Alternative medicine treatments -
Introspection rundown Iridology Isolation tank Isopathy. Macrobiotic lifestyle Magnetic healing Manipulative therapy Manual lymphatic drainage Martial arts Massage therapy Massage Medical intuition Meditation Mindfulness meditation Transcendental meditation Vipassana Meridian Chinese medicine Mega-vitamin therapy Mind—body intervention Alexander technique Aromatherapy Autogenic training Autosuggestion Bach flower therapy Feldenkrais method Hatha yoga Hypnotherapy Moxibustion Myofascial release.
Naprapathy Natural Health Natural therapies Nature therapy Naturopathic medicine New thought Neuro-linguistic programming Nutritional healing Nutritional supplements Numerology. Orthopathy Osteopathy. Pilates Postural Integration Pranic healing Prayer Psychic surgery Prokarin. Radionics Rebirthing Recreational Therapy Reflexology Reiki Rolfing Structural Integration Rosen Method.
Salt Therapy Self-hypnosis Shiatsu Siddha medicine Sonopuncture Sophrology Sound therapy Spiritual mind treatment Structural Integration Support groups. Tai chi Tantra massage Daoyin Thai massage Thalassotherapy Therapeutic horseback riding Therapeutic touch Tibetan eye chart Traditional Chinese medicine History of traditional Chinese medicine Traditional Korean medicine Traditional Japanese medicine Traditional Mongolian medicine Traditional Tibetan medicine Trager approach Transcendental meditation Trigger point Tui na.
Unani medicine Urine therapy Uropathy. Water cure therapy Wellness alternative medicine Wuxing Chinese philosophy. Yoga Ashtanga yoga Ashtanga vinyasa yoga Bikram yoga Hatha yoga Iyengar yoga Kundalini yoga Siddha yoga Sivananda yoga Tantric yoga Viniyoga Vinyasa yoga Yoga Therapy Daoyin Taoist Yoga.
Alternative medicine. Ayurveda Aromatherapy Bodywork Chiropractic Energy medicine Faith healing Herbalism Hydrotherapy Homeopathy Naturopathic medicine Orthopathy Osteopathy Shamanism Traditional Chinese medicine Traditional medicine. Mind-body intervention advocates Critics.
Biologically based therapy Energy therapy Manual and body-based methods Mind-body intervention. In addition to the social-cultural underpinnings of the popularity of alternative medicine, there are several psychological issues that are critical to its growth, notably psychological effects, such as the will to believe, [] cognitive biases that help maintain self-esteem and promote harmonious social functioning, [] and the post hoc, ergo propter hoc fallacy.
In a interview with The BMJ , Edzard Ernst stated: "The present popularity of complementary and alternative medicine is also inviting criticism of what we are doing in mainstream medicine. It shows that we aren't fulfilling a certain need-we are not giving patients enough time, compassion, or empathy.
These are things that complementary practitioners are very good at. Mainstream medicine could learn something from complementary medicine. Alternative medicine is a profitable industry with large media advertising expenditures. Accordingly, alternative practices are often portrayed positively and compared favorably to "big pharma".
Why is it so popular, then? Ernst blames the providers, customers and the doctors whose neglect, he says, has created the opening into which alternative therapists have stepped.
There are 40 million websites and They mislead cancer patients, who are encouraged not only to pay their last penny but to be treated with something that shortens their lives.
It needs gullibility for the industry to succeed. It doesn't make me popular with the public, but it's the truth. Paul Offit proposed that "alternative medicine becomes quackery" in four ways: by recommending against conventional therapies that are helpful, promoting potentially harmful therapies without adequate warning, draining patients' bank accounts, or by promoting "magical thinking".
Authors have speculated on the socio-cultural and psychological reasons for the appeal of alternative medicines among the minority using them in lieu of conventional medicine.
There are several socio-cultural reasons for the interest in these treatments centered on the low level of scientific literacy among the public at large and a concomitant increase in antiscientific attitudes and new age mysticism.
There is also an increase in conspiracy theories toward conventional medicine and pharmaceutical companies, [34] mistrust of traditional authority figures, such as the physician, and a dislike of the current delivery methods of scientific biomedicine, all of which have led patients to seek out alternative medicine to treat a variety of ailments.
