Has anyone ever tried a naturopath out there? We were considering looking at one for some allergies since it takes about 3 years to get an appointment with an allergist, and we just wanted some feedback on general thoughts.
Naturopathy, sometimes referred to as "natural medicine," is a largely pseudoscientific approach said to "assist nature" [1], "support the body's own innate capacity to achieve optimal health" [2], and "facilitate the body's inherent healing mechanisms." [3] Naturopaths assert that diseases are the body's effort to purify itself, and that cures result from increasing the patient's "vital force." They claim to stimulate the body's natural healing processes by ridding it of waste products and "toxins." At first glance, this approach may appear sensible. However, a close look will show that naturopathy's philosophy is simplistic and that its practices are riddled with quackery.
The Bottom Line
In 1968, the U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (HEW) recommended against Medicare coverage of naturopathy. HEW's report concluded:
Naturopathic theory and practice are not based upon the body of basic knowledge related to health, disease, and health care which has been widely accepted by the scientific community. Moreover, irrespective of its theory, the scope and quality of naturopathic education do not prepare the practitioner to make an adequate diagnosis and provide appropriate treatment. [29]
Although some aspects of naturopathic education have improved in recent years, I believe this conclusion is still valid. I believe that the average naturopath is a muddlehead who combines commonsense health and nutrition measures and rational use of a few herbs with a huge variety of unscientific practices and anti-medical double-talk.
Naturopathy is the most eclectic of "alternative" practices. It has changed its methods in response to popular fads and beliefs. It practices no pool of consistent diagnostic or therapeutic methods. The most notable things that unite its practitioners are a penchant for magical thinking, a weak grasp of basic science, and a rejection of scientific biomedicine, which they refer to as "allopathy." Because naturopathy lacks a coherent rationale, patients can encounter anything from commonsense lifestyle advice -- eating a healthy diet, rest, exercise, and stress reduction -- to an array of scientifically implausible nostrums and gadgets [1].
Conclusion
Our inquiry provided naturopaths and their professional associations ample opportunity to refute the conclusions of several major commissions of inquiry that deemed their therapeutic rationale lacking in scientific credibility. None of our informants was able to convince us that the field had taken these earlier critiques to heart; in fact, few seemed to recognize that a problem still exists. Throughout, we found underestimation of the power of the placebo. At the same time, our own bibliographic searches failed to discover any properly controlled clinical trials that supported claims of naturopathy, except in a few limited areas where naturopaths' advice concurs with that of orthodox medical science. Where naturopathy and biomedicine disagree, the evidence is uniformly to the detriment of the former. We therefore conclude that clients drawn to naturopaths are either unaware of the scientific deficiencies of naturopathic practice or choose to disregard them on ideological grounds. Naturopathy seems to appeal to magical thinking in people with nostalgia for a bygone "Golden Age" of simplicity when things moved at a more leisurely pace -- a halcyon world that probably never existed [28]. Despite the scientific shortcomings of the occupation, there continues to be considerable satisfaction among clients. In addition to benefiting from the placebo effect, many find their sociopolitical outlook nurtured by naturopaths' antiestablishment, antitechnology stance, and others find reinforcement for their faith in a benevolent, human-centered universe. Naturopaths also attract people who, for one reason or another, have been dissatisfied with their contacts with biomedicine. They appeal to people with illnesses with a strong psychosomatic component and those who have chronic conditions for which biomedicine, at present, can offer little. Naturopaths' elaborate history-taking and prolonged "hands-on" interactions provide the human contact and social support that, perhaps unknowingly, many of the so-called worried well are really seeking. They also cater to those with exaggerated fears of side effects of standard medical treatments.
To their credit, naturopaths emphasize the benefits of a healthy lifestyle, the value of prevention, and the desirability of using the least intrusive intervention that will do the job. However, their means of achieving these ideals leave much to be desired while fostering scientific illiteracy in the process. Like most pseudoscientific systems, naturopathy offers comfort to its adherents. But comfort afforded is not truth implied.
I've gone to a few and have had really good experiences with it. I was having serious issues getting head colds all the time in school 15 years ago, went to every specialist there was, no one could find anything wrong. Someone suggested going to a naturopath, it was my last hope so I went. She asked me some questions, looked at my eyes, tongue, fingernails and some other stuff and told me I had a severe dairy allergy. The colds were the result of mucus build up from dairy (that's why they tell you not to eat dairy when you have a cold because it's mucus inducing). My guts were fine because I was forcing it through, and 15 years ago dr's didn't take well to dairy issues quite yet. The only "test" was to go off for 30 days and then sit and eat cheese, milk, and anything dairy. At that point I had the extreme dairy reaction you hear about. Over the month I lost 15 lbs, starting at only 115 that was a lot at the time. The dairy was just going to fat on my body instead of being absorbed and used properly.
THAT I learned from my naturopath. I've been dairy free ever since. I've gone over the years a couple times a year. Depending on who you go to and why the range of what they will do is extreme. Some will give you lots of pills, some will give you drinks, and other things. I liked my girl because she believes everything we should get should be from our diet, so anything she was advising in the meantime was just to get to the point where I could establish a complete system through diet.
