werner@aecom.UUCP (Craig Werner) (02/13/85)
OK, let's stop with the conspiracy theories of the practice of Medicine. Medicine is for the most part, an empirical science, and if anything worked reasonably well, it would be used, plain and simple. To refute a few points by Mako Siefert (I think): > Nutritional type therapys are much better, since they work *with* > your body, instead of *against* it, as drugs tend to do. I wouldn't say "much", since Vitamin C doesn't cure a cold any better than a good placebo, and while Vitamin A may help night blindness, too much of it will cause rashes, etc. Besides, I've always liked to think that GOOD drugs work *with* the body too, and many nutritional therapies work *against* the body just as bad as some drugs. > Nutritional methods work quite well, but they are slow, and > we don't know nearly enough about nutrition at this point, Well, if we don't know nearly enough about nutrition at this point, then to make sweeping generalities about its efficacy is a little rash, don't you think. I will grant you however, it is probably good for prevention, but not for treatment once symptoms develop (too little, too late, as it were) > I wonder what the > cancer rate would be if we all ate properly, and noone smoked, > etc. Much lower, I know that. Agreed 100%. However, the fact that we can't get most smokers to quit, most overweight people to diet, and a good percentage of sedentary people to exercise points to a great fallacy of nutritional therapy -- Compliance. Oh well .... -- Craig Werner !philabs!aecom!werner What do you expect? Watermelons are out of season!