There are thousands of therapies available - ranging from the Alexander technique and homeopathy to energy medicine, Hopi ear candles and urine therapy.

Most get little in common bar one rather important thing says fettle journalist ROSE SHAPIRO; every one of these uses diagnostic methods that have no proven, factual basis or involves unsubstantiated or disproven claims of effect and benefit. Some are much dangerous, she says in a new book.

Here she explains how supplementary and alternative medicine not only puts our health at risk, it leaches money and resources from the NHS, is largely unregulated and unaccountable, can shorten the lives of people with serious illnesses and makes ninny-hammer of us all.

The fatal attraction of magnet treatment Alternative practitioners always utilize plenty of techno-speak.

One exemplar of this is in the field of magnet therapy, estimated to hold an annual global value of more than $1billion. Magnets are sold as wrist or knee bands, insoles, bracelets and mattress pads.

Often promoted as medication for pain, supporters say they can treat everything from HIV to cancer. The idea is that magnets have some kind of "positive power" on the body, particularly the blood. After all, we learned about the Earth's magnetic globe in physics lessons. And we all know that blood holds iron.

So it intact feasible when we read, in an advert for, say, Green Foam Magnetic Insoles (£12.95 a pair) that "the clinical benefits of magnetic therapy being researched include pain reduction; curative of bone, tissue, muscle and nerves; long-lasting disease prevention and reversal, and more".

Note the words "being researched" as a way to support unsubstantiated claims.

Similarly, Magnopulse, the manufacturer of LadyCare, a magnetic slogan which "treats" menstrual disorders, claims "medical researchers believe it helps augmented oxygen-rich blood reach the muscles of the uterus, plateful it work exceeding effectively". Nevertheless those "medical researchers" are wrong.

The iron in blood is repelled, not attracted by magnets. If magnets had any real effect on our blood, then no anthropoid would survive the enormous magnetic fields generated during an MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging) scan.

The delicate blood-vessel in your body would explode when faced with the heavy- duty scanner magnets, which have been avowed to suck in infirmary equipment.

In their keenness to embrace technology, complementary and different medicine practitioners also application electric machines.

One of the most ubiquitary - called variously the Vegatest, Avatar, Interro, BioMeridian, Omega Acubase and the Meridian Stress Assessment System - is the electrodermal screening machine, or EAV.

It is worn close to a gamut of alternative therapists to discover "energy imbalances" and other nebulous disorders.

The patient is wired up to a galvanometer, which amount the electrical resistance of the skin, and a low-voltage circuit is created. A pen-sized probe is pressed on the epidermis at various points and any variations to the in fashion are registered on a gauge from zero to 100.

Readings over 55 are said to suggest inflammation of the tool associated with the acupuncture point duration tested, while readings below 45 are supposedly a sign of organ stagnation.

But examination of the Vegatest kit, commissioned near Quackwatch (a non-profit organisation that combats health-related frauds and myths) suggested that the EAV amount is determined by the practitioner himself. The physique registered simply depends on how hard the probe is pressed on the patient's skin.

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