The difference between alternative therapies and holistic health lies in their correct use

A 28-year-old girl was diagnosed with grade 3 thyroid nodules. Western medicine originally asked her to follow up every six months and adjust her work and rest. She didn't know where she heard about "natural detoxification therapy", so she stopped taking the endocrine-regulating medicine prescribed by the doctor and only drank it every day. She drank fruit and vegetable juices, and also went for so-called "blood purification" regularly. After half a year, the nodules had increased to 4a, and she needed a puncture to check for malignancy. She even complained to the doctor, saying that she was obviously doing "overall health conditioning", but why did it get worse.

In fact, what she uses is not holistic health at all, but a typical abuse of alternative therapy. There is also an aunt in her 50s who had undergone minimally invasive surgery for breast nodules. While taking targeted drugs as prescribed by the doctor, she also went to a regular Chinese medicine clinic for physical conditioning. She usually does Baduanjin and does 10 minutes of mindful breathing before going to bed. She came for a review two days ago and found no recurrence two years after the operation. Her mental state is better than before the operation. These conditioning methods of hers are actually the correct use of the concept of overall health.

The debate on this matter has never stopped in the academic circles. Scholars in evidence-based medicine always feel that all methods that have not been tested in large-scale double-blind tests are IQ taxes, and alternative therapies are all deceptive. However, most practitioners in long-term chronic disease management feel that as long as they do not violate the general principles of conventional treatment, many methods that can improve patients' mood and improve their quality of life can be fully included in the category of overall health, and there is no need to kill them with a stick. To put it bluntly, it’s like the light soy sauce and dark soy sauce in your kitchen are both soy sauce. If you insist on using dark soy sauce to mix cold dishes or stew meat with light soy sauce, the dishes will not taste good. You can’t blame the soy sauce for not being good, it’s because you used it in the wrong place.

Essentially, alternative therapy is a neutral description, specifically referring to those methods that are not fully evidence-based and are used to replace conventional medical treatments. Overall health is a systematic conditioning concept. The core is to include physical state, mental emotions, and living habits into the scope of adjustment to supplement conventional medical treatment, rather than in turn replacing conventional treatment. Just like the aromatherapy and singing bowls that many people like to do now. You have been under a lot of pressure from working overtime recently and cannot sleep well. After finishing it, you relax and your sleep quality improves for several days. Then this is a small method for your overall health management, which is totally fine. But if you are diagnosed with severe anxiety disorder, do not go to the doctor or take medicine, and just rely on singing bowls every day to "heal", then this is treating the auxiliary tool as an alternative therapy, which is purely a delay.

Nowadays, many businesses deliberately confuse the concepts of the two, packaging things that cost dozens of yuan into "high-end overall health solutions" and selling them for thousands, which makes many people fall into the trap. In fact, it doesn't matter what the name is, as long as you remember the two principles of "not delaying routine treatment and making yourself better", you will basically not use it wrong.