I’ve had my share of dental unpleasantries. There was the brutal wisdom tooth surgery that took seven times longer to recover from than what had been forecast. More recently, there has been a sustained inability to find decent dental insurance for my family. But Ben Goldacre notes that flaws in aircraft design do not prove the existence of magic carpets, and likewise, any dental care deficiencies are no point in favor of holistic dentistry.

Alternative approaches to dentistry are not as ubiquitous as in other medicines, but they do exist. Like other naturopathic remedies, the overarching idea is to find a way to help the body heal itself. Hence, the field purports to consider not just patients’ mouths, but also their bodies, mindsets, and spirituality. Put another way, chakra realignment and aura balances are said to impact gingivitis.

Naturaldentistry.us asks the difference between traditional and alternative dentistry, then provides this photo to symbolize this latter:

Indeed, that’s different than the poster of an anthropomorphic smiling tooth I’m used to seeing in most dental offices.

The Holistic Dental Network’s mission statement fits two logical fallacies into one sentence, appealing to both antiquity and nature: “Holistic dentistry encompasses…knowledge drawn from the world’s great traditions on natural healing.” It then defines the field as “an approach to dentistry that promotes health and wellness instead of the treatment of disease.” This insinuates that mainstream dentists are merely reactive, concerned only with fixing problems once they arise. Yet traditional dentists consider a patient’s oral health, history, and habits when planning treatment. They focus on prevention as well, for every trip to the dentist I’ve ever made has included free toothpaste, toothbrush, and floss. There were also pamphlets and posters focusing on how to avoid cavities and decay.

Alternative dentists are usually opposed to fluoride, even though the Centers For Disease Control and Prevention lists fluoridated water as one of the 10 greatest health achievements of the 20^th Century. Most alternative dentists instead prefer the use of Vitamin D. Studies do suggest Vitamin D to be an effective strategy in combating decay, but this is no reason to halt fluoride use.

Some alternative dentists go so far as to proclaim the mouth to be the key to the health of the rest of the body. In this sense, it is the oral equivalent of chiropractic, reflexology, and craniosacral therapy. What is so strange about these disparate claims is that there never seems to be debate within the alternative medicine community over them. The mouth, spine, feet, and skull cannot all be the center of health, yet clinicians from the various alternative medicine branches never challenge each other when such claims are made. A chiropractor’s entire existence is based on the idea that all disease and illness emanate from the spine. Thus a claim that they all come instead from deficiencies in the mouth would, if true, render the entire chiropractic field useless. If a skeptic or mainstream doctor questions the central point of these alternative practices, the practitioners respond, but when fellow alt-med clinicians essentially say the same thing, no protests are raised.

Alternative dentistry may use some genuine science, but it also throws in various fluff based on the whims of the particular practitioner. This can include using herbs in lieu of toothpaste, or creating an oil concoction to combat periodontitis. If being serviced by Natural Dentistry in Gordon, Australia, these treatments will be administered in their “peace-inducing, Zen-like premises.” Meanwhile, lame mainstream dentists respond with an ambiance of Muzak and Goofus and Gallant comics.

Probably the most frequent claim in alternative dentistry is that mercury is one of the most toxic heavy metals; however, toxicity is determined by dosage, not element, and the amount of mercury absorbed from fillings is only a tiny percentage of what a person ingests through daily food intake.

Despite this, Natural Dentistry blames the mercury in amalgam fillings for “fatigue and lack of energy, poor short-term memory, poor concentration, anxiety, depression, and susceptibility to infections due to a depressed immune system.” Other alternative dentists blame amalgam fillings for goiter, heart trouble, tuberculosis, diabetes, anemia, high blood pressure, hardened arteries, rheumatism, neuritis, arthritis, kidney stones, leaky bladders, fever, constipation, weight problems, cataracts, and cancer. Attributing all these conditions to poor dental work is post hoc reasoning and is cast with a net so wide that it will snare most patients, especially seniors.

Alternative dentists frequently employ a mercury vapor analyzer to convince these patients they are in danger. The practitioner has the patient chew vigorously for 10 minutes, which will likely produce tiny amounts of mercury. The exposure lasts just a few seconds and most of the mercury will be exhaled, but the machines still give a false high reading.

