system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5: How do we know whether an alternate medicine works or not when there are people around us who claim that their disease was diagnosed and cured by it?

I specifically mean Ayurveda and homeopathy here. They say that Ayurveda has cured cancer without any nasty side-effects of chemo. We know that these alternate disciplines don't have proper diagnostic methods for most of the diseases because there were no microscopes or MRI equipment back then. Then they say they didn't need all those stuff and they diagnosed diseases just by checking your pulse or whatever. Doctors and scientists, please help me. Thank you very much for your comments and replies.
gpt
To determine if a certain type of treatment works, it must produce better results than placebo.

The confusion begins because placebo works, and people feel better with just taking placebo. Same as some people get better when taking alternative medicine. However if the number of improved patients is the same as the number that get better with a placebo, the treatment remains in alternative category.

That's how you can understand many stories of people getting better.