Overview of Integrative, Complementary, and Alternative Medicine

The effectiveness of alternative therapies is an important consideration.

Many CAM therapies have been studied and found to be ineffective or inconsistent. Some therapies have been shown to be effective for specific conditions. However, these therapies are often also used to treat other conditions and symptoms, even though scientific evidence is lacking for these uses, as is sometimes the case in conventional medicine. Some CAM therapies have not been tested in well-designed studies. However, a lack of evidence from well-designed studies is not proof that a therapy is ineffective.

Many CAM therapies are said to have been practiced for hundreds or thousands of years. They include acupuncture Acupuncture Acupuncture, a therapy within traditional Chinese medicine, is one of the most widely accepted CAM therapies in the Western world. Licensed practitioners do not necessarily have a medical degree... read more , meditation Meditation In meditation, a type of mind-body medicine, people regulate their attention or systematically focus on particular aspects of inner or outer experience. Meditation may involve sitting or resting... read more , yoga, therapeutic diets Diet Therapy Diet therapy, a biologically based practice, uses specialized dietary regimens (such as the macrobiotic, paleo, Mediterranean, and low-carbohydrate diets) to Treat or prevent a specific disease... read more , massage Massage Therapy In massage therapy (a manipulative and body-based practice), body tissues are manipulated to reduce pain, relieve muscle tension, and reduce stress. Massage therapy involves a variety of light-touch... read more , and botanical medicine (dietary supplements Overview of Dietary Supplements Dietary supplements are used by about 75% of Americans. They are the most common therapies included among integrative medicine and health (IMH) and complementary and alternative medicine (CAM)... read more ). Having a long history of use is sometimes used as support that CAM therapies are effective. However, there are limitations with this argument:

Being used for a long time is not scientifically equivalent to proven effect. Some therapies subsequently found to be ineffective or harmful were previously used for many years.

The length of time a therapy has been in use can be difficult to establish.

How a therapy was used in the past may differ from how it is used now, as may the therapy itself.

Thus, scientific evidence, using well-designed studies, is still preferred to determine whether a therapy is effective.

However, well-designed studies of CAM therapies can be difficult to do. Barriers to doing research on CAM therapies include the following:

Lack of support and financial resources for CAM among sources that fund medical researchers

Limited training and skill to perform scientific research among advocates of CAM

Looser regulations requiring proof that CAM products or therapies are effective before they are made publicly available compared with regulations governing conventional medicine treatments

Generally lower financial returns for companies studying CAM than for those doing medication or device research

Applying conventional research methods to study CAM may be difficult for many additional reasons, including

Separating the effects of a CAM therapy's active component from those of placebo is difficult. For example, practitioners of CAM therapies typically interact with people in a positive and supportive way that is known to make people feel better, regardless of what other therapies are used. This aspect of CAM can be viewed as a placebo effect.

CAM therapies and diagnoses may not be standardized. For example, different practitioners use different systems of acupuncture, and the contents and effects of natural product preparations vary widely.

However, despite these challenges, many well-designed studies of CAM therapies (such as acupuncture Acupuncture Acupuncture, a therapy within traditional Chinese medicine, is one of the most widely accepted CAM therapies in the Western world. Licensed practitioners do not necessarily have a medical degree... read more and homeopathy Homeopathy Homeopathy, which was developed in Germany in the late 1700s, is a medical system based on the principle that like cures like (thus the name homeo [Greek for like] and patho [Greek for disease]... read more ) have been done. For example, one acupuncture study used a well-designed placebo, making double blinding possible, by placing an opaque sheath against the person's skin at an acupuncture point. Some sheaths contained a needle that penetrated the skin (active treatment), and some did not (placebo). For CAM therapies to be considered effective, there should be evidence that they are more effective when compared to a placebo or a control.

Lack of funding for well-designed CAM studies is often mentioned as a reason that these studies are not done. However, CAM products are a multi-billion dollar business, suggesting that lack of profitability should not be a reason companies do not study these products. However, profitability overall is much larger for conventional medication development than for CAM products.

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Overview of Integrative, Complementary, and Alternative Medicine