Introduction

Abstract

Thank you for your interest in my book. In most countries, alternative medicine is popular (Fig. 1.1), and there are hundreds, if not thousands of books on the subject. I have not read them all, of course, but those two or three hundred that I did study were full of uncritical promotion of bogus, potentially harmful treatments. In case you suspect that this might be an exaggeration, I should tell you that my team once studied 7 bestselling books on alternative medicine in detail. We found 35 conditions for which more than 50 different alternative treatments were recommended by their authors; the worst was cancer for which 133 different therapies were recommended. Needless to say that only very few of these treatments were supported by good evidence.[https://www.amazon.co.uk/Desktop-Guide-Complementary-Alternative-Medicine/dp/0723433836/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1543598976&sr=8-1&keywords=desktop+guide+to+complementary] In my view, this level of misinformation intolerable: it misleads consumers into making wrong therapeutic decisions, wasting their money, and—in extreme cases—putting their life in danger.