EDITORIAL article
Front. Pediatr.
Sec. Children and Health
This article is part of the Research TopicThe role of nutritional supplements and oral complementary or alternative medicine supplements for the management of chronic conditions in childrenView all 5 articles
Editorial: The role of nutritional supplements and oral complementary or alternative medicine supplements for the management of chronic conditions in children
Provisionally accepted
- University of Otago, Christchurch, Christchurch, New Zealand
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Children with chronic conditions may experience a wide range of somatic and psychosomatic symptoms resulting from their illness (1,2). Allopathic treatments may provide symptom resolution or relief, but clinicians are increasingly incorporating non-prescription supplementation into treatment regimens for their patients (3). Research on the role that nutritional and complementary or alternative medicine (CAM) supplementation may have in the treatment of chronic disease is becoming more prevalent with many promising results arising. The use, efficacy, and safety concerns of nonprescription supplementation for children with chronic conditions are important topics to address. It is only via increased visibility of research on CAM and nutritional supplementation, either as stand-alone therapy or in conjunction with prescribed medications, that clinicians can provide holistic, fully informed care for children with chronic conditions.Establishing the extent of CAM or nutritional supplementation use, and factors associated with this practice, may help inform education materials and promote awareness of potential safety concerns for clinicians and carers (4). The use of supplementation for children is reported to vary between 4 and 100% for short-term use, and 48 to 90% for lifetime prevalence (5). The safety of non-disclosure of CAM use is high, reported at 67% in one meta-analysis (6), and in individual studies among children from 60 to 99% non-disclosure to the child's medical team (7). Known interactions between prescribed medication and non-prescription supplements pose significant safety risks. In addition the reasons for non-disclosure of supplementation use are important to establish, with the most common reason being not being asked by doctors or thinking CAM use wasn't important to mention (6,8). In this Research Topic Tekle et al assessed traditional medicine (TM) usage among a cohort of children attending a tertiary care hospital. The prevalence of TM use was high with 86.5% of parents reporting having given their child TM within the last twelve months, and of those using it 27% had given oral TM, 30% topical, and 38% inhaled. The main reasons given for TM use were the belief that modern medicines cannot cure some diseases, and that TM is effective when chosen and used correctly. In this report, only 13% of parents using TM for their child had disclosed this to healthcare professionals, the main reason being that they were not asked. However, 95% of the respondents stated they would discontinue use if their child got sicker after using it, and 81% would stop if their doctor asked them to discontinue use. The most significant factor associated with TM use for their child was having used TM themselves, and parents having a 'good' perception of TM efficacy. This study adds further weight to growing evidence 128
Keywords: CAM therapies, Chronic conditions, Non-disclosure, nutrition, pediatric, supplementation
Received: 03 Feb 2026; Accepted: 12 Feb 2026.
Copyright: © 2026 Vernon-Roberts and Day. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Angharad Vernon-Roberts
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