Natural Healing

With the rising cost of conventional medicines and increasingly stressful lifestyles, many people are turning to naturopathic medicine, the so-called ‘drugless doctor’ to prevent and treat minor illnesses. Al Shindagah looks at this alternative health philosophy and what it has to offer 

As the name suggests ‘naturopathy’ is the treatment or prevention of disease without drugs, using natural therapies such as changes to diet and lifestyles to treat health problems.

More of a philosophical approach to health than a particular form of therapy, naturopathic medicine offers a wide variety of natural, non-invasive remedies for an array of troubling minor aliments. 

As the stresses of modern life increasingly take their toll on our health, many of us are now looking for alternatives to conventional medicine and drugs, such as the common aspirin to cure a headache, for instance. 

In very simple terms, the basic premise of the naturopathic philosophy is that when the body shows a symptom of ill health, such as a headache, it is not an aspirin deficiency that causes this condition but some imbalance in the body’s health. Unlike traditional medicine, naturopathy does not just treat the symptom, it seeks to find the cause of the symptoms and treat them with natural changes to lifestyle, diet and emotions – offering long-term benefits – not just short term remedies. 

Some naturopathic recommendations, such as certain dietary modifications and the use of selected vitamins and food supplements, have been shown in scientific studies to confer lasting health benefits, and have been wholeheartedly adopted by conventional medicine. Natural childbirth and acupuncture also fall into this category. Other naturopathic prescriptions, such as detoxifying enemas and the use of homeopathic medicines, lack any scientific support. 

Naturopathy offers a wealth of mostly harmless and probably helpful approaches to a healthier diet and lifestyle. Many of its tenets, such as a diet high in fruits, vegetables, and whole grains, are now standard recommendations for those hoping to reduce the risk of cancer, heart disease, obesity and many other ‘modern’ diseases. While its non-invasive physical therapy techniques, such as massage and exercise, offer significant relief from a variety of muscle and joint complaints.

Techniques of Naturopathy
Naturopathic practitioners range from physicians to massage therapists, and their approach to diagnosis varies accordingly. Among all practitioners, evaluation of diet and lifestyle is considered crucial. However, if your practitioner has a high level of medical expertise, diagnosis may also involve laboratory analysis, allergy testing, X-rays and a physical examination. 
Recommendations for treatment may include any of the following, depending on your symptoms and the practitioners experience and philosophy: 

• Homeopathic Remedies: Preparations containing an extremely diluted amount of a substance that causes the symptoms, prescribed on the assumption that ‘like cures like’. 

• Herbal Medicines: Whole herbs or standardised extracts, prescribed as mild, natural alternatives to synthetic medications. 

• Dietary Supplements: Vitamins, minerals, enzymes, and other food substances, recommended as a natural boost to health and resistance. 

• Dietary Restrictions: Vegetarianism or elimination of certain food categories (such as dairy products), recommended to relieve sensitivity reactions and clear the body of toxins. Dietary advise often includes instructions on ‘proper combining’ of food groups. 

• Physical Medicine: Manipulation of muscles, bones and the spine, and physiotherapy using massage, water, heat, cold, ultrasound, and exercise, employed to relieve a broad array of ailments. 

• Stress Reduction: Counselling, hypnotherapy, biofeedback and other methods, employed to treat and heal stress-related illnesses. 

• Detoxifying Regimens: Fasting, using enemas, or drinking large amounts of water in an effort to purify the body. 

Naturopaths typically recommend a combination of these approaches in an attempt to boost your natural defenses (the immune system), restore good health, and prevent disease.

Origins and Aims of Naturopathy
Naturopathy endeavours to cure disease by harnessing the body's own natural healing powers. Rejecting synthetic drugs and invasive procedures, it stresses the restorative power of nature, the search of underlying causes of disease, and the treatment of the whole person (emotional, genetic, and environmental influences included). It takes very seriously the medical motto ‘first, do no harm’. 

Naturopathic medicine began as a quasi-spiritual ‘back to nature’ movement in the 19th century. Reacting against the often misguided medical practices of the day and the disease, dirt, and degradation caused by the Industrial Revolution, the European founders of naturopathy advocated exposure to air, water and sunlight as the best therapy for all manner of ailments, and recommended spa treatments such as hot mineral baths as virtual cure-alls. 

In the late 19th and early 20th century, naturopathy evolved and grew enormously, rivalling conventional medicine in popularity. Benedict Lust, a German doctor who emigrated to the US in 1892, founded the health food store as we know it, and crystallised the focus of naturopathy on diet and nutrition as the chief route to health. During this period, health-food faddism rivalled that of the present day, with influential practitioners like Dr Kellogg (of cereal-company fame) insisting that meat and other ‘unnatural’ foodstuffs were wreaking untold havoc on human health. 

