Complementary, Alternative, or Integrative Health: Whats …

Weve all seen the words complementary, alternative, and integrative, but what do they reallymean?

This fact sheet looks into these terms to help you understand them better and gives you a brief picture of NCCIHs mission and role in this areaofresearch.

Many Americansmore than 30 percent of adults and about 12 percent of childrenuse health care approaches developed outside of mainstream Western, or conventional, medicine. When describing these approaches, people often use alternative and complementary interchangeably, but the two terms refer to differentconcepts:

True alternative medicine is uncommon. Most people who use non-mainstream approaches use them along with conventionaltreatments.

There are many definitions of integrative health care, but all involve bringing conventional and complementary approaches together in a coordinated way. The use of integrative approaches to health and wellness has grown within care settings across the United States. Researchers are currently exploring the potential benefits of integrative health in a variety of situations, including pain management for military personnel and veterans, relief of symptoms in cancer patients and survivors, and programs to promote healthybehaviors.

Chronic pain is a common problem among active-duty military personnel and veterans. NCCIH, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, and other agencies are sponsoring research to see whether integrative approaches can help. For example, NCCIH-funded studies are testing the effects of adding mindfulness meditation, self-hypnosis, or other complementary approaches to pain management programs for veterans. The goal is to help patients feel and function better and reduce their need for pain medicines that can have serious sideeffects.

More information on pain management for military personnel andveterans

Cancer treatment centers with integrative health care programs may offer services such as acupuncture and meditation to help manage symptoms and side effects for patients who are receiving conventional cancer treatment. Although research on the potential value of these integrative programs is in its early stages, some studies have had promising results. For example, NCCIH-funded research has suggestedthat:

More information oncancer

Healthy behaviors, such as eating right, getting enough physical activity, and not smoking, can reduce peoples risks of developing serious diseases. Can integrative approaches promote these types of behaviors? Researchers are working to answer this question. Preliminary research suggests that yoga and meditation-based therapies may help smokers quit, and NCCIH-funded studies are testing whether adding mindfulness-based approaches to weight control programs will help people lose weight moresuccessfully.

More information on quittingsmoking

More information on weightcontrol

NCCIH generally uses the term complementary health approaches when we discuss practices and products of non-mainstream origin. We use integrative health when we talk about incorporating complementary approaches into mainstream healthcare.

Most complementary health approaches fall into one of two subgroupsnatural products or mind and bodypractices.

This group includes a variety of products, such as herbs (also known as botanicals), vitamins and minerals, and probiotics. They are widely marketed, readily available to consumers, and often sold as dietary supplements.

According to the 2012 National Health Interview Survey (NHIS), which included a comprehensive survey on the use of complementary health approaches by Americans, 17.7 percent of American adults had used a dietary supplement other than vitamins and minerals in the past year. These products were the most popular complementary health approach in the survey. (See chart.) The most commonly used natural product was fishoil.

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Researchers have done large, rigorous studies on a few natural products, but the results often showed that the products didnt work. Research on others is in progress. While there are indications that some may be helpful, more needs to be learned about the effects of these products in the human body and about their safety and potential interactions with medicines and other naturalproducts.

Mind and body practices include a large and diverse group of procedures or techniques administered or taught by a trained practitioner or teacher. The 2012 NHIS showed that yoga, chiropractic and osteopathic manipulation, meditation, and massage therapy are among the most popular mind and body practices used by adults. The popularity of yoga has grown dramatically in recent years, with almost twice as many U.S. adults practicing yoga in 2012 as in2002.

Other mind and body practices include acupuncture, relaxation techniques (such as breathing exercises, guided imagery, and progressive muscle relaxation), tai chi, qi gong, healing touch, hypnotherapy, and movement therapies (such as Feldenkrais method, Alexander technique, Pilates, Rolfing Structural Integration, and Trager psychophysicalintegration).

The amount of research on mind and body approaches varies widely depending on the practice. For example, researchers have done many studies on acupuncture, yoga, spinal manipulation, and meditation, but there have been fewer studies on some otherpractices.

The two broad areas discussed abovenatural products and mind and body practicescapture most complementary health approaches. However, some approaches may not neatly fit into either of these groupsfor example, the practices of traditional healers, Ayurvedic medicine, traditional Chinese medicine, homeopathy, and naturopathy.

NCCIH is the Federal Governments lead agency for scientific research on complementary and integrative healthapproaches.

The mission ofNCCIHis to define, through rigorous scientific investigation, the usefulness and safety of complementary and integrative health interventions and their roles in improving health and healthcare.

NCCIHs vision is that scientific evidence will inform decisionmaking by the public, by health care professionals, and by health policymakers regarding the use and integration of complementary and integrative healthapproaches.

To learn more, visit the NCCIH Facts-at-a-Glance and Mission page.

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Complementary, Alternative, or Integrative Health: Whats ...