Natural Hygiene: Health Without Medicine (or Wisdom)
Can Natural Hygiene really lead to a longer life?
Filed under Alternative Medicine, Health
| Skeptoid #28 February 19, 2007 Podcast transcript | Listen | Subscribe |
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Today we're going to flush our entire medicine cabinet down the toilet and try "natural hygiene," the practice of improving our health by avoiding medical care.
The hypotheses behind natural hygiene suggest that modern medicine and vaccinations are harmful to the body, and that viruses, bacteria, and germs are not harmful. Basically, take everything that modern science has taught us about the human body, turn it upside down and backwards, and there is your natural hygiene. However they do recognize one fact of biology, and that's that the human body has the power to heal itself. But they don't really understand what this means: They believe that the only way a human body can be healed is on its own, without medical care. For example, if you have an infected wound, natural hygiene suggests that a shot of penicillin will actually make things worse. In fact, such wound care as this can sometimes be the only thing that will save your life. Many practitioners do bend their own rules in cases of trauma or emergency care, ackowledging that medical care is actually helpful in an emergency. It's the rest of time, normal wellness or treatment of chronic illness or disease, where they believe medical care is counterproductive.
The human body does have amazing recuperative powers. Its immune system is powerful and sophisticated. Every day, someone's immune system manages to overcome some disease that's usually fatal. And it's these relatively few lucky victories that always get all the attention. When a person who doesn't understand medicine reads in the National Enquirer that someone overcame cancer while trying natural hygiene, it's natural to assume a causal relationship. In fact, as we know from medical history, more people who treat their cancer will survive than those who don't. It's the exceptions that make the headlines, and comprise the bulk of the anecdotal evidence supporting natural hygiene.
When a practitioner of natural hygiene cuts his finger and sees it heal, he attributes this to his natural hygiene lifestyle. Really this is just the body's normal process. If he'd put on some Neosporin and a band-aid, it probably would have healed quicker and with less risk of infection.
Prior to 100 years ago, you were actually better off not going to the doctor if you became ill. The doctor was likely to bleed you, or induce vomiting, in order to balance your humors. Illness was thought to be caused by an imbalance in the four basic humors: blood, phlegm, black bile, and yellow bile. Needless to say, this level of treatment didn't get you very far. You were just as likely to die from infection caused by the bloodletting incisions.
Since then, with the advent of modern medicine and a century of its development, we've doubled the average life expectancy in the Western world from under 40 to almost 80. Most of this gain in average life expectancy has come from reductions of infant mortality and early childhood illnesses. Generally, if you can survive early childhood, you have a good chance of reaching middle age or even older.
Modern-day non-civilized native tribes, who lack access to modern medicine and are the only groups currently practicing natural hygiene in large numbers, have an average life expectancy of just 34 years at birth. But this doesn't mean that everyone drops dead at 35, like some jungle version of Logan's Run. Those lucky enough to survive into their teen years have an average life expectancy of almost 60. What this means is that natural hygiene practitioners are at greatest risk of death during infancy and early childhood. Without innoculations and infant care, many children die and bring down the whole average.
Modern Western practitioners of natural hygiene are people who make the choice sometime during healthy adulthood. This means that they have generally already received their innoculations at an early age, and it obviously means that they already survived infancy and early childhood. So, doing nothing else, and having already been brought into adulthood through modern medical care, their human genes already provide them quite a long lifespan. In fact, since infant mortality brings down the whole average for everyone, an adult's life expectancy is already higher than the average life expectancy. This simple mathematical curiosity accounts for the fact that natural hygiene practitioners can generally claim to live longer than average. However, if they were required to place their bets just before childbirth instead of 20 years later, their average would be no higher than the general population, and probably less since they will not accept treatment for later stage illnesses like heart disease and cancer.
Natural hygiene practitioners do follow some very good health practices. They generally don't smoke or drink alcohol excessively, and they often follow a healthy low-calorie diet. These are all great practices, but they can be followed by anyone. You don't need to add the weird element of shunning healthcare to enjoy the benefits of these simple healthy choices.
Do you or someone you know practice natural hygiene? If so, we'd love to hear from you. Please come to Skeptoid.com and post your experience in the forum.
You should follow me on twitter here.
