Complementary and alternative medicine in US adults with diabetes: Reasons for use and perceived benefits

Abstract

Although CAM may be a promising approach to improving health-related quality of life, future research should address efficacy and patient safety.

Global prevalence and types of complementary and alternative medicines use amongst adults with diabetes: systematic review and meta-analysis

“…A study in Australia reported a prevalence of 8%, but the study gathered data from patients about their visits to CAM practitioners only and did not include data on CAM use in general by patients with diabetes [44]. Other studies reporting the lowest prevalence of CAM use included studies in Libya (29%), Saudi Arabia (26%), USA (26%), Israel (23%) and Jordan (17%) [15,26,29,43,52]. Pooled prevalence of CAM use was 51% (95%CI 43%, 59%).…”

Use of Complementary and Alternative Medicine in Older Adults With Diabetes

“…More than 25% of older adults with diabetes used some type of CAM in the past year, which is only slightly less than the prevalence rate among the general adult population with diabetes (2). Older CAM users with diabetes utilized diverse types of CAM, and some of these CAM types had different prevalence rates by reason for use.…”

“…Furthermore, patients should be educated to proactively discuss their CAM use with their health care providers, so that patient-centered care can be provided to meet the needs of older adults with diabetes. There are several limitations in this study, which are mentioned elsewhere (1,2). Despite the limitations, our findings highlight that CAM is widely used in older adults with diabetes.…”

“…Older adults with diabetes are at high risk for having multiple chronic conditions and diabetes complications and often take multiple medications concomitantly. Studies have shown that many Americans are using complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) to either improve or manage their health (1,2). Individuals have diverse purposes for using CAM, from treating specific conditions, such as back and neck pain (e.g., acupuncture and chiropractic), to improving general health and wellness (e.g., meditation and tai chi).…”

“…We estimated key selected characteristics (e.g., age, sex, and race/ethnicity) of older CAM users with diabetes. We calculated prevalence rates of past-year CAM use by type and reason for use (i.e., treatment only, wellness only, and both treatment and wellness) (1,2,4). We performed all analyses using Stata/SE version 13.1 (StataCorp, College Station, TX), accounting for the survey sampling design (e.g., unequal probability of selection, clustering, and stratification) (5).…”