With the rise of increasingly sophisticated drugs and advanced medical technology after World War II, naturopathy fell from favour. Grains and herbs seemed unsubstantiated in the brave new world of antibiotics and polio vaccines. Science reigned supreme until the 1960s, when the discovery of unsuspected side effects from DDT, thalidomide, and other high-tech wonder drugs reminded the world that conventional medicine sometimes had shortcomings of its own. 

Meanwhile, a new and more scientifically-minded crop of naturopathy advocates, including nutrition writer Adele Davis and vitamin C researcher Linus Pauling, helped bring fresh respectability to the idea that nature still held healing powers. This new breed was quick to adopt the research techniques of ‘conventional’ medicine to prove the effectiveness of age-old remedies like herbs and newer options such as vitamin pills. Placebo-controlled, double-blind clinical trials, in which neither the doctor nor the patient know who was getting genuine treatment and who was getting a fake, soon became common not only for drugs, but for diet as well. As the results accumulated, it became clear that our choice of food can indeed have significant impact on our health.

Does Naturopathy Work?
That depends on the aspect of naturopathy in question. Organised medicine, which ignored nutrition for decades, now swears by low fat, high fibre diets to prevent a host of diseases that plague industrialised societies. Mainstream doctors are also gaining new respect for certain antioxidant vitamins, such as vitamin E, as potential bulwarks against disease, and some are even acknowledging the effectiveness of certain herbs (such as St John’s Wort for depression). 

However, it must be remembered, that some naturopathic treatments are based on little or no scientific studies or evidence. For instance, the naturopathic notion that illness arises from vaguely defined ‘toxins’ in the body that must be purged through fasting, enemas, sweating, and water consumption has never been verified through clinical research. Likewise, many popular food supplements, as well as the mega-dose use of vitamins, have so far failed to show definitive effects while a few have even proved harmful. 

Other naturopathic ideas about nutrition are equally questionable – for example, there's no evidence to support the contention that certain types of foods should never be combined. Scientists also question the heavy emphasis that many naturopaths lay on food allergies as a purported source of countless vague symptoms. And they warn that the naturopathic tendency to eliminate dairy products can result in an unbalanced diet deficient in calcium.

Who Should Use Naturopathy?
Having said this there are many undoubtable benefits to many forms of harmless naturopathy, such as diet, lifestyle and exercise regimens. As long, as we realise that appealing as the idea may be, nature doesn't have the cure for all our medical problems. Although naturopathic physicians have considerable medical training, they are not necessarily qualified to diagnose and treat urgent or potentially life-threatening conditions. (Responsible naturopathic physicians refer such cases to more appropriate medical specialists.) If you have symptoms that may indicate a serious disease, consult a regular physician as well as a naturopathic practitioner. 

But, if your symptoms are not life threatening and conventional medicines have not proved to provide a long term cure to painful conditions, trying an alternative naturopathic treatment certainly makes sense. Naturopathy is not only cheaper than conventional medicine it also has far fewer potentially damaging side effects. 

For the most part, naturopathy focuses on gentle treatments that do no harm, and most people can undertake this type of therapy without undue worry. However, drastic dietary restrictions can undermine good health and should generally be avoided, especially by the very young, the elderly, and those with a medical condition (such as diabetes) that requires special dietary modifications. If a dietary recommendation seems extreme, your wisest course is to first seek the approval of a registered dietitian or a conventional physician knowledgeable about nutrition. 

Potential adverse effects of most naturopathic therapies are few and mild. Nevertheless, ‘natural’ does not invariably equal ‘safe’. Some herbal preparations can be quite toxic, and excessive fasting or use of enemas can upset the body’s balance of fluid and minerals, leading to potentially dangerous consequences such as irregular heartbeat. 

How long before you see results? 
Given the broad range of therapies under the umbrella of naturopathy, no general guideline applies as to how long a treatment takes to ‘work’. Dietary modifications to reduce the risk of chronic disease or control food allergies, for example, may need many months to make a significant difference, whereas therapy for an acute condition such as an infection or minor injury may be more immediate. It is best to ask your individual practitioner for more detailed advice on what to expect from specific types of therapy.
Choosing a therapist 

Although various naturopathic remedies are offered by other health care providers, including chiropractors, nutritionists, holistic nurses, and massage therapists, if you want the complete package, you need to seek out an ND (Doctor of Naturopathic Medicine). Such practitioners should have completed four years of graduate-level training at a naturopathic medical college. Insist on seeing qualifications and ideally ask for written or verbal references from other patients, is you are in any doubt about the practitioners credibility.