Patients can be averse to the painful, unpleasant, and sometimes-dangerous side effects of biomedical treatments. Treatments for severe diseases such as cancer and HIV infection have well-known, significant side-effects.
Even low-risk medications such as antibiotics can have potential to cause life-threatening anaphylactic reactions in a very few individuals. Many medications may cause minor but bothersome symptoms such as cough or upset stomach. In all of these cases, patients may be seeking out alternative therapies to avoid the adverse effects of conventional treatments.
According to research published in , the increasing popularity of CAM needs to be explained by moral convictions or lifestyle choices rather than by economic reasoning. In developing nations , access to essential medicines is severely restricted by lack of resources and poverty.
Traditional remedies, often closely resembling or forming the basis for alternative remedies, may comprise primary healthcare or be integrated into the healthcare system. In Latin America, inequities against BIPOC communities keep them tied to their traditional practices and therefore, it is often these communities that constitute the majority of users of alternative medicine.
Racist attitudes towards certain communities disable them from accessing more urbanized modes of care. In a study that assessed access to care in rural communities of Latin America, it was found that discrimination is a huge barrier to the ability of citizens to access care; more specifically, women of Indigenous and African descent, and lower-income families were especially hurt.
Consistently excluded from many systems of westernized care for socioeconomic and other reasons, low-income communities of color often turn to traditional medicine for care as it has proved reliable to them across generations. Commentators including David Horrobin have proposed adopting a prize system to reward medical research.
In the US, the NCCIH provides public research funding for alternative medicine. That alternative medicine has been on the rise "in countries where Western science and scientific method generally are accepted as the major foundations for healthcare, and 'evidence-based' practice is the dominant paradigm" was described as an "enigma" in the Medical Journal of Australia.
In the United States, the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act CAPTA required that for states to receive federal money, they had to grant religious exemptions to child neglect and abuse laws regarding religion-based healing practices.
The use of alternative medicine in the US has increased, [11] [] with a 50 percent increase in expenditures and a 25 percent increase in the use of alternative therapies between and in America.
adults aged 18 years and over use some form of complementary and alternative medicine. A survey of Americans found that 88 percent thought that "there are some good ways of treating sickness that medical science does not recognize".
In Britain, the most often used alternative therapies were Alexander technique , aromatherapy , Bach and other flower remedies, body work therapies including massage, Counseling stress therapies, hypnotherapy , meditation , reflexology , Shiatsu , Ayurvedic medicine , nutritional medicine, and yoga.
According to the National Health Service England , the most commonly used complementary and alternative medicines CAM supported by the NHS in the UK are: acupuncture, aromatherapy, chiropractic, homeopathy, massage, osteopathy and clinical hypnotherapy. Complementary therapies are often used in palliative care or by practitioners attempting to manage chronic pain in patients.
Integrative medicine is considered more acceptable in the interdisciplinary approach used in palliative care than in other areas of medicine. If the patient desired complementary therapies, and as long as such treatments provided additional support and did not endanger the patient, they were considered acceptable.
The alternative medicine lobby has successfully pushed for alternative therapies to be subject to far less regulation than conventional medicine. In contrast, other approaches may be partially recognized and others have no regulation at all.
Despite laws making it illegal to market or promote alternative therapies for use in cancer treatment, many practitioners promote them. Regulation and licensing of alternative medicine ranges widely from country to country, and state to state.
Government bodies in the US and elsewhere have published information or guidance about alternative medicine. The U. Food and Drug Administration FDA , has issued online warnings for consumers about medication health fraud.
The National Science Foundation has studied the problematic side of the public's attitudes and understandings of science fiction , pseudoscience, and belief in alternative medicine. They use a quote from Robert L.
Park to describe some issues with alternative medicine:. Alternative medicine is another concern. As used here, alternative medicine refers to all treatments that have not been proven effective using scientific methods. A scientist's view of the situation appeared in a recent book Park b ":.
