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THURSDAY, May 27 (HealthDayNews) -- More than one-third of American adults now use some form of alternative medicine, according to the most comprehensive look yet at non-traditional therapies in the United States.
A new government survey of 31,000 U.S. adults found that 36 percent of respondents said they generally used some sort of alternative medicine, including yoga, natural products or massage. But the percentage almost doubled when prayer was added to the list: 62 percent used "prayer for health reasons." Prayer was not defined beyond being split into two categories: for one's own health and by other people on your behalf.
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The findings appear in a report released Thursday and prepared jointly by the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM), which is part of the National Institutes of Health, and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
With worldwide estimates of alternative-medicine usage hovering at about 80 percent, however, the United States still lags behind, Dr. Stephen E. Straus, director of NCCAM, said at a teleconference Thursday.
And because the current U.S. survey was much larger than previous studies, it is difficult to know whether the use of alternative medicine is growing or shrinking in the country. Richard L. Nahin, NCCAM's senior advisor for scientific coordination and outreach, said "there probably has been an increase."
The research, which was part of the CDC's 2002 National Health Interview Survey, gathered information from adults considered representative of the population. Participants answered questions on 27 types of alternative therapies, including acupuncture and chiropractic, both of which require a provider, as well as natural products, special diets and other therapies that do not require a provider. The questions were both more numerous and broader in scope than on previous surveys.
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