Although Americans may complain about the high cost of health care, they're willing to shell out roughly $34 billion a year on alternative therapies that aren't covered by insurance, according to a survey released Thursday.
That's a growth of more than 25% in the past decade, says a survey of 23,000 American adults by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
Alternative therapies, which range from herbs to yoga classes, account for 11% of the total amount that Americans spend personally on all health care.
These unconventional approaches are popular with people of all ages: 38% of adults and 12% of children have used them in the past year, according to previous research cited in the CDC/NIH survey.
Americans don't always use these treatments under a doctor's guidance.
The bulk of these expenses, $22 billion, goes to "self-care," or treatments such as homeopathic medications and fish oil capsules that people buy without necessarily seeking a doctor's advice, the survey says.
Linda Lee, director of the Johns Hopkins Integrative Medicine & Digestive Center near Baltimore, says she's concerned about patients who "self-prescribe" alternative therapies, often without telling their doctors.
"An open dialogue with our patients only improves our ability to care for them," Lee says.
She points out that the high use of alternative therapies doesn't mean that these patients reject conventional medical treatment.
Many people combine conventional and complementary approaches, Lee says. For example, cancer patients may undergo chemotherapy at a hospital, but also use acupuncture for chronic pain.
The study shows that conventional doctors need to learn as much as possible about alternative therapies, Lee says, "not so they can necessarily prescribe or profit from them, but so they understand what it is their patients are hoping to gain and advise patients as to their appropriate use."
The study's results also show the importance of rigorous scientific research into alternative therapies, says Josephine Briggs, director of the NIH's National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine.
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