What happens when you go to an osteopath? Is an osteopath a real doctor? It’s easy to be confused, especially if your first reference is Wikipedia.

What happens if an osteopath cures you? Is it a real cure? What happens after an osteopathic cure? It disappears.

Osteopaths rarely claim to cure. A search for CURE on the American Osteopathic Association returns “No results found.” This should not surprise us. The American Medical Association has no definition of cure.  A search for CURE of the American Medical Association website produces information about the National Cures Act – which does not contain a definition of cure. Conventional medicine, and osteopathic medicine, avoid the word cure.

But, let me tell you a true story.  Continue reading →

Have you ever been cured by a practitioner of Traditional Chinese Medicine? What happens after the cure.

You have been cured. Your doctor cured you. but nobody cares. Cures are ignored.

There are no statistics for cures by Chinese medicine – because there are no statistics for cures in any medical practice. Cures are not tracked individually, so they can’t be tracked statistically.

Do traditional Chinese medical techniques cure? If you check google, you’ll find lots of Western medical references to Eastern medicine. You won’t find the word cure.  Continue reading →

Were you ever been cured by a naturopath? Then what happened? The same happens after every cure. You’ve been cured. Your doctor cured you. Nobody else cares.

If you’re not familiar with naturopaths, or if you read Wikipedia, you might think they’re quacks who claim to cure every disease. But no. Continue reading →

Do you know someone who has been cured by a homeopath? What happens after a homeopath cures your illness? You’ve been cured. Your doctor cured you. But nobody else cares.

What does the science say? We can find homeopathic cures in medical science, but, we to look beyond treatments. Most clinical studies measure “treatments that don’t cure“. We want to believe researchers are searching for “cancer cures“. But no. Cancer cured is not defined. There is no test for a case of cancer cured.  Of over than 70,000 current and past cancer clinical studies listed at ClinicalTrials.gov, not one contains an accepted, testable, scientific, medical definition of cancer cured. When a clinical trial encounters a cured cancer patient – the cure cannot be recognized. Cancer clinical trials measure treatment benefits, but not cures.

Some clinical trials do contain tests for cured. Even some testing treatments with homeopathic medicines. Some clinical studies of homeopathic treatments those find cured patients. What happens after a homeopathic cure is found?  It disappears. Over time, it disappears even more. But, let’s look at a simpler disease than cancer.

Cure for Warts?

Is there a cure for warts? Conventional medicine has no cure for warts. Tests for warts cured are weak and inconsistent. However – we do have a clinical study that tested for warts cured.

In 1996 the clinical study Homoeopathic versus placebo therapy of children with warts on the hands: a randomized, double-blind clinical trial. treated 60 children with warts. According to the published research, 6 patients were cured in the study. Five of the cured were treated with the homeopathic medicine.

What happened to all of the cures?  What happened to the cures from homeopathic treatments? They were disappeared.  The scientific, peer-reviewed, published research study conclusion simply ignored the cured, stating: “There was no apparent difference between the effects of homoeopathic therapy and placebo in children with common warts under the conditions of this study.”  Five cures (16 percent of patients) in the homeopathic treatment arm of the study were ignored, disappeared.  There was no further analysis.  No medical researchers made any attempt to understand the cause of these cures. The cures, the presence and number of cures – were at odds with the study conclusions, apparently at odds with the study goals, so they were disappeared.

Disappeared Again

Two years later, these homeopathic cures were more disappeared — is that possible? In 1998, some of the same researchers undertook and published a second study.  The same number of participants. The same homeopathic medicine. The same placebo arm. And the results? How many patients were cured?  We don’t know.

In the second study, the study to test if the results could be replicated, cures were not counted.  Cures not part of the study parameters, and thus did not appear in the published results. All cured cases were simply ignored.

What happens after a homeopathic cure?  Patients might be cured, but the cures disappear from the medical view. It’s not just warts. Cured is not defined scientifically for any disease cured by homeopathy. Warts cured are not medically defined for any disease cured by homeopathy.

It is possible to cure an infectious disease, and prove it was cured by testing for the infection after treatment. But…. those cases can be cured by an approved medicine. The test for cured is: treat with an approved drug, retest for infection. If the infection is no longer present – it’s a cure. But homeopathic medicines are not approved for infections, so the test is not valid. If an infection is cured by a homeopathic medicine, it doesn’t count. It isn’t just homeopathic cures that disappear. No doctor, clinic, hospital, or medical system COUNTS infections cured for any treatment. Cures are counted in clinical studies – but in actual practice, cures aren’t counted. There are no statistics for cured of any disease, so there are no statistics of homeopathic cures. Patients can be cured, but cures don’t count.

The clinical trial Homeopathic medicinal products for preventing and treating acute respiratory tract infections in children, published in 2018, clearly illustrates the nonsense surrounding the word cure in clinical trials.  This was a meta-study. Most studies found were excluded due to poor quality or poor fit for analysis. Although the study objectives are to evaluate treatments, the word cure occurs over 80 times in the report.

Cured was defined several different ways, depending on the study being evaluated. Cure is defined in the following quotes from the study.

