HIV positive individuals may take dozens of medications daily and many use alternative therapies as well, new study results suggest.

``Use of alternative medicine is common among HIV-positive patients,'' according to lead researcher Heather Southwell of the University Hospitals of Cleveland and her Ohio colleagues.

Eighty-two percent of the more than 300 patients interviewed by Southwell and her team reported using a total of 567 different alternative therapies. Some 134 of the patients were using a total of 333 therapies at the time of the interview, the researchers report.

Micronutrients and vitamins were the most common supplements, used in 40% of treatments. Of the remaining therapies 26% included herbal supplements such as echinacea or St. John's wort; 25% included teas, massage and other noningestible therapies; and 6% included protein supplements and anabolic steroids, study findings show.

Nearly 60% of the alternative medicine users said they told physicians about their use, yet the information was rarely recorded in the patient's chart, the researchers found.

``Physicians need to ask and note in medical records what patients are taking and check for potential interactions,'' Southwell told Reuters Health.

However, patients were most likely to inform physicians only about anabolic steroid use or protein supplement use, the authors note. Therefore most of the documented information was specific to these therapies.

``Patients need to inform their physicians of all over-the-counter substances they are taking, including herbs, vitamins and minerals,'' Southwell advised. ``These substances have the potential to interact with medications or cause toxicities that may go undiagnosed or misdiagnosed since the substance causing the problem was not reported.''

``We did not ascertain the reason why patients on multiple medications wish to use complementary therapies,'' added study co-author Hernan Valdez of Case Western Reserve University in Ohio. ``Studying this could give us some insight about patients' perceptions regarding their illness and medication taking behavior,'' he explained to Reuters Health.

Study findings were presented recently during the 8th Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections.

(From Yahoo)