Health Research Databases

This list of Research Resources for Natural Medicine is for those who want to delve deeper into Complementary and Alternative Medicine. There is also the Da Vinci Health Youtube Channel with interesting health videos.

• AGRICOLA (AGRICultural OnLine Access): “bibliographic database of citations to the agricultural literature created by the National Agricultural Library and its cooperators” includes citations herbs and medicinal plants and includes references from The Herb Research Foundations’ HerbalGram
• Allied and Complementary Medicine (AMED) is a unique database produced by the Health Care Information Service of the British Library This database will be of interest to individuals wanting to know more about alternatives to conventional medicine, and includes resources to complementary medicine, palliative care and several professions allied to medicine. Available in a variety of formats from print to online.
• AltHealthWatch , EBSCO Information Services: “web-based fulltext database of periodicals, peer-reviewed journals, academic and professional publications, magazines, consumer newsletters and newspapers, research reports, and association, http://www.epnet.com/eptech/.
• Bandolier Evidence-based health care: “print and Internet journal using evidence-based medicine techniques to provide advice about particular treatments or diseases for healthcare professionals and consumers. The content is ‘tertiary’ publishing, distilling the information from (secondary) reviews of (primary)trials and making it comprehensible.”
• National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine
• Herb Research Foundation
• Homeopathy Home
• National Institute of Health
• CINAHL, Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health: indexes alternative medicine journals
• CISCOM Database, ©The Centralized Information Service for Complementary Medicine, The Research Council for Complementary Medicine, United Kingdom: 4,000 randomized trials and over 60,000 citations and abstracts covering and arranged by the major complementary therapies including acupuncture, aromatherapy, healing, hypnotherapy, chiropractic, homoeopathy, and manipulative.
• CRISP (Computer Retrieval of Information on Scientific Projects) database of federally funded biomedical research projects conducted at universities, hospitals, and other research institutions. These projects are funded by theNational Institutes of Health (NIH), Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services (SAMHSA), Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDCP), Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), and Office of Assistant Secretary of Health (OASH)
• Chinese Medicine: Traditional Chinese Medicine Database System, Institute of Information on Traditional Chinese Medicine, China Academy of Traditional Chinese Medicine: ten Chinese language and two English language databases available on the web. The English language database, Traditional Chinese Medicinal Literature Analysis and Retrieval System (TCMLARS) contains references and abstracts to articles on acupuncture and phytotherapies beginning in 1984. The Traditional Chinese Drug Database (TCDBASE), also in English language, contains a Chinese materia medica that includes medicinal plants, herbal drugs, animal derived drugs and mineral drugs.
• ClinicalTrials.gov: locate current information on disease treatment at particular institution or by a disease, drug, modality, therapy or procedure. Does contain complementary and alternative medicine therapies [search by words: alternative (medicine or therapy) or complementary (medicine or therapy) or by particular modality: acupuncture or by a particular substance: ginko or shark cartilage
• The Cochrane Collaboration: systematic, up-to-date reviews of all relevant Randomized Control Trials of health care includes subscribed access to The Cochrane Library and free access to The Abstracts of Cochrane Reviews. Search for complementary and alternative therapies (examples: acupuncture, ginkgo, Chinese medicine)
• Cochrane Complementary Medicine Field, [ “to help promote and facilitate the production of systematic reviews in topics such as acupuncture, massage, chiropractic, herbal medicine, homeopathy and mind-body therapy” ] University of Maryland, School of Medicine, Center for Integrative Medicine Medicine
• Dr. Duke’s Phytochemical and Ethnobotanical Databases, Agricultural Research Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture.
• Directory of Databases, Richard and Hinda Rosenthal Center for Complementary & Alternative Medicine, Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center, New York : “compilation of established sources in the USA, Eur ope and Asia, designed to facilitate research by both professionals and the public. This may be clinical, biomedical, review, meta-analytical or survey research. The listing is hyperlinked to existing Web sites where available, or to brief information on the resource, such as: how to obtain further details; type of literature covered; size of the holding; and mode of access”
• EMBASE: an international database to citations covering the biomedical, pharmacological and drug literature.
• HerbMed™ – ” herbal database – provides hyperlinked access to the scientific data underlying the use of herbs for health. It is an evidence-based information resource for professionals, researchers and general public, project of the Alternative Medicine Foundation”
• The Hom-Inform Database of indexed literature references in homoeopathy.
• Recommended CAM resources for doctors, practitioners and professions allied to medicine.
• Botanical images
• Research Council for Complementary Medicine
• Complementary and Integrated Medicine Research Unit
• European Committee for Homeopathy
• Alternative Medicine Studies
• BMC Complementary and Alternative Medicine
• International Journal of Yoga
• International Journal of Green and Herbal Chemistry
• International Journal of Ayurveda Research
• International Journal of Alternative Medicine
• International Journal of BioSciences, Alternative and Holistic Medicine
• Japanese Journal of Complementary and Alternative Medicine
• Journal of Ayurveda and Integrative Medicine
• Journal of Integrative Medicine (JIM)
• Journal of Intercultural Ethnopharmacology
• Journal of Pharmacopuncture
• The Open Complementary Medicine Journal
• Index to Chiropractic Literature 1985-2002: bibliographic citations produced by “the Chiropractic Library Consortium (CLIBCON: a group of health science librarians working in chiropractic colleges throughout the world whose goal is to improve access to the chiropractic literature”
• The International Bibliographic Information on Dietary Supplements (IBIDS) database: “produced by the Office of Dietary Supplements, National Institutes of Health, in conjunction with the Food and Nutrition Information Center, National Agricultural Library, United States Department of Agriculture. IBIDS contains bibliographic records, including abstracts published in international scientific journals on the topic of dietary supplements, including vitamins, minerals, herbal and botanical supplements. The general public, scientists, researchers, and other interested parties will be able to search the database using keywords to obtain the citations of research journal articles.”
