Dimensions
148 x 212 x 30mm
Every year millions of people flock to complementary and alternative therapists offering a vast array of treatments ranging from acupuncture to biofeedback to urine injections. Millions more purchase over-the-counter alternative medications, such as glucosamine, herbs and homeopathic remedies.
While consumer motivations for turning to complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) vary, there is one common element among them all: a belief in their effectiveness. Do these therapies actually work? And if they work, how do they work? This book is about the science of complementary and alternative medicine, about how that science is conducted, how it is evaluated, and how it is synthesised to arrive at a bottom-line conclusion about whether CAM therapies work.
Barker Bausell provides an authoritative and engaging look at the nature of scientific evidence and at the logical, psychological and physiological impediments that can confound such evidence in the world of CAM research. For general readers, students and professionals, the book is a learned and witty examination not just of the scientific process as it is applied to CAM but also of the wonders of the human mind/body system.
