Is Alternative Medicine for You?

The federal government, through the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, has just released the results of a national survey of more than 32,000 Americans about the use of unconventional health care measure, referred to as complementary and alternative medicine. Not all those in the conventional, status quo medical establishment are very happy with the results. Why?" Because 38.3 percent of adults used unconventional approaches in 2007, up from 36 percent in 2002.

Whether people seek alternatives to conventional medicine because of the high cost of seeing doctors, lack of access to them, poor or no health insurance, or lack of confidence in them was not precisely determined. The study said that the increase probably resulted from greater access to then and greater information about alternatives. It emphasized that scientific evidence for the alternatives had shown only limited effectiveness for them. But it also noted: "For both adults and children in 2007, when worry about cost delayed receipt of conventional care, individuals were more likely to use CAM than when the cost of conventional care was not a worry [or was not affordable]." In these hard economic times, therefore, even more use of alternatives are likely.

How likely are you to use these? More likely if you are a woman, between 30 and 69 years old, highly educated, affluent, Asian or Caucasian, live in the West, have quit smoking, or dealing with musculoskeletal problems such as back, neck, or joint pain.

What exactly are you likely to use? Most popular at 17.7 percent are non-vitamin, non-mineral dietary supplements and herbal products, including fish oil/omega 3/DHA, glucosamine, Echinacea, flaxseed oil or pills, and ginseng. This was followed at 12.7 percent by deep breathing exercises. All forms of meditation at 9.4 percent were next. The next three were chiropractic or osteopathic manipulation (8.6 percent), massage (8.3 percent), yoga (6.1 percent), diet-based therapies (3.6 percent), and progressive relaxation (2.9 percent). The biggest increases from 2002 to 2007 were for deep breathing, meditation, yoga and massage.

In case you are wondering, diet-based therapies included the Atkins diet, macrobiotic diet, Ornish diet, Pritikin diet, South Beach diet, vegetarian diet, and the zone diet.

One of the more interesting findings was that adult use of alternative therapies for head or chest colds showed a marked decrease from 2002 to 2007 (9.5 percent in 2002 to 2.0 percent in 2007). There were also decreases for anxiety/depression, and stomach or intestinal illness, but a small increase for cholesterol

What about children? Overall, 12 percent used some form of alternative medicine, but this nearly doubled to 23.9 percent if their parents used alternatives. And it was 16.9 percent if parents delayed conventional medical care because of cost.

The bottom line is that unconventional or alternative medical solutions are being embraced by Americans despite the common absence of consensus scientific evidence that a particular approach actually works. Many physicians are also supporting alternatives while others fear that people are forsaking more proven, conventional medical treatments. Though the cost of conventional medical solutions seems to be a factor, it must be acknowledged that most of the alternatives studied themselves require significant costs, either for products or services.

Let me say that I am not unbiased, because for some decades I have used a number of the alternative approaches. For some I feel the evidence for their effectiveness comes from my own experience, while for others I think they may work as a form of preventive health care. And there have been a few cases where I either have stopped or started to use a specific alternative based on reported research findings. I suspect my behavior is pretty typical, even though I have been fortunate enough to have decent health insurance for conventional care.