Will alternative or complementary medicine treatments be good for my asthma?
Scientific evidence available to date is insufficient to answer your question precisely. The term complementary medicine refers to treatments, practices, and products that supplement or complement traditional medical treatments.
Alternative medical treatments, on the other hand, have the goal of completely replacing conventional medical therapies with alternatives. Alternative treatments essentially reject the approach to asthma we recommend. Complementary asthma therapies, on the other hand, are designed to be used alongside the asthma treatments included in this web.
Some of the patients under my care for their asthma have explored yoga, swimming therapy, meditation, traditional Chinese medicine (including herbs), acupuncture, breathing exercises, and homeopathic remedies while adhering to their asthma treatment plans. In each case, we always carefully reviewed what was known about the complementary therapy, what the potential benefits and risks might be, and monitored how the complementary treatments were progressing during follow-up visits.
I would never advise abandoning established asthma treatments such as bronchodilator and anti-inflammatory medicines in favor of alternative therapies. I would consider it too dangerous from a health perspective. A complementary modality, such as yoga or relaxation and breathing exercises, might instead become incorporated into your preexisting comprehensive asthma management plan. If you are interested in pursuing complementary treatments, you should begin by obtaining as much available objective, scientific evidence on the treatment as possible. You should then consult with the members of your health care team to get their advice, and keep them up to date on any decisions you make regarding your asthma care.
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has committed to addressing “approaches to health care that are outside the realm of conventional medicine as practiced in the United States.” To that end, Congress in 1998 established the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM). The NCCAM is one of twenty-seven institutes and centers that make up the NIH. The
NIH is one of eight agencies under the Public Health Service in the Department of Health and Human Services. The NCCAM states that it is “dedicated to exploring complementary and alternative healing practices in the context of rigorous science, training complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) researchers, and disseminating authoritative information to the public and professionals.” In December 2008, NCCAM and the National Center for Health Statistics (part of the
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) released updated findings on Americans’ use of CAM. The information is derived from data collected as part of the 2007 National Health Interview Survey (NHIS). Approximately 38% of American adults (nearly 4 in 10 on aver-age) and 12% of children (more than 1 in 9) use some form of complementary or alternative medicine. The most commonly used therapies are nonvitamin, nonmineral, natural products, such as fish oil, glucosamine, and echinacea (the top three), followed by deep breathing techniques and meditation.
Asthma is not among the top ten conditions for which Americans seek CAM. Those conditions include back pain, neck pain, joint pain, arthritis, anxiety, elevated cholesterol, chest and head colds, headaches and migraine, and insomnia. Although people of all backgrounds use CAM, its use in adults is greater among women and those with higher levels of education and higher incomes.
NCCAM is located in Bethesda, Maryland, on the NIH complex and maintains a comprehensive and informative Web site (http://www.nccam.nih.gov/) where you can obtain reliable information on alternative and complementary treatments for asthma and various other illnesses.
A recent search on the NCCAM Web site for clinical trials studying complementary treatments for asthma listed 11 studies, including investigations evaluating Chinese herbal therapy, magnesium supplements, vita-min C and E, and ginkgo biloba. Recent investigations into traditional Chinese medicine, including herbal therapy, have in particular yielded very encouraging results in asthma treatment and have stimulated additional research.
Objective reviews of published studies that use acupuncture to treat bronchial asthma, on the other hand, are inconclusive. The available data fails to show either clear-cut benefit or harm. The consensus among American experts is that additional high-quality research must be performed before recommendations can be made regarding the effectiveness of alternative, therapeutic approaches to asthma, hence the importance of creating clinical trials and encouraging patients to enroll in them if they are interested in CAM.
The NCCAM Web site points out that “While scientific evidence exists regarding some CAM therapies, for most there are key questions that are yet to be answered through well-designed scientific studies—questions such as whether these therapies are safe and whether they work for the purposes for which they are used. NCCAM’s mission is to explore CAM practices using rigorous scientific methods and build an evidence base for the safety and effectiveness of these practices.”