This mercury poisoning and other dental ails will, depending on the practitioner, be treated with herbs, vitamins, essential oils, green tea extract, acupuncture, or body chemistry balancing. With regard to the last item, the International Academy of Biological Dentistry and Medicine’s mission statement reads: “We are committed to integrating body, mind, spirit, and mouth…and to relieving the body of infections, toxic chemicals and metals, electromagnetic disturbances and radiation, food allergens and nutritional deficiencies, biomechanical imbalances, and psycho-emotional distress and dysfunction, in order to restore natural biological function, mind-body vitality, and the ability to self-regulate and maintain homeostasis.”

However, Dr. Stephen Barrett at Quackwatch wrote, “The human body contains many chemicals, ranging from water and simple charged particles to complex organic molecules. Legitimate medical practitioners may refer to a specific chemical or a balance between a few chemicals that can be measured, but the idea that body chemistry goes in and out of balance is a quack concept.”

These treatments are often done under the umbrella of promoting wellness, which is an undefined term offering unspecified benefits. Hence, wellness can be advertised and sold without the customer getting anything in return. The patient may even be in ideal health to begin with.

Another nonexistent entity sold by some holistic dentists is cavitation therapy. This was most associated with Hal Huggins, who died two years ago. Huggins maintained that facial pain, heart disease, arthritis, multiple sclerosis, and leukemia were caused by cavitations, a byproduct of amalgam fillings which lurk somewhere in the jawbones. These cavitations are said to be undetectable by X-rays and are incapable of being treated with antibiotics. Only Higgins’ disciples, then, are capable of detecting and treating them. Per his website, finding them “requires lots of skill and years of experience.” A gullible patient is presumably another huge plus.

Attempts have been made to catalog the various forms of alternative medicine, but a complete rundown is impractical. That’s because the field is forever adapting to the market and coining new buzzwords and ostensibly new practices. The one constant is a lack of verifiable cures and treatments.

There are three main approaches when peddling supposed medicine not backed by peer review, research, and double blind studies. Some practitioners prefer the angle of antiquity and present their procedure or pill as the product of Chinese dynasties, the Pharaohs, or as hailing from the day Hinduism was the hot new religion. The logic employed is that something wouldn’t be around for so long if it was ineffective. While the purported medicine is usually of a faux antiquity, this logic falls flat no matter how ancient or recent its roots. This thinking fails to consider communal reinforcement, post hoc reasoning, and selective memory. There is a reason why double blind studies are medicine’s gold standard and why alternative practitioners flee from them. There is another way the appeal to antiquity is used, and that’s when the cure is said to have been recently rediscovered in some lost manuscript or treasure chest.

Other alternative medicine practitioners prefer the opposite approach and advertise their product as cutting-edge. Forms of this include faster-than-light tachyons, disease-eradicating ions, and maintaining optimal health by manipulating bio-energy fields. The relative affordability of these practices, compared to long-term mainstream medical treatment, is one of the main attractions, but for those without such concerns, theta healers will rearrange and optimize your DNA for $5,000.

While some prefer to sell unlocked ancient secrets, the avant-garde crowd offers exclusive cures that have been hushed up by corrupt politicians and industry insiders. Some alt-med proponents are openly anti-science, some are more subtle about it, and still others present themselves as an extension of scientific knowledge. In any case, they all try to sound science-like by fabricating modern-sounding terms or pilfering from medical vernacular.

A third option for alternative medicine marketers is to fuse the strategies and claim that cutting-edge physics is validating the mystics and seers of yore. This is most often found when the word quantum is used.

While “quantum” is threatening to overtake it, “energy” is still the most ubiquitous term in alt-med circles. Alt-med energy is invisible, cannot be felt, has no taste, sound, or aroma, and would seem to be, well, energetic, so it is the perfect ploy for someone who is peddling nothing. Many energy medicines are touted as treatments that encourage the body to heal itself, which would make purchasing them superfluous. Other words that are usually pseudo-medicine giveaways are holistic, wellness, and integrative.

With integrative, the trick is to make the patient feel they are getting the best of both worlds. Mainstream medicine proponents don’t get along with quacks, and vice versa, but integrative medicine purports to bridge this curative gap by providing, perhaps literally, the whole pill. However, there is no eastern, alternative, complementary, or supplementary medicine. There is only medicine, which refers to techniques and products proven to cure or mitigate illnesses by the metadata of double blind studies.

