Just like their parents, kids are taking herbal supplements from fish oil to ginseng, a sign of just how mainstream alternative medicine has become. More than one in nine children and teens try those remedies and other nontraditional options, the government said Wednesday in its first national study of young people's use of these mostly unproven treatments.Given that children are generally pretty healthy, the finding that so many use alternative medicine is "pretty amazing," said one of the study's authors, Richard Nahin of the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine. The sweeping study suggests about 2.8 million young people use supplements....(read more).
Sort of interesting news. But, kids have been taking these kinds of medicines for millennia.
3 comments:
You mean things like fish oil? I'm not familiar with others.
And yay, you guys have a new blog!
Hi Lidija!
The article mentions fish oil, and that's one example. I'm just referring to the fact that "alternative medicine" didn't become "alternative" until allopathic biomedicine became hegemonic. Before that (and I argue, along with that) adults and children had (have) been taking all kinds of "alternative" medicines for what ails them.
Of course. My grandparents' generation didn't have ready access to doctors and drugs. My grandmother would show me different herbs, plants, berries, weeds for treating/curing, as we made rounds around the farm and nearby hills. It's interesting going into a nearby "natural grocery" which carries a lot of this "alternative" stuff and seeing those herbs as commercial teas. In fact growing up I'd just as often get an herbal tea (of the particular kind, for a particular ailment) as my parents would rather give me that than drugs. Drugs were considered too harsh for children.
Post a Comment