Gasping For Breath

I'm going to go out on a limb and assume most everyone knows what asthma is. Basically, it is when you have a reaction that causes your lung airways to become inflamed, causing a decrease in lung function. Given the sudden onset of asthma attacks, the highly effective medications, and the necessity of, you know, breathing it never occurred to me that parents would ever dabble into woo where asthma was involved. Boy was I wrong.

As I've mentioned, I'm a member of a local skeptic group. One of the members gave me an example she came across of a parent giving, frankly, wildly inappropriate suggestions for the treatment of an asthmatic child. We'll discuss those in a moment. First, lets discuss that which elicited the response. A parent was distressed that her child didn't seem to be improving with normal treatment. Additionally, she was concerned that her counter, "looked like a pharmacy." Now, given the time frame she provided and the lack of other medical information (rightly so) I cannot be sure that the treatment wasn't working as claimed or it was a perceptual error on the part of the parent. Her dismay of the counter top pharmacy would indicate at least a little bias against treatment. The addition of a request for essential oil info didn't help her case; especially given essential oils could potentially trigger an attack. But lets move on to the reply; which was rife with pseudoscience and, in this particular instance, potentially dangerous if conventional treatment were abandoned on suggestion of help elsewhere.

First there were suggestions of a slew of exclusion diets. Gluten, soy, dairy, pork, chicken, and egg free. The claim here was that these were all allergenic and inflammatory foods. It is actually common to have an allergy to dairy, soy, and egg; so that's not all that crazy. But you can also get simple tests done to confirm these allergies. So to unnecessarily put someone on a diet without justification is, at best, misguided. I've never heard of an inflammatory or allergic reaction to specific meats (perhaps preparations of meat but not the meat itself) so I'm highly skeptical of this claim, especially in the absence of any evidence. Gluten, on the other hand, is fairly clear cut. It's been well described that non-celiac gluten sensitivity, which you'd need to have to have a gluten reaction without celiac disease, is not a thing that exists. Celiac disease is quite real though; and from what I understand, difficult to live with.

Along the same vein, it was suggested that turmeric and honey have anti-inflammatory properties and should be added into the diet. Turmeric is a favorite among pseudoscientists. Claims include curing cancer and diabetes; boosting brain function, helping to lose weight, aiding in sleep and replacing chemotherapy drugs. It doesn't help that it catches people who favor the naturalistic fallacy for their prevailing medical theory. Though it's not limited to this, SBM has done a good overview if your interested in the breadth of crazy. In short, it wont help in any measurable way. Honey is often just as bad, both in it's claims and its marketability as natural. There is very weak evidence that honey may be good for keeping wounds clean. Beyond that, the multiple claims made by woo peddlers are usually false.

Up till now, the pseudoscience has been, and I'm being generous here, less than bat-crap crazy. But the suggestions took a turn for the worst: Homeopathy, Reiki, and Bioresonance. We've discussed homeopathy before, it's water. Water will not, I repeat, will not help your child's asthma. I really don't know how to be clearer than that; it is the literal equivalent to having your child drink some tap water to get over an attack, just bananas. Reiki is basically magic. It is a Japanese energy healing practice that is based in the idea of a vital force controlling our bodies and health. Much to my surprise, someone actually took the time to show that it is bunk. Prior to today, I'd never heard of bioresonance. And, to be honest, I'm a bit unclear on what it is. There are a couple bogus treatments that it could refer to. More than likely, it is referencing the practice of placing electrodes on your skin to treat disease on the basis that there are "frequencies" that can cure you. A small, rather dubious study is the only evidence that proponents could muster.

All in all, these treatments are not going to provide your child with the help they need. Given the natural world is assaulting your child's respiration, clinging to "natural" therapies is really an ironic path to go down. And trusting treatments that rely on 'energy fields' or 'frequencies' or, basically, magic is simply irresponsible. For crying out loud don't "shop around" when your child's breathing is at stake; trust the science.