Exploratory Program Grant for Frontier Medicine

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DESCRIPTION (provided by the applicant): In the United States, the use of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) increased by approximately 25% between 1990 and 1997. The number of visits to CAM practitioners was 629 million and exceeded visits to primary care physicians by about 250 million in 1997. In spite of the extensive use of CAM in the US and internationally, we know little about the safety and efficacy, mechanism of action and longer-term outcomes of many popular modalities. Energy medicine modalities, including therapeutic touch, healing touch and reiki, are commonly utilized for conditions ranging from headache to cancer yet our understanding of the human energy field and how it may be used in healing is limited. Although many of these therapies have been used for hundreds or even thousands of years, the current medical and scientific environment demands that we begin to apply rigorous standards to the study of this field. The Exploratory Center for Frontier Medicine at the University of Connecticut Health Center (UCHC), in collaboration with the University of Iowa, will focus on biofield/energy healing, specifically therapeutic touch and healing touch. We have chosen our major projects based on the research strengths of the principal investigators and designed projects in close collaboration with experienced practitioners in energy medicine. We have created a plan for collaboration between projects and between institutions which we believe will provide the infrastructure to 'nurture and advance this field of biomedical science'. The administrative core of the Center will provide the scientific and educational infrastructure for investigators in frontier medicine. The core will take advantage of the rich academic environments at the University of Connecticut and Iowa in order to provide an infrastructure in which to evaluate the effects of therapeutic and healing touch on several human diseases and processes. The four projects include basic and clinical science. The studies are: Project #1 (Dr. Karen Prestwood) The effect of therapeutic touch on bone metabolism in postmenopausal women after wrist fracture; Project #2 (Dr. Gloria Gronowicz) The effect of therapeutic touch on bone formation in vitro; Project #3 (Dr. Theresa Smith) The effect of therapeutic touch on human fibroblast biology; and Project #4 (Dr. Susan Lutgendorf) Healing touch in advanced cervical cancer: immune effects and mechanisms.