Complementary and Alternative Medicine

Introduction

In this day and age, the use of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) has become widespread and has caught the attention of researchers, policymakers, and health practitioners. In the United States it has been reported that 42percent of the population have used at least one CAM therapy in their life. However, most CAM users do not disclose their use to physicians. CAM therapies are widely available in the United States. These therapies include a wide variety of products the likes of food supplements, Chinese medicine, massage, and acupuncture among several others (In Tangkiatkumjai, 2013). The use of CAM therapies has been there for thousands of years. The only problem facing the CAM therapies is the lack of rigorous clinical trials; therefore their effectiveness and safety are not certain.

There are a lot of studies conducted about the CAM therapies both in the United States and the UK; these studies have shown that certain populations and health factors are associated with the wide use of CAM. Most people who use CAM tend to be between the ages of 30 – 80; most of them are well educated and in terms of gender females tend to use CAM the most.  There is not enough data that indicate that CAM users are of a high-income class (Falvo, 2011). When it comes to health CAM users tend to suffer from more than one health issue. Most come users do not think that their health is poorer than the nonusers, what they do believe is that they live a much healthier lifestyle. NCCAM( National Center for Complementary and alternative medicine) has brought in a group of scientists to research more about CAM therapies and try to identify if they are safe and if they work as they are advertised (Barcan, 2013).