Weighing the Alternatives: Lessons from the Paradoxes of Alternative Medicine

The realization that at least 25 % to 50 % of adults in industrialized nations, including the United States, consult alternative medicine practi-tioners (1, 2) has prompted serious exploration of what makes alternative practices so attractive to patients (3). In this issue, Kaptchuk and Eisenberg (4) contribute importantly to our understanding of that attraction. Many conventional practitioners have responded to the emergence of alternative medicine by acquir-ing a new understanding of practices that they had previously considered to be "on the fringe " (5). Others have incorporated "alternative " concepts and practices directly into their own daily patient care. Medical schools have opened their curricula to this previously forbidden area (6); books, journals