A long thread on my views on Modern vs Alternative Medicine.
Some disclosures- 1.I am a practising cardiologist who prescribes statins and does angioplasties in patients who need them. I wholeheartedly believe in Alloapathy and take pride in the role it plays to benefit mankind.

2. However, I also come from a family of doctors who practise/d alternative medicine. And hence, I have got a chance to try to understand parts of Ayurveda/ Homeopathy.

These branches have gone into disrepute because of quacks who lie to gullible patients and who have no knowledge of the underlying ‘science’ behind these streams.

A chunk of modern pharmacology has borrowed from and benefitted from preparations that were used in Ayurveda/ traditional medicine. That does mean that all that was done or used in the past was not always useless/ harmful.

We all know that science evolves. Heart attacks were treated only with bed rest not so long ago in ‘modern medicine’ and now I am amazed by the treatment options we have. However, future discoveries may make procedures of today seem insane a few decades later.

We also know that there is much still that we don’t know about disease pathogenesis/ immunity and most importantly the connect between mind and body. There is more than a remote chance that the answer to few of our questions may lie in streams which practise differently than us.

The real problem with alternative medicine is that most of it is not evidence based..Their practitioners could not keep up to the changing paradigms of science and plus there was no incentive to fund research or improve upon their practises.

The quacks used the cost of treatment and side effects of modern medicine to falsely propagate their theory of having a safe cheap cure for every ailment. Our ridicule at times made them stronger as they proclaimed us to have ulterior motives.

There are still genuine practitioners in alternative medicine who understand the limitations and benefits of their field and guide their patients accordingly. Unfortunately, this has now become a rare breed as very few good students find it encouraging to join these streams.

My own family members have been treated with both Ayurvedic and Homeopathic medicines for common ailments and have benefitted from the same. And this is not restricted to self limiting illnesses.

Unfortunately, streams which should be used to treat simple issues have been propagated as magical cure for serious illnesses like complicated diabetes, cancer, chronic kidney and liver disease, autoimmune diseases and coronary artery disease in addition to others.

The more we make it as Us vs Them, the more we generalise..the more this issue will refuse to be solved. I keep telling my patients that Lifestyle and medications are not antagonistic..They should be synergistic.

Let us encourage research in any stream that claims to benefit patients. Let us embrace salient points of other streams if they are proven to help. Let us educate our patients on both pros and cons of alternative treatment options. Let us aim to have a united medical fraternity.