A Comprehensive Review of Evidence Based Complementary Medicine Use in HIV/AIDS

More than half of people living with HIV and/or AIDS (PLWHA) in Australia currently use complementary medicine (CM), even though little is known about its effectiveness. We aimed in this review to summarise the published evidence on the effectiveness of CM gathered from properly conducted randomised controlled trials (RCTs). A comprehensive search of PubMed was conducted to locate all relevant RCTs. One hundred and two trials met the inclusion criteria. These trials fell into two broad categories: substance-based and behaviour-based treatments. With the clear exceptions of antioxidants and vitamins (38 trials) and behaviour-based and interventions (25 trials), there was no uniform trend in the frequency of treatment use. While there is little conclusive evidence, the behaviour-based treatments seem to be more promising. In particular, eleven RCTs of stress management showed significant increase in the quality of life of PLWHA. There is some evidence that CM can be used in an integrated approach to HIV/AIDS treatment, particularly in maximising the quality of life of HIV-positive individuals. Further RCTs are needed to determine the effectiveness of CM in minimising both the need for standard medications, and the occurrence and severity of the side effects of medication.