Alternative Medicine Repertory

Alternative Health News Online is prepared by journalists for the public and aims at helping us to separate the hogwash from the promising therapies in alternative medicine. It is updated daily and covers topics such as diet and nutrition, mind/body control, alternative medical systems, manual healing and longevity. It offers a free, weekly e-mail newsletter, bulletins and alerts on health news and a column of reviewed and recommended books on alternative health care. It also offers links to other sources of health information on the Internet. This is a great place to begin -- and to come back to -- when searching for alternative health information on the Internet!

The *Alternative Medicine Foundation is a U.S. charitable organization which is formed to provide evidence-based resources for health care professionals and reliable information on alternatives to conventional western biomedicine for patients and consumers. The programmes it has set up to deliver this information seem a bit thin at the moment. There is: Herb-Med, described as an "interactive, evidence-based herbal formulary", and TibetMed, a website devoted to Tibetan medicine. The herbal formulary has potential, but no text; under standard headings for each herb, the information seeker is directed to lists of references which are not summarised; they are merely cited. In some cases, an abstract of the article cited may be available from PubMed, but this is not always so.

Repertory with many links to sites presenting information or formation in the field of alternative, holistic and natural medicine and well-being. Lists of therapists are also presented.

The famous Dr. Andrew Weil, author of the currently popular: 8 Weeks to Optimum Health and many other books and articles now answers your questions at his own web site, called: *Ask Dr. Weil. Dr. Andrew Weil is a leader in the integration of Western medicine and the exploding field of alternative medicine. A graduate of Harvard Medical School, he teaches at the University of Arizona in Tucson, specializing in alternative medicine, mind/body interactions and medical botany. He is the founder of the Program in Integrative Medicine at the University of Arizona Health Sciences Center in Tucson, where he is training a new generation of physicians.

CAMline is an evidence-based website on complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) for healthcare professionals and the public, with a Canadian perspective. CAMline is a collaborative project overseen by a Steering Committee of the five organizations which are its founders: the Ontario College of Family Physicians, the Department of Family and Community Medicine at the University of Toronto, the Ontario Branch of Society of Hospital Pharmacists, the Michener Institute for Applied Health Sciences and the Friends of Alternative & Complelentary Therapies Society. All are based in Toronto, ON. It offers access to evidence-based information on natural health products, CAM therapies and practitioners and health conditions along with a small dictionary of terms used in complementary and alternative medicine. There is brief information about the founding partners and their funding sources. All come from the various disciplines of allopathic, traditional medicine and medical practice.

The *Complementary Medical Association is a British organization whose primary aim is to promote ethical, responsible, professional complementary medicine to the public and the medical profession. Their website offers information about training throughout the U.K. for the various disciplines which make up the association. The public will find useful the five windows offering access to information about: Therapies, Remedies, Supplements, Conditions, and Drug-Herb Interactions.

The *Continuum Center for Health and Healing, an initiative of Beth Israel Medical Center in New York city offers an expanded, integrative practice of health care, and a wonderful web site for anyone seeking information on alternative therapies. You don't have to travel to NYC to use their extensive collection of information; no attempt to be exhaustive is made. Instead, in the Health conditions: A-Z section, research and review articles were selected with a view to providing reliable information from scientific studies showing the complementary/alternative therapeutic approaches that have been studied for each health condition and the significant results to date. There are also collections of information available (and others are being developed) on Complementary/Alternative Therapies, and Traditional & Indigenous Healing Systems. Each entry in these sections follows a pattern which offers information such as history & philosophy of the practice, treatment approaches, and training & licensing of pactitioners, among other things. There is an extensive section on professional education for the various alternative disciplines, with links to web sites and recommended resources. This is a thoroughly useful web site; it bears a lot of exploring to plumb its depths.

The *FACTs: Friends of Alternative & Complementary Therapeutics Society is a non-profit community organization devoted to the promotion of credible and accessible information in the area of alternative and complementary medicine and health. The group wants to create a repository of health information that is factual, accessible, credible and ethical. The information [will come] ... from different schools of medicine and different cultures. These diverse resources will provide us with multiple healthcare options, and it will lead us to a healthier future. While other groups are active in advocacy, service delivery, research or teaching, our goal is to promote learning activities on alternative and complementary medicine through various media. Established in Toronto in early 1998, FACT will expand to other cities across Canada, with a national launch slated for the year 2000.

The *Health Action Network Society , also known as HANS, of Burnaby, BC, is a non-profit society accepting individual memberships. Their website offers lots of information regarding alternative therapies and practitioners in Canada.

