title: Complementary and alternative medicine in the treatment of substance use disorders--a review of the evidence.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Substance use disorders are chronic relapsing disorders, leading to significant impairment in psychosocial functioning. Conventional therapies have not been able to alter the outcome of these disorders significantly and frequent relapses continue to occur, despite the development of newer medications, like baclofen, ondansetron, etc. Hence, there is a need to look at complementary and alternate systems of medicine.
  
  
  METHODS
  This article is a review of the evidence for complementary and alternate systems of medicine in substance use disorders. Articles were searched using the Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) database of the PubMed search engine and further non-indexed information was obtained from the Google search engine. The article is organised in parts, each reviewing a different system of medicine in the following order--alternate medical systems, biologically based therapies, energy-based interventions and mind-body interventions; as classified by the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, National Institutes of Health, USA.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The currently available evidence is limited and not very encouraging. At present only acupuncture, herbal therapies and mind-body interventions have shown some positive results in human trials and hold promise for the future.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  This review emphasises the paucity of research into this important field especially the lack of rigorous human trials.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  More systematic studies are required before these systems of medicine can be widely recommended in the treatment of substance use disorders.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences, Bangalore, India. rvbehere@gmail.com
authors.forename: Rishikesh V
authors.initials: RV
authors.lastname: Behere
authors.forename: Kesavan
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Muralidharan
authors.forename: Vivek
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Benegal
mesh_terms: D002986:Clinical Trials as Topic; D000529:Complementary Therapies / Q000379:methods*; D006801:Humans; D019966:Substance-Related Disorders / Q000188:drug therapy* / Q000628:therapy*