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Page: << Prev | 1 | 2 | 3 | Next >> "[The survey] does not look at safety or effectiveness," Strauss pointed out. "It really looks at usage, why people are using CAM, why they choose it, what practices they're using and for what health conditions."
Women, people with higher education levels, people who had been hospitalized and former smokers tended to use alternative medicine more. Black adults were also more likely than whites or Asians to use alternatives, particularly including megavitamin therapy and prayer.
More than one-quarter (28 percent) of those surveyed said they used alternatives because they thought conventional medicine would not help them, while 13 percent said they used alternatives because conventional medicine was too expensive.
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More than half (55 percent) said they were most likely to use an alternative therapy when they thought it would complement conventional treatments.
The alternative therapies were used most often to treat chronic conditions such as back, neck and joint pain, anxiety and depression, as well as the common cold.
The survey found the top 10 most commonly used therapies were:
- Prayer (for one's own health), 43 percent
- Prayer (by others for your health), 24 percent
- Natural products, 19 percent
- Deep breathing exercises, 12 percent
- Participation in prayer group for own health, 10 percent
- Meditation, 8 percent
- Chiropractic care, 8 percent
- Yoga, 5 percent
- Massage, 5 percent
- Diet-based therapies (such as Atkins, Pritikin), 4 percent.
The low number of people using a diet-based therapy may reflect the fact that the survey was conducted in 2002, before the intensive media coverage of the diets, Nahin said.
The use of natural products, including herbal remedies, appeared to be an increase from previous surveys, Nahin said. Echinacea use was particularly high -- higher than in previous surveys and topping the list of natural products. Also widely used were gingko biloba (to ward off dementia) and glucosamine (to prevent osteoarthritis).
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