Craniosacral therapy - woo?

[Doktor Howl]

You're wasting your breath.  Holist is a man out searching for the woo, because he needs woo.  Not sure why.  Maybe he feels that he's being "left out" of science and wants to be in the know without doing the work required to understand how the world works.  That is why, after all, Pagans and other new-agers constantly go on about how long they've been in the biz...There are no actual credentials, because it's all bullshit.  So you claim years or decades of study of something that isn't real, and then pontificate about it to whomever is dumb enough to want to be a disciple.

I think this is odd, because while I have some education in the sciences (physics, mostly), I am not a scientist and I am happy to let scientists do science.  I usually gain some benefit from it.  I will gain less of it as time goes on, because of irrational people clogging up the system with woo that - while useless and counterproductive - is easier to "understand" than actual medicine or science.

These people have never heard "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence", and they won't listen if you tell them.

No, they are not wasting their breath this time. And I think I only ever pulled the "it's different this time" stunt right at the beginning, with homeopathy. The other things you grew to hate me for were quite different, remember?

I hated you before I met you.  You're a human, after all.  Stupid hairless apes that are afraid of their own odor.

Your woo is annoying, but you have to remember that I live in the United States, where the majority of people believe we'll never run out of oil because Jesus puts more in the ground while we aren't looking.  Our plant's production manager believes that radio waves kill angels (because nobody really sees them anymore since about the time radio was invented).  Some people even believe in the existence of our "government".

So, no, that's not why I hate you.  Stupid primate.

[Doktor Howl]

On the other hand, you have at least acknowledged my existence over the last few days, so I hate you a bit less than the other apes stinking up my planet.  At least for the moment.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Okay, that's fine. I don't want to argue, I'm interested in whether it has an effect, and if yes, why. I would also be grateful if someone with access could link to the single well-designed study so I could look at it.

I linked you to a pile of studies on the NIH website. Is that not good enough? Do you not have Google Scholar where you live? Do you need someone to do all the legwork and spoonfeed the papers to you?

No, thank you. You are right. I will look at those studies you linked to. (The first one says it needs more research, the second one says it is an effective treatment for migraine. The third one says "it is not medicine" - and the abstract page is totally blank, but I'll find it, it says free full text, so it must be up somewhere) I'll be back later.

No, it does not say "it is an effective treatment for migraine". Not to split hairs, but in biomedical research that is an incredibly strong statement and it's important to understand the language used in studies because it is, if the paper is written correctly, very precise and words have very specific meanings. What it says is "The results indicate that craniosacral treatment can alleviate migraine symptoms. Further research is suggested."

It's worthwhile to examine the methods and what was measured whenever you're looking at a study to try to figure out what it means. In this case, it was four self-reports of discomfort from migraine, in two groups (presumably of about ten people each group) one of which received treatment twice before answering the questionnaire for the first time, the other of which received treatment only after answering the questionnaire.

It is a decent preliminary study, although the design is really weird; I would have done a study comparing non-"adjusting" massage with CST, to attempt to corrall the placebo effect. The next step with a small study with results like this would be to conduct a larger study with a more controlled design.