Use of complementary and alternative medicine by patients with diabetes mellitus.

Background: A wide variety of alternative medicines have been traditionally used for the treatment of diabetes in India. We did a cross-sectional study to assess the use of complementary and alternative medicine by patients with diabetes attending our outpatient department.

Methods: Four hundred and ninety-three patients attending the outpatient endocrine clinic for allopathic treatment were included. They were interviewed to assess their knowledge, awareness and methods of practice of non-allopathic forms of therapy. Information on the patients' background characteristics, family history of disease, existing knowledge of their disease and therapy was obtained.

Results: The user rate of complementary and alternative medicine was 67.8% and this was not significantly associated with the educational or socioeconomic status of the patients. Desire for early and maximum benefit was the most common reason (86.8%) for using these remedies. The patients felt that acupressure followed by naturopathy were the most beneficial alternative therapies, while homeopathy was felt to have the least benefit in the control of diabetes.

Conclusion: There was widespread use of complementary and alternative systems of medicine by our patients. It is therefore necessary to obtain objective data to assess the improvement in blood sugar level with, and side-effects of, these methods of treatment.