State of complementary and alternative medicine in cardiovascular, lung, and blood research - Executive summary of a workshop

The National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute and the National Center for C omplementary and Alternative: Medicine recently cosponsored a workshop on t he use of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) in cardiovascular, l ung, and blood research. In view of the increasing use of CAM by the genera l public, it is imperative to promote credible research by the established biomedical community. The goal of this workshop was to enhance the exchange of information and ideas between alternative medicine practitioners and sc ientists in cardiovascular, lung, and blood research and to foster collabor ative research among these researchers. The workshop focused on 5 areas of research, including a historical and cultural perspective of CAM, methodolo gical issues in clinical trials, herbal medicine, chelation therapy, mind/b ody (meditation) therapy, and acupuncture. CAM has become widely used witho ut rigorously proven efficacy and safety, To protect the public. it was rec ommended that the fundamental mechanistic research for these CAM approaches be vigorously pursued and that any large-scale clinical trial be carefully executed to avoid any waste of resources and any unnecessary risk. It was felt that standardization of botanical products and procedure-based CAM int ervention, such as acupuncture and meditation, is essential for meaningful basic and clinical research. Although botanical products properly consumed are perceived as generally safe, potential herb-drug interactions are a maj or safety concern. Clearly, many challenges need to be addressed by the sci entific community before the public can be assured of the proper use of CAM .