people with autoimmune conditions.

I'm working this afternoon and don't have time to find links for you, but you can find my email address on my profile if you have questions about it.

Edit: please send me an email if you read this. I will email you some links later if you will send me your constructive opinions after you read them. I think you may find the information interesting and possibly useful.

Thanks for the clarification. I will look into it !

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