The lack of agreement on even the most basic points among alt-med practitioners is a telling sign that it’s hogwash. Ask a physician how many ribs a person has, and he or she will answer 24. Ask an alternative medicine practitioner how many charkas there are and the answer may be three, seven, 12, or 300. Chakras are touted as vital to health by those promoting their maintenance, yet those doing so cannot even agree on how many there are or what they do. Back to the ribs, the physician knows their functions are to protect internal organs and to enable the lungs to expand when a person breathes. Chakras, meanwhile, can be credited with increasing energy flow, unblocking cosmic clutter, strengthening the nervous system, detoxifying the body, improving the immune system, and giving one a more pleasant personality. It is limited only by the creativity of the charlatan clinician. Alt-med has no agreed-upon standards or ways to determine the validity of research, resulting in a hodgepodge of hocus pocus. Whatever chakras do, they are in need on continual cleansing, unblocking, realignment, balancing and straightening, with again no continuity among practitioners as to how this is done.

Energy healers take patients’ money while giving them literally nothing in return. They gyrate their hands and draw imaginary shapes around the customer, then declare them healed. But the more enterprising have found a way to further enhance profit by eliminating 100 percent of office and fuel expenses through distance healing. Since practitioners of Reiki, chi gung, prana, and aura realignment never touch the patient, some have figured out they can offer the service from one’s own home via the Internet or cell phone. Perhaps the next step will be to eliminate electricity use by just sending the healing energies into the air and letting the wind carry them to the patient.

From distance healing we move to the other end of the pretend medicine spectrum, the extreme hands-on approach of osteopathy. This is a catch-all term that can’t quite catch-all since the field keeps branching off onto new tangents. But examples of osteopathy include chiropractic, craniosacral therapy, and watsu, which uses currents of warm water that are generally pleasing and lull the patient into thinking some healing is going on.

Many osteopath techniques are specific to a region: lomilomi for Hawaii, acupressure or China, shiatsu for Japan, Ayurvedic for India, nuat phaen boran for Thailand, and Rolfing for the mainland United States. These are all variants on the principle that rubbing on someone will result in undefined and broad wellness benefits.

While not yanked and pressed on quite as dramatically as those undergoing osteopathy, applied kinesiology patients get squeezed, twisted, and twirled about and get nothing from it except maybe a momentary increase in flexibility. The field assumes that allergens, toxins, viruses, and so on can be detected by pressing on the subject with varying amounts of pressure. At odds with biology and anatomy & physiology, applied kinesiology proponents contend that organ dysfunction is accompanied by a weakness in specific corresponding muscles. Once the practitioner arrives at a diagnosis through guesswork, boredom, and the Ideomotor Effect, treatment may include more joint manipulation and purported therapies centering on muscle tissue and the cranium. There may be some nutritional counseling as well, which would be the one potential health benefit, though that could be accomplished without an extensive and pointless rubdown.

As stated earlier, “energy” is the most frequent buzzword in alternative medicine, but Emotional Freedom Technique tries a relatively novel approach on this hackneyed phrase by insisting energy can heal mental problems. This is not entirely original; others have asserted that emotional baggage can be dealt with by body rubs and saltwater immersion. But this goes another mile down the Credulity Trail by offering an invisible medicine to cure the blues. Emotional Freedom Technique appeals to antiquity by pointing out the Chinese have long used acupuncture, but also says that a scientific breakthrough available only to EFT patients will give them the ability to access this power painlessly. The EFT website boasts, “This process enables you to release stuck or blocked energy by tapping on your meridian system. You have the ability to release stuck emotions and limiting beliefs simply by using your fingers.” The creator noted the technique’s beautiful simplicity by pointing out that his 4-year-old niece can do it. I noted this technique’s absurd inefficiency by pointing out that his 4-year old niece can do it.

