Nearly Half of U.S. Adults Go Outside the Traditional Health System

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11/24/2002

 

Newsweek

 

 

 

 

Complementary and Alternative Therapies Now Being Evaluated In Controlled

Scientific Studies as Nearly Half of U.S. Adults Go Outside the Traditional

Health System

 

 

 

 

 

 

NEW YORK, Nov. 24 /PRNewswire/ -- Although nearly half of U.S. adults are

going outside the health system for at least some of their care and spending

about $30 billion a year for the privilege, few complementary and alternative

therapies have been evaluated in controlled scientific studies-until now. At

research hospitals around the country, physicians are studying herbs and

biofeedback as rigorously as they would a new antibiotic, Newsweek reports in

the Dec. 2 cover story (on newsstands Monday, Nov. 25).

 

 

(Photo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20021124/NYSU006 )

 

 

Complementary and alternative medicine, or CAM, is not a single, unified

tradition. The term covers practices ranging from the credible (acupuncture,

chiropractic) to the laughable (coffee enemas), writes Senior Editor Geoffrey

Cowley. Because few of these therapies have been thoroughly evaluated in

controlled studies, their effectiveness is still widely debated. But now no

one disputes their significance. After dismissing CAM therapies as quackery

for the better part of a century, the medical establishment now finds itself

racing to evaluate them. The short-term goal is to identify the most

effective and safe alternative therapies and make them part of routine

clinical practice. But the larger mission is to spawn a new kind of

integrative medicine, one that employs the rigor of modern science without

being constrained by it.

 

 

Studies are now underway to determine whether acupuncture can ease

arthritis pain, whether vitamin E and selenium help prevent prostate cancer

and whether ginkgo biloba can preserve mental function in the elderly. And

while these huge clinical trials plod along, researchers are also using state-

of-the-art laboratory techniques to glimpse the physiological effects of

different CAM remedies. By placing CAM under the microscope, scientists will

no doubt gain a better sense of which therapies work, how they work, whether

they're safe and who is most likely to benefit, writes Cowley.

 

 

Newsweek's cover story also looks at the effectiveness of Chinese

medicine. Modern science is starting to verify that some of the age-old

remedies really work and the evidence is promising enough that Western

researchers have begun looking to China for potential new therapies, writes

Reporter Anne Underwood. CAM therapies are also playing a bigger role in

pediatric medicine. Senior Writer David Noonan reports that there now is a

small but growing cadre of researchers who are subjecting pediatric CAM

therapies to the rigors of traditional, randomized, controlled clinical trials

to find out what will work best for kids. And in the psychiatric field,

Americans are avidly pursuing alternative treatments since the effectiveness

of traditional drugs vary widely from person to person and often come with an

array of side effects. While the research on these therapies is still

preliminary, the science is beginning to improve, reports General Editor

Claudia Kalb.

 

(Read Newsweek's news releases

at http://www.Newsweek.MSNBC.com

 

 

 

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