Mayo Clinic Book of Alternative Medicine, 2nd Edition (Updated and Expanded): Integrating the Best of Natural Therapies with Conventional Medicine

This is a well-written book containing lots of helpful information regarding use, safety and risks of utilizing alternative medications. Highly recommend.

I found this book to be full of interesting information on the various alternative medicines and natural therapies. It quotes studies for each item and rates its efficacy on a scale of one to three - red light - don't take it, yellow light - won't hurt and green light - proven to work. It also quotes the pertinent studies to support its recommendations. I was disappointed that there wasn't a section on bio-identical hormone therapy. It wasn't even mentioned which I felt was a large oversight, thus the four star rating. Good to have around as a reference guide.

I found so many foods that act as alternative medication in lowering cholesterol and LDL. They also reviewed many foods that were false myths. I would highly recommend this book for people that are looking to use alternative medications along with the medications that their Doctor has ordered. My Cardiolgist even recommended two of the medications in this book. They also have the research to back-up their findings!!

I found this book to be informative - gave it 3 stars because I knew most of this but was disappointed there was a lot that the Mayo Clinic didn't know about - and still said to talk with your doctor. Most doctors when you talk to them about herbs or alternative medicine they do not know anything - so how is a person going to get the correct information when no one really knows enough about herbs and their interaction with food or medications you take. Am waiting for some day when all will be known so we can make an informed medical decision.

I respect the Mayo Clinic and wanted a reliable book that reviews many of the natural products touted on the market for a variety of ailments. This was it. It wades through much of it, and rates the remedies that are out there. Also, for each product there is information on what the research has shown. It's easy to read, and a great reference.

This book is very well presented. In terms of print quality, layout, ease of use and readability it's exemplary. The information it provides on the small number of Alternative Medicines it includes is not bad. However, the book includes a limited number of bioactive compounds that are widely used and it always ends with a very cunning disclaimer. Basically, its purpose seems to be to help people make up their mind to not use alternative medicines.

I had hoped that I would learn a lot about how to integrate herbal and dietary treatments with Conventional Medicine from the horses's mouth, so to speak. At first glance most of what is in the book were no-brainers for me already, like that there is no wonder drug to lose weight and that some herbs are dangerous. Only about a quarter of the book is devoted to dietary approaches. About one quarter is devoted to physical therapy approaches, another one quarter is devoted to treating relatively few specific ailments, and the final one quarter is devoted to selling you on typical physicians' advice like to lose weight and stop smoking. Eventually I widened my focus and read some of the parts I wasn't really interested in, such as acupuncture as practiced at the Mayo Clinic. I did learn something from those sections after all, even if it was only that I will never, ever do those things except in great desperation, so I am giving the book 4 stars instead of 3.

This was very interesting, and I learned a lot about complementary medical techniques. It was so interesting that I am attending the Elderhostel Road Scholar program at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester on the subject.

A reliable source of alternative medicine. Easy to read, well organized , I have used as a resource in my medical practice

Would have liked more information on specificate alternatives.

Was really dissapointed with this book. I thought it would be more along the lines of all the different herbs etc that could be used for remedies of common ailments, turned out it is pretty vague in that area. There is a ton of straight forward almost useless information here.