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A new Harvard study has suggested that complementary and alternative medicine (CAM), whether it be acupuncture, yoga, biofeedback, or aromatherapy, are being used by increasing numbers of Americans and appear unlikely to subside as a trend anytime soon.

Researchers define CAM therapy as a treatment that is believed without clinical evidence to work either for a specific ailment or as preventive medicine. Alternative medicine has been popular for most of the 20th century, with homeopathic remedies gaining large followings in the early decades, long before the psychedelic flower-power days of the 1960s and 1970s ushered in widespread CAM use.

CAM use has steadily increased since 1950s among all age groups, with half of all Baby Boomers using some form of alternative medicine and 70 percent of post-Baby Boomers who have reached the age of 33.

Measuring the popularity of CAM therapies is important because it shows that many people are going beyond conventional medicine to embrace treatments such as the herb St. John's Wort, which have not been proved effective in rigorous clinical trials and may turn out to be harmful.

CAM therapies have come in waves, with chiropractics arriving in the 1950s; megavitamins, diet therapy, and self-help groups in the 1960s; biofeedback, energy healing, herbal medicine, and imagery in the 1970s; massage and naturopathy in the 1980s; and aromatherapy, massage, energy healing, herbal medicine, and yoga in the 1990s.

Source: Annals of Internal Medicine. Aug 2001.