Complementary & Alternative Medicine

Complementary and Alternative Medicine

Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) that are not part of standard medical care is a term for medical products and methods.

Standard medical care is the medicine practiced by health professionals who are MD (physician) or D.O. (Doctor of Osteopathy) degree It is also practiced by other health professionals, such as physical therapists, physician assistants, psychologists, and registered nurses. Standard medication can also be called biomedicine or allopathic, western, mainstream, orthodox, or regular treatment. Some standard medical care practitioners are also CAM physicians.

Complementary medicine

Complementary medicine treatment is used with standard medical treatment but standard treatment is not considered. An example is using acupuncture to help reduce some side effects of cancer treatment.

Alternative Medicine

Alternative medicine treatment, which is used instead of standard medical treatment, is an example using a special diet to cure cancer rather than anti-cancer drugs, which is determined by oncologist.

Consolidated is a complete approach to medical medical care that combines standard medicine with CAM practices which have proven to be safe and effective. They treat the patient's mind, body and soul

Integrative medicine

NCI provides proof-based PDQ information for many CAM medicines for both the patient and the health professional.

Are CAM Access Secure?

Some CAM treatments have been carefully evaluated and found to be safe and effective, however, there are other people who have been found to be ineffective or potentially harmful. There is less information about many CAM practitioners, and research is slowing down for several reasons:

• Time and money issues
• Problems working with institutions and cancer researchers to study
• regulatory issues

CAM therapies are used to assess the quality of treatment need to be evaluated with the same long and careful research process. Standard cancer treatments are usually studied for safety and effectiveness through clinical trials that included patients with a large number of serious scientific process.

Natural does not mean safe

CAM treatment plants and a wide variety of nutritional supplements, herbal supplements, vitamins and nutritional products, such as you are. These "natural" products is considered safe because they are in, or are produced by nature. However, that is not true in all cases. Also, some other medicines can affect how well they work in your body. For example, the herb St. John's wort, which some people use to depression, with some cancer drugs can cause not to work as they should.

With other substances, is taken by itself, or herbal supplements can be harmful in large quantities. Some studies, for example, kava kava, an herb that has been used for stress and to help with anxiety, has shown can cause liver damage.

Vitamin D can also have unwanted effects in your body. Some studies, for example, vitamins, even show vitamin C, may affect how chemotherapy and radiation work at high doses. Nobody is safe in a healthy person too much vitamin.

Tell your doctor if you are, no matter how safe you think you are taking any dietary supplements. This is very important. Although advertising or claims that may have been used for some years, they do not prove that it is safe or effective.

Supplements do not have to be approved by the federal government before being sold to the public. In addition, there is no need for a prescription to buy them. So, what is best for them it's up to consumers to decide.

NCI and CAM complementary and different clinical trials that test treatments and therapies at the National Center (NCCIH) is currently sponsoring or cosponsoring are people for Integrative Health. Some studies compare to traditional treatment used in complementary perspective effects, and alternative treatments with conventional treatments. Find all cancer clinical trials CAM.

The patient should do when using or considering CAM treatments?

Using complementary or alternative therapy using or are considering should talk to your doctor or nurse for cancer patients. Some treatments can interfere with standard treatment or even harmful. It's also a good idea whether the claim has been proven to therapy to learn to do so.

To find a CAM practitioner, ask your doctor or nurse to make a proposal. Or such a social worker or physical therapist can help you, so ask someone in your cancer center. Choose a CAM practitioner should be done with maximum care to choose a primary care provider.

Patients, their families, and their healthcare CAM following government agencies to provide treatment and care practitioners learn about:

• National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health
• NCI Office of Cancer Complementary and Alternative Medicine
• Office of Dietary Supplements