EFT is another idea that presents itself as new and exciting, but for those who like their healing to be old and preferably wrinkled, we have shamans. Believers like to think of them as bronze-skinned, adorned with a necklace of animal bones, and wearing a multi-colored robe of natural fibers. Ideally, they reside in a bamboo hut either on a mountaintop, deep in the jungle, or a three-day canoe journey from the nearest village. In truth, most drive Beamers and live in places like Moline, Toledo, and Spokane. To their patients, they literally blow smoke, dab with ointment, chant incoherently, and possibly incorporate feathers and drums in some capacity. For maximum effect, it’s done in an ambiance featuring burning incense and R. Carlos Nakai music.

I could have easily written ten times as many words in this post, as it would probably be impossible to fully document the alternative medicine world. But at least that means I’ll never run out of topics.

Imaginary energy is a staple of alternative medicine. It goes by various names and can be summoned by someone using futuristic-looking ersatz electronics, or by someone waving their hands to replicate an ancient shaman’s. But in all cases, there is no explanation for how the energy is accessed, how it is measured, how it is controlled, or what type of energy it is.

In anthroposophic medicine, this energy is a vital force that needs to be manipulated in order to maintain health. The body is dependent on this energy and illness results when the flow is blocked. We have Rudolf Steiner and Ita Wegman to thank for this knowledge. They revealed it to the world in the 1910s and just look at how much the average lifespan has skyrocketed since.

Anthroposophic medicine comes with built-in ad hoc reasoning for the lack of double blind studies. These treatments are unique to the individual, so what works for one person won’t work for anyone else. What’s more, the field embraces reincarnation, with past lives assumed to impact current health. So the clinician must consider the current state of the patient’s soul, which would have no bearing on the person the practitioner is seeing next.

Steiner and Wegman taught that the soul, the senses, and consciousness all exist separate from the body, and that various homeopathic and alchemist techniques can bring these elements into harmony. Consistent with the stated inability to perform double-blind studies, these claims are limited to anecdotal evidence.

In lieu of research and employment of the Scientific Method, Steiner used his superhero powers to remotely view alternate dimensions and gain insight available only to him. He then dictated his visions on paper and announced the resultant cures and prevention techniques. These included a revelation that mistletoe cures cancer. Not just any mistletoe, however. Steiner’s vision included the stipulation that the plant’s medical potential was influenced by the position of heavenly bodies at harvest time.

In an anomalous lapse into accuracy, Steiner noted that mistletoe is a parasite that lives off host trees and sometimes kills them. So why not use this plant to fight rouge cells? Skeptic leader and physician Edzard Ernst has said, “Mistletoe might have some ingredients which possess pharmacological activity, but to claim that it is a cancer cure is still a huge leap of faith.”

Besides basing its cures on hallucinations instead of evidence, anthroposophic medicine also features an alternative anatomy and physiology. It claims blood is not pumped by the heart, but rather is propelled by the mysterious force that underlies the anthroposophic field. Astrology, crystal healing, and the shape of plants used in treatment can all play a role in patient healing, although exactly how and why are hard to determine since treatment is different for each person. It all makes for a highly idiosyncratic practice, essentially a manifestation of Steiner’s delusions and ego.

Anthroposophic medicine has received bewildering mainstream acceptance at Germany’s Witten-Herdecke University. It rides on legitimate medicine coattails and presents itself as an additional tool, in the same way that Reiki and craniosacral therapy have snuck in the backdoor of U.S. hospitals and taken up residence in integrative medicine wings.

I prefer when possible to immerse myself in my topics. I would rather visit the reflexologist than just explain the methods and flaws behind the idea. And while I have posted a few times about ghosts, I’m hoping to eventually partake in a trek to a poltergeist hangout that takes place in my town each Halloween. However, I won’t be going Gonzo during this post on Gerson Therapy. For that would require me to pipe coffee up my ass. Truth is, I don’t even like that beverage on my tongue.

Gerson Therapy is the name given to a regimen that claims to be able to cure cancer through enemas and a highly restrictive, obsessive diet. This is backed by precisely zero peer-reviewed articles, double blind studies, or research, although there are a few persons who have claimed success by using the method. My veteran readers know this is where I point out that the plural of anecdote is not data. Additionally, those who succumbed to the disease while using Gerson Therapy aren’t hear to tell their stories.

