Alternative medicine is becoming less and less popular. In recent years, men have chosen less and less alternative therapies, while women are the most loyal. Indeed, the Istat survey shows that, among those who prefer unconventional remedies, women account for 15.8% (equal to 4,700,000), against 11.2% for men (3,162,000). The use of alternative treatments is particularly widespread in adults between 25 and 54 years of age, but even in this group there has been a progressive decline in interest over the last 5 years. Unconventional treatments are less attractive even for the elderly and, observes Istat, there has been a drop in consumption even for people who live on the islands. On the other hand, the use of non-conventional treatments is stable among children up to 14 years of age, 9.6% of whom have been treated at least once with alternative therapies. However, the decline in interest has not followed the same trend for all alternative therapies. For example, preferences for homeopathy increased from 2.5% in 1991 to reach a peak of 8.2% in 1999, to then decrease to 7% in 2005. For acupuncture and herbal medicine, however, after the increase recorded between 1991 and 1999, it returned to the initial levels. Preferences for manual treatments (osteopathy and chiropractic), surveyed for the first time in 1999, recorded a progressive decrease, going from 7.0% to 6.4% over 5 years. In general, there is a tendency to integrate homeopathic and phytotherapeutic remedies with conventional therapies (73%), while the loyalists who exclusively use homeopathy and phytotherapy are 17%. Source: SIMGNEWS no. 116-2007.
