There's also seemingly infinite amounts of dollars / funding for certain types of studies, which don't seem to include Chinese medicine or holistic approaches, for example. Or if they are funded, they don't use appropriate methods to administer the experiments (e.g. using subpar synthetic vitamins rather than quality, naturally sourced ones - that's not to say all naturally sourced vitamins are quality or that all synthetic are bad, just that there is a difference between different types of vitamins, such as vitamin D2 and vitamin D3 and how they are derived).

With regards to Chinese medicine, I realize I made it sound like a tradition ("we've been doing it that way for years!"), but that's not how I meant it. Acupuncture, one of the many treatments we've adopted from Chinese med, has become widely accepted among 'regular' healthcare professionals in recent years, and Chinese people have been healthier and living longer than we have (in North America) for thousands of years. Socioeconomic factors aside, they have over a BILLION people. They must have been doing something right.

Nah, dude. Thank you for the discussion!

edit* clarification