Dr. Sood, Mayo'd, woo'd, not good

The January 3 Baltimore Sun had an article touting ayurvedic woo: "Ayurvedic medicine aims to correct balance of energy."

Because, heaven knows how many times those scientifically unknown and undetected "energies" get imbalanced. Especially the imbalances with clues lurking right there on your tongue. And golly, real-medicine doctors never think to say, "Your heartburn may be caused by an imbalance of energies. Let me look at your tongue."

It's disturbing that Tribune Media Services continues to distribute articles suggesting such ridiculous, non-scientific alternative-to-real-medicine and that The Sun continues to publish them.

It's even more disturbing that the article was written by a doctor from the Mayo Clinic, Dr. Amit Sood. Is no U.S. hospital free of doctors promoting and supporting woo?

At least the article did mention that research supporting ayurvedic medicine woo was "very limited" and that ayurvedic dietary supplements may be contaminated. Nothing like contaminated supplements to cure you when you're ailing because of unbalanced energies.

The article also cautions that "[n]o formal credentialing system exists in the U.S. for ayurvedic medicine practitioners. That means there is no guaranteed that someone who claims to be an ayurvedic doctor actually has credible qualifications or specific training." Yeah, because being treated by someone formally trained and credentialed in woo will give a patient much better results than being treated by someone who is not.