October 2005

Middle-aged people more likely to use alternative medicine

Middle-aged people are more likely than younger or older adults to use complementary and alternative medicine, according to researchers at Wake Forest University School of Medicine.

“Midlife adults entered adulthood at a time of more widespread use of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) in the population and when public health policy was shifting attention toward individual responsibility for health and health promotion,” said Joseph G. Grzywacz, PhD, and his colleagues, writing in the October issue of the Journal of Aging and Health.

But the researchers added that the middle-aged adults are more likely than either young adults or older adults to use CAM for prevention rather than for treatment of specific conditions.

Grzywacz, assistant professor of family and community medicine, said the researchers got their results from data for 31,044 people who participated in the 2002 National Health Interview Survey.

The survey included questions on 20 types of complementary and alternative medicine, which Grzywacz and his colleagues grouped into four categories:

In each case, the survey asked participants whether they used it for treatment, for prevention, for both, or not at all.

The study, which was funded by a grant from the National Center on Complementary and Alternative Medicine, also looked at differences by race and ethnicity. The data showed that use of the biologically based therapies, such as folk medicine and herb use, rose steadily by age group among Hispanics until old age, while use by whites and blacks peaked in middle age.

Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center is an academic health system comprised of North Carolina Baptist Hospital and Wake Forest University Health Sciences, which operates the university’s School of Medicine.

Source: EurekAlert! www.eurekalert.org