The Association Between Complementary and Alternative Medicine and Health Status Following Acute Myocardial Infarction.

Background: Complementary and alternative medicines (CAM) are commonly used in patients with cardiovascular disease. Although there is lack of evidence regarding the benefit of CAM on cardiovascular morbidity and mortality, health-status benefits could justify CAM use.

Hypothesis: Adoption of mind-body CAM after acute myocardial infarction (AMI) is associated with improved health status, though other forms of CAM are not associated with health-status improvement.

Methods: Patients with AMI from 24 US sites were assessed for CAM use (categorized as mind-body, biological, and manipulative therapies) prior to and 1 year after AMI. Among patients who reported not using CAM prior to their AMI, association of initiating CAM on patients' health status at 1 year after AMI was assessed using Angina Frequency and Quality of Life domains from the Seattle Angina Questionnaire and the Short Form-12 Physical and Mental Component scales. Multivariable regression helped examine association between use of different CAM therapies and health status.

Results: Among 1884 patients not using CAM at the time of their AMI, 33% reported initiating ≥1 forms of CAM therapy 1 year following AMI: 62% adopted mind-body therapies, 42% adopted biological therapies, and 15% began using manipulative therapies. In both unadjusted and adjusted analyses, we found no association between different types of CAM use and health-status improvement after AMI.

Conclusions: There was no association between CAM use and health-status recovery after AMI. Until randomized trials suggest otherwise, these findings underscore the importance of focusing on therapies with proven effectiveness after AMI.