Energy medicine
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Energy medicine is a branch of
Reviews of the scientific literature on energy healing have concluded that there is no evidence supporting clinical efficacy.[7][8][9][10][11][12] The theoretical basis of healing has been criticised as implausible;[13][14][15][16] research and reviews supportive of energy medicine have been faulted for containing methodological flaws[17][18][19] and selection bias,[17][18] and positive therapeutic results have been determined to result from known psychological mechanisms.[17][18] Some claims of those purveying "energy medicine" devices are known to be fraudulent[20] and their marketing practices have drawn law-enforcement action in the US.[20]
History
History records the repeated association or exploitation of scientific inventions by individuals claiming that newly discovered science could help people to heal. In the 19th century, electricity and magnetism were in the "borderlands" of science and electrical
Classification
The term "energy medicine" has been in general use since the founding of the non-profit International Society for the Study of Subtle Energies and Energy Medicine in the 1980s. Guides are available for practitioners, and other books aim to provide a theoretical basis and evidence for the practice. Energy medicine often proposes that imbalances in the body's "energy field" result in illness, and that by re-balancing the body's energy-field health can be restored.[29] Some modalities describe treatments as ridding the body of negative energies or blockages in 'mind'; illness or episodes of ill health after a treatment are referred to as a 'release' or letting go of a 'contraction' in the body-mind. Usually, a practitioner will then recommend further treatments for complete healing.
The US-based National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH) distinguishes between health care involving scientifically observable energy, which it calls "Veritable Energy Medicine", and health care methods that invoke physically undetectable or unverifiable "energies", which it calls "Putative Energy Medicine":[29]
- Types of "veritable energy medicine" include magnet therapy, colorpuncture, and light therapy. Medical techniques involving the use of electromagnetic radiation (e.g. radiation therapy or magnetic resonance imaging) are not considered "energy medicine" in the terms of alternative medicine.
- Types of "putative energy medicine" include biofield energy healing therapies that are claimed to direct or modulate "energies" to allow healing in the patient.Ayurvedic medicine, Chiropractic, Moxibustionand other modalities where a physical intervention is used to manipulate a putative energy.
Polarity therapy founded by Randolph Stone is a kind of energy medicine[33] based on the belief that a person's health is subject to positive and negative charges in their electromagnetic field.[34] It has been promoted as capable of curing a number of human ailments ranging from muscular tightness to cancer; however, according to the American Cancer Society "available scientific evidence does not support claims that polarity therapy is effective in treating cancer or any other disease".[34]
Beliefs
There are various schools of energy healing, including biofield energy healing,[2][3] spiritual healing,[4] contact healing, distant healing, Pranic Healing, therapeutic touch,[5] Reiki,[6] and Qigong among others.[2]
Spiritual healing occurs largely among practitioners who do not see traditional religious faith as a prerequisite for effecting cures. Faith healing by contrast takes place within a traditional or non-denominational religious context such as with some televangelists. The Buddha is often quoted by practitioners of energy medicine, but he did not practise "hands on or off" healing.[citation needed]
Energy healing techniques such as
Believers in these techniques have proposed
Physicists and sceptics criticise these explanations as
Scientific investigations
Distant healing
A systematic review of 23 trials of distant healing published in 2000 did not draw definitive conclusions because of the methodological limitations among the studies.[42] In 2001 the lead author of that study, Edzard Ernst, published a primer on complementary therapies in cancer care in which he explained that though "about half of these trials suggested that healing is effective", the evidence was "highly conflicting" and that "methodological shortcomings prevented firm conclusions." He concluded that "as long as it is not used as an alternative to effective therapies, spiritual healing should be virtually devoid of risks."[4] A 2001 randomised clinical trial by the same group found no statistically significant difference on chronic pain between distance healers and "simulated healers".[8] A 2003 review by Ernst updating previous work concluded that the weight of evidence had shifted against the use of distant healing, and that it can be associated with adverse effects."[43]
Contact healing
A 2001 randomised clinical trial randomly assigned 120 patients with chronic pain to either healers or "simulated healers", but could not demonstrate efficacy for either distance or face-to-face healing.
Evidence base
Alternative medicine researcher Edzard Ernst has said that although an initial review of pre-1999 distant healing trials[42] had highlighted 57% of trials as showing positive results.[4] Later reviews of non-randomised and randomised clinical trials conducted between 2000 and 2002[43] led to the conclusion that "the majority of the rigorous trials do not support the hypothesis that distant healing has specific therapeutic effects." Ernst described the evidence base for healing practices to be "increasingly negative".[10] Many of the reviews were also under suspicion for fabricated data, lack of transparency, and scientific misconduct. He concluded that "[s]piritual healing continues to be promoted despite the absence of biological plausibility or convincing clinical evidence ... that these methods work therapeutically and plenty to demonstrate that they do not."[10] A 2014 study of energy healing for colorectal cancer patients showed no improvement in quality of life, depressive symptoms, mood, or sleep quality.[44]
Earthing
The Earthing Institute gathers researchers and therapists who believe that to maintain or regain good health it is necessary to restore direct contact with Earth by removing floors, carpets and especially shoes.[45] Walking barefoot and sleeping on the ground are conceived as useful tools for achieving the "earthing" (or "grounding") of our bodies. It is claimed that thanks to earthing one would benefit from the "extraordinary healing power" of Nature by means of the transferral of electrons from the Earth's surface to the body: "a primordial and naturally stabilized electric reference point for all body biological circuits is created."[46] According to its practitioners, Earthing has preventive and curative effects on chronic inflammation, aging-related disorders, cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, arthritis, autoimmune disorders, cancer, and even depression and autism.[46]
The concept of earthing has been criticized as pseudoscience by skeptics and the medical community.[47][45][48] A review of the available literature[49] on the subject was written by several people that are financially tied to the company espousing the practice of earthing. Steven Novella referred to the work as "typical of the kind of worthless studies designed to generate false positives—the kind of in-house studies that companies sometimes use so that they can claim their products are clinically proven."[47]
Bioresonance therapy
Bioresonance therapy (including MORA therapy and BICOM
History and method
Bioresonance therapy was invented (in Germany) in 1977 by Franz Morell and his son-in-law, engineer Erich Rasche. Initially they marketed it as "MORA-Therapie", for MOrell and RAsche. Some of the machines contain an electronic circuit measuring skin-resistance, akin to the E-meter used by Scientology, which the bioresonance creators sought to improve; Franz Morell had links with Scientology.[52][53][unreliable source?]
