don's report archive

Wellness in the Headlines
(Don's Report to the World)

Is Wellness Time-Tested?
Monday November 13, 2000

There are many ways to evaluate the efficacy of a drug, treatment approach, health-enhancement aid or anything else. Scientific evidence based on controlled studies is one of the most reliable. On the other hand, one of the least reliable is an unsupported assertion of fact. In the latter category, you might have heard the phrase “time tested." Please don’t be easily fooled.

This phrase is most often heard in support of alternative modalities, such as homeopathy or one herb or other used by practitioners of an eastern healing art. It pays to be suspicious. Next time you hear someone say this remedy or that technique is "time-tested," as in "ancient Chinese medicine" or some such silliness, pay close attention. Consider the term "time-tested" as misleading, since time does not really test anything except our willingness to keep falling for the same con, over and over again.

Take "ayurvedic" medicine, for example. Perhaps one reason ayurveda has been a long-practiced approach to health is because it was a tradition into which millions were indoctrinated, as is the case for religions, languages and varied rituals and customs. It's just the way things used to be. Today, however, we have more choices than in the past and a better educated populace, as well as more highly skilled doctors. Therefore, our prospects for testing one modality of healing versus another can be more rational and effective than simple acceptance based on a history of ignorance.

Whenever possible, choose the approaches that have been tested via experimentation and controlled, replicated trails conducted by impartial investigators -- not one passed down by unschooled populations, or by cult leaders hyping books, pills, tapes and so on, all the while telling you their ways are "time tested."

To increase your chances of spotting these appeals, work on your critical thinking skills, particularly as applied to health and medical issues. A few sites I recommend for good reading and skill building for better assessing what might and what probably won’t work are the following:,

Influence At Work (deals) with the psychology of persuasion I’m going to resist the temptation to suggest that the rational, skeptical, reasoned and other evidence-based materials and approaches that I have just promoted are time tested. But, it wasn’t easy. :-)

Be well and always look on the bright side of life.

(Ed. Note: Views expressed in this and other columns are those of the author and not necessarily those of the SeekWellness Editorial Board.)

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