Why are doctors nasty about some natural cures? ?

First of all in the UK it would be advantageous for GPs to prescribe or recommend alternative therapies, IF THEY WORKED! As these preparations are cheap for the NHS or indeed free if the patient buys them, it thus reduces the GP's prescribing costs, something the powers that be are always trying to get them to do.

Of course the flat earth brigade, who just ignore the mass of scientific data available to demonstrate the failure of most of these therapies, just ignore this information. They basically run on ' I want it to work, ' so it doesn't matter that it is proven to be useless, 'I still think it works.'

Acupuncture is the easiest to debunk as one large study managed this on its own. It compared patients receiving 'proper' acupuncture with a similar control group receiving random needle pricks. Both groups showed identical results, demonstrating the effect was purely a placebo one.


There have been a significant number of studies looking at comparing homeopathic preparations with placebo, none showed advantage, but I accept the logistics behind doing double blind cross over studies on each and every homeopathic preparation at all possible strengths is impossible.

Herbal remedies are often pharmacologically active and are certainly sometimes useful. A big concern here is a lack of safety data, especially for preparations used long term.

Again there is some evidence that certain aromatherapy oils are useful. There has been a study which very successfully weaned patients off temazepam, using lavender oil, which was in my view quite impressive.

Doctors themselves often use drugs on patients which they believe are useful, despite much evidence that they are often worthless. There are countless examples of this. The largest group by volume is antibiotics, where it is estimated that as many as 85% of all prescriptions for all indications are not only unnecessary but statistically more harmful than doing nothing. The just published NICE Guideline 69, shows clearly that they should not routinely be used in colds, coughs, sore throats, middle ear infections and sinus infections.

So not only am I open minded, but as a consconscientious doctor I took very seriously my duty to provide the best care for patients, based on the best information available, no matter what the origin of the therapy. To this end our practice employed its own aromatherapist.