Practitioners claim to be able to detect a variety of diseases and addictions. Some practitioners also claim they can treat diseases using this therapy without drugs, by stimulating a change of "bioresonance" in the cells, and reversing the change caused by the disease. The devices would need to be able to isolate and pinpoint pathogens' responses from the mixture of responses the device receives via the electrodes.[54] Transmitting these transformed signals over the same electrodes is claimed by practitioners to generate healing signals that have the curative effect.[55]
Scientific evaluation
Lacking any scientific explanation of how bioresonance therapy might work, researchers have classified bioresonance therapy as pseudoscience.[56] Some studies did not show effects above that of the
Proven cases of online fraud have occurred,[60] with a practitioner making false claims that he had the ability to cure cancer, and that his clients did not need to follow the chemotherapy or surgery recommended by medical doctors, which can be life-saving. Ben Goldacre ridiculed the BBC when it reported as fact a clinic's claim that the treatment had the ability to stop 70% of clients smoking, a better result than any conventional therapy.[61]
In the United States of America the
According to Quackwatch, the therapy is completely nonsensical and the proposed mechanism of action impossible.[55]
Explanations for positive reports
There are several, primarily psychological, explanations for positive reports after energy therapy, including
There are primarily two explanations for anecdotes of cures or improvements, relieving any need to appeal to the supernatural.[64] The first is post hoc ergo propter hoc, meaning that a genuine improvement or spontaneous remission may have been experienced coincidental with but independent from anything the healer or patient did or said. These patients would have improved just as well even had they done nothing. The second is the placebo effect, through which a person may experience genuine pain relief and other symptomatic alleviation. In this case, the patient genuinely has been helped by the healer – not through any mysterious or numinous function, but by the power of their own belief that they would be healed.[65][66] In both cases the patient may experience a real reduction in symptoms, though in neither case has anything miraculous or inexplicable occurred. Both cases are strictly limited to the body's natural abilities.
Positive findings from research studies can also result from such psychological mechanisms, or as a result of
See also
- Albert Abrams
- Electromagnetic therapy (alternative medicine)
- Electrotherapy
- Energy field disturbance
- Fraudulent Mediums Act 1951
- Hologram bracelet
- Magnetic resonance therapy
- Prayer
- Psychokinesis
- Radionics
- Royal Commission on Animal Magnetism
- The Sunflower Jam
- Witchcraft Acts
- Zero Balancing
- List of branches of alternative medicine
- List of ineffective cancer treatments
- List of unproven and disproven cancer treatments
References
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...When faith healings have been diligently investigated by qualified doctors, they have found no evidence that the patients were actually helped in any objective sense. Even at Lourdes, the Catholic Church has only recognized 4 cures since 1978, out of 5 million people who seek healing there every year. There simply is no evidence that faith healing heals. Not what science considers evidence. And the true believers don't value evidence or the scientific method: for them, belief is enough.
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Die Bioresonanztherapie geht auf eine angebliche Entdeckung des im Jahr 1990 verstorbenen Frankfurter Arztes und hochrangigen Scientologen Dr. Franz Morell zurück. [Translation: Bioresonance therapy dates from the alleged discovery made by the Frankfurt doctor and high-rank Scientologist Dr Franz Morell, who died in 1990.]
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Further reading
- Bioresonance therapy
- Hörner M, Bioresonanz: "Anspruch einer Methode und Ergebnis einer technischen Überprüfung", Allergologie, 1995, 18 S. 302
- Kofler H, "Bioresonanz bei Pollinose. Eine vergleichende Untersuchung zur diagnostischen und therapeutischen Wertigkeit", Allergologie 1996, 19, p. 114
- Niggemann B, "Unkonventionelle Verfahren in der Allergologie. Kontroverse oder Alternative?" Allergologie 2002, 25, p. 34
- oracknows (May 16, 2008). "Your Friday Dose of Woo: MORA the same ol' same ol' woo". ScienceBlogs. Retrieved February 22, 2014.
- Schultze-Werninghaus, "paramedizinische Verfahren: Bioresonanzdiagnostik und -Therapie", Allergo J, 1993, 2, pp. 40–2
- Wandtke F, "Biorensonanz-Allergietest versus pricktest und RAST", Allergologie 1993, 16, p. 144
- Wille A, "Bioresonance therapy (biophysical information therapy) in stuttering children", Forsch Komplementärmed, 1999 Feb; 6 Suppl 1:50–2
External links
- NIH Energy medicine: overview. Archived May 22, 2016, at the Portuguese Web Archive
- Miracle Machines: The 21st-Century Snake Oil: a Seattle Timesseries on fraudulent energy medicine devices
- What Is Complementary and Alternative Medicine? "biofield".
- An overview of the pseudoscience behind "bioresonance therapy": "Electrodiagnostic" Devices