It's only natural

Did you take your vitamin C this morning? Echinacea, folic acid or fish oil? Have you had acupuncture, a remedial massage, or seen a herbalist? If you have, you are certainly not alone. It's called 'alternative' or 'complementary medicine' — a booming industry worth at least two billion dollars a year.

Its products and therapies are used by more than half the population. Yet nobody can say for sure whether they work. And if they do work, why?

Even the experts seem divided. Some say science should keep an open mind. Others, that it's all in the mind — mere witchcraft, a waste of money and maybe even downright dangerous.

Transcript

CHARLES WOOLEY: You don't need a crystal ball to tell that this is a big business. And at the rate it's growing, Australians will soon be spending more on alternative pills and alternative therapies than they do on conventional medicine. This is the Mind, Body and Spirit Festival in Melbourne recently, a sort of medical convention for the unconventional. Got a sinus problem? Prescription antibiotics can't hold a candle to this treatment.

KERRYN PHELPS: The medical profession can't pretend that this is not happening. It is happening. The revolution is here.

CHARLES WOOLEY: I chose to submit myself to William Two Feather, a traditional Apache medicine man. I don't like taking pills or potions but Two Feather asked me to swallow nothing more than the extraordinary idea that sound, tone and vibration can repair the ravages of a long journalistic life. It will be an unusual and an extended treatment ... time enough to ponder whether I'm entering the twilight of rationality or the new dawn of modern medicine. Mark Keighery has advanced kidney cancer. Eighteen months ago, he was dying and there was nothing conventional medicine could do to save him. By rights, he should be dead.

MARK KEIGHERY: I had a seven centimetre tumour in the kidney. I had secondaries in both sides of the lung. So I went to the doctors and I said, "What are my chances of survival?" And they said, "You've got a 10 percent chance of lasting five years." Words can't describe the sense of being alone when a doctor tells you you're going to die very soon.

CHARLES WOOLEY: Mark was at the height of his career in clothing, a multimillionaire and controller of a fashion empire. The cancer was aggressive and widespread. Despite the best medical attention, even in the US, there seemed to be no stopping it.

MARK KEIGHERY: It was kind of all bets were off because, when I was in New York, they said, "We give you six to 12 months to live."

CHARLES WOOLEY: It's not an uncommon story — when modern medicine can do no more, the patient seeks unconventional help. Mark has created a virtual industry, an industry that he believes keeps him alive. There's Dr Choi, his acupuncturist; and there's Pay, his Reiki master and colour therapist; and Kate, his full-time chef who ensures Mark gets only the very best organically grown nutrition.

MARK KEIGHERY: The name of the game when you're very, very sick is to increase the energy to stop the disease from spreading through your body. It's very simple. It's not a science. All you're about … that means more rest, don't over exercise, don't drink too much, eat the right foods.

CHARLES WOOLEY: So how much has he gained?

KATE: He's gained 15 kilos.

CHARLES WOOLEY: Fifteen kilos?

KATE: Yeah.

CHARLES WOOLEY: Mark now believes that these alternative therapies really work and that he is the living proof.

MARK KEIGHERY: You know, the Chinese believe that everything improves slowly, slowly. And I believe that given enough time, the body can heal itself.

CHARLES WOOLEY: So with his diet, with his Chinese medicine, with his meditation, and the fact that he's got an extra year than he was promised, could there well be something in this?

PROFESSOR AVNI SALI: In particular, if he puts the healthy diet together with lifestyle changes like meditation, group support, we know from science that he will do better than a cancer patient that doesn't do that.

CHARLES WOOLEY: Cancer specialist and surgeon, Professor Avni Sali is head of the School of Integrated Medicine at Melbourne's Swinburne University. Here is a man of science embracing alternative ways. Is there a diet that could actually kill cancer cells, for instance?

PROFESSOR AVNI SALI: We definitely know that there are certain substances in certain foods that can kill cancer cells.

CHARLES WOOLEY: Is there a diet that can actually kill cancer cells?

PROFESSOR JOHN DWYER: No diet that can kill cancer cells.

CHARLES WOOLEY: More and more the argument over alternative medicine has become a debate where experts disagree.

CHARLES WOOLEY: Professor John Dwyer, a respected immunologist and consumer watch dog represents the case for the negative.

PROFESSOR JOHN DWYER: Iridology, homeopath, reflexology — a number of these procedures are based on zero science where there's lots of evidence to suggest that they couldn't possibly do what is claimed. There is no end to the myriad of fraudulent claims out there that take money out of people's pockets and occasionally stop them getting proper treatment and proper diagnosis.

CHARLES WOOLEY: Still under the spell of Two Feather and his lovely assistant, Sue, one can only wonder is there nothing at all scientifically valid in the vast landscape of alternative healing? Echinacea, fish oil, folic acid, St John's wort, evening primrose oil, glucosamine — there are hundreds of products. Every year, we spend $1.5 billion on vitamin supplements alone, pills and potions that may just be worthless.

PROFESSOR JOHN DWYER: Like most Australians, if anything, I'm probably over-vitaminised. This whole rip-off industry out there that tries to tell Australians to neutralise an unfortunate lifestyle with vitamins is thriving.

CHARLES WOOLEY: But Professor Sali quotes studies from Harvard Medical School endorsing the value of vitamin supplements.

