In my post yesterday about medicinal plants, I listed a large number of books that discuss phytotherapy and the use of herbs and supplements in improving health. Despite thousands of years of usage, plenty of research still needs to be done to verify the correct usage of plant substances in medicine.
When reading about phytotherapy and natural medicine, it’s important to keep science-based medicine in mind. Science Based Medicine is a blog written by incredibly experienced physicians. It seeks to go beyond evidence-based medicine and increase the accuracy and precision of medical treatments. From what I can gather this involves:
• Instead of only focusing on clinical trials and their outcome, this movement seeks to explain medical results in a more accurate fashion.
• It uses scientific plausability as the basis for deciding on treatments.
• It seeks to develop treatments based on knowledge of biochemistry, microbiology, molecular biology, cell biology, and biophysics.
• Epidemiological and observational information alone isn’t enough to consider a treatment scientifically proven.