Between homeopathy and herbal therapy lies a bewildering array of untested and unregulated treatments, all labeled alternative by their proponents. Alternative seems to define a culture rather than a field of medicine—a culture that is not scientifically demanding. It is a culture in which ancient traditions are given more weight than biological science, and anecdotes are preferred over clinical trials.
Alternative therapies steadfastly resist change, often for centuries or even millennia, unaffected by scientific advances in the understanding of physiology or disease. Incredible explanations invoking modern physics are sometimes offered for how alternative therapies might work, but there seems to be little interest in testing these speculations scientifically.
According to the Institute of Medicine, use of alternative medical techniques may result in several types of harm:. Forms of alternative medicine that are biologically active can be dangerous even when used in conjunction with conventional medicine.
Examples include immuno-augmentation therapy, shark cartilage, bioresonance therapy, oxygen and ozone therapies, and insulin potentiation therapy.
Some herbal remedies can cause dangerous interactions with chemotherapy drugs, radiation therapy, or anesthetics during surgery, among other problems. And lastly there's the cynicism and disappointment and depression that some patients get from going on from one alternative medicine to the next, and they find after three months the placebo effect wears off, and they're disappointed and they move on to the next one, and they're disappointed and disillusioned, and that can create depression and make the eventual treatment of the patient with anything effective difficult, because you may not get compliance, because they've seen the failure so often in the past.
Conventional treatments are subjected to testing for undesired side-effects , whereas alternative therapies, in general, are not subjected to such testing at all. Any treatment — whether conventional or alternative — that has a biological or psychological effect on a patient may also have potential to possess dangerous biological or psychological side-effects.
Attempts to refute this fact with regard to alternative therapies sometimes use the appeal to nature fallacy, i. An exception to the normal thinking regarding side-effects is homeopathy. Since , the FDA has regulated homeopathic products in "several significantly different ways from other drugs.
They are, thus, considered safe on that count, but "their products are exempt from good manufacturing practice requirements related to expiration dating and from finished product testing for identity and strength", and their alcohol concentration may be much higher than allowed in conventional drugs.
Alternative medicine may discourage people from getting the best possible treatment. According to mental health journalist Scott Lilienfeld in , "unvalidated or scientifically unsupported mental health practices can lead individuals to forgo effective treatments" and refers to this as opportunity cost.
Individuals who spend large amounts of time and money on ineffective treatments may be left with precious little of either, and may forfeit the opportunity to obtain treatments that could be more helpful. In short, even innocuous treatments can indirectly produce negative outcomes.
There have always been "many therapies offered outside of conventional cancer treatment centers and based on theories not found in biomedicine. These alternative cancer cures have often been described as 'unproven,' suggesting that appropriate clinical trials have not been conducted and that the therapeutic value of the treatment is unknown.
The label 'unproven' is inappropriate for such therapies; it is time to assert that many alternative cancer therapies have been 'disproven'. any alternative cancer cure is bogus by definition. There will never be an alternative cancer cure.
Because if something looked halfway promising, then mainstream oncology would scrutinize it, and if there is anything to it, it would become mainstream almost automatically and very quickly. All curative "alternative cancer cures" are based on false claims, are bogus, and, I would say, even criminal.
There is no alternative medicine. There is only scientifically proven, evidence-based medicine supported by solid data or unproven medicine, for which scientific evidence is lacking. Fontanarosa, JAMA [54]. Complementary and alternative medicine CAM is not as well researched as conventional medicine, which undergoes intense research before release to the public.
These studies tend to have a variety of problems, such as small samples, various biases, poor research design, lack of controls, negative results, etc. Even those with positive results can be better explained as resulting in false positives due to bias and noisy data.
Alternative medicine may lead to a false understanding of the body and of the process of science. unproven , based on increased knowledge of its effectiveness or lack thereof. Prominent supporters of this position are George D.
Lundberg , former editor of the Journal of the American Medical Association JAMA and the journal's interim editor-in-chief Phil Fontanarosa.
Writing in in CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians Barrie R. Cassileth mentioned a letter to the United States Senate 's Subcommittee on Public Health and Safety, which had deplored the lack of critical thinking and scientific rigor in OAM-supported research, had been signed by four Nobel Laureates and other prominent scientists.
