Volume 16 Number 3, SPRING 1999

senior scrutiny

A STANFORD RESEARCH CENTER DETERMINES WHICH ALTERNATIVE THERAPIES PROMOTE SUCCESSFUL AGING

While some Stanford clinicians have begun offering alternative therapies, a group of Stanford researchers is working with the National Institutes of Health to better understand what alternative therapies have to offer. This investigative group, the Complementary and Alternative Medicine Program at Stanford, or CAMPS, launched its effort in 1995. The program is one of 13 research centers funded by the NIH National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine.

Most physicians and researchers now have a healthy skepticism about alternative therapies, says the director of Stanford's center, Kenneth R. Pelletier, PhD, a clinical associate professor of medicine. But when mainstream medical practitioners see that complementary and alternative medicine can conform to standards of science, Pelletier sees very little resistance, he says.

The research focus at CAMPS, the "Successful Aging" project, aims to identify alternative therapies that might help elderly people thrive and maintain their independence. Pelletier and colleagues chose the topic of aging in part because the elderly often have chronic conditions that don't respond well to conventional treatment, Pelletier says.

"We thought maybe alternatives could help. And a lot of older people are already using alternatives to try to maintain good health and function," says William Haskell, PhD, principal investigator for CAMPS.

As a first step, the CAMPS research staff -- five faculty members and two full-time postdoctoral fellows -- is reviewing existing knowledge about alternative therapies for major medical conditions affecting older people. The goal is to identify priority research topics and prepare research protocols for specific scientific studies.

John Astin, PhD, a postdoctoral fellow at CAMPS, sums up the center's philosophy: "In some ways, there's only one kind of medicine, and that's what people are using. And since people are using these alternative therapies, we need to study whether they are safe and effective."