Consumer's Guide to Alternative Health: A Consumer Reference
By Jane E. Brody, Denise Grady, and reporters of The New York Times
Henry Holt and Company Inc.
Paperback 448 pp $16

Alternative medicine and medications are challenging subjects to wrestle to the ground. Many who set out to assess the benefits of alternative treatments are frustrated to find a lack of solid evidence and scientific data. Instead they might come up with glowing reports, a caveat or two, and the obligatory call for further research. That's why it's possible, for instance, to see a report in one magazine that says St. John's wort relieves depression, and read in another magazine, published the same month, that serious questions have been raised about the herb. Why can't someone, somewhere come up with a bottom line?

When I picked up The New York Times' rather thick guide to alternative health, I expected to find rigorous scientific studies, a conservative selection of topics, and a rather dry approach. Not a bad trade-off for some definitive information, I thought. I was more than pleasantly surprised to encounter not only a rich, reader-friendly collection of essays on a range of expected topics, but numerous delightful and useful excursions into the unexpected -- like "Acupuncture for Fido," concerning our four-legged friends.

But first, consider the information for human patients. The book begins with some enlightening background on the promises and problems of alternative medicine, laying out the respective territories of alternative vs. mainstream and pointing out some of the dilemmas and contradictions between the two approaches.

For instance: Although some MDs may still regard alternative medicine as a fringe movement, say the authors, it's a fact that when people in the U.S. need medical care, they're more likely to try acupuncture, herbal remedies, or dietary supplements first than to head for the doctor's office right away. Furthermore, mainstream physicians themselves are using alternative or complementary therapies in record numbers -- not that they'd necessarily admit it to their colleagues.

Why the attraction? Part of the answer, the authors report, seems to lie in the fact that patients long to be treated not as a list of symptoms, but as whole persons, able to actively participate in their own healing and to collaborate with someone who genuinely cares about their well-being. According to numerous surveys, this is what people say they are getting from alternative practitioners.

Yet there's a substantial downside to some of the methods and substances within the wide range encompassed by alternative health care. Treatments and substances that bask in anecdotal praise may be backed up by no definitive tests at all. Some potions can be downright risky. So it's high time for some reliable guidance.

The book, a compilation of published articles by The Times' personal health columnist Jane E. Brody and other writers at the newspaper, leads the reader artfully through thickets of conflicting information. In the process of spelling out the available research, the book manages to be both highly entertaining and informative.

There are entries on storefront massage, blueberries, prayer and laughter, ginkgo candy bars, ayurvedic medicine, and hands-on healing during cardiac surgery. The writing is engaging, often amusing. One chapter bears the title: "Americans Need a Better Diet: This Is News?" Even better, the reader comes away with a good understanding of how alternative methods and substances are evaluated -- or, in all too many cases, not evaluated -- and what the chances are of a supplement or herb doing harm. Many devotees of herbal medicine, for example, may be unaware that the Food and Drug Administration does not require safety testing for herbs and supplements.

There's inside information on how the Food and Drug Administration operates, what constitutes a good study, and why some studies are so hard to perform. One interesting chapter examines the turnabout on beta-carotene -- from early enthusiasm for the supplement's reputed ability to stave off cancer to later research suggesting it had no benefit and might even cause harm. As one researcher concludes, "The major message is that no matter how compelling and exciting a hypothesis is, we don't know whether it works without clinical trials."

If there's a downside to the book it's this: Since the information is organized and presented in essay-like form for the most part -- grouped in 10 major sections ranging from alternative medicine as a social trend to food as medicine -- it can be frustrating to look for information on a particular ailment. A reader who looks in the index under "diabetes," for instance, will find passing mention of its association with iron overload and the contributing factor of the American love affair with fast food, but no information on any number of substances -- vanadium or stevia, for starters -- that are often touted as alternative treatments.

Still, the book covers a huge expanse of territory and provides an exhaustive amount of critically important information on any number of topics, some of them well off the beaten track. And perhaps its best contribution of all is the scope of the material and background. It covers proven therapies as well as unregulated supplements and downright scams, and in doing so ranges from the mundane to the esoteric. Excursions into meditation, hypnosis, and the programs offered at mainstream institutions such as Columbia Presbyterian's Center for Meditation and Healing, for instance, show how far alternative medicine has come.

The reporting is balanced, responsible, up-to-date, and even quirky -- but does not always result in a tidy conclusion. The reality is that for many alternative treatments, there is no bottom line, just anecdotal evidence of one kind or another. In an examination of the value of glucosamine and chondroitin sulfate for arthritis, for instance, writer Brody reports that both she and her dog are taking the supplement. The dog, an old-timer of 13, is free of pain and stiffness. Brody herself is playing tennis, skating, and walking. But she balances her own anecdotal success with information on the drawbacks of the remedy. It doesn't do the job for everyone and doesn't work when cartilage is completely worn away. And, she cautions, one woman and her dog do not a study make.

Amen.

-- Karin Evans is the author of The Lost Daughters of China: Abandoned Girls, Their Journey to America, and the Search for a Missing Past (Penguin Putnam). She is currently at work on a Ford Foundation-sponsored training manual for China's social welfare institutions titled A Kind Word, A Gentle Touch, and Someone to Help Us Learn.

First published March 23, 2004
Last updated January 23, 2008
Copyright © 2004 Consumer Health Interactive

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