Question by Jessie: advantages and disadvantages of a holistic viewpoint about health?
what are the advantages AND disadvantages of looking at the whole body to determine health?

Best answer:

Answer by Jody
Advantages:

Holistic healthcare holds the belief tha healing comes from locating the symptom at its source and healing the issues that originally caused that ailment.

Healing mind, body and soul through life-style changes and past issue resolution will lead to well balanced physical health.

Prescribing medication to “treat” ailments is not working, people are just masking symptoms and diseases by making them tolerable. Eventually people are taking more prescriptions to “get rid of” side effects caused by original prescriptions. This is a vicious and scary cycle.

The “people centered” approach makes diagnostics and treatment more individualized.

Disadvantages:

Most Ammericans find it difficult to obtain holistic healing. Pharmaceutical companies are running the industry with profit-making determination. According to the Journal of the Medical Association, April 5, 1998, prescription drugs are the 4th leading cause of death in the USA.

The most serious issue facing holistic medicine is that complementary medicines can compromise health when combined with traditional treatments. For instance Chinese herbs, some are powerful nervous system depressants and stimulants that trigger side effects from pharmaceuticals.

Time Magazine reported in Jan 2008 that St John’s Wort a popular herbal antidepressant can also inhibit the effectiveness of heart medications such as warfarin.

Lack of research – holistic remedies have to have double blind clinical studies and researchers can’t attract the funding to do this research. Reputable medical journals aboid certain subjects such as the evidence for distance healing or prayer despite intriguing data sets. Not all holistic practitioners are board certified.

The Placebo effect – may be responsible for many purported alternative treatments,

Rising costs of health care – tremendous competition within the medical establishment limits the availability of holistic medicine approaches. Some CAM treatments are now covered by insurance, but only a minority.

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