There are, sort of, a couple of posthumous exceptions. Sacramento TV news personality Patti Davis made her Gerson Therapy public, and she died after refusing traditional treatment. Also, Jessica Ainscough gained thousands of social media followers when she used Gerson Therapy to battle epithelioid sarcoma, a rare soft tissue cancer. She likewise perished after ignoring pleas from doctors to use conventional methods.

Ainscough lived for seven years after being diagnosed, about the normal survival time for someone with her condition. During these years, she followed the Gerson protocol of coffee enemas, sodium elimination, potassium supplements, and massive amounts of organic fruits and vegetables, much of it liquefied. The protocol even dictates what the food be prepared in, with aluminum containers off limits.

This approach is named for Max Gerson, a German immigrant to the United States. It is illegal for U.S. clinics to offer the treatment as a cancer cure, although Gerson’s daughter Charlotte has set up a clinic in Mexico, where she dispenses the usual alternative medicine hodgepodge of post hoc reasoning, anecdotes over data, and sentimentality over science.

The elder Gerson said he started this regimen to combat migraines, and the headaches went away. The protocol might have worked or Gerson may have been engaging in post hoc reasoning. Whatever the case, it’s unclear why he deduced that this technique would likewise halt rouge cell growth.

This lack of explanation is of no concern for the believers. The therapy appeals to those who just know that a natural cure exists and is being covered up. It is also attractive to those wary of surgery, radiation, or chemotherapy. On my Facebook feed this week, I saw a teen with deep, red scars across her neck and torso. These came from radiation treatment, so was the result of what is supposed to be the CURE. The treatment itself results in a condition that needs to be treated, and there are regular bouts of violent vomiting. It is a horrible ordeal and I could understand someone wanting to believe something different is available. I’m less charitable to those who fill that gap with a regimen that has no medical backing and which is a death sentence if followed.

When Gerson came up with his alternative treatment idea, this was not by itself terrible. His observation that diet could play a key role in eradicating the disease could have been the first step in the Scientific Method. But this should be followed by developing a hypothesis, testing it, attempting to falsify it, sharing data sets and methods with other researchers, and submitting results for peer review. Instead, he embrace a wild, unproven idea and called it treatment.

To avoid any strawmen, I will quote from gerson.org to describe what the therapy consists of: “The Gerson Therapy is the combination of an organic, plant-based diet, raw juices, coffee enemas, and natural supplements. With its whole body approach to healing, the Gerson Therapy naturally reactivates your body’s magnificent ability to heal itself, with no damaging side effects.”

On a linguistic note, the body is not healing itself if it needs you to help it. Less pedantically, making a blanket statement that no patient will ever have any kind of side effect is a sign it’s not medicine. As to just how many carrots and strawberries are we talking about: “The Gerson Therapy floods the body with nutrients from about 15 to 20 pounds or organic fruits and vegetables daily. Most is used to make fresh raw juice, up to one glass every hour, up to 13 times per day. A typical meal will include salad, cooked vegetables, baked potatoes, Hippocrates soup, and juice. Raw and cooked solid foods are generously consumed.”

As to the lattes up the wazoo: “Degenerative diseases render the body increasingly unable to excrete waste materials adequately, commonly resulting in liver and kidney failure. The Gerson Therapy uses intensive detoxification to eliminate wastes, regenerate the liver, reactivate the immune system and restore the body’s essential defenses. Patients on the Gerson Therapy may take up to 5 coffee enemas per day.”

Tellingly, no one associated with Gerson Therapy has ever identified a specific toxin that these enemas are flushing out. And even if they did, cancer is rouge cell growth, which won’t be impacted by sending botulinum out your backside.

Here’s more: “In the past 50 years, the population has been exposed to more toxins, prescription drugs, and poor quality food, water and air than ever before.” In actuality, food safety and water purification have never been better. The idea that those in the Dark Ages or even frontier America had better food and water sanitation than what we have is demonstrably false. While the claim about prescription drug access is accurate, this is beneficial, not detrimental. And while we may have more exposure to toxins now, there’s no reason to think that’s the case, nor any evidence that Gerson Therapy will make a difference.

In fact, the only documented results from the therapy have been negative. The therapy has caused bowel inflammation, electrolyte imbalances, dehydration, infections, bleeding, and constipation. And it caused me to have an even lower opinion of coffee.

