Alternative Medicine
I Alternative Medicine
Alternative
Medicine, also
called unconventional medicine, therapeutic practices, techniques, and beliefs
that are outside the realm of mainstream Western health care. Alternative
medicine emphasizes therapies that improve quality of life, prevent disease, and
address conditions that conventional medicine has limited success in curing,
such as chronic back pain and certain cancers. Proponents of alternative
medicine believe that these approaches to healing are safer and more natural and
have been shown through experience to work. In certain countries, alternative
medical practices are the most widely used methods of health care. However, many
practitioners of modern conventional medicine believe these practices are
unorthodox and unproven.
In a nationwide survey conducted in the United States by
researchers at Harvard Medical School in 1990, one in three respondents reported
using at least one unconventional therapy in the past year, and a third of these
respondents visited an alternative therapist. Based on these figures, it is
estimated that 61 million Americans use alternative medicine. Reports from
Canada, the United Kingdom, and Australia also indicate a widespread interest in
alternative therapies.
A special report prepared for the National Institutes of Health,
Alternative Medicine: Expanding Medical Horizons, categorizes alternative
medicine practices into six fields. The first field, mind-body intervention,
explores the mind’s capacity to affect, and perhaps heal, the body. Studies
have shown that the mental state has a profound effect on the immune system, and
these studies have provoked interest in the mind’s role in the cause and
course of cancer and other diseases. Specific mind-body interventions include
meditation, hypnosis, art therapy, biofeedback, and mental healing.
Bioelectromagnetic applications, the second field of alternative
medicine, make use of the body’s response to nonthermal, nonionizing
radiation. Current uses involve bone repair, nerve stimulation, wound healing,
treatment of osteoarthritis, and immune system stimulation.
The third field is alternative systems of medical practice. Each
of these systems is characterized by a specific theory of health and disease, an
educational program to teach its concepts to new practitioners, and often a
legal mandate to regulate its practice. Examples include acupuncture, Ayurvedic
medicine, homeopathy, and naturopathy.
Touch and manipulation are the mainstays of the manual healing
methods, which constitute the fourth field of alternative medicine.
Practitioners of chiropractic and massage therapy believe that dysfunction of
one part of the body often affects the function of other, not necessarily
connected, parts. Health is restored by manipulating bones or soft tissues or
realigning body parts.
The pharmacological and biological treatments that make up the
fifth field of alternative medicine consist of an assortment of drugs and
vaccines not yet accepted in mainstream medicine. Compounds such as
antineoplastins (from human blood and urine) for AIDS, various products of the
honey bee for arthritis, and iscador (a liquid extract from mistletoe) for
tumors have not been scientifically evaluated because of the expense of
conducting safety and effectiveness studies.
Throughout the ages people
have turned for healing to herbal medicine, the sixth field of alternative
medicine. All cultures have folk medicine traditions that include the use of
plants and plant products. Many licensed drugs used today originated in the
herbal traditions of various cultures, such as the medication commonly used for
heart failure, digitalis, which is derived from foxglove. In the United States,
herbal products may be marketed only as food supplements. Since they are not
regulated by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), there is no guarantee of
their purity or safety. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that 4
billion people, or 80 percent of the world’s population, use herbal medicine
for some aspect of primary health care.
II Popular Therapies
A.
Acupuncture
Acupuncture, a Chinese
traditional medicine dating from 200-100 BC, involves stimulating specific
points in the body for therapeutic purposes. Puncturing the skin with a needle
is the usual method of application, but acupuncturists may also use heat,
pressure, friction, suction, or impulses of electromagnetic energy to stimulate
acupuncture points. Stimulated acupuncture points alter the chemical
neurotransmitters released and the therapeutic effects result from the
associated changes in the chemical balance of the body. Acupuncture is used for
many ailments, including chronic pain, drug addiction, arthritis,
chemotherapy-induced nausea, and mental illness.
In the past 40 years
acupuncture has become a well-known and widely available treatment in both
developed and developing countries. There are 29 schools of acupuncture in the
United States that are accredited or candidates for accreditation by the
National Accreditation Commission for Schools and Colleges of Acupuncture and
Oriental Medicine. Many conventionally trained physicians take courses in
acupuncture and incorporate it into their practices. Licensure or registration
in acupuncture is available in 29 states plus the District of Columbia. An
additional four states allow the practice of acupuncture by the ruling of the
state board of medical examiners. It is estimated that from 9 to 12 million
health care visits per year are for acupuncture.
Acupuncture is one of the most thoroughly researched and
documented alternative medical practices. While controlled studies have
demonstrated some positive effects of acupuncture on a variety of conditions,
the statistical results have not been conclusive.
