Many Americans Use Alternative Medicine To Treat Chronic Pain, Report Finds.

reports the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics released a report on how Americans treat pain finding that many “turn to complementary health approaches to help manage them.” Researchers found that in 2012, almost “42% of adults with a musculoskeletal pain disorder used at least one alternative health approach, and 50% of people with neck pain did.” The article outlines what medical research has found about the efficacy of several alternative pain management approaches. The researchers looked at use of natural products (like special diets and supplements), practitioner-based practices (like chiropractic or massage therapy), mind and body approaches (like hypnosis and meditation), and whole medical systems (like Ayurveda and acupuncture). The use of natural products was most common, followed by mind and body therapies. Critics of alternative therapies often contend that complementary health approaches don’t have a lot of evidence to back them up. Most of the methods haven’t undergone clinical trials in the United States. That said, some natural pain remedies are better studied than others. The National Institutes of Health recently analyzed 105 randomized controlled trials of complementary medicine for pain relief in the U.S. in order to help doctors determine what approaches to recommend to the people they see. Here are some natural, science-backed ways to treat pain: http://time.com/4527808/how-to-treat-your-pain-without-drugs/