Good Question

(WCCO) When most of us feel sick, we expect a cure, and a pill. But more and more doctors are looking to integrate more natural remedies into their treatment regimens. So is alternative medicine the cure?

"It's not alternative. It's complimentary," said Dr. Barbara Bowers, a breast cancer specialist with Fairview Southdale Hospital in Edina. "Some of the things that have been used have been used for thousands of years, in Chinese medicine."

The idea of the term "alternative medicine" is being replaced by the concept of Integrative Healing or Complimentary Medicine.

"We don't use one or the other, they work sort of in combination with each other," said Bowers.

For example, she recommends chemotherapy for cancer patients, but also recommends vitamins and natural herbs for the side effects.

"For hot flashes, we use various vitamins and herbal things that work very well," she said. "We talk about preventative with things like green tea oil for energy."

But when it comes to achieving a cure for cancer, Bowers said that natural remedies don't get that job done.

"There are no alternatives therapies that work for cancer," said Dr. Donald Abrams, Chief of Hermatology-Oncology for San Francisco General Hospital. Abrams wrote a book, "Integrative Oncology," where he laid out the case for using different types of treatments during the cancer treatment process.

It "seems to give them a sense of empowerment which helps them in their fight against cancer," said Abrams.

He's on staff at the University of California, San Francisco, one of more than 40 medical schools in the United States with a program on integrative medical care.

The University of Minnesota Center for Spirituality and Healing is sponsoring a week-long research conference, where researchers are discussing their findings on the efficacy of various natural healing techniques.

"Showing that many of these approaches do work. They're safe and effective and, as important, there's some that don't work," said Mary Joe Kreitzer, PhD, RN, the director of the center.

Krietzer said as consumers of health care, we have to ask three questions about natural healing solutions: "What are the risks? What are the benefits? And what is the evidence?"

There are many skeptics, with some calling natural medicine and the study of it "pseudoscience." Even the advocates point out the difficulty in getting reliable research into how well these things work.

Take herbal remedies for example.

"What you're testing is so important. Are you testing the whole herb, leaves, stems, roots. There's not as much standardization and sometimes big issues with purity of product," said Krietzer.

There's also concerns over the so-called "placebo effect" where people want to believe something will work, and so it does work. A May 2009 study by the Seattle-based Center for Health Studies found that for back pain, acupuncture works no better than a placebo did in relieving back pain. But other research indicates acupuncture is very effective in relieving migraines.

While researchers try to answer those questions, more doctors are responding to requests from patients to provide a total body option to healing, as opposed "I think traditionally Americans want a quick fix and they're not as willing to be responsible for their own health care," said Bowers. "This stuff actually works… but not all of it works."

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