Comment on Alternative medicine
Senal@programming.dev 4 days agoah, that makes sense.
Does that still apply if the underlying mechanism isn’t understood?
I know examples of this exist already , I’m wondering if “proof of effectiveness” really means just the effectiveness in this context.
We are only ‘pretty sure’ of the mechanism of how Tylenol works biochemically as of 2025.
You can test for effectiveness and dangers and everything else you need to prescribe something to get a good idea of whether its actually doing something or not.
‘Alternative medicine’ is largely, “I felt better after a bit”.
We didn’t know how alcohol worked but it was still an effective medicine for battlefield surgeons through history.
andros_rex@lemmy.world 4 days ago
Effectiveness is independent of mechanism. As an example, to my knowledge SSRIs don’t really make sense but mostly outperform placebo.
Senal@programming.dev 4 days ago
Agreed,
Pretty sure anesthesia is similar, (in the not fully understanding the underlying mechanism)