49% of Australians use CAM

20% will visit an alternative medicine practitioner

over $2.3 billion is spent in Australia each year on CAM

those most likely to use CAM are females, 40 to 60 years old, better educated, employed, and with a higher income.

Alternative medical systems arise from complete systems of theory and practice, such as homeopathic medicine in western cultures and traditional Chinese medicine in non-western cultures. 

 

Mind-body interventions use various techniques to enhance the mind’s capacity to affect the body. There is some fluidity in this classification, as some techniques that were once considered CAM have now become mainstream (eg patient support groups, cognitive behavioural therapy). Other techniques still considered CAM include meditation, prayer, mental healing, and creative therapies that use art or music.

Biologically based therapies use substances found in nature (eg herbs, foods, vitamins) and include as yet scientifically unproven therapies (eg shark cartilage). Nutritional agents used in therapies include acidophilus, mushrooms, coffee enemas, noni juice, wheatgrass, soybeans, garlic, mega-dose vitamin C, and supplementary mineral and trace elements. Laetrile (vitamin B17) is also still popular, despite significant toxicity and no proof of efficacy. Specific diets include vegetarian diets, Gerson therapy, fasting, grape diet, Willard water and macrobiotic diets. Ozone is also used.

Manipulative and body-based methods are based on manipulation and/or movement of one or more parts of the body; they include massage, and chiropractic manipulation.

Energy therapies involve the use of energy fields; the two types are