the thing with 'complimentary medicine' is you have to ask why it isn't 'mainstream medicine'. Drug companies get rich selling their wares and would love to get rich off capsiplex or acai or anything else. So why don't they?
Two possibilities:
- When put through proper double blind testing, the medicine is found not to work any more effectively than a sugar pill.
- When the ingredients are examined, or during testing, the medicine is found to have unacceptable side effects / be dangerous (this sort will not often be sold in shops, but sometimes on the net or imported from abroad).
It HAS to be one or the other - there's no conspiracy at play, the drug companies are exclusively motivated by profit, and if the thing worked they would manufacture it and add to their fortunes.
Take the bark of the willow tree. For centuries people chewed it for its painkilling properties. Drug companies tested it, it worked, it was safe, so they put it in pill form and called it aspirin, and many companies have been making a profit since. and imagine how many megabucks they could make out of an effective, safe slimming drug!
other than as a placebo*, if the drug you're taking hasn't been made part of 'mainstream' medicine, then it either doesn't work, or it isn't safe. sorry.
*which is not to say the placebo effect in itself can't have powerful results in some people.