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Phylameana's Holistic Healing Blog

By Phylameana lila Desy, About.com Guide to Holistic Healing since 1997

Obesity and the Use of Alternative Medicine

Sunday May 4, 2008
In a twelve month study researchers from Harvard Medical School compared the use of alternative and complementary modalities between normal weight (BMI from 18 to 25), overweight (from 25 to 30), mildly obese (from 30 to 35), moderately obese (from 35 to 40), and extremely obese (40) adults.

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Research Objective
"Obesity is associated with higher health-care costs due, in part, to higher use of traditional health care."

Reasearch Findings
"Adults with obesity have lower prevalence of use of yoga therapy, and similar prevalence of use of several CAM (complementary and alternative medicine) modalities, including relaxation techniques, natural herbs, massage, chiropractic medicine, tai chi, and acupuncture, compared to normal-weight individuals."

Resource: National Center for Biotechnology Information (PMID: 18451783) May 2008

Holistic Healing Poll Center

Definition of Alternative Medicine
Alternative Medicine is a term used when therapies are presented as an option to conventional or Western medical treatments.

Definition of Complementary Medicine
Complementary Medicine is a term used when therapies are being used in conjunction with conventional or Western medical treatments.

Comments

May 7, 2008 at 8:28 pm
(1) Roxy says:

Hello,

I enjoy your website very much. I read Obesity and the Use of Alternative Medicine and cannot believe it took those Harvard geniuses twelve months to figure this out. I could have told them in less than a minute.

Reasearch Findings
“Adults with obesity have lower prevalence of use of yoga therapy, and similar prevalence of use of several CAM (complementary and alternative medicine) modalities, including relaxation techniques, natural herbs, massage, chiropractic medicine, tai chi, and acupuncture, compared to normal-weight individuals.”

Resource: National Center for Biotechnology Information (PMID: 18451783) May 2008

Alternative Medicine Addendum: insurance companies make it difficult, if not impossible, to pursue alternative treatments which would be of great benefit. All of the above mentioned treatments can be very costly. It’s helpful to initially have some guidance with yoga and relaxation techniques. Our society does not promote “relaxation” and therefore people don’t know how to relax!

Hopefully that will change some day.

Kind regards,
Roxy

May 13, 2008 at 7:14 am
(2) George Kakaris says:

The articles here are really very nice. I have read most of the articles. I am very much interested in Aromatherapy.

May 28, 2008 at 3:20 pm
(3) Janet004 says:

It’s great to see that research is being done on obesity and alternative medicine treatments. The important thing is that claims made to this regard are supported by clinical trials performed in a controlled setting by reputable agencies. Here is some more info on clinical trials and obesity that I found this morning.

May 28, 2008 at 3:26 pm
(4) Janet004 says:

sorry, that link was:
rvita.com/conditions/obesity.html

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