B. Homeopathy
Homeopathy is a 200-year-old
system of medicine that uses pills or medicinal drops made from diluted extracts
of herbs and other substances. Developed by German physician Samuel Hahnemann,
homeopathy is based on two main principles. The first states that a substance
that can cause certain symptoms when given to a healthy person can cure those
same symptoms in someone who is sick. The second states that, contrary to
teachings of modern chemistry and physics, the more a substance is diluted, the
more potent it becomes. Proponents of homeopathy claim there remains a so-called
molecular memory of the original substance. Critics say water molecules vibrate
and change constantly, so that any impressions made by a substance previously
dissolved in them are quickly lost.
Each year in the United States 2.5 million people use homeopathy
and make 5 million visits to homeopathic practitioners. The FDA allows
homeopathic products to be sold as long as specific health claims are not made.
A number of studies in reputable scientific journals have
suggested that homeopathic remedies are useful for diarrhea, asthma, hay fever,
influenza, and migraine headaches. However, critics claim that these studies
were flawed and that more scientifically rigorous investigations would likely
show no benefit.
C. Chiropractic
The field of chiropractic was
founded by David Daniel Palmer in the 1890s. He believed that joint subluxation,
or a partial dislocation, is a causal factor in disease and that removal of the
subluxation by thrusting on the bony projections of the vertebrae restores
health.
In addition to manipulating and adjusting bone and tissue,
particularly in the spinal column, chiropractors use a variety of manual,
mechanical, and electrical treatments. Chiropractors are most widely recognized
for providing drug-free, non-surgical management of back and neck pain as well
as of headaches. Some chiropractors also treat a variety of other ailments—such
as bladder infections, arthritis, and depression—with spinal adjustments and
other manipulations. Disease prevention and health promotion through proper
diet, exercise, and lifestyle are other important features of chiropractic
medicine.
There are about 50,000 chiropractors in the United States, and
they serve up to 7 percent of the population. Licensing is required in all
states. Chiropractors are allowed to use manual procedures and interventions but
not surgery or chemotherapy.
D. Biofeedback
Biofeedback is a treatment
method that uses monitoring instruments to provide patients with physiological
information of which they are normally unaware. In the 1960s, experimental
psychologist Neal Miller demonstrated that the autonomic nervous system—which
controls heart rate, blood pressure, blood flow to various organs, and
gastrointestinal activity—is entirely trainable. In succeeding decades the
validity of Miller’s observations was documented in thousands of articles and
books, leading to widespread application of this technique. Today, biofeedback
is used to treat a wide variety of conditions and diseases including stress,
drug addiction, sleep disorders, epilepsy, fecal and urinary incontinence,
headaches, and high blood pressure.
By watching a monitoring device, patients can learn by trial and
error to adjust their mental processes in order to control bodily processes.
Electrodes are attached to the area of the patient being monitored—for
instance, to the involved muscles during muscle therapy, or to the head during
brain-wave monitoring. These electrodes feed the electrical information to a
small monitoring box. The results are registered by a tone that varies in pitch
or by a visual meter that varies in brightness as the function being monitored
changes. The patient engages in mental exercises, in an attempt to reach the
desired result, such as muscle relaxation or contraction. Voluntary control may
be achieved in as few as ten sessions, although chronic or severe disorders may
require longer therapy. Eventually, patients may learn to control symptoms
without the use of the monitoring device.
E. Naturopathy
Naturopathy was
founded in the beginning of the 20th century by a group of therapists who were
followers of Sebastian Kneipp, a 19th-century proponent of the healing powers of
nature. At the height of its popularity, there were more than 20 naturopathic
medical schools (today there are only three) in the United States and
naturopathic physicians were licensed in most states. The practice of
naturopathic medicine declined as the use of pharmaceutical drugs increased.
However, in the past several decades there has been a resurgence of interest in
naturopathy.
Naturopathic medicine integrates alternative medical practices—such
as botanical medicine, homeopathy, acupuncture, and Oriental medicine—with
modern scientific diagnostic methods and standards of care. Naturopathic
physicians are trained in conventional medical disciplines as well as in
alternative approaches. They integrate this knowledge according to principles
that recognize the body’s inherent ability to heal itself, the importance of
prevention, and the possibility of therapeutic use of nutrition to promote
health and fight disease.
Most of the research on naturopathy has been based on
observation of treatments rather than on controlled clinical trials that compare
naturopathic therapy with no treatment (a placebo) or with an alternative
treatment.
III CURRENT OUTLOOK
There remains considerable
skepticism among practitioners of conventional medicine and among biomedical
researchers regarding the efficacy of alternative medicine. Many of the claims
made by practitioners of alternative medicine have not been supported by
rigorously controlled scientific study. However, this may change as a result of
the creation of the National Institutes of Health Office of Alternative Medicine
(OAM). The OAM was established by the Congress of the United States in 1992 to
facilitate the fair scientific evaluation of alternative therapies. The office
seeks to reduce barriers that may keep promising alternative therapies from
gaining widespread use. It is possible that what was considered alternative in
the past will become mainstream in years to come.
Contributed By:
James A. Blackman
