Complementary and alternative medicine: An overview

It has been estimated that two-thirds of the world's population seek health care from sources other than conventional biomedicine. While many of these individuals undoubtedly self-medicate, most of them seek care from learned practitioners of traditional, indigenous systems of medicine, viz. Ayurveda, Kampo, Native American Medicine, Traditional Chinese Medicine, Traditional Hawaiian Medicine, Unani, Latin American folk systems, etc. Despite diverse cultures, languages, geographic locations, world views and health beliefs of the peoples from which these medical systems originated, they have common characteristics, including (i) the use of complex interventions often involving multiple botanical products, (ii) individualized diagnosis and treatment of patients, (iii) an emphasis on disease prevention versus disease treatment, (iv) maximizing the body's inherent healing ability, and (v) treatment of the 'whole' patient (physical, mental, and spiritual) versus a single pathology. These healing philosophies, approaches and therapies that exist largely outside the main frame of the conventional treatment are known as complementary and alternative medicine (CAM). The number of patients seeking CAM is now growing exponentially. The reasons for this changing scenario are many. This article highlights the current trends and projects the future scenario of CAM.