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93 reviews for:
Do You Believe in Magic?: Vitamins, Supplements, and All Things Natural: A Look Behind the Curtain
Paul A. Offit
4.07 AVERAGE
93 reviews for:
Do You Believe in Magic?: Vitamins, Supplements, and All Things Natural: A Look Behind the Curtain
Paul A. Offit
4.07 AVERAGE
It's not likely to convince those who already believe in these things - but it also tackles some things that might have flown under the radar of even informed citizens, such as myself. I hadn't known, for instance, that studies have shown that people taking megavitamin supplements had higher incidences of cancer and heart disease than the control group. I didn't realize how self-serving the "Chronic Lyme Disease" crew actually are (they claim the bacteria can hide so well that there are no antibodies to find, which is absurd). And I hadn't read before that trials of acupuncture have actually been done that showed that retractable needles (which can be felt touching the skin but stop there) work just as well as regular needles (placebo effect in action).
And something I sort of know but hadn't really thought through before: All of these supplement type things are completely exempt from FDA regulation. Totally. They can grind up rat turds as part of their preparations or sell plain sugar pills as treatments and the US government has deliberately legislated away any power to do anything about it. Which is just insane and really needs to change.
The really short version of the book would probably be: There's no such thing as "alternative medicine" - there are things that work, which are medicine; and there are things that don't, which are not medicine (I'm paraphrasing from memory something that he actually says). Which must be followed up by an important question: If treatment X, Y, or Z works so well, why don't its proponents run formal clinical trials to demonstrate it?
Offit also gives space to the importance of the placebo effect, wondering what the medical profession can do to better harness it (and the ethical conundrums that arise from the very idea). Altogether a very interesting, and sometimes disturbing, examination of a very important social phenomenon.
This is the second book I've read by Paul Offit and it's as fantastic, clear, and conversational as the first one I read. In "Do You Believe in Magic?" Dr. Offit tackles the controversial alternative medicine topic with a firm grasp of the history between standard practice medicine and the alternative medicine industry. This is a critical look at what does, and what does not work in the field of alternative medicine, alone with the abuses the industry is rife with. It clearly shows how the supplement industry gets a complete pass from examination before supplements hit the store shelves, along with numerous cases of supplement contamination and abuse. There is also a chapter that looks at why the placebo effect may be the real reason so many people think alternative therapies work when they are show to be ineffective in studies. The book goes on to further show how many modern day snake oil salesmen have robbed people of potential life saving treatments for something that either made their illness worse, or did nothing while their disease got to the point it could no longer be treated.
A well written expose that you should read if you care about your health and well being and want to be sure your not the next one taken advantage of by snake oil salesmen. In many cases it can be a matter of life and death.
