By Daria Belov
Earlier this month, the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine and the National Center for Health Statistics released findings on the use of complementary and alternative medicine by people in the US. The findings came from a 2007 National Health Interview Survey, with information gathered from more than 23,000 adults aged 18 and older and over 9000 children age 17 and younger. In the survey, people were asked about natural health products they’ve used in the past 30 days. Here is a summary of the top 10 most popular natural products for 2007.
2007 Use of Natural Products
The 3 most popular natural products reported are fish oils / omega-3’s, glucosamine, and Echinacea. Other products on the top 10 list include Flax Seed Oil / Flaxseed Pills, Ginseng, Combination Herb Pills, Ginkgo Biloba, Chondroitin, Garlic Supplements, and Coenzyme Q10.
Looking at the graph we can see that fish oils and/or omega-3 use was by far the most popular amongst the 10 different natural products. Fish oil products are readily available today, and can be found in nearly any major supermarket, at warehouse stores like Costco, and are available for ordering from a multitude of online vitamin type stores.
Glucosamine and Chondroitin supplements are often packaged together. While glucosamine ranked number two as far as natural product use is concerned, the supplement is not without its critics. Reports earlier this year suggested that neither glucosamine or chondroitin were found to work any better than a placebo when it came to slowing the loss of knee cartilage associated with osteoarthritis.
According to the survey, while the use of Echinacea ranked number three in popularity of use, its use has declined since the last time the survey was conducted in 2002. For 2007, fish oils moved to the top of the list. Flaxseed oils and flaxseed pills are also commonly available at supermarkets, major pharmacy chains, warehouse stores, and for ordering online. Visiting one’s local supermarket and seeing that these types of natural health products have taken up entire aisles is evidence that they’ve grown in popularity.
You don’t even have to go into the vitamin section of your local grocery store to find these products, natural products like Co enzyme Q10, Ginseng, and Ginkgo Biloba are increasingly finding their ways into energy drinks and other soft drinks from major manufactures. For those interested in chondroitin and glucosamine use, there’s various joint juice type products on the shelves as well. If there’s a garlic supplement energy drink, I’d rather not know about it.
planetc1.com-news @ 9:50 am | Article ID: 1229017834
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