Sunday 9 March 2008

Ignorantly hacking away

I knew there was trouble ahead when I read these opening paragraphs in the Telegraph Health section:

"I have known Rosanna for a while. So when I bumped into her recently and moaned that my children were always suffering from one virus or another, she didn't hesitate.

"Sounds like they need their immune systems boosting," she said. "Bring them to me. I'll show you what you need to do." Reflexology, the practice of massaging specific zones on the feet to relieve tension, ailments or "imbalances" in other parts of the body, has a bit of a flaky reputation, but in the right hands, it can be a powerful tool."

It has a flaky reputation for a reason, it is a load of complete and utter hogwash. It is yet another alternative remedy that abuses the word remedy, as the word implies that the treatment should do what it claims on the tun, and reflexology has absolutely zero evidence behind it for treating the problems that the author describes and that the reflexologists claim it can. I'd bet her daughter is probably rather fatigued from having to put up with a mother who panders to her every need, and who tries to rub organic horse manure in her eyes in order to stay at one with nature.

The author goes on to describe how giving her children massages helped them become closer and it also gave her children pleasure, hardly the revelation of the century is it? I just cannot stand the way in which that this kind of shoddy journalism dresses up having a massage as being something on the cutting edge of science. Humans like to feel good and have social contact with others, thus anything that encourages these things is likely to improve our health, it's hardly bloody rocket science.

However dressing up a massage as a pseudo medicine in the form of 'reflexology' is just a clever way that a few bullshitters have come up with to make stupid people part with excessive amounts of their hard earned cash. The author also advises vitamins and fruit juices for staving off viral infections at the end her lame piece, yet another piece of advice that has no evidence behind it and that will also see numerous idiots wasting more money on overpriced pap.

You won't improve the function of your bodily organs by having the sole of your foot prodded by hippy con artists wearing flower power t-shirts. If you want to feel good and stay healthy, then sleep plenty, eat a balanced diet and exercise regularly, also stay off the crack cocaine and don't smoke toxic chemicals. It's hardly rocket science, it's simple bloody common sense and you can get it here for free, I won't try to peddle you overpriced gimmicky merchandise and dress up my simple advice as pseudo intellectual drivel in an attempt to charge you lots of money for something that is simple common sense advice. Next time your walking down the street, just be careful that you don't tread on your colonic area, it could have devastating consequences.

2 comments:

Rachel said...

A few months ago I saw a patient in clinic who had convinced her (no doubt long suffering) GP to refer her to me to "investigate her liver."
She was convinced she had liver disease because whenever her reflexologist palpated the "liver" area of her foot, it hurt. Her foot that is.

I talked her into wearing different shoes.
Problem solved.

And these people are allowed to breed.

Garth Marenghi said...

amazing!

it's just shocking that they suck in so many suckers in with their baseless bull!

how would a reflexologist treat a fractured calcaneus?

put an ex-fix on your buttocks and sigmoid colon?