EVERYONE wants to be healthy. But it can be difficult to achieve good health, as shown by the number of people with health problems. It seems to some that more people are sick today than before.
To fight the disease, many doctors rely heavily on prescription drugs developed and marketed aggressively by pharmaceutical companies. It is significant that the global market for these drugs has exploded in recent decades, from a few billion dollars a year to hundreds of billions of dollars a year. What was the consequence?
Medicines prescribed by a doctor have helped many people. However, the health of some drug users has not changed or deteriorated. Recently, some have turned to other methods of medical treatment.
Where many turn
In places where modern conventional medicine has been the standard of care, many are now turning to what has been called complementary or alternative therapies. "The Berlin Wall, which has long separated alternative therapies from traditional medicine, appears to be collapsing," said Consumer Reports in May 2000.
The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) of November 11, 1998 noted: “Alternative medical therapies, functionally defined as interventions that are not widely taught in medical schools or generally available in American hospitals. In the United States, they have increasingly attracted the attention of the national media. the medical community, government agencies and the public. "
However, looking at recent trends, the Journal of Managed Care Pharmacy explained in 1997: “In the past, mainstream doctors were skeptical of alternative medical practices, but 27 medical schools in the United States [another report said recently 75] currently offer optional courses in alternative medicine, including Harvard, Stanford, University of Arizona and Yale. "
JAMA noted what many patients are doing to improve their health. He reported: “In 1990, about 1 (19.9%) of 5 people who saw a doctor for serious illnesses were also using alternative therapy. This percentage rose to almost 1 (31.8%) in 3 in 1997. "The article also noted:" National research outside the United States suggests that alternative medicine is popular in the industrialized world. "
According to JAMA, the proportion of the population using alternative treatments in the past 12 months was 15% in Canada, 33% in Finland and 49% in Australia. “The magnitude of the demand for alternative therapies is remarkable,” acknowledged JAMA. This is all the more true as alternative therapies are rarely included in the benefits of insurance. Thus, the JAMA article concluded: "Current usage may not sufficiently represent usage patterns if insurance coverage for alternative therapies increases in the future."
The trend of integrating alternative therapies with conventional therapies has been a widespread practice in many countries. Dr. Peter Fisher, of the Royal London Homeopathic Hospital, noted that the main forms of complementary medicine have become "virtually common in many places. There are no more two types of medicine, orthodox and complementary," he said. "There are only good and bad medicines. "
Therefore, many health professionals today recognize the value of orthodox medicine and alternative therapies. Instead of insisting that the patient accept one form or another of the medication, they recommend taking advantage of what is beneficial to the patient in all the different forms of curative therapy.
What are the healing methods of so-called complementary or alternative medicine? When and where were some of them born? And why do so many people use them?
Good one