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Alternative medicine

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Alternative Medicine-Mayo Clinic

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Complementary and Alternative Medicine - What You Need To Know

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Understanding Alternative Medicine and Therapies

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Myths about alternative medicine you should know

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What is Integrative Medicine? | Beaumont Integrative Medicine

Alternative medicine, fringe medicine, pseudomedicine or simply questionable medicine is the use and promotion of practices which are unproven, disproven, impossible to prove, or excessively harmful in relation to their effect — in the attempt to achieve the healing effects of medicine. They differ from experimental medicine in that the latter employs responsible investigation, and accepts results that show it to be ineffective. The scientific consensus is that alternative therapies either do not, or cannot, work. In some cases laws of nature are violated by their basic claims; in some the treatment is so much worse that its use is unethical. Alternative practices, products, and therapies range from only ineffective to having known harmful and toxic effects.
  • Definitions and terminology 

  • Types 

  • History 

  • Efficacy 

  • Perceived mechanism of effect 

  • Use and regulation 

  • Risks and problems