The term adrenal fatigue was first used by chiropractor James Wilson in 1998, and it became popular with a book he published in 2001. I’ve written before about some of the quacky dabbling of chiropractors outside the neck and back pain issues we commonly associate them with. You can probably guess from that alone where […]
Does Adrenal Fatigue Actually Exist? Read More »
Let’s say your back hurts. You go to a chiropractor, over a few visits they crack a few joints, and that’s all she wrote, right? That’s certainly what I used to think about chiropractic. It turns out, though, that quackery has been around from the very beginning of chiropractic. The modern back-cracking that most of
Chiropractic Quackery: The Wacky Fringe Side Read More »
There are a lot of weird alternative health interventions out there, but colon cleanses, also known as colon hydrotherapy or colonics, have got to be among the weirder ones. Apparently, this has been around since the time of the ancient Egyptians; however, it only appeared on my radar a few years back when a colonics
Colon Cleanses: Is a Coffee Enema Good for You? Read More »
I’m a big fan of aromatherapy. I have a diffuser and use a variety of essential oil blends, and if they’re just a pleasant placebo, I’m good with that. Essential oils smell nice and they’re a great way to practice self-care. But do they live up to the various health claims that people make about
Are Essential Oils a Placebo or Something More? Read More »
One of my major pet peeves is pseudoscience, which Google defines as “a collection of beliefs or practices mistakenly regarded as being based on scientific method.” There’s a lot of pseudoscience out there in the world that can spread easily and quickly via the internet, and it often astonishes me what people will believe. There’s
How to Spot Pseudoscience Read More »
A couple of people commented on a recent post about my take on reiki. Essentially, their question was: is reiki bullshit? Ask and ye shall receive. What is it? First, what exactly is reiki? The International Center for Reiki Training (ICRT) says that reiki “is based on the idea that an unseen ‘life force energy’ flows
Is Reiki Legit or Bullshit? Read More »
Social determinants of health represent those factors that, whether we have control over them or not, can significantly influence both physical and mental health outcomes. Differences produced by social injustice can (and does) produce systemic health inequities between rich and poor, with a “social gradient” in between. The social determinants of health The Government of
Why Social Determinants of Health Matter Read More »
Is access to health care a right that should be shared by all people regardless of socioeconomic status? Or is it a privilege that belongs to those who can afford to pay? Views on that seem to depend a lot on where people live. Growing up in Canada, all I ever knew was a public
Is Health Care a Right or a Privilege? Read More »
I recently learned from a fellow blogger about the Dunedin Study, which explored the issue of nature vs. nurture and turned up some fascinating results. The study followed a group of 1000 individuals born in 1972 in the New Zealand city of Dunedin. Interviewing and testing with these individuals still continues, and the study has
Nature vs. Nurture: Findings from Dunedin Study Read More »
I’ve recently come across some news articles about homeopathy that have caught my eye. One was about claims that homeopathy could prevent measles (homeoprophylaxis is the fancy term for this); another was about the Canadian government funding an aid mission to Honduras involving a delegation of homeopaths claiming to cure Chagas disease and other infectious diseases.
Homeopathy: A Whole Lot Wackier Than You Might Think Read More »
