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The complementary and the questionable

The complementary and the questionable There is inevitable medical scepticism about the use of unorthodox techniques for allergy diagnosis and complementary treatments for allergic disease. Despite this, a significant percentage of allergy sufferers resort to various forms of complementary medicine. The profession has been very circumspect in responding to a proliferation of unorthodox practices and has hesitated to make any pronouncements. However, as long ago as 1992 the Royal College of Physicians in the UK produced a report ‘Allergy: conventional and alternative concepts’ ( 1 ). This report drew attention to the dangers of relying on practitioners of complementary and alternative medicine to deliver an appropriate allergy service. This did not deter continued proliferation of such practices. We should always remain open to convincing evidence and we have published within our own journal two papers on Chinese herbs which appear to have some beneficial effect on, in the first case, mild to moderate asthma ( 2 ) and in the second, in a double blind placebo controlled trial an impact on airway hyper responsiveness, symptoms and medication requirements in children with persistent asthma ( 3 ). A Cochrane review of 17 trials of herbal treatment for asthma predominantly of Chinese origin identified nine http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Pediatric Allergy and Immunology Wiley

The complementary and the questionable

Pediatric Allergy and Immunology , Volume 19 (6) – Sep 1, 2008

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References (4)

Publisher
Wiley
Copyright
© 2008 The Author. Journal compilation © 2008 Blackwell Munksgaard
ISSN
0905-6157
eISSN
1399-3038
DOI
10.1111/j.1399-3038.2008.00799.x
pmid
18844855
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

There is inevitable medical scepticism about the use of unorthodox techniques for allergy diagnosis and complementary treatments for allergic disease. Despite this, a significant percentage of allergy sufferers resort to various forms of complementary medicine. The profession has been very circumspect in responding to a proliferation of unorthodox practices and has hesitated to make any pronouncements. However, as long ago as 1992 the Royal College of Physicians in the UK produced a report ‘Allergy: conventional and alternative concepts’ ( 1 ). This report drew attention to the dangers of relying on practitioners of complementary and alternative medicine to deliver an appropriate allergy service. This did not deter continued proliferation of such practices. We should always remain open to convincing evidence and we have published within our own journal two papers on Chinese herbs which appear to have some beneficial effect on, in the first case, mild to moderate asthma ( 2 ) and in the second, in a double blind placebo controlled trial an impact on airway hyper responsiveness, symptoms and medication requirements in children with persistent asthma ( 3 ). A Cochrane review of 17 trials of herbal treatment for asthma predominantly of Chinese origin identified nine

Journal

Pediatric Allergy and ImmunologyWiley

Published: Sep 1, 2008

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