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Western medicine is entrenched in our society. Most medical doctors are only educated in Western medicine. A small minority of medical doctors who are schooled in Western medicine also complete a course of study of Chinese medicine. Health insurance rarely pays for alternative medical treatments. (Sometimes insurance will pay for acupuncture treatments.)

But there are other, well-developed systems of medicine. I am thinking of Eastern medicine, such as Chinese (traditional and classical) medicine and acupuncture, herbs and cupping, Japanese and Korean acupuncture, and Indian ayurveda. These Eastern, holistic systems are thousands of years old; they are often efficacious, but are not easily explained in terms of Western medicine. Some scientific research has attempted to investigate how Eastern medicine works, but it seems to be relatively unexplored in terms of modern science.

My father was a doctor (Western medicine). During a trip to China, he went to a hospital and observed open heart surgery. No anesthetic was used. Just acupuncture, and the patient did not appear to be in distress during the surgery! And from personal experience, I know that Eastern medicine can diagnose ills by carefully feeling a patient's pulse. Someone I know was cured of a bad addiction to smoking, by a single acupuncture treatment.

So, is medicine in Western countries missing the boat? There are lots of "alternative" medicines that seem to be scams, or at best placebo effects. But Eastern medicines have cured innumerable patients over the centuries. Should Western societies pay more attention to them?

What about indigenous medicines? Many of them have apparently been efficacious for hundreds of years.

And naturopathy? I'm a firm believer in Western medicine, but my sister has a good friend who is a naturopath and she and her family use many of his remedies and swear by them. I'm sceptical, but I've never tried them.

Although I am a firm believer in science and critical thinking, I'm not the best person to explain, especially since it's already been done by people with better knowledge and better writing skills. So I will just recommend the below link for reading, to answer about acupuncture. The site has interesting and well researched texts about other alternative medicines treatments, too.

I started to go down the western medicine route for a breast lump. I was desperate and depressed so I called a naturopathic doctor and got myself out of the hospital system completely. He put me on a strict no sugar diet and assessed my blood work, discovering a severe Vitamin D deficiency among other things that no other doctor even bothered to look for. It took about 6 months to feel better but today I am healthier than I was when I was 20. My point is that I think Western medicine often treats problems that are not real medical problems but are instead the result of the Standard American Diet. Food is medicine.

All of the above is the reason I took classes to become a Nutritional Therapy Practitioner even though I'm not currently working in that field. Education is never a waste! There are a lot of great solutions out there that western medicine scoffs at. It's really very sad. Some of those solutions, like diet changes and yoga, are very inexpensive.

If anyone is interested in a new take on old ideas from medicine, I really loved The Good Virus: The Amazing Story and Forgotten Promise of the Phage by Tom Ireland. I nominated it a while back but it didn't win and I don't think it's popular enough to meet the current criteria for nominations.

I also loved Gut Feelings: The Microbiome and Our Health Alessio Fasano but that was a highly technical book that anyone not intensely interested in the subject would find boring. I believe it took me several months to read it.

Jessica wrote: "... I think Western medicine often treats problems that are not real medical problems but are instead the result of the Standard American Diet. Food is medicine...."

Amen to that! Food is medicine.

Interesting conversation! I live in China, am a science teacher, and am very skeptical of Traditional Chinese Medicine, but my husband is Chinese and studying TCM part time. He’s learned acupuncture, acupressure, moxibustion, massage techniques and a few other things that he can do at home to help me, our kids and his parents with various problems. I’m not convinced it’s not just placebo effect because I’m the only one that most things don’t seem to help and I’m the strongest skeptic. But he has helped me with some headaches (at least they went away but could be correlation). I’m all for him learning and trying things as long as they are not harmful and as long as we still see Western doctors for more serious things. I also went to a TCM doctor a couple years ago for a hip problem and he helped.

I also agree that diet is probably the biggest factor in our health. I recently read How Not to Age and it was enough to convince me to become mostly plant based and make some other dietary changes. I grew up on the Standard American Diet (in Canada) and needed prescription heartburn medication as a teenager. Then I moved to Asia, started eating way more vegetables, less meat and fat, and the problem went away.

Erica wrote: "Interesting conversation! I live in China, am a science teacher, and am very skeptical of Traditional Chinese Medicine, but my husband is Chinese and studying TCM part time. He’s learned acupunctur..."

Erica, I agree with everything you wrote. I am also a skeptic, but my wife studied Chinese medicine and acupuncture, and practiced it for quite a while.

Like you, I used to suffer from heartburn. Years ago I switched to a plant-based diet. My heartburn stopped, and has never come back. Is that just a correlation or causation?

Erica wrote: "I grew up on the Standard American Diet (in Canada) and needed prescription heartburn medication as a teenager. Then I moved to Asia, started eating way more vegetables, less meat and fat, and the problem went away."

I needed prescription heartburn medication as a teenager as well! Nobody asked me how much Mountain Dew I was drinking in a day even though I carried a bottle around religiously. They sold it at my school, a tragedy in and of itself.