ARE NONTRADITIONAL TREATMENTS SUCH AS ACUPUNCTURE, PLANT-DERIVED MEDICINES AND HOMEOPATHIC REMEDIES WORTH EXPLORING BY DENTAL RESEARCHERS?
They are indeed, said most of those responding to March JADA s Question of the Month. Of the 137 readers who answered the question, 116 (about 85 percent) said they thought alternative treatments were worthy of scientific exploration if only to help practitioners respond to patient inquiries and keep pace with what some patients are already doing. “Patients ask about these alternative treatments all the time,” noted one respondent. “It would be nice to be able to have factual, rather than anecdotal evidence that these treatments work.” Observed another, “More and more of my patients want to incorporate homeopathic with traditional dental therapy in hopes of gaining the most optimal outcome, but I don t have any data to support this idea.” Added a third, “Since so many patients have gone the holistic/homeopathic route, we better be kept abreast of this.” Several respondents expressed concern that the plant-derived medicaments some patients are using could interact negatively with tradit
