December

CAM usage most popular at midlife

Middle-age people are more likely than younger or older adults to use complementary and alternative medicine (CAM), according to researchers at North Carolina's Wake Forest University School of Medicine.

"Midlife adults entered adulthood at a time of more widespread use of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) in the population and when public-health policy was shifting attention toward individual responsibility for health and health promotion," said Joseph G. Grzywacz, Ph.D., and his colleagues, writing in the October issue of the Journal of Aging and Health and quoted in a university press release.

Types of CAM used for prevention include acupuncture, homeopathy, naturopathy, chelation therapy, folk medicine, herb use, special diets or megavitamins. Massage therapy and other body-based methods, such as chiropractic, are used primarily to treat existing conditions.

"This study provides the first estimates of notable age-related differences in whether CAM is used to treat an existing health condition or for illness prevention and health promotion," he said.

Grzywacz, assistant professor of family and community medicine, said the researchers got their results from data for 31,044 people who participated in the 2002 National Health Interview Survey. The survey is a national sample of Americans that has been conducted annually since 1957 by the National Center of Health Statistics, an arm of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.