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38% of US Adults Use Alternative Medicine |
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 Nearly 12 percent of children and teens in the United States are using unconventional healing therapies — from echinacea and fish oil, to herbs and yoga — to treat a variety of ailments, according to a first-of-its kind government survey.
Through interviews conducted in more than 30,000 households, researchers found that families were more likely to turn to these alternative approaches when they couldn't afford traditional care. Parents typically sought these unconventional remedies for chronic or hard-to-treat illnesses in children, such as back or neck pain, colds, anxiety or stress and attention deficit disorders.
The main findings are the following
- 38% of adults and 12% of children 17 and under used some form of complementary and alternative medicine in 2007.
- Children whose parents used CAM were five times more likely to use the therapies (24%) than children whose parents did not use them.
- Children’s use of CAM increased as their parents' education level increased.
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A study published in Diabetes Care analysed data on 13,475 pregnant women including 860 who developed gestational diabetes. Women drinking the most sugar-sweetened colas before becoming pregnant were 22 per cent more likely to develop gestational diabetes than women who drank the fewest sugar-sweetened colas.