Name: Do You Believe in Magic?
Rating: 2.7 (55 reviews)
Author: Paul A. Offit

What’s in it for me? Find out about the irrational health choices made by rational people.

Did you ever go to the doctor’s, hurting all over, hoping to get help – just to be told: “You’re as healthy as a horse. All you need is a little exercise.” Alternative healers would never dismiss you like that. They’d use a pendulum, ask many questions or look deeply into your eyes to find out what’s really ailing you.

Is it any surprise that many Americans are unhappy with modern medicine: They perceive it as bureaucratic, impersonal and cold. They prefer a naturopath’s personal touch to scary high tech machines, and they’ve heard scary stories about “Big Pharma.”

But alternative medicine isn’t always an alternative.

For one, natural remedies can be dangerous: Between 1983 and 2004, poison-control centers in the United States received 1.3 million reports of adverse reactions to vitamins, minerals and dietary supplements. Secondly, unlike conventional medicine, alternative medicine is supported only by very scarce evidence, like a few enthusiastic testimonials.

In these blinks, you’ll learn

about the miraculous powers of the great Dynamizer;
the nature of the tragic connection between a former Playmate of the Year and dying babies; and
what nurses in World War Two used on patients when they ran out of morphine.

Dietary supplements and natural remedies are not as healthy as you think.

Do you feel extremely tired sometimes? Don’t look as youthful as you did ten years ago? Then you’re definitely lacking vitamins! But here’s the good news: You just need to pop some pills and everything will be OK. Right?

If only it were that simple. The reality is that vitamin supplements and their alleged health benefits are vastly overrated. If we listen to the claims of supplement providers and get sucked in by those promising words in their campaigns – natural, bio, organic – then we’re easily convinced that vitamins are a modern miracle.

Even exceptional chemist and two-time Nobel laureate Linus Pauling claimed that a daily dosage of 3,000 milligrams of vitamin C could cure not only a common cold, but also cancer. Unfortunately, this just isn’t the case. Studies have shown that vitamin pills don’t improve our health. In fact, they can do just the opposite.

In 2004, researchers from the University of Copenhagen reviewed several studies of a total of 170,000 people to determine whether taking vitamins A, C, E and beta-carotene prevented intestinal cancer. The results were surprising, and disturbing: death rates are six percent higher in people taking vitamins.

Celebrities have been instrumental in promoting dubious miracle cures.

Desperate to gain fame and money, some celebrities are willing to promote all manner of products, even if they endanger people’s health.

Take actress Suzanne Somers, for example. She played a large part in promoting a deeply problematic form of hormone therapy. After her recovery from breast cancer, Somers subjected herself to a regimen of “bioidentical” hormones and dietary supplements. What she didn’t know was that these supposedly natural hormones were in fact conventional hormones engineered in a German factory.

Outrageous claims and bizarre therapies have characterized alternative medicine for the past 150 years.

Plenty of supposedly natural remedies combine false claims and unexpected side effects. This trickery isn’t new, either. Way back in 1905, journalist Hopkins Adams published an article entitled “The Great American Fraud” after having a chemist analyze common herbal medications.

It turned out that several contained large quantities of alcohol, like “Hostetter’s Stomach Bitters” at a hefty 44 percent – equivalent to a strong whisky. Some medications even contained opium and cocaine!

Some alternative treatments work, just not in the way you expect.

“It’s only the placebo effect” – that’s a phrase we all know. But the placebo effect really is one of the ways these therapies actually work.

Take acupuncture, a treatment that millions of people swear by. For thousands of years, acupuncture has been known as an effective treatment. Reliable studies have also confirmed that at least some people experience positive effects from acupuncture, such as patients suffering chronic pain.

Kernaussagen in Do You Believe in Magic?