From chiropractic to colour therapy, reflexology to reiki, such therapies are now used by many across the globe. Botswana is increasingly no exception. Alternative medicine is big business. Latest estimates put the total in the United Kingdom annual spent for complementary and alternative medicine (commonly known CAM) at close to 4.5billion pounds, a market which has gone by nearly 50 percent in the last 10 years. Over 200 million is spent on remedies bought over the counter such as homeopathic and herbal medicines, but we are increasingly likely to choose a personal consultation with one of nearly several alternative practitioners in Gaborone. As with all success for marketing, the world of CAM shows what can be achieved with nothing but a change of name. The same set of practices that were called quackery or fringe medicine in the mid 20th century was renamed "alternative medicine" in the 1960s and 1970s. The term "complementary medicine" was coined during the 1990s and now inspired by the idea that "alternative" medicine "can work alongside" and therefore "complementary" orthodox scientific medicine, all these therapies are bundled together as complementary and alternative medicine, or CAM.
What Unproven And Disproven
Therapy Do I Mean?
To make things clear, let's have an alphabetical assortment: Acupuncture, aroma therapy, astrological medicine, bach flower remedies, chelation therapy, chiropractic therapy, colon irrigation, cranial osteopathy, ear acupuncture, energy medicine, herbal medicine, homeopathy, iridology, light therapy, magnetic therapy, naturopathy, urine therapy, vibrational healing. Everyone of these either uses diagnostic methods that have not been proven, in factual basis or involves unsubstantiated or disproven claims of effect and benefits.
