Dr. James Duke, basement shaman

>>snip<<<
'--He's an expert, you know, on... allopathic ...[blah, blah]'

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Note that the term "allopathy" literally means "different" medical practice as coined by Dr. Hahnemann in the mid 19th century. He used the term to describe the practice of medicine using techniques that produce the opposit effect of the illness being treated, as opposed to his like-treats-like homeopathy theory. Aside from Jim Duke, who is apparently an "expert", the term is almost exclusively used by those
who do not practice it. (Maybe he's an expert of the allopathy practiced in Dr. Hahnemann's time.)

>>>snip<<<<
If I had an enlarged prostate gland, I’d bet that gland that Saw Palmetto would work as well as the FDA-approved drugs

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I therefore insist that he also chew on raw foxglove if he develops dropsy, gnaw willow bark for his aches and pains, and perhaps even use hardware store rat poison for his coronary artery disease. Point is, there's a reason outside the capitalistic conspiracy theory he infers for researching the bioactive ingredients out of nature. (I intentionally left out the elk antlers, but it is an excellent analogy to his flawed point about Saw Palmetto.)

>>>snip<<<
I'd like to
> convince the US medical establishment that holistic
> herbal treatments are often more effective than
> isolated single compounds.” Duke explains that
> many traditional herbal remedies, which he refers to
> as “dragon’s blood”, are effective because of
> a synergistic combination of chemicals, and not
> because of a single, easily replicable, patentable
> molecule – which he describes as the search for
> the “silver bulletâ

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Most of the pro CAM studies use synergistic treatments in study protocols in an elusive attempt to demonstrate just this concept. Problem is twofold. It's well established that more almost always has a greater impact than less. Even more of nothing will show more positive results than less of nothing. Second, how are you ever going to know the right combination of things to try, and how do you know
you're not causing a synergistic BAD effect unless you look at the properties of each entity individually? Incidentally, most modern "allopathic" treatment
consists of many different modalities combined synergistically.

Overall, I find more rhetoric than substance in the presented arguments.

Finally, should anyone really trust medical facts or ideas presented by anyone who calls himself "basement shaman"?

dras