LibGuides: Complementary, Traditional, and Alternative Medicine: Resources for Researching

Why Start with Background Information?

Many times when starting research about topics related to Complementary and Alternative Medicine you might not know much about the approach or population that you are looking to discuss. That is why background information can be so important. Finding resources, like information pages or encyclopedias or textbooks, can be a perfect way to start your research. Finding overviews on your topic allow you to better understand what you are researching, what you are looking for, and how to phrase that search.

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Resources

National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH) Find health information that includes herbs at a glance, statistics on use, an A-Z list of health topics, and more.
National Cancer Institute Office of Cancer Complementary and Alternative Medicine (OCCAM) The page for the Office of Cancer Complementary and Alternative Medicine (OCCAM) that includes resources on alternative and complementary treatments to utilize in treating cancer. Has information both geared towards practitioners and patients.
American Chiropractic Association Explore research and resources from the American Chiropractic Association, including their journal.
American Academy of Medical Acupuncture "The American Academy of Medical Acupuncture (AAMA) is the professional society of physicians (MDs and DOs) in North America who have incorporated acupuncture into their traditional medical practice. Explore this website to learn more about acupuncture and about membership in the American Academy of Medical Acupuncture."
Food and Nutrition Information Center The Food and Nutrition Information Center (FNIC) at the National Agricultural Library (NAL) provides a directory to credible, accurate, and practical resources for consumers, nutrition and health professionals, educators and government personnel. FNIC nutrition information specialists review all site content to ensure top quality resources.
American Indian and Alaska Native Health: Traditional Healing Resources that tell the story of traditional healing in Native Indian and Alaska Native healthcare.

Herbs and Supplements from Medline Plus This link opens in a new window Browse dietary supplements and herbal remedies to learn about their effectiveness, usual dosage, and drug interactions. Information sources include the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health and the Natural Medicines Comprehensive Database.
Natural Medicines This link opens in a new window Evidence-based reviews of dietary supplements, natural medicines, and complementary alternative and integrative therapies. Includes interactions and adverse effects.

PubMed Dietary Supplement Subset This subset can be used to search PubMed for dietary supplement literature.
National Institutes of Health Office of Dietary Supplements General and background information on dietary supplements. This includes a dictionary, botanical dietary supplements, fact sheets, videos, and information in Spanish.
Dietary Supplement Label Database The Dietary Supplement Label Database (DSLD) is a joint project of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Office of Dietary Supplements (ODS) and National Library of Medicine (NLM). The DSLD contains the full label contents from a sample of dietary supplement products marketed in the U.S.
Herbs at a Glance Brief fact sheets from the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health
Visualization of Scientifc Evidence for Supplements This site provides a visualization of evidence for supplements for certain health conditions. Links to evidence are provided.
About Herbs, Botanicals and Other Products (Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center) This information resource, presented by their Integrative Medicine Service, provides evidence-based information about herbs, botanicals, supplements, and more.
HerbList: An App Provides evidence-based information about popular herbs and supplements. Created by the National Institutes of Health’s National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health, this app is available on Apple and Android devices.

Natural Medicines This link opens in a new window Evidence-based reviews of dietary supplements, natural medicines, and complementary alternative and integrative therapies. Includes interactions and adverse effects.
PubMed This link opens in a new window PubMed comprises more than 29 million citations for biomedical literature from MEDLINE, life science journals, and online books. Citations may include links to full-text content from PubMed Central and publisher web sites. Also, access Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) to build your searches.
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Cochrane Library This link opens in a new window Collection of evidence-based medical literature. Also includes the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews.

MICROMEDEX This link opens in a new window Drug, toxicology, acute care, patient education, and alternative medicine database. Includes drug interactions, IV compatibility, drug ID, CareNotes, and NeoFax Pediatrics.
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LexiComp This link opens in a new window Drug information, including drug monographs, interactions, calculations, IV compatibility, toxicology, patient education. Brought to you by HSLIC and UNMH. *HSLIC subscription includes limited seats to the app. HSLIC & College of Pharmacy purchase seats for 2nd, 3rd, and 4th year Pharmacy students. Contact Robyn Gleasner for more information.
Clinical Pharmacology / ToxED This link opens in a new window A drug reference tool including drug monographs, drug interactions, calculators, patient education, and more from Elsevier. ToxED contains information about diagnosis and management of poison and overdose emergencies. To access ToxED, click on the Resources link.
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PubMed Dietary Supplement Subset This subset can be used to search PubMed for dietary supplement literature.

USP-NF This link opens in a new window Online database containing the compendia the United States Pharmacopeia (USP) and the National Formulary (NF). The USP contains monographs for drug substances, dosage forms, compounded preparations dietary supplements, and ingredients. The NF contains excipient monographs. Note: to access this resource, you must make an account with your @salud.unm.edu email address. Please see this page for instructions.

Google and Academic Databases

Google Scholar This link opens in a new window More focused than a general Google search and includes links to UNM full text subscriptions. Retrieves journal articles, books, and gray literature from a variety of online sources.

Google, and more appropriately Google Scholar, can be valid places to search for articles and organizations. However, subject specific databases will have more advanced search options and articles. Here are some key differences between databases and Google.

	Library Databases	Google	Google Scholar
Types of Information You Can Find	Scholarly journal articles Newspaper articles Reviews Theses & dissertations Empirical evidence	Popular, commercial, educational websites Organization websites Directories Current news & events Few free journal articles & books (many academic publications are not free)	Educational websites Theses & dissertations Conference publications & presentations Scholarly journal articles (but access will be restricted to free resources, so you will want to set up your Library Links)
Credibility & Review	Subject specific books and articles Evaluated for accuracy and credibility	Lack of control allows anyone to publish material Usually not evaluated for accuracy & credibility	Some resources evaluated for accuracy & credibility, but not through Google, so need to verify review process for each publication
Discovery	Database functionalities allow users to search for & find more relevant results	Less ability to search for & retrieve precise results Not releasing information on algorithms, paid products can float to the top	Less ability to search for & retrieve precise results Not releasing information on algorithms, therefore it is not known why results float to the top

You can set up Google Scholar to see if you have full text access to articles provided by UNM libraries. Go to settings, search for University of New Mexico in "Library Links" and select it. Once this has been done you will see the "Check Full Text @ UNM" option in your results. A PDF with instructions is also listed below.

Google Scholar Link Instructions Use these instructions to set up the UNM full text link in Google Scholar

Accessing Full Text

Not sure how to gain access to the Full Text of an item? See our Finding Full Text Guide for more information (including step-by-step instructions for our catalog and databases like PubMed & CINAHL).

Finding Full Text

Complementary, Traditional, and Alternative Medicine

Why Start with Background Information?

Search WorldCat Discovery

Resources

Google and Academic Databases

Accessing Full Text

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