• Cure: defined as the reduction or resolution of symptoms of ARTIs (fever/body temperature, cough, pain, malaise/feeling of illness, rhinorrhoea, etc.) in the short‐ (up to 14 days) and long‐term (up to 3 months).
• Cure was defined as no severe persistent fever or pain after 24 hours and no moderate persistent fever or pain after 48 hours.
• Cure was defined as a symptom score of zero and a Tympanic Membrane Examination score of zero.
• Jacobs 2001 defined cure as no symptoms or a significant reduction in symptoms.
• None of the time points for cure were the same across the two studies (Jacobs 2016; Sinha 2012)
• Sinha 2012 provided long‐term cure data for day 21 of illness, and Jacobs 2001 for week 6 of illness.
• in Jacobs 2001 the cure rate was higher among children receiving homeopathy, while in Sinha 2012 the cure rate was higher in children receiving conventional treatment.

It is interesting that researchers use the word cure but not cured to define the cured state.

It’s clear that there is no independent definition of cured. Cure is defined independently by specific researchers in each study.

We have no scientific definition of cured.  Conventional medical bureaucracies have no Theory of Cure. Phrases like long term cure and cure rate have little or nothing to do with the condition of the patient, the illness, or the cause of illness. Use of the word cure, rarely references any present cause of illness. Instead, cure tests measure signs and symptoms – consequences of illness.

Most clinical trials of homeopathy measure treatments that do not cure. This is the standard for most clinical trials. Cured is rarely defined and cannot be tested. So, we see research like Homeopathy for treatment of irritable bowel syndrome. Cured is not defined for irritable bowel syndrome. If a cure occurs – it cannot be recognized and thus cannot be documented. Cures, when they occur, disappear. They are outside of the scope of the study.

Cured is not defined medically for any non-infectious disease. When any cure occurs for non-infectious diseases, no cure can be documented. The cured illness simply disappears.

Homeopathy is not the reason for this blindness. It’s just another casualty. No clinical study can find a cure for irritable bowel syndrome – cured is not medically defined.

Although the common mantra of homeopathy is “like cures like” (similia similibus curentur), cured is not defined in homeopathy either. Most use of the word cured in homeopathic research refers to symptoms, not disease. For example, “Symptom distribution according to predefined classes (common symptoms increased in intensity and/or duration-, cured, old, new and exceptional)” – is a nonsense definition of cured.

Unfortunately, conventional medicine has no definition of cured either, for most diseases. Therefore, it cannot rebut homeopathic claims of cured. Instead, conventional medical practitioners, researchers, and their followers claim “homeopathic treatments cannot possibly work“. Works, in medical science, generally means “does not cure“. If it cures, we could use the word “cure”.

What diseases do homeopathic treatments cure? 

We simply don’t know. When a homeopathic treatment cures a patient’s illness – the cured status and the cause of the cure are ignored by conventional medicine.

What happens after a homeopathic cure?  It disappears. It disappears from the view of conventional medicine. Cured is not medically defined for most diseases treated with homeopathic medicines.  It also disappears from the view of homeopathic medicine. Homeopathy aims to cure symptoms, not illness, not disease. Cures, by homeopathic treatments, are not counted even by homeopaths.

When a cure occurs in most clinical trials, the cure disappears. Cures in clinical trials of non-infectious diseases disappear, because cured is not medically defined for any non-infectious disease.

Cures in medical practice disappear as well. It makes no difference if the medical practitioner is an oncologist, a psychologist, a dentist, an obstetrician, or a general practitioner. No conventional medical practitioner counts cured cases.

When a cure occurs in a chiropractic medical practice, the cure disappears, even though many chiropractic cures are trivial to prove without a scientific definition of cured. The cure disappears.

So, when a homeopathic cure occurs, the cure disappears, but it’s not about homeopathy, it’s about cured.

To find scientific answers about cures and homeopathy, we need to study cure, cures, curing, and cured. Attempts to measure the non-curative effects of homeopathic treatments, vs placebos or vs conventional medicine, is just asking the question:

“which treatment DOES NOT CURE better”

It’s a nonsense question. When any treatment “does not cure,” without a definition of cured – we have no idea if the treatment moves the patient towards a cured state, or away from one. We can’t tell.

“which treatment DOES NOT CURE better”

It’s a nonsense question. When any treatment “cures better”, without a definition of cure – we have no idea if it moves the patient towards a cure, or away from a cured status.

To study cures scientifically, we need to study cured. We need a theory of cure. A New Theory of Cure defines cures in a comprehensive fashion, providing a solid foundation for studies of treatments that cure.

to your health, tracy
Author: A New Theory of Cure

Much smoking kills live men
and cures dead swine.
George Dennison Prentice

What’s the cure for “smoker’s cough”? We might ask an 11 year old smart-aleck, a nosy aunt, an obnoxious uncle, or  a no-nonsense grandmother.  The answers will be obvious – and all the same.

Stop smoking. Duh.

What does modern medicine say about smoker’s cough? What is the cure, according to the best conventional medicine reference texts? I was over at the library yesterday, and I took some time to check Merck Manual of Diagnosis and Therapy, Harrison’s Principles of Internal Medicine, and Lange’s Current Medical Diagnosis and Treatment and Winter Griffith’s Complete Guide to Symptoms, Illness & Surgery.

