--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "Patrick Gillam" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "sparaig" wrote: > > > > > > Moral of the story: pre-vitamins are not > > drugs. If they had taken the supplements > > along with a bit of naturally occurring > beta-carotene as found in fruits or carrots > > or whatever, I wonder what would have happened? > > Its entirely possible that the > > body can't process the substance properly as > > a pure chemical and needs other > > chemicals for it to be beneficial. > > This is my problem with most research on > natural healthcare. The studies are poorly > designed. I recall research on echinacea > some years back which concluded that echinacea > was ineffective in treating or preventing colds. > But it turns out there are three varieties of > echinacea, and the researchers chose the one > strain that the natural healing community > already knows is ineffective. > > The real point of this article was to tout > longitudinal studies with large populations. > When I used to teach TM, I was instructed to > present the preliminary TM research as just > that - indicative that larger studies would > be worthwhile. >
Problem is that most healthcare studies are oriented towards food-as drugs or whatever-else-as-drug. TM lends itself somewhat to such studies because it is a standalone technique but most natural healthcare systems are not that way, and of course, TM's effects are said to be enhanced by the rest of yogic practice, diet, etc. Drug studies are modeled after pure physics which is a lousy model for studying a complex non-linear system like the human body. Lawson