© 2007 Skeptoid Media, Inc. Copyright information
References & Further Reading
Barrett, S. "A Critical Look at Natural Hygiene." Quackwatch. Stephen Barrett, M.D., 1 Jan. 2007. Web. 15 Jan. 2007. <http://www.quackwatch.org/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/natural_hygiene.html>
INHS. "Natural Hygiene History." International Natural Hygiene Society. International Natural Hygiene Society, 1 Jan. 2003. Web. 1 Mar. 2010. <http://naturalhygienesociety.org/>
Lewis, James R. The encyclopedia of cults, sects, and new religions. Amherst, New York: Prometheus Books, 1998. 405.
Shermer, Michael. "Cures and cons: Natural scams 'he' doesn't want you to know about." Scientific American Magazine. 1 Mar. 2006, Volume 294, Number 3: 25.
Shils, M., Shike, M., Ross, A., Caballero, B., Cousins, R. Modern nutrition in health and disease, 10th Edition. Philadelphia, Pa.: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins (LWW), 2005. 1803-1804.
Reference this article:
Dunning, Brian.
"Natural Hygiene: Health Without Medicine (or Wisdom)." Skeptoid Podcast. Skeptoid Media, Inc.,
19 Feb 2007. Web.
2 Sep 2010. <http://skeptoid.com/episodes/4028>
Discuss!
5 most recent comments | Show all 25 comments
Remember, you should always read with skepticism the comments of anyone too lame to put their real name & city.
Josh, was that a response to my post or to others, as I feel that I represent quite a balanced view of this. Just wondered :0)
Dale Pinnock, Cambridge, UK
November 24, 2009 12:55am
You are quite right - the medical establishment does have a role to play in emergency treatment. However medical care is the third leading cause of death in the States behind heart disease and cancer. These diseases are the result of incorrect diet and lifestyle. The medical establishment does not have any real answers to these diseases or any others for that matter. Natural Hygiene requires that the individual take responsibility for his/her own health - something that the vast majority of us are not prepared to do - unfortunately we pay the consequences.
Mark, Vietnam
February 04, 2010 5:08am
Skeptoid,
I agree with your first phrase about medicine itself.
Chinese wisdom says: "Don't treat the desease, treat the starting point of this desease." that's right method, I think. Look! Most medicine now is a market. Sometimes doctors even can't define the desease and prescribe the list of drugs, that are really expensive at the drug's store. So what should we do after that?
Each of us is an acme of creation. So what prevents us to fully realize the potential, to live long and happily?
As they say: "Whose fault is it and what should we do?”
Everyone will definitely find some answers. But we offer you a special variant. It is scientifically and, what matters more, practically proved. Self-tested.Effective!
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Zhanna, Russia
February 23, 2010 5:50am
""Chinese wisdom says: "Don't treat the desease, treat the starting point of this desease." that's right method, I think.""
Modern medicine does this every bit as much as you claim the ancient Chinese did.
""Look! Most medicine now is a market.""
Yes, it is. This is true of both conventional and (probably even more so) alternative medicine. Your own post is promoting "perfectlife.com", whatever that is.
""Sometimes doctors even can't define the desease and prescribe the list of drugs, that are really expensive at the drug's store. So what should we do after that?""
Yes, sometimes conventional doctors can't heal you. To claim otherwise -- that they're perfect -- would be ridiculous. Doesn't change the fact that conventional medicine works a heck of a lot better than "natural hygiene" or unproven alternative treatments.
""Each of us is an acme of creation. So what prevents us to fully realize the potential, to live long and happily?""
For one thing, faith in ineffective alternative treatments.
""Self-tested.Effective!""
I don't care if it's "self-tested". Anecdotes (especially from salespeople) are irrelevant if you want to find out if something works.
Øyvind, Bergen, Norway
July 05, 2010 7:05pm
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Josh,
I think you're mistaken, but that's your problem. When you rely on anecdotal evidence even doctors a thousand years ago did an excellent job healing people. As with today's homeopathy and other horse shit sold to gullible people these days, if all your survivors tell how good you have treated them, people tend to ignore the non-surviving sample which is not quite that vocal but would have been ... if they were still alive.
Some say it's best to live your life in a way that doesn't rely on medication for day-to-day lives. Well, duh! Because a lifestyle that pushes you to use medication every day is not very healthy, is it? It's a tautology. And it's reasonable.
What is not reasonable is the amount of condescending bullshit that the survivors of "vegan diets" and "health without medicine" spew towards others. Hello, some people have health problems that should be treated, be it diabetes or heat failure. Even if they are in a risk group due to their lifestyle you're still not helping them by being a self-righteous arsehole, and in all fairness you're probably hurting them by insisting they are somehow inferior human beings.
Bono, Bulgaria
November 16, 2009 3:49pm