• Manual, Alternative and Natural Therapy (MANTIS) Database, ( formerly CHIROLARS ) Action Potential, Inc.: coverage for health care disciplines not significantly represented in the major biomedical databases, references from more than 1,000 journals, with preference given to peer-reviewed journals. Includes health promotion, & prevention, accupuncture, allopathic medicine, alternative medicine, chiropractic, herbal medicine, homeopathy, naturopathy, osteopathic medicine, physical therapy, and Chinese medicine.
• ChiroACCESS; the online chiropractic community
• Dialog Corporation
• Health Index
• OVID Technologies, Inc.
• MEDLINE Database, [use MEDLINE to find bibliographic references to scientific-based studies in alternative and complementary medicine] the best interface is PubMed from the National Library of Medicine, Bethesda, Maryland. The MEDLINE database supports the teachings and research of the current medical system in the United States.
• Bastyr University Library: a guide to utilizing PubMed for CAM research
• MICROMEDEX Complementary & Alternative Medicine (CAM) Series, “an accurate and scientifically based, in-depth series of databases covering four areas: herbal medicine and dietary supplements,clinical protocols, patient education, and herbal & dietary supplement toxicology.” The AltMedDex™ System, the first in the series provides information on herbals and other dietary supplements. “The Complementary & Alternative Medicine Series from MICROMEDEX is a comprehensive, clinically focused reference tool that is based on a thorough compilation of scientific literature. Monographs in the series present data on administration, dosing, warnings, precautions, contraindications, and interactions.”
• NAPRALERT, NAtural PRoducts ALERT contains bibliographic and factual data on natural products, including information on the pharmacology,biological activity, taxonomic distribution, ethno-medicine and chemistry of plant, microbial, and animal (including marine)extracts. In addition, the file contains data on the chemistry and pharmacology of secondary metabolites that are derived from natural sources and that have known structure. The NAPRALERT File contains more than 100,000 records from 1650 to the present. Approximately 50% of the file is from systematic survey of the literature from 1975 to the present. The remaining records were obtained by selective retrospective indexing dating back to 1650.
• CAM on PubMed: bibliographic citations obtained from the National Library of Medicine’s PubMed (Medline) database.
• Native American Ethnobotany Database , Dan Moerman, Professor of Anthropology, University of Michigan-Dearborn: “foods, drugs, dyes, fibers and other uses of plants (a total of over 47,000 items). This represents uses by 291 Native American groups of 3,895 species from 243 different plant families.”
• Natural Medical Protocols for Doctors: “fee-based service that “includes current research data and treatment protocols for most common medical conditions and cross-linked reference material about vitamins, minerals, herbs, homeopathy and other supplements and therapies. The information was gathered and organized by a consortium of doctors from various branches of medicine. This includes MDs (conventional medical doctors), NDs (naturopathic doctors), Acupuncturists and PhDs of various kinds. The data compiled here was taken from research journals (through 2000) and medical books and the reference citations are included.”
• Natural Medicines Comprehensive Database: “up-to-date clinical data on the natural medicines, herbal medicines, and dietary supplements used in the western world. This database is compiled by pharmacists and physicians who are part of the Pharmacist’s Letter and Prescriber’s Letter research and editorial staff” book counterpart Natural Medicines Comprehensive Database editors: Jeff M. Jellin, Forrest Batz, and Kathy Hitchens (Pharmacist’s Letter/Prescriber’s Letter), 1310 pp,
• Natural Standard, “an international research collaboration synthesizes data on complementary and alternative therapies. Using a comprehensive methodology and reproducible grading scales, information is created that is evidence-based, consensus-based, and peer-reviewed, tapping into the collective expertise of a multidisciplinary Editorial Board”. Register and subscription required to use. Information arranged by herbs and supplements, conditions and alternative modalities.
• Online Archive of American Folk Medicine, “For more than fifty years, folklorists associated with the University of California, Los Angeles have systematically documented beliefs and practices relating to folk medicine and alternative healthcare. In order to make the data more readily available to the worldwide community of researchers and medical practitioners, this Archive was established in 1996 under the direction of Dr. Michael Owen Jones, a professor of folklore and history at UCLA.
• Patent Database, United States Patent and Trademark Office: tool to locate registered patents in complementary and alternative medicine
• Poisonous Plant Database ,
• PsychInfo, American Psychological Association: source for mind-body and other complementary and alternative therapies used in mental disorders, stress reduction or psychological and behavioral processes and neuroimmunology.
• The Special Nutritionals Adverse Event Monitoring System , United States Food and Drug Administration, Center for Food Safety & Applied Nutrition, Office of Special Nutritionals: database of adverse effects from the use of a special nutritional products: dietary supplements, infant formulas and medical foods” reported to this agency by the health professional or consumer
• Tropical Plant Database:”authored and maintained by Ms. Leslie Taylor and much of the information contained herein can be found in her book, Herbal Secrets of the Rainforest, from Prima Publishing, Inc.”
• Oral Immunotherapy