Ayurveda to rumble?

Last night's mini-med lecture was the one I was most unsure about, because while cellular processes and chemical reactions are fun and games, is complementary and alternative medicine really science? Despite my yoga-doin', massage-gittin', biofeedback-slightly-creditin' ways, stuff like reiki and homeopathy still gets the full eyebrow of dubiousness.

But the woman who presented the lecture is used to getting a similar look from med students throughout a full semester, so she was undaunted. After covering the history of the NCCAM (shriek about your tax dollars if you wish, but Americans spend about $27 billion on CAM each year; a little investigation into whether any of it actually works wouldn't hurt), she ran through short descriptions of a bunch of different modalities, including homeopathy, naturopathy, traditional Chinese medicine, acupuncture distinct from TCM, the forms of yoga that aren't asanas, ayurveda, and traditional Greek "take two humors and call me in the morning" medicine. The proselytizing I was half expecting never materialized; she simply described each discipline and a bit of its history, then moved on, apologizing occasionally that condensing a semester's worth of material into two hours meant giving some questions short shrift. In the last 10 minutes, she presented some of her preliminary statistical results on using homeopathic saw palmetto to treat prostate cancer and on mind-body treatments for stress among med students, both tentatively positive.

I'm not convinced that understanding what throws the yellow bile upon the black is likely to provide major medical breakthroughs, or that homeopathy is anything but the placebo effect in expensive action. Still, encouraging a focus on prevention, on treating people rather than symptoms, and on making it easier for everyone to take an active role in managing their health could stand to be integrated into the medical culture. The world would be a happier place if more of us got massages covered by insurance.