List of diagnoses characterized as pseudoscience

There are many proposed diseases and diagnoses that are rejected by orthodox medicine consensus and are associated with pseudoscience.

Definition

Pseudoscience rejects empirical methodology.^[1] Pseudoscientific diseases are not defined using objective criteria. They cannot achieve, and perhaps do not seek, medical recognition.

Other conditions may be rejected or contested by orthodox medicine, but are not necessarily associated with pseudoscience. Diagnostic criteria for some of these conditions may be vague, over-inclusive, or otherwise ill-defined. Although the evidence for the disease may be contested or lacking, however, the justification for these diagnoses is nevertheless empirical and therefore amenable to scientific investigation, at least in theory.

Examples of conditions that are not necessarily pseudoscientific include:

• Conditions determined to be somatic in nature, including mass psychogenic illnesses.
• Medicalized conditions that are not pathogenic in nature, such as aging, childbirth, pregnancy, sexual addiction, baldness, jet lag, and halitosis.^[2]
• Conditions that are not widely recognized, about which there is an ongoing debate within the scientific and medical literature.
• Functional disorders are a set of conditions that cannot be explained by structural or biochemical abnormalities.^[3] These raise challenges around diagnosis and treatment, with debate around whether they are psychogenic. They often present with non-specific symptoms that are consistent with multiple causes. Examples include fibromyalgia, myalgic encephalomyelitis, and Gulf War syndrome.
• Conditions that are recognized by the scientific consensus, but are frequently self-diagnosed or otherwise misapplied. Examples include various kinds of allergy, including non-celiac gluten sensitivity.

Examples

• Adrenal fatigue or hypoadrenia is a pseudoscientific diagnosis described as a state in which the adrenal glands are exhausted and unable to produce adequate quantities of hormones, primarily the glucocorticoid cortisol, due to chronic stress or infections.^[4] Adrenal fatigue should not be confused with a number of actual forms of adrenal dysfunction such as adrenal insufficiency or Addison's disease.^[5] The term "adrenal fatigue", which was invented in 1998 by James Wilson, a chiropractor,^[6] may be applied to a collection of mostly nonspecific symptoms.^[4] There is no scientific evidence supporting the concept of adrenal fatigue and it is not recognized as a diagnosis by any scientific or medical community.^[4][5] A systematic review found no evidence for the term adrenal fatigue, confirming the consensus among endocrinological societies that it is a myth.^[7]
• Autistic enterocolitis is the name of a nonexistent medical condition proposed by discredited British gastroenterologist Andrew Wakefield when in 1998 he suggested a link between a number of common clinical symptoms and signs which he contended were distinctive to autism.^[8] The existence of such an enterocolitis has been dismissed by experts as having "not been established".^[9] Wakefield's fraudulent report, which was retracted in 2010, suppressed negative findings and used inadequate controls.^[10][11] Multiple attempts to replicate his results have been unsuccessful.^[12] Reviews in the medical literature have found no link between autism and bowel disease.^[13][14][15]
• Candida hypersensitivity – It has been spuriously claimed that chronic yeast infections are responsible for many common disorders and non-specific symptoms including fatigue, weight gain, constipation, dizziness, muscle and joint pain, asthma, and others.^[16][17] The notion has been strongly disabused by the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma, and Immunology.^[18]
• Chronic Lyme Disease (not to be confused with Lyme Disease) is a generally rejected diagnosis that encompasses "a broad array of illnesses or symptom complexes for which there is no reproducible or convincing scientific evidence of any relationship to Borrelia burgdorferi infection."^[19] Despite numerous studies, there is no clinical evidence that "chronic" Lyme Disease is caused by a persistent infection.^[20] It is distinct from post-treatment Lyme disease syndrome, a set of lingering symptoms which may persist after successful treatment of infection with Lyme spirochetes. The symptoms of "chronic Lyme" are generic and non-specific "symptoms of life".^[21]
• Electromagnetic hypersensitivity (EHS) – reported sensitivity to electric and magnetic fields or electromagnetic radiation of various frequencies at exposure levels well below established safety standards. Symptoms are inconsistent, but can include headache, fatigue, difficulty sleeping, and similar non-specific indications.^[22] Provocation studies find that the discomfort of sufferers is unrelated to hidden sources of radiation,^[23] and "no scientific basis currently exists for a connection between EHS and exposure to [electromagnetic fields]."^[24][25]
• Leaky gut syndrome – in alternative medicine, a proposed condition caused by the passage of harmful substances outward through the gut wall. It has been proposed as the cause of many conditions including multiple sclerosis and autism, a claim which has been called pseudoscientific.^[26] According to the UK National Health Service, the theory is vague and unproven.^[27] Some skeptics and scientists say that the marketing of treatments for leaky gut syndrome is either misguided or an instance of deliberate health fraud.^[27]
• Morgellons is the informal name of a self-diagnosed, unexplained skin condition in which individuals have sores that they believe contain some kind of fibers.^[28][29][30] Morgellons is poorly characterized but the general medical consensus is that it is a form of delusional parasitosis.^[31] An attempt to link Morgellons to the cause of Lyme disease has been attacked by Steven Salzberg as "dangerous pseudoscience".^[32]
• Multiple chemical sensitivity^[33][34]
• Reward deficiency syndrome^[35][36]
• "Vaccine overload", a non-medical term describing the notion that giving many vaccines at once may overwhelm or weaken a child's immature immune system and lead to adverse effects,^[37][38] is strongly contradicted by scientific evidence.^[39]
• Vertebral subluxation is a chiropractic term that describes variously a site of impaired flow of innate or a spinal lesion that is postulated to cause neuromusculoskeletal or visceral dysfunction. Scientific consensus does not support the existence of chiropractic's vertebral subluxation.^[40][41]
• Wilson's syndrome (not to be confused with Wilson's disease) is an alternative medicine concept, not recognized as a legitimate diagnosis in evidence-based medicine.^[42] Its supporters describe Wilson's syndrome as a mix of common and non-specific symptoms which they attribute to low body temperature and impaired conversion of thyroxine (T4) to triiodothyronine (T3), despite normal thyroid function tests. The American Thyroid Association (ATA) says Wilson's syndrome is at odds with established knowledge of thyroid function, has vague diagnostic criteria, and lacks supporting scientific evidence. The ATA further raised concern that the proposed treatments were potentially harmful.^[43]
• Wind turbine syndrome and wind farm syndrome are terms for adverse health effects that have been ascribed to the proximity of wind turbines.^[44] Proponents have claimed that these effects include death, cancer and congenital abnormality. The distribution of recorded events, however, correlates with media coverage of wind farm syndrome itself, and not with the presence or absence of wind farms.^[45][46] Reviews of the scientific literature have consistently found no reason to believe that wind turbines are harmful to health.^[47]

See also

• List of topics characterized as pseudoscience § Health and medicine
• List of questionable diagnostic tests
• List of fictional diseases
• Culture-bound syndrome
• Medically unexplained physical symptoms
• Quackery
• Somatic symptom disorder
• Somatization

References