Medical Hypotheses
Volume 61, Issue 3 , Pages 340-345, September 2003

Understanding the transition from alternative medicine to mainstream science: the homocysteine theory of heart disease and the crucial role of effective mentoring

  • Richard N Podell

      Affiliations

    • Corresponding Author InformationCorrespondence to: Richard N. Podell MD, MPH, Clinical Professor, Department of Family Medicine, UMDNJ-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, 253 Dale Drive Short Hills, NJ 07078, USA. Phone: +1-908-464-3800

UMDNJ-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, Dale Drive Short Hills, New Jersey, USA

Received 4 April 2002; accepted 30 August 2002.

Abstract 

A deficiency of effective ‘mentoring’ may contribute to the relatively low quality of alternative medicine research and to the medical/scientific community’s reluctance to consider even its most promising theories. This hypothesis derives from a case-study of the homocysteine theory of heart disease (HTSD), one of only a few recent theories to have made the transition from ‘alternative’ to ‘mainstream’.

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PII: S0306-9877(02)00417-6

doi:10.1016/S0306-9877(02)00417-6

Medical Hypotheses
Volume 61, Issue 3 , Pages 340-345, September 2003

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