May 2025 Reading Club: Complementary and Integrative Medicine

Posted by liaison on May 1st, 2025 Posted in: All Members, Opportunity to Participate

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On behalf of the NNLM Reading Club team, we are pleased to announce the May 2025 theme, Complementary and Integrative Medicine. Many Americans use medical treatments that are not part of mainstream medicine. These types of care may be called complementary, integrative, or alternative medicine.

Complementary medicine is used together with mainstream medical care. An example is using acupuncture to help with the side effects of cancer treatment. When health care providers and facilities offer both types of care, it is called integrative medicine. Alternative medicine is used instead of mainstream medical care.

The claims that non-mainstream practitioners make can sound promising. However, researchers do not know how safe many of these treatments are or how well they work. Studies are underway to determine the safety and usefulness of many of these practices. (From Complementary and Integrative Medicine: MedlinePlus)

We are pleased to be featuring three new books related to this month’s topic:

• We’ll Prescribe You a Cat by Syou Ishida. Translated by E. Madison Shimoda
• Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art by James Nestor
• Your Brain on Art: How the Arts Transform Us by Susan Magsamen and Ivy Ross

We would like to thank our NNLM Reading Club Advisory Group, which is made up of NNLM Members who worked together to choose this topic, select the three books we are featuring this month, and to develop book discussion guides. Books and health information resources are available on our Complementary and Integrative Medicine page.