Integrative medicine - the combination of traditional Western medicine with evidence-based, complementary approaches to health improvement, symptom management and disease prevention - encompasses many disciplines. The National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM), one of the 27 members of the National Institutes of Health, oversees scientific research and informs decision-making in the area. NCCAM's mission "to define, through rigorous scientific investigation, the usefulness and safety of complementary and alternative medicine interventions and their roles in improving health and health care" is upheld by a number of academic medical centers, including Stanford's Center for Integrative Medicine.
If you've downed a spoonful of fish oil, taken vitamins or probiotics, visited a chiropractor, or engaged in deep breathing to manage pain, you've experienced a practice of integrative medicine. But for many, there's a shroud of mystery around the subject, and while peer-reviewed research studies have been conducted on some aspects of the discipline, other practices require further study.
So for this edition of Ask Stanford Med, we've asked Emily Ratner, MD, a clinical professor of anesthesiology, perioperative and pain medicine and co-director of medical acupuncture and the resident wellness program at Stanford, to respond to your questions on integrative medicine.
Ratner's research interests include the use of acupuncture to manage medical conditions and to address pain and side effects from surgery and cancer. She also studies physician and trainee burnout and resilience.
Questions can be submitted to Ratner by either sending a tweet that includes the hashtag #AskSUMed or posting your question in the comments section below. We'll collect questions until Sunday, November 10 at 5 p.m.
When submitting questions, please abide by the following ground rules:
- Stay on topic
- Be respectful to the person answering your questions
- Be respectful to one another in submitting questions
- Do not monopolize the conversation or post the same question repeatedly
- Kindly ignore disrespectful or off topic comments
- Know that Twitter handles and/or names may be used in the responses
- Ratner will respond to a selection of the questions submitted, but not all of them, in a future entry on Scope.
Finally - and you may have already guessed this - an answer to any question submitted as part of this feature is meant to offer medical information, not medical advice. These answers are not a basis for any action or inaction, and they're also not meant to replace the evaluation and determination of your doctor, who will address your specific medical needs and can make a diagnosis and give you the appropriate care.
Previously: Director of Stanford Headache Clinic answers your questions on migraines and headache disorders, Study shows complementary medicine use high among children with chronic health conditions,Ask Stanford Med: David Spiegel answers your questions on holiday stress and depression, Report highlights how integrative medicine is used in the U.S. and Americans' use of complementary medicine on the rise
Photo by ASSOCIATED PRESS