This was supported by the National Institutes of Health NIH. In March , a staff writer for The Washington Post reported that the impending national discussion about broadening access to health care, improving medical practice and saving money was giving a group of scientists an opening to propose shutting down the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine.
They quoted one of these scientists, Steven Salzberg , a genome researcher and computational biologist at the University of Maryland, as saying "One of our concerns is that NIH is funding pseudoscience. Writers such as Carl Sagan , a noted astrophysicist, advocate of scientific skepticism and the author of The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark , have lambasted the lack of empirical evidence to support the existence of the putative energy fields on which these therapies are predicated.
Sampson has also pointed out that CAM tolerated contradiction without thorough reason and experiment. Some critics of alternative medicine are focused upon health fraud, misinformation, and quackery as public health problems, notably Wallace Sampson and Paul Kurtz founders of Scientific Review of Alternative Medicine and Stephen Barrett , co-founder of The National Council Against Health Fraud and webmaster of Quackwatch.
Many alternative medical treatments are not patentable , [] which may lead to less research funding from the private sector.
In addition, in most countries, alternative therapies in contrast to pharmaceuticals can be marketed without any proof of efficacy — also a disincentive for manufacturers to fund scientific research. English evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins , in his book A Devil's Chaplain , defined alternative medicine as a "set of practices that cannot be tested, refuse to be tested, or consistently fail tests.
CAM is also often less regulated than conventional medicine. According to two writers, Wallace Sampson and K. Butler, marketing is part of the training required in alternative medicine, and propaganda methods in alternative medicine have been traced back to those used by Hitler and Goebels in their promotion of pseudoscience in medicine.
In November Edzard Ernst stated that the "level of misinformation about alternative medicine has now reached the point where it has become dangerous and unethical. So far, alternative medicine has remained an ethics-free zone. It is time to change this. Harriet Hall criticized the low standard of evidence accepted by the alternative medicine community:.
Science-based medicine has one rigorous standard of evidence, the kind [used for pharmaceuticals] CAM has a double standard. They gladly accept a lower standard of evidence for treatments they believe in. However, I suspect they would reject a pharmaceutical if it were approved for marketing on the kind of evidence they accept for CAM.
Some commentators have said that special consideration must be given to the issue of conflicts of interest in alternative medicine. Edzard Ernst has said that most researchers into alternative medicine are at risk of "unidirectional bias" because of a generally uncritical belief in their chosen subject.
Research into alternative therapies has been criticized for "diverting research time, money, and other resources from more fruitful lines of investigation in order to pursue a theory that has no basis in biology. Barker Bausell , has stated that "it's become politically correct to investigate nonsense.
In the Senate Appropriations Committee responsible for funding the National Institutes of Health NIH declared itself "not satisfied that the conventional medical community as symbolized at the NIH has fully explored the potential that exists in unconventional medical practices.
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Adrenal fatigue Aerotoxic syndrome Candida hypersensitivity Chronic Lyme disease Electromagnetic hypersensitivity Heavy legs Leaky gut syndrome Multiple chemical sensitivity Wilson's temperature syndrome. See also: Terminology of alternative medicine. See also: Traditional medicine.
See also: List of forms of alternative medicine. Main article: Herbal medicine. See also: Shamanism. Main article: History of alternative medicine. Further information: Regulation of alternative medicine and Regulation and prevalence of homeopathy.
This section needs expansion. You can help by adding to it. May See also: List of herbs with known adverse effects. Most of these practices are used together with conventional therapies and therefore have been called complementary to distinguish them from alternative practices, those used as a substitute for standard care.
Until a decade ago or so, 'complementary and alternative medicine' could be defined as practices that are neither taught in medical schools nor reimbursed, but this definition is no longer workable, since medical students increasingly seek and receive some instruction about complementary health practices, and some practices are reimbursed by third-party payers.
Another definition, practices that lack an evidence base, is also not useful, since there is a growing body of research on some of these modalities, and some aspects of standard care do not have a strong evidence base.
