What the Heck is CAM?

Among a couple of other acronyms, CAM stands for Complementary Alternative Medicine. So what does this have to do with your spa day? Well, the answer to that is about 40% of you use CAM as a self-treatment in your homemade lotions, creams and other bath products.

Some of you also realize, there’s a lot of stuff about CAM that you read on the internet that’s just plain garbage. We here at Spa From Scratch try to provide only information that has at least some scientific verification behind it. We would never ever try and give our goddesses false information. If they have wrinkles they want to treat, we want to provide them with formulations that really work. If they suffer from stress or depression, we want to provide them with viable ways to be calm and happy. We’ve made it our mission.


This is a tall task for us because the scientific evidence in many instances is scant at best. Some studies are too small to be significant. Others fail to give us the details of the herb or essential oil they are using. It’s a jungle out there goddess, but there is a tiny spa candle of help. It’s called the NCCAM or the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine. Here’s what they are all about in their own words:

The National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM) is the Federal Government’s lead agency for scientific research on the diverse medical and health care systems, practices, and products that are not generally considered part of conventional medicine. http://nccam.nih.gov/

Though some of their CAM studies are contradictory to those conducted in Europe and Asia, it’s a real live group of highly qualified scientists right here in the U.S. that have shown an interest in a much neglected aspect of health, namely, the alternative approach. Be sure and visit their site and send an e-mail to your representatives that it should be funded. With the severe cutbacks in funding for programs across the board, CAM research through NCCAM could end up on the chopping block.

I know, I know this isn’t one of my usual posts, but I think it’s important enough in the preservation of CAM to ask you to check it out and then work to preserve it. In the long run, research like theirs will save you money by making purchases for products and ingredients that really work. It will allow me to give you the bottom line in my posts vs. digging for hours only to come up a blank.

Now go have fun and relax.

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How to Choose the Right Essential Oils

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Thieves’ Oil Recipe – Research Says It Really Works

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