Vicki Killion vkillion@purdue.edu

Frequently you will hear or read news stories about the latest drug or medical procedure being reported in the latest issue of JAMA or the New England Journal of Medicine.  These weekly publications are probably the two most well-known examples of primary biomedical literature, those publications in which clinical trial results or adverse drug reactions or animal research results are being published for the first time.

 Locating the citations to these publications, and sometimes even the full-text of the article, is possible through the National Library of Medicine's database MEDLINE, available to users free-of-charge through PubMed.

Remember: The biomedical journals indexed in MEDLINE are written for the healthcare professional - physician, nurse, pharmacist, dentist, researcher, etc.  Very few consumer health publications are included. 

Remember:  Most of the journals are not available full-text and free-of-charge!

Databases

PubMed - premiere biomedical database indexing 3700+ journals.  Updated daily.  First-time users are encourage to take the tutorial.

IBIDS - International Bibliographic Information on Dietary Supplements (IBIDS) is the database on published, international, scientific literature on dietary supplements, including vitamins, minerals, and botanicals.

NCCAM - National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM) is dedicated to exploring complementary and alternative healing practices in the context of rigorous science.