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COMPLEMENTARY AND ALTERNATIVE MEDICINE IN THE UNITED STATES TODAY
In 1993, David Eisenberg and colleagues conducted a ground-breaking study analyzing the patterns of use of alternative medicine in America. The study cast light on a major shift taking place in American behavior in seeking health care. Eisenberg and colleagues found that one in three Americans sought some form of alternative care. In a follow-up study five years later, Eisenberg found that these numbers had jumped to 47 percent, reflecting an unprecedented explosion in use. In fact, in 1998, people were actually more likely to seek out and use some form of alternative care than they were to seek out and use a form of what we\'ve long regarded as traditional medicine. Although exact numbers are difficult to assess, estimated expenditures in the United States for alternative medical services alone indicate a 47.3 percent increase in total visits to alternative medicine practitioners, from 427 million visits in 1990 to 629 million visits in 1997. Total 1997 out-of-pocket expenditures relating to alternative care were conservatively estimated at 27 billion dollars, which is comparable to the out-of-pocket expenditures for all U.S. physician services. Additionally, an estimated 15 million Americans took prescription medications concurrently with herbal remedies or high-dose vitamins and supplements, which are not considered in these service estimates. Such numbers have caused a groundswell of interest in understanding just what is happening in the world of complementary and alternative medicine, and they raise a host of largely unanswered questions - questions that seek to determine who is using CAM and why.
Although it is widely assumed that increasing numbers of us are using various forms of alternative care options, little has been known about the nature and extent of CAM use until fairly recently. In his 1993 and 1998 studies, Eisenberg and others indicated the most frequently used alternatives to conventional medicine:
- Relaxation techniques (16.9 percent of the respondents)
- Chiropractic (31 percent) Massage (18 percent)
- Self-help (13 percent)
- Energy healing (6 percent)
- Other forms of therapies (16 percent)
In addition to these, other alternative health care therapies used by Americans included acupuncture, homeopathy, herbal therapies and supplements, exercise-movement used to treat particular physical problems, high-dose mega vitamin use, spiritual healing, lifestyle diet (such as cutting down on fats to improve heart health), imagery, folk remedies, biofeedback, hypnosis, and art or music therapy.
Although not specifically assessed in Eisenberg\'s research, it also has been widely documented that many Americans rely on what are known as functional foods, or foods or supplements designed to improve some aspect of physical or mental functioning. Sometimes also referred to as nutraceuticals, for the combined nutritional and pharmaceutical benefit to be derived from these products, several are believed to actually work in much the same way as pharmaceutical drugs in making a person well or bolstering the immune system.
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GENERAL HEALTH
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