The Cochrane Collaboration: A Reliable Source of Evidence on CAM
Are you interested in a reliable source of evidence on the use of CAM? The Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews is one resource. Its content is prepared by the Cochrane Collaboration, an international nonprofit organization of health care professionals. Using a systematic process, Cochrane authors analyze the results of clinical trials and other published and unpublished sources to explore the evidence for and against the effectiveness and appropriateness of treatments.
Two examples of recent CAM topics are Chinese herbs for the common cold and glutamine supplementation for severe gastrointestinal disease in infants. Each review has an abstract of the key findings, often in plain language for the public. Abstracts are available free of charge at www.cochrane.org. Full reports are available by paid subscription from The Cochrane Library. They may also be available in medical school and hospital libraries. Through a grant to the Center for Integrative Medicine at the University of Maryland, NCCAM helps fund maintenance and expansion of the Cochrane database of studies of CAM.
