Subject Guides
Complementary and Alternative Medicine
HS & ES Librarian
What is CAM?
Generally speaking, CAM refers to "health care approaches that are not typically part of conventional medical care or that may have origins outside of usual Western practice."
Refer to this National Institutes of Health (NIH) fact sheet that discusses the differences and complexities of everything that falls under CAM.
Databases for CAM information
- Natural Medicines
This link opens in a new window
The most authoritative resource available on dietary supplements, natural medicines, and complementary alternative and integrative therapies. - ConsumerLab.comIndependent testing and reviews for consumer health products such as herbal products, supplements, prescription medications, sports & energy products, personal products, foods and beverages.
- Cochrane LibraryContains evidence-based articles, reviews, protocols, clinical trials, technology assessments, and economic evaluations.
- Cochrane Complementary Medicine"Function as a link between Cochrane... and practitioners, researchers, and consumers with an interest in complementary medicine." Don't forget to search the wider Cochrane Library as well.
- Physical Therapy and Sports Medicine OneFileCovers fitness and sports, offering a wide spectrum of information, including proven treatment techniques, experimental research, and more.
- Dietary Supplements on PubMedA PubMed search that automatically limits results to the Dietary Supplement (DS) Subset of PubMed.
- CAM on PubMedThis link will take you to PubMed where the results are limited to CAM related results. After you search you'll notice the "Complimentary Medicine" limit on the left is checked. You can always select this limit during any PubMed search.
- Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC)-About Herbs, Botanicals & Other Products"A pharmacist and botanicals expert manages and continually updates the database with assistance from other MSK Integrative Medicine Service experts, providing you with objective and evidence-based information"
Other Pharmacy Databases with CAM related information
More Pharmacy databases with CAM literature can also be found on the Pharmacy Library Guide and on the Libraries Database List. Some additional ones are listed below.
If you are interested in locating a particular journal you can browse the Libraries collection of Pharmacy, Therapeutics, & Pharmacology.
- Essential Evidence Plus A one-stop, state-of-the-art reference resource that includes best-evidence answers to clinical questions concerning symptoms, diseases, and treatment.
- Embase Covers the most important international biomedical literature with all articles indexed in depth. It includes: over 32 million records, including MEDLINE titles; over 8,500 journals from over 95 countries, over 2,900 indexed journals unique to Embase; over 2.3 million conference abstracts indexed from more than 7,000 conferences dating from 2009; and full-text indexing of drug, disease and medical device data.
- PubMed From the National Library of Medicine. Includes over 14 million citations for biomedical articles back to the 1950's. These citations are from MEDLINE and additional life science journals. PubMed includes links to many sites providing full text articles and other related resources.
- MEDLINE with Full Text Full text of authoritative medical information from such fields as medicine, nursing, dentistry, veterinary medicine, health care systems, and pre-clinical sciences.
CAM Online Resources
- National Center for Complementary and Integrative HealthBranch of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) that focuses on CAM and Integrative Health.
- HerbList App from the NIH"HerbList gives you fast, free access to science-based summaries on more than 50 popular herbs..."
- Medline Plus - CAMMedline Plus is a great site to refer patients to. It can also be highly informative for healthcare professionals themselves.
- Plants of the World Online"information on the taxonomy, identification, images, distribution, traits, threat status, molecular phylogenies and uses of vascular plants worldwide."
Textbooks and Book Resources
- Essentials of Biostatistics in public health by SullivanPlease note! This book can only be viewed by one person at a time. A print version of this book is also available on Reserves in the library on main campus. You are welcome to check the print book out and scan the information you need for later reading.
- AccessPharmacyDesigned to meet the changing demands of pharmacy education. Allows students to select a core curriculum topic, browse by organ system, review textbooks, or search across leading pharmacy online references.
- PharmacyLibraryPharmacyLibrary features content from APhA's authoritative textbooks, an interactive NAPLEX® review, a collection of 250 Active Learning Exercises, case studies, article abstracts from the Journal of the American Pharmacists Association, and a variety of news sources. **Access has been temporarily disrupted - vendor has been notified as of 7/7/2023**
- AccessMedicineAccess to 65+ medical books, thousands of images and illustrations, interactive self-assessment, case files, time-saving diagnostic and point-of-care tools. All across one search platform.
Search Find It! on the Libraries' website to find more books on CAM. Here are some to get you started.
Journals through the Libraries
You can see many of the journals the Libraries subscribe to at https://browzine.com/libraries/190/subjects
Google Scholar
Google Scholar promotes itself as a resource that provides one-stop shopping for scholarly literature. It searches across many disciplines and covers a wide variety of resources, including journal articles, theses, books, abstracts, and more. Although Google Scholar is aimed at the academic community, it uses a very broad definition of "scholarly literature." Remember that the content isn't free or necessarily available in full-text. It is important to realize that not everything, or even most, in Google Scholar is peer reviewed.
If you find an article you like that has a pay wall, don't pay - see if the library has it or request it through ILL. You can customize Google Scholar to display the Get It! link so you can get access to some articles through the library.
The Get It! link will automatically occur in Google Scholar searches done on campus. For off campus users:
1. Go to Google Scholar at http://scholar.google.com.
2. Before doing a search go into Settings. This is usually under the three bars in the upper left, but may be at the top of the page or elsewhere. Look for the gear symbol.
3. Type "Binghamton University" in the the "Library Links" box and select "Binghamton Universit - Get It!."
4. Click Save.
5. The Get It! link will now appear each time you search Google Scholar. (If you are off campus, you will need to log in once you click the Get It! link to get access.)