CAM includes such resources perceived by their users as associated with positive health outcomes. Boundaries within CAM and between the CAM domain and the domain of the dominant system are not always sharp or fixed.
There cannot be two kinds of medicine — conventional and alternative. There is only medicine that has been adequately tested and medicine that has not, medicine that works and medicine that may or may not work speculation, and testimonials do not substitute for evidence.
Although the Commissioners support the provision of the most accurate information about the state of the science of all CAM modalities, they believe that it is premature to advocate the wide implementation and reimbursement of CAM modalities that are yet unproven. To cure in a mild, prompt, safe, and durable manner, it is necessary to choose in each case a medicine that will excite an affection similar ὅμοιος πάθος to that against which it is employed.
Ludmerer noted in "Flexner pointed out that the scientific method of thinking applied to medical practice. By scientific method, he meant testing ideas with well-planned experiments to establish accurate facts.
The clinician's diagnosis was equivalent to the scientist's hypothesis: both medical diagnosis and hypothesis required the test of an experiment. Flexner argued that mastery of the scientific method of problem solving was the key for physicians to manage medical uncertainty and to practice in the most cost-effective way.
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Anti-cancer success stories medicine encompasses a wide range of emdicine Promote fat oxidation Gluten-free snacks systems from cultures Alternativd the world. In the Alterntaive. While doctors in one part of medickne world Alternative medicine treatments regard a practice as mainstream, doctors elsewhere might view the same practice as alternative. This article discusses what alternative medicine is, different types of alternative medicine, and whether it is better than conventional medicine. it refers to forms of medicine that are not widely accepted or practiced by medical doctors, particularly those that do not have as much scientific evidence to support them as more mainstream methods. Some types of alternative medicine have been around for hundreds and even thousands of years. Jeffrey White of Promote fat oxidation National Cancer Institute explains the Teratments types of complementary and alternative Altdrnative in this Anti-cancer success stories video. Complementary and Menstrual health empowerment medicine are medicines and rteatments practices that are not usually used by doctors to treat cancer. Talk to your doctor before you start any kind of complementary or alternative medicine, even for managing side effects from standard treatment. Complementary and alternative medicines may make standard cancer treatments not work as well. Many cancer patients find that complementary and alternative medicines help them. Will they help you?Alternative medicine treatments -
Complementary and alternative medicine CAM is treatment that falls outside of mainstream healthcare. These treatments range from acupuncture and homeopathy, to aromatherapy, meditation and colonic irrigation. Although "complementary and alternative" is often used as a single category, it can be useful to make a distinction between the terms.
The US National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health NCCIH uses this distinction:. For example, aromatherapy may sometimes be used as a complementary treatment and in other circumstances is used as an alternative treatment. A number of complementary and alternative treatments are typically used with the intention of treating or curing a health condition.
To understand whether a treatment is safe and effective, we need to check the evidence. You can learn more about the evidence for particular CAM practices by reading about individual types of treatment.
See our Health A to Z index for a list of all conditions and treatments on the NHS website. Some CAM treatments are based on principles and an evidence base that are not recognised by the majority of independent scientists. Others have been proven to work for a limited number of health conditions.
For example, there's evidence that chiropractic is effective for treating lower back pain. When a person uses any health treatment, including CAM, and experiences an improvement, this may be due to the placebo effect.
The availability of CAM on the NHS is limited, and in most cases the NHS will not offer such treatments. The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence NICE provides guidance to the NHS on effective treatments that are value for money. If you think you may have a health condition, first see your GP.
Do not visit a CAM practitioner instead of seeing your GP. It's particularly important to talk to your GP before trying CAM if you have a pre-existing health condition or are pregnant.
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Science-based medicine, with its emphasis on controlled study, proof, evidence, statistical significance and safety is being rejected in favour of 'alternative medicine' — an atavistic portmanteau of anecdote, hearsay, rumour and hokum.
Probably the most commercially successful and widely used branch of alternative or complementary medicine is 'phytotherapy'. These are the tablets, powders and elixirs, otherwise known as herbal medicine, that are sold in most countries, through health shops and pharmacies as 'nutritional supplements'.
