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FRIDAY, June 20, 2003 (HealthDayNews) -- Half of HIV-infected Americans use alternative medicine along with, or in place of, antiretroviral drugs, but doctors often aren't aware of what their patients are doing and therefore can't warn them about potential adverse interactions
That's the finding of a University of California, Los Angeles/RAND study in the June 19 issue of the Journal of AIDS.
About a quarter of HIV-patients use alternative medicine that may interact with their conventional therapy, but don't tell their doctors about it, the study found. That emphasizes the need for doctors to openly discuss alternative medicine practices with their HIV patients.
"Antiretroviral drugs can help people with AIDS enjoy longer and healthier lives, but these medicines are expensive, can be hard to take and some may cause serious side effects," researcher Dr. An-Fu Hsiao says in a news release.
"Alternative medicine can ease antiretroviral drugs' side effects, but also create its own set of problems. Our findings illustrate why it's essential for doctors to discuss alternative medicine use with their patients."
Hsiao and his fellow researchers collected data through a follow-up survey of 2,466 HIV-positive adults who took part in the HIV Cost and Services Utilization Study.
The UCLA/RAND study found that 53 percent of the study subjects used some form of alternative medicine and 26 percent didn't discuss their alternative medicine use with their doctors.
The study also found that 26 percent used potentially harmful alternative medicine methods, such as megavitamin doses, homeopathy and the unlicensed use of prescription drugs not designed to treat HIV/AIDS.
Of these patients, 15 percent used herbs and 13 percent took megavitamin doses.
Three percent of the people in the study substituted alternative medicine for antiretroviral therapy. More than half of this group didn't discuss it with their doctors.
People who believed the risks of antiretroviral therapy were not worth taking were eight times more likely to substitute alternative therapy for antiretroviral treatment. The study also found people who had a strong desire to be involved in the medical decision-making for their HIV treatment were more likely to use alternative therapy and more likely to substitute it for antiretroviral therapy.
"This is a wake-up call for physicians to ask their patients about alternative medicine use. Twenty-six percent of these HIV patients used a form of alternative medicine that could adversely interact with conventional treatment. Yet one-third of their doctors had no idea," Hsiao says.
More information
Here's where you can learn more about HIV/AIDS alternative and complementary therapy.
