November 19, 1998 – According to a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) of November 11, the number of adult Americans who consulted in alternative and complementary health approaches (AACS) in 1997 reached 83 million people, or 42.1% of the adult population, compared to 33.8% (60 million people) in 1990.
These 83 million individuals generated 629 million consultations, a figure higher than the consultations of American general practitioners. This represents an increase of 47.3% compared to the number of visits in 1991.
Visits to chiropractors and massage therapists account for almost half of the consultations. In 1997, massage was the most used discipline (11.1% of AACS users), followed by chiropractic (11%), and far behind by homeopathy (3.4%) and acupuncture. (1%).
According to the researchers, the amount spent directly by consumers, i.e. excluding services reimbursed by certain insurance companies, reached the sum of $ 34.4 billion, an amount equivalent to the amount spent directly on services. medical.
Among the facts highlighted by the researchers, we note that less than 40% of consumers have mentioned to their doctor that they use alternative approaches, which could be related to the fact that orthodox medicine does not recognize most of these approaches and that some doctors do not hesitate to criticize the choices of their patients without necessarily knowing what is in question.
Considering the fact that between 1991 and 1997 the consumption of vitamins (+ 130%) and medicinal plants (+ 380%) increased markedly, the researchers estimate that approximately 15 million Americans, including 3 million people 65 years of age and over are at risk of causing interactions with the drugs they take.
Finally, the authors stress that if the use of alternative approaches was better covered by insurance companies (remember that there is no public health plan in the United States), it is very likely that consultations in AACS would be even more numerous.
To give a measure of the popularity of AACS in the world, the study mentions that the rate of consultation in AACS was 33% in Finland (1983), 49% in Australia (1993) and 15% in Canada (1995).
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