When the Nobel Prize for Medicine was given this year, headlines on naturopathy websites and even in some mainstream news outlets presented it as a vindication for Traditional Chinese Medicine. This was owing to the fact that one of the honored doctors had looked over ancient texts during her research and came across an idea that, very indirectly and with a significant reworking, helped lead to the discovery. However, the doctor, Youyou Tu, used the Scientific Method, not Traditional Chinese Medicine, to come up with her Nobel Prize-winning product. This episode in truth demonstrated the failure of purported medicine that doesn’t follow the Scientific Method.

First, the basics: The Nobel Prize went to the developers of two drugs used to treat parasite infections. It was a shared award, with William Campbell and Satoshi Omura being recognized for the discovery of avermectin, while Tu won for discovering artemisinin, which helps battle malaria. Tu is the one we will focus on since her discovery has been falsely presented as attributable to Traditional Chinese Medicine.

Humans have used herbs and plants as attempted cures for thousands of years. In pre-scientific and pre-medicine days, this wasn’t necessarily a terrible idea, although when it went wrong, it could go very wrong, as in the death of the patient. Plants churn out all kinds of substances and some have effects on humans, be they beneficial, detrimental, or negligible. But seeming medical uses were based on cultural beliefs and anecdotes. As botany and medicine developed, pharmacognosy was born. This is the study of medicinal drugs derived from plants or other natural sources.

Unlike herbalism, naturopathy, or Traditional Chinese Medicine, pharmacognosy is the SCIENTIFIC study of drugs with natural origins. The field’s work focuses on identifying active chemicals, isolating them, and transforming them into medicine. It is based on research, not what your cousin said worked for his wife’s friend.

Pharmacognosy is why pharmacies no longer carry leeches and heroin. It is also why they no longer carry raw herbs and dispense them in volumes that are based on guesswork. Today, the herbs’ active ingredients are isolated and put in tablets and creams, and doled out in the proper dosage. Almost no raw natural products are used as medicine because they contain negative or inferior properties to their synthetic counterparts, and because they have unpredictable amounts of active ingredients.

Dr. Steven Novella, the most vocal critic of the way the media covered the Noble Prize story, said, “When I prescribe a drug, I know exactly how many milligrams of active ingredient the patient is getting, its half-life, how it is eliminated from the body, its tissue penetration, its effects and side effects, its drug-drug interactions, and any potential toxicity. When you prescribe an herb to a patient, you have no idea about any of these things.”

Once the active substance has been identified and isolated, chemists synthesize, standardize, and improve it. That’s what happened with the two drug products the Nobel Committee cited. As part of her research, Tu looked over TCM texts for any natural product that was used to treat fever. She found over 2,000, which indicates how silly the field is. Anybody can throw any herb out and claim it as a cure. So it goes in the world of Supplementary, Complementary, and Alternative Medicine (SCAM).

She eventually came upon a fourth-century practitioner who suggested qinghao steeped in cold water. Tu eventually realized that the usual extraction method of boiling was destroying the active ingredient. So she instead used ether, and qinghao proved to be the first plant extract to be completely effective at killing malaria in mice.

However, the drug had low bioavailability and a short half-life. This meant that the drug would be ineffective on humans. However, the pharmaceutical company Novartis bought patents an artemisinin derivative and lumefantrine, and produced a combination that was shown to be clinically effective.

The ancients had no knowledge about how the body worked. The thousands of traditional herbs, their infinite combinations, and specific maladies treated were backed by no consistent criteria or reasoning. What finally turned artemisinin into a useful drug was science and Big Pharma. Traditional practices of herbalism or natural medicine would never have turned these discoveries into lifesavers.

This was largely glossed over by mainstream media and utterly suppressed by alternative medicine outlets. I expect bias from the latter, but mainstream reporters are often too gullible, believing alternative medicine claims without questioning them. If reporters would do their job more thoroughly, many of the claims of alternative medicine would quickly fall apart.

I know this from experience. I have talked with Reiki practitioners, crystal hearers, craniosacral therapists, and essential oil peddlers about their lines of work. And even a rudimentary inquiry about how the technique or product works causes them to stumble, fumble, and bumble their way through long pauses, consternated looks, and an emergency summoning of the other person at the kiosk.