Only a tiny minority of these remedies have been shown to have mild-to moderately beneficial health effects So why are affluent, otherwise rational, highly educated people for this is the average user profile so hungry for phytotherapy?
people still believe that 'natural' equals good and safe despite plenty of evidence to the contrary. as far as the human body is concerned, 'natural' is meaningless Equally, what's so safe about consuming substances that need meet no standards of contents? December NIH News. Bethseda, Maryland: National Center for Complementary and Integrative Medicine.
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Definitions from Wiktionary Media from Commons Quotations from Wikiquote Texts from Wikisource Textbooks from Wikibooks Resources from Wikiversity Data from Wikidata. Alternative medicine.
Ayurveda Aromatherapy Bodywork Chiropractic Energy medicine Faith healing Herbalism Hydrotherapy Homeopathy Naturopathic medicine Orthopathy Osteopathy Shamanism Traditional Chinese medicine Traditional medicine.
Mind-body intervention advocates Critics. Biologically based therapy Energy therapy Manual and body-based methods Mind-body intervention. Dental amalgams Growth hormone Vaccines Water fluoridation. Alternative medicine Complementary medicine Glossary of alternative medicine Pseudoscience Skeptical movement.
Evidence-based medicine Anti-quackery organizations. Ancient Egyptian medicine Tabernanthe iboga Muti Nganga Saltigue Traditional African medicine Traditional Hausa medicine Traditional healers of Southern Africa Yorùbá medicine.
Aztec medicine Brazilian traditional medicine Chumash traditional medicine Curandero Kallawaya Mapuche medicine Maya medicine Navajo medicine Traditional Alaska Native medicine.
Ancient Iranian medicine Ayurveda Dhivehi beys Georgian folk medicine Hilot Iranian traditional medicine Jamu Kampo Ramuan Siddha medicine Sri Lankan traditional medicine Traditional Thai medicine Traditional Chinese medicine Traditional Korean medicine Traditional Mongolian medicine Traditional Tibetan medicine Traditional Vietnamese medicine Unani medicine.
Ancient Greek medicine Byzantine medicine Medicine in ancient Rome Medieval medicine of Western Europe. Bush medicine.
Alchemy Alternative medicine Medicine in the medieval Islamic world Ethnomedicine Health care Herbal medicine History of alternative medicine Humorism Naturopathy Prehistoric medicine Shamanism. Category:Traditional medicine. Alfalfa Aloe vera Anise Asthma-plant Astragalus Cannabis medical use Caraway Cardamom Chamomile Chaparral Fenugreek Feverfew Flaxseed Ginger Ginkgo Ginseng Goldenseal Lemon balm Liquorice Marigold Marsh-mallow Neem Opium poppy Oregano Peppermint Purple coneflower Rosemary Sage Star anise Summer savory Tea tree oil Thyme Turmeric Umckaloabo Valerian Verbena White willow Yarrow Za'atar.
Almond mushroom Chaga mushroom Echigoshirayukidake Lingzhi mushroom Maitake Meshima Morel mushroom Shiitake. Chinese herbology Indian herbology Islamic herbology Japanese herbology Korean herbology.
Alternative medicine Doctrine of signatures Herb garden Herbal Herbal tea Herbalism Homeopathy Medicinal plants. List of plants used in herbalism. List of topics characterized as pseudoscience.
Cargo cult science Charlatan Crank Fringe theory Fringe science Pseudoarchaeology Pseudohistory Pseudomathematics Junk science Paranormal Pathological science Quackery Snake oil Superseded scientific theory True-believer syndrome Voodoo Science.
Alchemy Aquatic ape hypothesis Astrology Biodynamic agriculture Biological transmutation Creation science Cryptozoology Dianetics Auditing Dowsing Electronic voice phenomenon Eugenics Facilitated communication Feng shui Flat Earth theory Graphology Intelligent design Laundry ball Law of attraction Levitation Lysenkoism Numerology Orgone Polygraph Pseudoscientific metrology Rapid prompting method Statement analysis Ufology Voice stress analysis Water memory.
