What is the relationship between alternative medicine and overall health?

The current consensus in the academic circles and health management fields is that alternative therapy is neither a necessary standard for overall health, nor is it a completely denied "pseudoscience". It is a supplementary option to conventional medical treatment that can be selected according to individual conditions within the framework of overall health management. The two are by no means bound or antagonistic.

I have been doing community health management for the past six or seven years. What left a deep impression on me was a young man who worked in design the year before last. He suffered from back strain for almost two years. The orthopedic X-ray was not enough to require surgery. He felt sick in his stomach after taking painkillers. Later, on the basis of core strength training as prescribed by the doctor, combined with massage from a regular institution once a week, and foam roller relaxation for 10 minutes before going to bed every day, it lasted more than three months. The frequency of back pain has dropped by 70%, and even the stiffness caused by sitting for long periods of time has improved a lot. This is actually a typical example of alternative therapies complementing conventional medical care - many times conventional medical care solves the problem of "no serious illness", but these minor discomforts that linger and are tied to lifestyle habits are exactly the areas that alternative therapies such as acupuncture, mindfulness, and massage can reach.

But I have also encountered the exact opposite case. Last year, there was an aunt in my district who suffered from high blood pressure. She heard from the health care class in the community that "magnetic therapy bed + vegetarian therapy" can completely replace antihypertensive drugs. She secretly stopped Western medicine for half a month, and she went straight to the ICU for cerebral hemorrhage. She is still paralyzed to this day. This is why the relationship between the two has been controversial in the industry: most people who support the integration of alternative therapies into overall health management believe that it is more in line with the "people-centered" core of overall health. It does not focus on a single disease and prescribe strong medicine, but takes into account physical state and emotional changes, which are dimensions that conventional medical treatment does not have the energy to cover. ； The objections are completely valid. At present, except for a few therapies such as acupuncture and mindfulness, which have certain evidence-based support, the effectiveness of many alternative therapies has not been supported by large-scale studies. In addition, the industry is mixed, and it is easy for unscrupulous merchants to package them as magic formulas that can cure all diseases, which violates the original intention of overall health.

To use a very simple analogy, overall health is like long-term maintenance of your house. Conventional medical treatment is to repair leaks and cracked load-bearing walls. If there is a hard problem, you must find a professional team to solve it. Alternative therapy is like opening windows for ventilation every day and doing storage and cleaning regularly. If you do it well, your living comfort will be much higher. But if you don’t repair the cracks in the load-bearing walls, it will definitely be useless to clean up the home every day, and it may even cause the house to collapse.

To be honest, if you don’t have any serious organic diseases, it’s absolutely fine to rely on alternative therapies to adjust your condition. The premise is that you first go to a regular hospital for screening and choose qualified practitioners. Don’t stop all conventional treatments and physical examinations when your brain gets hot. After all, the core of overall health is “adapting to your own physical condition”, and it is never a blind pursuit of trendy therapies.