Natural Medicines Comprehensive Database (naturalmedicinesdatabase.com). Provides the largest number of evidence-based reviews. Authors are primarily doctors of pharmacy. Includes scientific names, uses, safety, effectiveness, mechanism of action, adverse reactions, interactions, and dosage.
Cochrane Review Organization (www.cochrane.org). Provides systematic reviews of therapies, including massage, acupuncture, and chiropractic interventions. Includes searches of multiple bibliographic databases by librarians.
Natural Standard (www.naturalstandard.com). A multidisciplinary, multi-institutional initiative for review of complementary and alternative therapies. Similar process to Cochrane reviews, with an additional historic and folkloric perspective.
National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (nccam.nih.gov). The US government’s lead agency for scientific research on CAM. The NCCAM’s mission is to define, through rigorous scientific investigation, the usefulness and safety of CAM interventions and their roles in improving health and health care. Includes review of scientific evidence for usefulness, toxicities and precautions.
National Cancer Institute (NCI) Office of Cancer Complementary and Alternative Medicine (www.cancer.gov/cam). PDQ cancer information summaries specific to either patients or health-care providers. Includes background; proposed mechanisms of action; and laboratory, animal, and clinical studies.
Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center (www.mskcc.org/aboutherbs). Led by an oncology-trained pharmacist and a botanical expert.
American Cancer Society (www.cancer.org). Provides guidelines for nutrition and physical activity for prevention, during cancer treatment, and after treatment.
Bandolier (http://www.medicine.ox.ac.uk/bandolier/index.html). Monthly journal about evidence-based health care produced by scientists at Oxford University. Provides a subset of analyses, commentaries, and meta-analyses of complementary therapies found in Cochrane or PubMed searches.
The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center (www.mdanderson.org/cimer). Provides assessments of the background and evidence for complementary/integrative medicine. Also provides purchased summaries of reviews by Natural Medicines Comprehensive Database and the Cochrane Library, as well as access to reviews by the NCI and Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center.