PROFESSOR AVNI SALI: They showed very clearly that if you take a vitamin and mineral supplement per day, you will live longer than the other person that doesn't take one on a daily basis. This is science.

PROFESSOR JOHN DWYER: There's absolutely no justification for continuing to foist things on people, like telling them to take garlic and vitamin C and the like, when there's absolutely no evidence to suggest that this is in any way beneficial.

CHARLES WOOLEY: What do you take?

PROFESSOR AVNI SALI: I take … well, I certainly take a multivitamin and mineral and we know that, despite the fact that Professor Dwyer doesn't think vitamin C is very good, in fact, there are numerous studies, and one of the most recent ones is one showing that vitamin C and E was protective against Alzheimer's disease.

CHARLES WOOLEY: Professor Sali believes in keeping an open mind but a scientific focus. Here, his team is researching the benefits on brain function of a compound extracted from pine bark.

PROFESSOR AVNI SALI: Prescription drugs are dangerous. We know from US figures that the fourth commonest cause of death was prescription drugs.

KERRYN PHELPS: To have a life-threatening illness and one that was created as a side effect of medication, boy, it makes you think twice, it really does.

CHARLES WOOLEY: Last year, Kerryn Phelps nearly died from medication. The former president of the AMA was prescribed a hormone preparation which produced a life-threatening side effect — blood clots in her lungs.

KERRYN PHELPS: There's no question that I went through a period of being angry. I very quickly turned that around to see this as a sign that you can do more for your health. I'm lucky to have survived this. Medical science and time got me about 90 percent better. The other 10 percent was about looking at alternatives and lifestyle and that's what got me to the 100 percent healthy again. I suspect many of your patients are not only taking complementary medicines but asking you about them...

CHARLES WOOLEY: Today, Professor Phelps is an advocate of embracing alternative medicine, wherever it can be proven effective or safe. She is now a medical consultant to a vitamin company and lectures her own profession on the possibilities of keeping an open mind.

KERRYN PHELPS: It's not about whether it's scientific or not because I believe strongly that medical science doesn't have a monopoly on evidence. We have a vast range now of evidence around alternatives that really do work and quite often with less risk to patients.

CHARLES WOOLEY: Echinacea?

PROFESSOR JOHN DWYER: Not worth the money. Minimal effect.

CHARLES WOOLEY: St John's wort?

PROFESSOR JOHN DWYER: Good anti-depressant but I don't think it should be available without prescription.

CHARLES WOOLEY: Homeopathy?

PROFESSOR JOHN DWYER: Anti-science.

CHARLES WOOLEY: Millions of Australians follow it.

PROFESSOR JOHN DWYER: Anti-science.

CHARLES WOOLEY: Fish oil?

PROFESSOR JOHN DWYER: Jury is out.

CHARLES WOOLEY: Glucosamine?

PROFESSOR JOHN DWYER: It's good science to suggest that along with anti-inflammatory medications, it can help people with osteoarthritis. Should be available widely to people with that problem.

CHARLES WOOLEY: Folic acid?

PROFESSOR JOHN DWYER: Folic acid is worthy of recommendation to the population.

CHARLES WOOLEY: You take it yourself?

PROFESSOR JOHN DWYER: I take it myself.

CHARLES WOOLEY: Against the odds and the prognosis, Mark Keighery is back at work and looking good in an industry where good is the only way to look. That's not to say he's cured. Mark Keighery is still living with cancer.

It wouldn't be churlish of me to observe that a lot of this couldn't be done were you not wealthy. There's a keeping Mark alive industry, isn't there?

MARK KEIGHERY: Most of the things I do each day don't cost anything. Slow walks don't cost anything. To sit on a hill overlooking the water and trying to think of nothing — that's free.

CHARLES WOOLEY: According to science, all things should be put to the test. The jury might still be out on William Two Feather, but for me, what set him apart from conventional care was the fact that the medicine man rang me on his mobile two days later to ask how I was going. I told him I was feeling fine.

WILLIAM TWO FEATHERS: If anybody is willing to come and help me out with this kind of work, it's very simple. I'm www.twofeather.net.

CHARLES WOOLEY: This is a story of seeming contradictions typified by the Apache medicine man with the Internet address, the former head of the quite conservative AMA embracing other medicines and other ways, and, of course, Mark Keighery, this week still walking in the sunshine and marvelling at the world.

MARK KEIGHERY: Well, I look upon each day as a blessing, number one, so when there's a nice day like this, I want to spend as much time outside. That means...

CHARLES WOOLEY: For Mark, the question of scientific proof is merely academic. For him, the fact that he's still here is proof enough. How can you know for sure that it's been these strategies that have prolonged your life, maybe even saved it?

MARK KEIGHERY: Well, how else can you argue with the fact that 18 months ago, I was a walking skeleton? I mean, I'm much stronger than I've ever been. I feel healthier than I did five years ago.

CHARLES WOOLEY: Now conventional experts will say that this sometimes happens. Sometimes there is a remission.

MARK KEIGHERY: Well, isn't that a good thing?

CHARLES WOOLEY: You're meant to be dead now and you're sitting here looking terrific.

MARK KEIGHERY: As I sit here today, I'm a miracle.