10 Most Mind Numbingly Stupid Alternative Medicines

10. Vega Testing

The Vega Test is an alternative therapy that is supposed to reveal which foods and other substances a subject is allergic to.

According to its proponents, the Vega machine can test for over 120 different substances using a "bio-electronic analyzer which measures the body’s electrical resistance to these substances". It apparently works by sending an electrical current through the body through two electrodes, one held in the hand of the patient, one applied to the practitioner.

Some of you may have noticed that this simply doesn't make any sense at all. There is literally no evidence to suggest that your body's resistance to an electrical current has anything to do with your food intolerances, why would it? In fact, the number that is shown on the machine's readout is actually caused by the amount of pressure with which the practitioner applies the electrode to the skin.

More often than not, the people who undergo these tests will come away with a diagnosis of well over 20 different food intolerances as well as (and here's the crucial part) a long list of recommendations for vitamin and mineral supplements, plus homeopathic remedies, that they should be taking, all of which can be purchased from the clinic itself.

This therapy has literally no scientific basis and is mostly riding on the inexplicable fashion for food intolerances that have popped up in recent years (like, since when did it become cool to have chronic gastritis whenever you eat wheat?) and is simply a way of robbing the sick and the gullible without them ever knowing it.