Bastyr UniversityIn America, 38 percent of adults and 12 percent of children use complimentary and alternative medicine (CAM) regularly. Conditions commonly treated include back pain, neck pain, joint pain, arthritis, head and chest colds and, among children, Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADD/ADHD).
Source: National Center for Complimentary and Alternative Medicine, December 2008
People are using naturopathic medicine in many ways, and with increasing frequency ...
- More than 80 million Americans turn to complementary and/or alternative medicine every year.
Source: Institute for Health and Healing at California Pacific Medical Center, March 2002 - Sixty-eight percent of adults have used at least one kind of alternative or complementary therapy.
Source: Harvard Medical School survey, Annals of Internal Medicine, August 2001
- CAM spending rose 12 percent to $30 billion in 2001, and accounted for almost 2.5 percent of the $1.2 trillion in personal health care spending in the US.
Source: Nutrition Business Journal, 2002
- Daily stress-reducing techniques (yoga-based stretching, breathing techniques, meditation and guided imagery), walking and psychosocial support "turn off" many disease-promoting genes in men with early stage prostate cancer. At the same time, protective, disease-preventing genes were "turned on" by these same practices.
Source: Newsweek, June 2008. - Gardening and eating salads reduce lung cancer risk in current and former smokers by up to 71 percent.
Source: Holistic Option, July 2008. - Yoga decreases fatigue and sleep disturbances while increasing vigor in women with early stage breast cancer.
Source: News & Observer, Novemer 2008. - Seven out of 10 adult cancer patients in Western Washington are using alternative therapies – especially those patients who are female and college-educated; the use of dietary supplements is the most common approach.
Source: Seattle Post-Intelligencer, September 2002. Read full story. - At least one-third of cancer patients turn to an alternative or complementary therapy, most commonly in combination with allopathic treatment.
Source: National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, NIH, June 2001
- Thirty-two percent of women try alternative therapies, such as herbals, for menopause symptoms.
Source: Southern California University of Health Sciences, October 2001
- Two-thirds of HMOs (67 percent) offer at least one form of alternative care. Most HMOs (85 percent) think the relationship between traditional and alternative medical care will grow closer in the future.
Source: National Market Measures survey for Landmark Healthcare, Inc., 1999
- America's top 18 hospitals, including Children's Memorial Hospital in Chicago, the Mayo Clinic, Duke University Medical Center and the University of California-San Francisco, are embracing complementary and alternative medicine, offering acupuncture, massage and other CAM services.
Source: US News & World Report, January 2008 - From 1998 to 2000, the number of hospitals offering alternative therapies nearly doubled to 15.5 percent of all hospitals.
Source: American Hospital Association survey, New York Times, April 2002
- Over 100 hospital-sponsored integrative clinics have sprung up across the nation, and the number is growing.
Source: Integrative Medicine Consult, October 2001
- More than two-thirds of Canadians agree that natural herbal supplements can be as effective as prescriptions or over-the-counter remedies in the maintenance, prevention and treatment of health problems.
Source: Traditional Medicinals Gallup Canada Survey, October 1999 - Sales of supplements in the US have nearly doubled in the last half-dozen years, from $8.8 billion in 1994 to an estimated $15.7 billion in 2000.
Source: Washington Post