CAM for men's health

摘要

In the past century, conventional (orthodox) medicine has obtained striking and substantial success in defending exogenous as well as endogenous diseases, The rapid development of invasive and non-invasive diagnostics, surgical techniques, therapeutic regimens and new drugs result in an unprecedented life expectancy of mankind.Quality standards for establishing new therapies have been postulated in the recent decades. According to the concept of evidence-based medicine, newly developed therapeutic strategies have to undergo scientific verification applying good clinical practice (GCP). Although complementary therapeutic approaches were set aside due to the first enthusiasm about the success of orthodox medicine, there is an ongoing effort to survey complementary and alternative methods applying the same quality standards as used for conventional medicine Moreover, topics like quality of life in health and also in chronic disease, preventive medicine and anti-ageing, which are integral fields for complementary medicine, have gained increasing attention among patients and health professionals [1,2].