ABSTRACT
Natural therapeutic interventions, also termed complementary and natural health products or herbal medicines, are a diverse group of treatments [1] used in addition to or instead of conventional/allopathic treatment of diseases and health conditions. It has been long used, and recently there has been a resurgence of its use despite the advances in modern/Western medicine [2]. It has been extensively developed in China with traditional Chinese medicine and in India with Ayurveda. Its use presently in rheumatology may be driven by the unsatisfactory control or lack of a disease-modifying antirheumatic drug (DMARD), for example, osteoarthritis (OA) and low back pain (LBP); unacceptable adverse drug reactions, for example, DMARD treatment of rheumatoid arthritis (RA); or the desire to exert a greater degree of control of the risks/bene—ts/cost of treatment. Patients with unsatisfactory control of a disease may have an expectation of remission of the chronic arthritis, and when that is not possible with conventional treatment, they turn to complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) treatment in the hopes of a “miracle cure.”