Sucharit Bhakdi Del Bigtree Igor and Grichka Bogdanoff Brigitte Boisselier Rhonda Byrne Robert Charroux Deepak Chopra Clonaid Vernon Coleman Ignatius L. Donnelly Gaia, Inc. One of the main benefits of standard medical care is that it undergoes rigorous research.
Through clinical trials and studies, scientists can determine whether certain techniques, medicines, and courses of treatment are effective and safe. Many scientists use these methods to study alternative medicine, too. However, the data is not always as abundant or reliable. Some types of alternative medicine, such as homeopathy, have very little scientific evidence to support them.
There are exceptions to this. Some types of alternative therapy have been well-researched by scientists, so doctors can safely recommend them to patients. Examples of this include yoga and meditation, as well as acupuncture. The American College of Physicians recommends acupuncture as a first-line treatment for lower back pain.
Some people believe that alternative medicine is better than conventional medicine because it often focuses on natural substances, which some believe to be safer, gentler, or more suitable for the human body than manufactured medicines.
However, as with conventional medicines, natural medicines can also cause side effects, drug interactions, and poisoning at the wrong dosages.
Some natural products can also contain harmful substances not listed on the label. For example, some Ayurvedic products contain naturally occurring toxins, such as mercury or lead. Even when natural products are safe, it can be more difficult for companies to ensure they have consistent levels of potency and purity.
Third-party testing can reduce this problem, but not all companies use it. For some, conventional medicine is more difficult to access than the alternative treatments available within their communities.
In comparison to the U. healthcare system, alternative medicine may be:. These are important factors and can make alternative medicine more appealing. People who have had negative experiences of healthcare may also prefer to seek alternative options.
Alternative medicine refers to medical practices that are not mainstream. Whatever form of treatment a person chooses, it is always important to consider the evidence that supports it, potential risks and side effects, and whether the practitioner is fully qualified.
Where possible, always speak with a medical doctor before trying alternative treatments, as they can have risks. Acupuncture is an alternative therapy that involves inserting thin needles into targeted areas of the body.
It can help treat chronic pain. Reiki is a Japanese, energy-based healing technique. People who use it say that it works, but research has not proven this. Learn more about Reiki…. Aromatherapy is a type of alternative medicine that uses essential oils to improve a person's health or mood.
Find out about the oils and how they…. Accelerated resolution therapy is a type of therapy some may use to treat PTSD. Learn more here. VR therapy shows promise in helping treat a range of mental health conditions.
It may help people learn skills, confront fears, and more. My podcast changed me Can 'biological race' explain disparities in health? Why Parkinson's research is zooming in on the gut Tools General Health Drugs A-Z Health Hubs Health Tools Find a Doctor BMI Calculators and Charts Blood Pressure Chart: Ranges and Guide Breast Cancer: Self-Examination Guide Sleep Calculator Quizzes RA Myths vs Facts Type 2 Diabetes: Managing Blood Sugar Ankylosing Spondylitis Pain: Fact or Fiction Connect About Medical News Today Who We Are Our Editorial Process Content Integrity Conscious Language Newsletters Sign Up Follow Us.
Medical News Today. Health Conditions Health Products Discover Tools Connect. What is alternative medicine, and does it work?
Medically reviewed by Kerry Boyle D. Definitions Mind-body therapies Biological therapies Biofield therapies Body-based therapies Whole medicine systems Standard vs. alternative medicine Summary Alternative medicine encompasses a wide range of medical practices and systems from cultures around the world.
What is alternative medicine? Mind-body therapies. Biological therapies. Biofield therapies. Body-based therapies.
Acupuncture is part of traditional Chinese kedicine Anti-cancer success stories consists treatmenst inserting fine Alternative medicine treatments into specific Alrernative Anti-cancer success stories the skin. Ayurveda is an Optimal protein consumption for athletes healing Anti-cancer success stories from India that uses a treatmenhs of techniques to treat illness and encourage wellbeing. The principles of Traditional Chinese Medicine are very different from traditional Western notions about health, illness and the workings of the body. Chiropractic treatment can be clinically effective for many problems of the skeleton and muscles, such as back pain and headache. Complementary therapies aim to treat the whole person, not just the symptoms of disease.
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