Smoker’s cough is not listed at all. Is there no cure for smoker’s cough because smoker’s cough is not a disease? The ICD11, the latest edition of the World Health Organization’s International Classification of Diseases does not have a code for smoker’s cough. A search for smoker’s cough takes us to Simple Chronic Bronchitis.

What is the cure for simple chronic bronchitis? What do our most prestigious medical references say?

There are no cures for chronic bronchitis. “Treatments” are recommended by all, but none uses the word “cure“. Merck, in its discussion of Pulmonary Disorders advises “Treatment is management of the cause.”  The word “cure” is never used. Winter Griffith’s Complete Guide to Symptoms, Illness & Surgery lists “Effect of Second Hand Smoke” as a cause of “chronic cough“, but not smoking. It too fails to use the word cure. Harrison’s Principles of Internal Medicine advises “The cough of chronic bronchitis in long term cigarette smokers rarely leads the patient to seek out medical advice.” Technically, no medical professional can cure smoker’s cough. Of course none can cure smoking addiction either.

Not only that. If smoker’s cough is cured – no cure can be recognized. Smoker’s cough cured is not defined.  No medical reference text contains a scientific definition of cured, much less a definition of “smoker’s cough cured”. The word cure is occasionally used in medical texts – but not consistent with any definition, because no definition exists.

Medicine claims to be a science. But, no scientific medical definition of cure exists.  Medical science studies “treatments” to death, and ignore cures. Is curing not scientific?

Smoker’s cough is a non-communicable disease. A few cures listed in current medical references, but only for communicable diseases. Some bacterial infections, some fungal infections, some viral infections, and some parasitic infections can be cured.  Cured is not defined for any non-communicable disease.

Smoker’s cough is a chronic disease.  All chronic diseases are non-communicable diseases. Cured is not defined for any chronic disease. So there is no medical cure for smoker’s cough. Conventional medicine has no Theory of Cure.

Barron’s Dictionary of Medical Terms, Sixth Edition, 2013, defines “incurable” as “being such that a cure is impossible within the realm of known medical practice.” There is no “medical practice“, no treatment to cure smoker’s cough, so smoker’s cough is incurable in current medical theory. As a result, smoker’s cough is deemed incurable in current medical practice.

Maybe the Internet has an answer? But no… Healthline.com says, Smoker’s Cough: Everything You Need to Know “What causes smoker’s cough? Cilia are the tiny hair-like structures along your airways. When you smoke, the cilia lose some of their ability to push chemicals and other foreign materials out of your lungs.” Ah.  It’s not smoking that causes smoker’s cough, it’s those little cilia, tiny hair-like structures, losing some of their ability to push chemicals and other foreign materials out. Healthline.com does not offer a cure? Instead, they suggest “Treatment options: A variety of treatments are available for smoker’s cough. These range from traditional treatments to alternative and home remedies.”  We might ask all of these authors, “Which treatments, conventional or alternative, DOES NOT CURE smoker’s cough better?” It’s a nonsense question when we know how to cure. Smoker’s cough can be treated, but it seems – not cured. In the conclusion, they do say “Quitting smoking is the best way to stop a smoker’s cough and prevent any serious conditions.”

A WebMD search for “smoker’s cough” displays 6 advertisements of remedies for smoker’s cough, and the entry for Chronic Bronchitis, which advises “The “smoker’s cough” is sometimes a sign of bronchitis and COPD.” and “If you have chronic bronchitis related to smoking, the most important thing to do is to quit smoking to prevent ongoing damage to your lungs.” Many treatments are discussed, but the word “cure” is never used.

The Mayo Clinic provides a similar view. It asks the question: “What causes chronic bronchitis? Is there a cure?” and says “Since smoking is the most common cause, current smokers should quit… Typically, though, once a person stops smoking, the cough and the mucus production recede over time, although it may take several months.” But a cure? The only answer provided is “Although COPD cannot be cured, it can be managed.” The word cure is not used with smoker’s cough.

It’s possible to “stop” a smoker’s cough, “prevent” any serious conditions.  The cough might and mucus production might receded over time, but a cure?  The word cure is avoided. Cures, it seems, are forbidden.

How is it possible that an 11 year old smart-aleck, a nosey aunt, and a no-nonsense grandmother can tell us the cure for smoker’s cough, but no prestigious medical text can?

Health is the best Cure

Health is the best treatment, the best cure. The cure for smoker’s cough is healthy breathing.  Healthy “not smoking”. Once the patient stops smoking, smoker’s cough fades and disappears. Cured.  If the patient starts smoking again, they get a new case of smoker’s cough. Smoker’s cough is not some mysterious incurable monster. It is a normal illness, a consequence of specific actions, cured when those actions are stopped.

Conventional medicine prescribes medicines and medical treatments, not health. Conventional medicine recognizes a few cures, when they come from conventional medicines.  But cures from health are not recognized.

So smoker’s cough, like many diseases, is incurable.

to your health, tracy
Author: The Elements of Cure