Alternative, complementary, and integrative healing are all part of a well debated but poorly researched area of medicine. Doctors of the conventional American and European medical communities have been long prone to dismiss unconventional healing methods such as acupuncture, herbal supplements, and massage therapy as ineffective methods of treating illness. The view of the medical community, however, seems to have little impact of the growing popularity of CAM (complementary and alternative medicine) among patients. An increasing number of people in the United States have been turning to these treatments in addition to or instead of traditional Western medicine. "Complementary and alternative medicine has enjoyed substantial growth in recent years  (Barnes). Due to the sheer popularity of complementary and alternative medicine, it has forced the medical community to become more knowledgeable of these methods as well as to better examine the acceptance of CAM in medicine. Many Americans, use health care approaches developed outside of mainstream Western, or conventional, medicine for specific conditions or for overall well-being. Complementary and alternative medicine, as defined by the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM), is a group of different medical and health care systems, practices, and products that are not presently considered to be part of conventional medicine. The terminology that is used to describe these non-mainstream health approaches such as "complementary , "alternative  and "integrative  are often seen as interchangeable, but the three terms refer to different concepts. The concepts of these healing methods are very simple to understand even for those who are uneducated in the medical field. The concept of complementary medicine is when nonstandard treatment or medicine is applied together with conventional treatment or medicine. "For example, acupuncture, when used to treat n