Critical thinking encourages us to review the composition of food through its labeling. This increasingly common attitude contrasts with the credulity of many people regarding pseudotherapies , techniques that lack scientific evidence to demonstrate their efficacy and safety.
That is why it is advisable to follow the #CoNPrueba campaign, launched by the Ministries of Health and Industry, which offers rigorous online resources to distinguish therapies supported by scientific evidence from those that are not. It is about transferring rigorous, truthful and accessible information to citizens on health and science, so that they know how to differentiate between correlation and causality. And there may be a relationship between a technique and an effect, but that technique is not necessarily the cause of the attributed beneficial effect. A pseudoscience can be effective by mere suggestion or because it has perceptible benefits.
The health authorities have launched the Plan for the Protection of Health against Pseudotherapies and are working on the reports of several of them. Of 139 techniques reviewed, 73 lack studies and evidence on their efficacy or safety. The desire of some people that they work is the basis of their credulity. The Spanish Network for the Evaluation of New Technologies (RedETS) intends to make reports of the 66 that have been analyzed, although it cannot be said that they are effective or safe. Draft reports are already circulating among scientific societies, professional associations and patient organizations. Here are some of them.
Macrobiotic diet
This type of nutrition seeks physical and emotional balance. Studies compared with other diets are scarce and with methodological gaps. There is no evidence that it helps control diseases such as diabetes, although some laboratory parameters do improve with it.
Magnetotherapy to treat pain
It consists of generating magnetic fields with devices to increase the regenerative capacity of the body. It is not harmful to health but it is no more effective than placebo.
Ayurvedic massage
It consists of applying oils and techniques to certain areas of the body. There is no evidence of its efficacy.
Thai massage
It is an ancient relaxing technique that is often applied to healthy people. Its use in pathological processes such as knee osteoarthritis and acute lumbar and neuropathic pain has been valued.
Active spiritual healing
It is a non-invasive intervention technique in the patient’s energy body to generate physical effects through the imposition of hands without contact. It offers benefits in the patient’s self-perceived health, but does not cure their ailment in a significant way.
By Santiago de Quiroga