The *HealthWorld Online Village, although not entirely composed of references to alternative and complementary therapies, has such a wide range and so many good explanations of unconventional therapies presented cheek-by-jowl with standard allopathic treatments and topics that it has to be presented here so that you won't miss it. Resources for consumers and health care professionals in the whole panorama of health care interests are available here: from acupuncture, through aromatherapy and flower medicine, to spas and retreats where you can rest and relax in a health-enhancing way.

The *Holistic Healing Web Page offers a great variety of web resources in alternative health care in a number of classes. There are web documents on various sorts of healing, a list of Usenet groups and listserv discussion groups (or mailing lists) of interest in holistic health care, case histories of people using alternative therapies, and a collection of information about conferences, retreats and trade shows. The site aims to present ideas about therapy that can be discussed with an individual's health care provider and is a great collection of diverse ideas and sources.

The *Holistic Health advertises itself as a source of alternative healthcare.

By definition an infoholic is someone who cannot obtain enough information. The world of COMPLEMENTARY MEDICINE is an infoholic's paradise. For within this world there is to be discovered a stunning, treasure trove of diversity, yielding wonderous and life-changing opportunities. Within the pages of this FREE DIRECTORY of COMPLEMENTARY MEDICINE you will discover worldwide connections to many different forms of healing and enlightenment. Each category is accompanied by an introduction to the therapy. The entries are colour coded, according to the world map.

The *National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, part of the U.S. National Institutes of Health, identifies and evaluates unconventional health care practices. The NCCAM supports and conducts research and research training on these practices and disseminates information. Their web site offers an overview of the six broad categories of alternative medicine: diet-nutrition-lifestyle changes, mind-body interventions, bioelectromagnetic applications, alternative systems of medical practice, manual healing, pharmacological and biological treatments, and herbal medicine. There is a FAQ which explains Complementary and Alternative Medicine and the involvement of the National Center with alternative therapy. There is also a document which explains how to exploit the Medline database to find scientific literature on alternative medical practices.

Natural Healers is the number one education resource for people pursuing careers in the natural healing arts. We are a complete alternative medicine and holistic health school directory and career center. You will find information about massage therapy schools, natural health degree schools, acupuncture schools, personal training certification and chiropractic colleges.

The *PULSE of Oriental Medicine is described as an "alternative and traditional oriental medicine resource for the public". It aims to offer information about oriental medicine in easily understood language. The site is laid out like a popular magazine, and in fact, offers a monthly e-mail newsletter called: Being Well, free of charge to those who sign up for it. There is a list of diseases and conditions which link to articles about therapies in oriental medicine for these ailments, and there is also information about Chinese herbs and acupuncture.

The *Research Council for Complementary Medicine (RCCM) is a British charity which carries out, promotes and evaluates rigorous research in complementary medicine to encourage safe, effective practice and improved patient care. The RCCM exists not just to educate, to inform or to research but primarily to ensure that the patients are offered treatments that have been show to be effective, treatment that is safe. It is the well-being of patients that is ultimately at stake. The RCCM believes that: research of the highest scientific rigour, supported by reliable information, is essential if complementary options of healthcare are to be made more widely available. The RCCM maintains a database -- the Centralised Information Service for Complementary Medicine (CISCOM) -- of over 60,000 references to the literature of complementary medicine which can be searched for you by contacting them; there is a charge for the service. A small collection of citations to randomised trials in various areas of complementary medicine is available on the website. The RCCM is also involved in creating and maintaining a registry and archive of randomised trials in complementary medicine for the Cochrane Collaboration Field in Complementary Medicine. This work is supported by the U.S. NCCAM, through the University of Maryland. The RCCM is active in medical education in the U.K., as well.

The literature on clinical and scientific research into alternative medicine treatments is widely scattered, as is background information on alternative medicine systems and approaches. The following is a compilation of established research resources in the USA, Europe and Asia, designed to facilitate research by both professionals and the public. This may be clinical, biomedical, review, meta-analytical or survey research. The listing is hyperlinked to existing Web sites where available, and to brief information on the resource, such as: how to obtain further details; type of literature covered; whether fee-based access or free; size of the holding; and mode of access.

Dr. Weil now offers a second website called: *Self Healing, also the name of a printed newsletter he distributes which you can purchase online. The second site offers much the same mix of information and advice about integrative medicine which is offered on Dr. Weil's original site.

Resources for consumers and health care professionals in the whole panorama of health care interests are available here: from acupuncture, through aromatherapy and flower medicine, to spas and retreats where you can rest and relax in a health-enhancing way. This is a site not-to-be-missed!