A health care report in the US conducted a research on alternative medicines. The result shows that Americans spend a substantial amount of money for alternative health care such as chiropractic, supplements, yoga and acupuncture.

The U.S. National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health report lists the health care expense that Americans paid in 2012 for various alternative medicines, as reported by Fox News.

Alternative medicine: natural supplements

The report explains that Americans spent more than $12 billion on alternative medicines, commonly found in natural supplements. The expenditure is lower than the amount paid for prescription drugs.

Alternative health care: a visit to practitioner

It is reported that Americans paid a visit to alternative healthcare practitioner such as massage therapists, acupuncture specialists, chiropractors and even yoga instructors. The expense recorded an amount of almost $15 billion in a year. This spending is 30 percent from the total traditional medical services.

Alternative health care: the purchase of self-helping materials

According to the researchers, Americans spent almost $3 billion on books and videos which contain self-helping methods benefit for their health.

Americans with lower income are willing to spend more on alternative medicines

Furthermore, the research also highlights the importance of alternative medications for the Americans. According to the research author, epidemologist Richard Nahin, the statistics proved that people whose income are less than $25,000 annually, are willing to spend substantial amount of alternative medications up to $389 on natural products and visits to practitioners. People with higher income spend even more amount per year for alternative health care regardless the method.

Alternative health care expenditure includes yoga practice

Yoga is one of the alternative health care that becomes a trend in the past few years. This is because it is widely accepted by the public and scientists believe that the alternative health care is part of the consumer demand.

Regardless the increasing demand, researchers suggests consulting with doctors when opting for natural product supplements especially when the medication is a complementary treatment. This is because scientific studies on alternative medicines are not as many as pharmaceutical health care.

Google seems to understand the need to provide more accurate info on illness symptoms by launching Symptom Search that enables users to have science-backed information when searching on a particular health condition on Google. Teaming up with Harvard Med School and Mayo Clinic, this feature means that there will be 'real doctors' helping users to get more insights on their disease, University Herald reported