Survey says many alternative medical treatments aren't effective
Rick DeBruhl
Call 12 For Action
Jul. 20, 2005 05:55 PM
Lots of people are searching for alternatives to tradition medicine, but a new survey says they're not getting much in the way of results. But there is one treatment that Consumer Reports says is a good alternative to getting a prescription.

It's massage therapy.

We'll talk more about that in a moment, but first let's talk about the survey.
Consumer reports polled 34,000 readers and asked them what alternatives they used to traditional medicine and what kind of results they got.

Half of the people who responded said they had tried alternatives like herbs or supplements. Most said they didn't get much success.

Chad Olberding is a licensed massage therapist who isn't surprised to hear that consumer reports considers his hands-on treatment a significant way to fight pain.

He says, “I think this is a medical treatment, not an alternative. More and more doctors are starting to prescribe massage. It's very medical.”

Leslie Ware of Consumer reports says, “A lot of people suffer from back pain and the interesting thing we found out is that a lot of hands-on treatments work better than prescription drugs and that includes chiropractic and deep tissue massage, and exercise." Massage is especially good at treating conditions like osteoarthritis and a painful condition called fibromyalgia.

But while an hour spent getting a massage may be a good way to avoid taking pain pills, Consumer Reports says that when it comes to conditions like menopause, traditional treatments are better.

According to Ware, "We asked 10,000 women who had been through menopause or were going through it about what worked for them to treat hot flashes. And what we found out that hormone treatments actually did work best, by far. Such herbs as black cohosh and others did not work very well."

Other results from the Consumer Reports Survey say that if you have high cholesterol, you’re better off using prescriptions than garlic. Echinacea didn’t work as well as traditional medicines for respiratory problems and St. John’s Wort didn’t perform as well as prescription drugs or even meditation to fight depression.

You can learn more about the results at www.consumerreports.org.