An interesting report written by Meredith Wadman published in Nature News on December 7 covers how the US National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM) is shifting gears from trying to find cures for major diseases to funding work on alleviating symptoms. As quoted in the report, Josephine Briggs, the Director of NCCAM, wants the Center to focus on fundamental research on natural products prior to investing heavily in clinical trials.
In most Western societies, “Complementary and Alternative Medicine” (CAM) is a blanket phrase used to describe therapeutic practices that fall outside the purvey of standard, conventional medicine. These practices include treatments such as Ayurveda, acupuncture, chiropractic procedures, meditation, yoga, naturopathy, homeopathy, massage, and diet-based approaches. Many scientists and physicians oppose the use of CAM because there are often bold claims for many complementary and alternative medical approaches that have yet to be substantiated through the systematic collection and analysis of data. Others approaches have already been dispelled. However, it is important to keep in mind that this has not deterred the public from availing of these medical practices. In December 2008, the NCCAM and the National Center for Health Statistics released data that showed that approximately 4 in 10 Americans use some form of CAM.
Which is why I think that Briggs’ statement is all the more significant. Briggs is signaling that she is serious about bringing scientific rigor to the analysis of complementary approaches to medicine.
I know there are naysayers who think that putting CAM to scientific scrutiny gives it undue credence. I disagree. We must realize that just because an approach is not currently used by traditional medical practitioners does not mean that it cannot and should not be examined by the scientific method. My hope is, for example, that overzealous (but often well-meaning) practitioners of CAM will stop touting particular herbs as cures for cancer when the proper studies have not yet been performed to determine the safety and efficacy of the constituent compounds. Instead, I would like to see the chemical compounds in these herbs systematically examined for their bioactive properties.
The fact of the matter is that there is an astonishing diversity of natural products on our planet. And despite significant advances in synthetic chemistry, a review published in 2007 in Journal of Natural Products found that natural products and their derivatives formed the bulk of leads for drug discovery. In other words, regardless of our views on complementary and alternative approaches to medicine, natural products and their ilk already play a major role in conventional medicine.
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