According to the World Health Organization atlas (2002), “traditional medicine (TM)” refers to health practices, approaches, knowledge, and beliefs incorporating plant, animal, and mineral based medicines, spiritual therapies, and manual techniques applied individually or in combination to treat, diagnose, and prevent illnesses or maintain wellbeing.

While there is an increase in the use of TM worldwide, research in this area is inadequate, with serious difficulties in accepting the studies conducted. Some of the main reasons why the studies conducted are considered flawed and inadequate are small sample sizes, variable or inconsistent results, and inadequate research designs. The criteria for including and excluding persons in a randomized control trial, RCT, differ between CM and TM; for example, having chosen TM as a therapy could be a criterion for exclusion, to reduce bias.

Another problem encountered with TM is selecting a suitable placebo. To begin with, interaction between the healer and the patient, which is usual in TM, can have a placebo effect. Apart from this when the participant receives an intervention such as chiropractic, massage, or acupuncture a sham treatment or placebo would be difficult to devise.

Another difficulty encountered when designing a research study on a traditional healing method is that there are often differences in the forms, approaches, and nature (duration and intensity) of treatment, making it difficult to describe any TM in a single sentence, which would be understood to mean the same method by all people, everywhere

Other research in TM, particularly related to herbology and plants used in healing, already follows conventional methods. Additional studies are required to understand the safety of herbomineral compounds and determine whether they have a risk of heavy metal toxicity or not.