1. Don't overpay! Buy from Nature's Bounty's
Puritan's Pride, Healthy America, Doctor's Trust, The Vitamin Shoppe, or Vitaglo (for name brands). 
Each company has their strengths and weaknesses, but all have a good price relative to most competitors. Also, Wal Mart's line of Spring Valley vitamins is very reasonable and many are made by Nature's Bounty (so is Rexall), so their quality is guaranteed. Let me give an example of savings: Vitaglo's products are almost always 20-40% off what you would pay at other places. I bought Bromelain (an enzyme) by Now Foods from Vitaglo for 8.00, and saw the exact same product at GNC for 19.95. Nature's Bounty and the other companies mentioned above fully analyze and guarantee the potency of ALL products! Lee Nutrition also had great prices, but is out of business. I used to order from them back in the 1990s.
2. Compare Prices!! Many people try to make a buck off alternative medicine. They might not purposely scam you, but they might not do the research necessary to fully investigate their products, and end up over-charging you. I recall seeing a "diet" product for almost a hundred dollars for a month supply. The ingredients were basically Vitamin B12 and a few herbs. I could have bought a 100-day supply of all the ingredients separately from the companies mentioned above, and still paid less than thirty dollars. Especially avoid sites that use religion as a way to sell you price inflated vitamins. The Bible says something about those who cheat people.
3. Don't believe most conspiracy theories. Alternative medicine has not been accepted for a variety of reasons, but we need not resort to wild conspiracy theories. Dr. Ralph Moss and others describe mainstream medicine's rejection of alternative medicine as resulting from developed biases, rather than an outright conspiracy. Besides, alternative medicine is now being accepted by many in mainstream medicine.
4. Don't expect cures or believe amazing claims. Cures are rare in medicine. The same is true of alt medicine. Even the amazing products tend to exert more of a control effect, rather than a curative one. If someone promises a cure, beware! It is hucksters who exaggerate claims about supplements that cause regulation-heavy lawmakers to spring into action.
5. You don't have to get into the health food "culture" to use alternative medicine. One need not oppose vaccines, buy organic, battle fluoridation, or reject traditional medicine to integrate alternative medicine into his or her life. As post-modernity takes hold, alt and orthodox medicine will be integrated. If an alt medicine extremist gets on you for not going "far enough" don't worry.
6. Research before you give advice. If you must give advice even after researching, remember you are probably not a doctor. Doctors, despite certain biases they have, are still trained, hard-working professionals, who should be involved in ALL major medical decisions. The alt medicine field is filled with people, "seeming to know something, knowing nothing," to quote the literal Greek of the philosopher Socrates. Avoid dogmatic advice from MD wannabes whose only scientific training is reading a website for an hour.
7. Accept that everyone has biases. Professors, patients, pastors, and doctors all have presuppositions that color how they view research, the world, etc. Recognize that you do as well. These biases effect your views on medicine. While we can try to eliminate these, it is not easy, and can never completely achieved.
8. If you are researching laetrile (amygdalin, vitamin B17), don't overpay, and don't even visit sites that promote it as a cure. Every knowledgeable pro-laetrile scientist denies it is a cure, and considers it merely a control. In fact the positive research using amygdalin shows that it takes high injectable doses to have an anti-metastatic effect, around 500mg/kg of body weight. A 100 pound person would need about 22 grams/day injected to reach this level. Even then, in the famous study on rodents carried out by Dr. Harold Manner it was the enzymes that had the greatest impact on cancer, not the laetrile. Remember also that laetrile still remains an unproven therapy. If you must buy amygdalin, here are some prices I believe are reasonable...DO NOT pay more than this. You are getting ripped off if you do (and sadly certain "Religious" sites rip-off customers).
500 mg tablets- $0.90/tablet or less
100 mg tablets- $.24/tablet or less
3 g powdered vials- $1.05/vial or less
apricot seeds- $16.00/lb or less (even though ALL sources as of now inflate their prices)
10cc 3 g liquid vials- Do not buy. According to the Merck Index, and Dr. Krebs, the promoter of laetrile, 3 grams of pure amygdalin will not dissolve in less than 30 cc of water, so something is fishy here.
9.Use Common Sense!!
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