Warning: Diet Coke is poison!!

[chaggle]

So the chiropractor helped with your backpain (I believe there is some evidence that chiropractic manipulation IS efficacious for that) but then spoiled it with woo?

I have a friend who is having a very similar experience; she went to an osteopath recently and he helped with a back problem. He then started giving her dietary advice (telling her amongst other things that she was lactose intolerant). I find this a bit worrying as this friend has had severe eating disorders for many years coming close to death on one occasion.

I looked at his website and found that he also does:

Osteopathy
Cranial Osteopathy

Soft Tissue Massage and Articulation

Acupuncture
Moxibustion
Cupping
Electrotherapy
Herbal Medicine

Nutritional Advice
Exercise Programmes

These people surely do themselves no favours mixing at least semi-believable practices with out-and-out woo?

BTW I looked up Moxibustion

Moxibustion (Chinese: 灸; pinyin: jiǔ) is a traditional Chinese medicine therapy using moxa, or mugwort herb. It plays an important role in the traditional medical systems of China, Japan, Korea, Vietnam, Tibet, and Mongolia. Suppliers usually age the mugwort and grind it up to a fluff; practitioners burn the fluff or process it further into a stick that resembles a (non-smokable) cigar. They can use it indirectly, with acupuncture needles, or sometimes burn it on a patient's skin.

[PaulW99]

As far as I know, chiropractic is out and out quackery.
http://www.skepdic.com/chiro.html
It's also one of the worst types of quackery - it's dangerous.

As for people claiming it helps/helped their back, I don't doubt them. But some things cure themselves, and there is the placebo effect.

[jimwalsh]

Strange thing is if you understand why aspartame kills ants the issue goes away. It doesn't poison them, it starves them. Being incredibly sweet the ants think they've found a wonderful food source and expend all their efforts into gathering and munching down on aspartame to the exclusion of almost everything else. Of course as we know it has no nutritional value whatsoever so they die of malnutrition.

This isn't some side effect that we're unaware of, it's the primary characteristic of aspartame and the reason we buy it. The moral here is not that aspartame is poison; it's that you can't live on aspartame alone. Anyone who doesn't know that already certainly does need an intervention. They may just possibly be an ant in disguise.

If I remember rightly Aspartame and other artificial sweeteners do also upregulate the mechanism of glucose ingestion through taste activated sensory stimuli.

So if you have a diet coke with your maccyds and donuts you will probably ingest a similar amount of glucose anyway (I just made the last bit up)

[Drop Bear]

So the chiropractor helped with your backpain (I believe there is some evidence that chiropractic manipulation IS efficacious for that) but then spoiled it with woo?

Well,the pain went,it seemed at the time the chiropractor had fixed my back. I really don't know for a fact one way or another.

Evidence? Really, I wasn't aware of that.Could you point me at some? (OK,any)

[chaggle]

Well,the pain went,it seemed at the time the chiropractor had fixed my back. I really don't know for a fact one way or another.

Evidence? Really, I wasn't aware of that.Could you point me at some? (OK,any)

This article by John Jackson implies that there is some.

The one area that there is evidence that Chiropractic can be beneficial is in treating lower-back pain (see: RAND paper - opens in a new window) although RAND are not so supportive of Chiropractic cervical (relating to the neck) spine manipulation.

Despite the fact that Chiropractors can achieve beneficial results using spinal manipulative therapy (SMT), this does not endorse Chiropractic itself: SMT is not unique to Chiropractic, it is also offered by qualified doctors and physiotherapists, for example. It is the inappropriate use of SMT that is the concern with Chiropractic.

[fotworth]

Diet soda helps prevent kidney stones,But diet coke doesn't.

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE64D4HO20100514

[Drop Bear]

It was upper back pain;(T5 vertebra)) turned out there was hairline crush fracture due to osteoporosis.

However,the chiropractor did seem to help at the time.

I should also mention it was the chiropractor who spotted the fracture,which led to the diagnosis and treatment of osteoporosis via a bone density test. He did that by having new Xrays taken (at the same facility) with with me supine instead of standing. He insisted on Xrays before doing any adjustments.Just as well.

My GP's attitude is;"I know chiropractic shouldn't work, but a good one can work wonders-----"

[PaulW99]

It's happened again! Conspiracy theories are escaping the internet and infiltrating the real world. First some guy tells me in a supermarket parking lot that Diet Coke is poison, now another guy who sends me a daily real estate listing update has included a piece about how Obama and some mysterious bankers' cartel is poisoning the Mexican Gulf on purpose!

Again I ask, what happens when the people believe who this stuff constitute the majority?