New Alternative Medicine Study

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About 1 in 9 US kids use alternative medicine

By MIKE STOBBE, AP Medical Writer Mike Stobbe, Ap Medical Writer – Wed Dec 10,

6:11 pm ET

AP – Graphic shows herbal remedies used by children and reasons for taking

alternative medicine; 2 c x 2 3/4 …

ATLANTA – Just like their parents, kids are taking herbal supplements from fish

oil to ginseng, a sign of just how mainstream alternative medicine has become.

More than one in nine children and teens try those remedies and other

nontraditional options, the government said Wednesday in its first national

study of young people's use of these mostly unproven treatments.

Given that children are generally pretty healthy, the finding that so many use

alternative medicine is " pretty amazing, " said one of the study's authors,

Nahin of the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine.

The sweeping study suggests about 2.8 million young people use supplements.

Their parents' practices played a big role. Kids were five times more likely to

use alternative therapies if a parent or other relative did. The same study

showed that more than a third of adults use alternative treatments, roughly the

same as in a 2002 survey.

The researchers used a big umbrella in defining alternative medicine:

Acupuncture, homeopathy, chiropractic, traditional healing, yoga, Pilates, deep

breathing, massage and even dieting were included.

Vitamin and mineral supplements are not considered alternative medicine, nor are

prayer or folk medicine practices.

Herbal remedies were the leading type of alternative therapy for both adults and

those under 18. Among kids, such therapies were most often given for head or

neck pain, colds and anxiety. Body aches and insomnia were other top reasons

children got alternative therapies, the study found.

Fish oil for hyperactivity and echinacea for colds were the most popular

supplements, although there's no proof such treatments work for those

conditions, nor have they been tested in kids.

Nahin cited the lack of rigorous scientific testing in declining to call such

widespread use harmful or beneficial. Unlike federally regulated medicines,

herbal remedies don't have to be proven safe or effective to be sold. And

studies that have been done on them have focused on adults, not children.

But some doctors are troubled that parents may be giving children alternative

therapies in place of proven clinical treatments, said Dr. Wallace Sampson, an

emeritus clinical professor of medicine at Stanford University.

" The reality is none of these things work, including some of the more popular

ones. They're placebos, " said Sampson, who was a founding editor of the

Scientific Review of Alternative Medicine.

The study was done by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It is

based on a 2007 survey of more than 23,000 adults who were speaking about

themselves and more than 9,000 who were speaking on behalf of a child in their

household.

Women are the most likely to use alternative medicine, as are those with

advanced college degrees and people who live in the West. Among non-elderly

adults, it is used about equally by those with private insurance and those with

no health insurance at all.

For adults, pain was by far the main reason adults tried massage, chiropractic

care and other alternative therapies. Many adults say they had trouble getting

back pain relief from mainstream medicine. " Some facet of conventional care is

not satisfying and they're looking at other options, " Nahin said.

It's a bit surprising adult use didn't increase more, given other trends, said

Cohen, a lawyer who teaches health policy and management at the Harvard

School of Public Health. Adult use was 36 percent in 2002, compared to 38

percent last year.

In this decade, many academic medical centers and other mainstream health care

providers have integrated alternative medicine into their research and patient

services. Acupuncturists now work with anesthesiologists, and chiropractors can

be found in general hospitals. Insurance coverage and licensing of these

therapies also is rising, experts said.

U.S. supplement sales grew about 6 percent from 1998 to 2007, totaling $23.7

billion last year, according to Nutrition Business Journal, a monthly

publication that tracks the industry. The new government study showed the most

popular among adults were glucosamine, used for joint pain, and fish oil, taken

to reduce the risk of heart disease.

The last two years have seen a big increase in supplements targeting children,

said Carlotta Mast, editor of the nutrition business publication. She had no

sales numbers for that portion of the market.

Medical doctors need to be careful about attacking alternative medicine, because

some long-endorsed pharmaceutical products have turned out to be treatment

failures, noted Dr. Kathi Kemper, a pediatrician at the Wake Forest University

School of Medicine.

For example, drug makers in October announced they no longer would recommend

cough and cold medicines for youngsters under 4, acknowledging there is scant

evidence they work in children and that they may even be dangerous in some

cases.

" We have a pretty spotty history of being evidence-based ourselves, " said

Kemper, who chairs an American Academy of Pediatrics committee on complementary

and integrative medicine.

The cough medicine debacle is no rationale for embracing alternative medicine,

said Dr. Seth Asser, who consults with a nonprofit organization opposed to faith

healing and other religious practices used in lieu of conventional medicine.

" Two wrongs don't make a right, " he said, adding that he believes there's a

" can't beat 'em, join 'em " mentality toward alternative medicine among some

doctors and hospital administrators.

There were some differences in how the 2002 and 2007 surveys were done. On the

topic of herbal remedies, the 2007 study asked people whether they'd used such a

product in the previous 30 days, while the 2002 study asked if they'd taken it

in the past year.

That change may partly explain why adult use of some herbal remedies shifted

significantly from 2002 to 2007. For example, echinacea use declined, but most

people don't suffer colds year-round.

But news of the scientific failures of some remedies may also have an effect. A

rigorous study in 2005 found that echinacea failed to prevent or treat colds.

Use of St. 's wort, used as an antidepressant, also dropped, perhaps because

of research showing it didn't work against major depression, experts said.

Fish oil use was up. Some recent studies have suggested it can reduce heart

disease risks, protect the eyes and provide other benefits.

" We think the public is listening to this data, " Nahin said.

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Associated Press Medical Writer Marilynn Marchione in Milwaukee contributed to

this report.

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