If you have more than one chronic disease such as diabetes, hypertension, obesity or cancer you are more likely to self-treat with alternative medicines or seek alternative forms of care.
This is the finding of a new Columbia University study published Thursday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.
People with at least two chronic health disorders were 52 percent more likely than people with no conditions to try to treat themselves with multivitamins and mineral supplements, the study found. Those with chronic illness were also far more likely to seek treatments such as acupuncture, massage, mind-body therapy, yoga and special diets, according to the study published in the journal, Preventing Chronic Disease.
Those with chronic conditions also tend to be in lower income brackets, unemployed, and have lower educational achievement, the study’s authors found. Those with two or more chronic conditions were more likely to be 55 years old and older, and 39 percent of those with multiple chronic conditions lived in the South. Alternative medicine is just one way people are trying to treat those diseases.
“Are they using them in standard medical treatment, are they using them under a doctor’s treatment,” said Laura Falci, lead researcher of the study. “We really don’t know right now.”
Falci and the study’s co-authors used data from the CDC’s 2012 National Health Interview Survey. They wanted to find out if the trend of people using alternative forms of medicine had increased over the last decade. What they found was that people with one to two chronic conditions were far more likely to turn to alternative forms of medicine than those without chronic diseases. Researchers still don’t know, however, how they interact with more traditional medical interventions.
“These data show that among Americans with multiple chronic conditions, there is high use of complementary and alternative therapies,” said Heather Greenlee, assistant professor of Epidemiology at the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University and senior author. “We currently have very limited data on the efficacy and safety of such use.”
People with severe ailments used at least one alternative medicine or treatment, the most common being multivitamins which were used by 57 percent of respondents; herbal supplements, 22 percent; chiropractic, 10 percent and massage, 9.7 percent. Some respondents reported using multiple forms of treatment. But whether those alternative medicines actually help fight a disease or improve overall health in the long term remains to be seen.
“We need well-designed, long-term studies to understand the effects of using complementary and alternative therapies to manage chronic diseases,” Greenlee said.
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