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Biofeedback is a practical approach to diseases.

Edited By Dr. Héctor E. Solórzano, M.D., D.Sc.

Professor of Pharmacology and President of

Biofeedback Society of Guadalajara.

Since the publication of the results of a

study done by Dr. Eisenberg, in The New England

Journal of Medicine on January 28

th

1993, the in-

terest on alternative medicine has increased enor-

mously. He found that Americans spent $17 bil-

lion dollars in medical visits to alternative medi-

cine practitioners. These patients preferred to spend

their money than to receive the free medical or-

thodox consultation.

In 1992, the Office of Alternative Medi-

cine was opened as part of the NIH with a budget

of $2 million dollars. The increase of the demand

to know more about these therapies has been so

large that in October 21

st

, 1998 this OAM turned

into the National Center for Complementary and

Alternative Medicine whose functions are to fa-

cilitate and drive biomedical research with a bud-

get of $20 million dollars during that year.

Currently there are about 12 centers of the

NCCAM that do research on alternative medicine

in areas of specific diseases.

Then in 1994, the May issue of Pediatrics

published for the first time in the history of the

American conventional medicine a clinical study-

using homeopathy. Researchers of the University

of Washington and Universidad de Guadalajara did

it (Jacobs J., Jiménez LM, et al: “Treatment of acute

childhood diarrhea with homeopathic medicine: A

randomized clinical trial in Nicaragua,” Pediatrics

93: 719-25, 1994).

The trends in alternative medicine use in

the United States were reviewed and again Dr.

Eisenberg found that the use of herb remedies in-

creased in 380% and the use of high doses of vita-

mins rose 130% in a period of time of 7 years.

Americans now spend around $27 billion dollars a

year on this kind of therapies. Even some insur-

ance companies pay for the alternative medicine

treatments (“Trends in Alternative Medicine use

in the United States,”1990-1997, JAMA,

1998;280:156-1575).

More attention was addressed to alterna-

tive medicine in 1998 when the whole issue of

JAMA published on November 11

th

, was almost

dedicated to the topic of alternative medicine.

A study done by the Office of Education

Development, Harvard University, School of Medi-

cine showed that 75 of the 125 schools of Medi-

cine in the United States offer elective courses on

alternative medicine. Thirty-eight courses of the

123 elective courses are offered by the Departments

of Family Medicine and 14 courses are offered by

the Departments of Internal Medicine (“Courses

involving complementary and alternative medicine

at US medical schools,” JAMA 1998;(9)280:784-

787, Wetzel MS, Eisenberg DM).

There is an advertisement that says: “Can-

cer Treatment Centers is the only group of hospi-

tals in the country in which, the doctors of naturo-

pathic medicine work side by side with the

oncologists as an integral part of their treatment

team against cancer”. This statement would be in-

credible a few years ago.

Now I will attempt to present a clear pic-

ture of biofeedback research.

The term feedback is defined as a method

of controlling a system by reinserting into it the

results of its past performance. We can learn to

control our performance in sport by observing and

acting upon the results of our previous results.

So biofeedback is simply a special kind of

feedback. In this case, it can be the feedback of

different parts of the body. It can be the brain, the

heart, the muscles and so on. Then we got biofeed-

back training, which is the procedure that allows

us to tune into our body functions and eventually

to control them. It is really fascinating.

In a typical biofeedback training session an

individual can “see” his heartbeat and “hear” his

brain waves. That means that he has the informa-

tion he needs to start to control them.

Once a subject is able to recognize his brain