It's not regulated, so there's a lot of mish mash out there. I'd suggest going to the Wild Rose Clinic. They are well known and have a school in town run by Terry Willard who's renowned in the field. Otherwise go with a recommendation. Try a couple people, different people will charge different, and the appointments will run differently. I had a bad one a time or two, one didn't listen to me, the other told me to eat nothing but boiled chicken and broccoli (not literally, but it felt like it).
Anyways, I could go on, pm me if you need / want anymore info!
Take everything with a grain of salt. Ask lots of questions, the internet is the devil for all things medical and natural. Everyone has an opinion, myself included.
We knew aother boy who had the dairy allergy assessed from the naturopath, and it worked wonders for them too, I wonder if it's a more common allergy than we know.
The important thing to remember is that many of the pills and supplements that the naturopath has are NOT approved or havent been tested.
Naturopathic Doctors... are not doctors. However, if they stick to nutrition and exercise, with well documented supplements, they can help.
EDIT: Also be careful if you currently take prescription medications not to just load up on pills from the naturopath... the adverse drug reactions and drug interactions can be deadly
I've gone to a few and have had really good experiences with it. I was having serious issues getting head colds all the time in school 15 years ago, went to every specialist there was, no one could find anything wrong. Someone suggested going to a naturopath, it was my last hope so I went. She asked me some questions, looked at my eyes, tongue, fingernails and some other stuff and told me I had a severe dairy allergy. The colds were the result of mucus build up from dairy (that's why they tell you not to eat dairy when you have a cold because it's mucus inducing). My guts were fine because I was forcing it through, and 15 years ago dr's didn't take well to dairy issues quite yet. The only "test" was to go off for 30 days and then sit and eat cheese, milk, and anything dairy. At that point I had the extreme dairy reaction you hear about. Over the month I lost 15 lbs, starting at only 115 that was a lot at the time. The dairy was just going to fat on my body instead of being absorbed and used properly.
THAT I learned from my naturopath. I've been dairy free ever since. I've gone over the years a couple times a year. Depending on who you go to and why the range of what they will do is extreme. Some will give you lots of pills, some will give you drinks, and other things. I liked my girl because she believes everything we should get should be from our diet, so anything she was advising in the meantime was just to get to the point where I could establish a complete system through diet.
This doesn't sound like a dairy allergy to me at all. Anyone who took a 30 day break from dairy and then consumed large amounts of it would have a severe negative reaction to it. If you don't consume dairy regularly the body stops producing lactase forcing you into a temporary state of lactose intolerance.
As for the weight loss. Once again, that makes no sense. Being allergic to something does not cause the body absorb it.
The reason for the weight loss is simple. Dairy free diets also tend to be low calorie diets. Take butter, cheese, and ice cream out of your diet and you will lose weight.
I'm glad you are feeling healthy, but look at the experience more from Hesla's interpretation.
The naturopath gave you a nutritional diet in the same way a nutritionist would. They noticed you were slightly overweight and recommended a diet with fewer calories.
They were not capable of diagnosing you with a medical condition of some kind.
This doesn't sound like a dairy allergy to me at all. Anyone who took a 30 day break from dairy and then consumed large amounts of it would have a severe negative reaction to it. If you don't consume dairy regularly the body stops producing lactase forcing you into a temporary state of lactose intolerance.
As for the weight loss. Once again, that makes no sense. Being allergic to something does not cause the body absorb it.
The reason for the weight loss is simple. Dairy free diets also tend to be low calorie diets. Take butter, cheese, and ice cream out of your diet and you will lose weight.
I'm glad you are feeling healthy, but look at the experience more from Hesla's interpretation.
The naturopath gave you a nutritional diet in the same way a nutritionist would. They noticed you were slightly overweight and recommended a diet with fewer calories.
They were not capable of diagnosing you with a medical condition of some kind.
30 days without diary would not create your example: The body only has so many enzymes to digest dairy. The problem with people with a dairy allergy is that they don't have enough enzymes to digest the dairy protein. It is not a fluctuating situation. The body never creates or gets rid of the amount of enzymes in the lifetime. The only exception is pregnancy when a woman creates milk naturally, then, she can create more enzymes in her system. 30 days without would get rid of all the outstanding and unabsorbed proteins to let the person see what the enzyme level is at. By eating dairy at that point and seeing the reaction will be able to judge the level. Remember, this was 15 years ago, and it was the practice they used at the time. Now there is a simple blood test they can do that can see the enzymes, force a dairy protein and watch the reaction.
Weight loss: Dairy has a massive amount of fat in it. Without the proper digestive system to absorb the fat, it gets stored in the body as a foreign object of sorts. People without an allergy absorb and get rid of the excess fat from dairy because their body knows what to do with it. For me, dairy is a foreign and unnatural product that my body cannot process. Once I stopped taking it in, my body was able to get rid of the excess. I did not change my diet other than the dairy, eating, mayo, breads, pastas, burgers, you name it. There was no reason for the weight loss other than the dairy.
I was not overweight at all, in fact I was exactly where I should have been for my height. I absolutely kept the calories the same, noticing the lack of fat and calories from no dairy, I added with mayo and carbs, that I remember.
All that being said, it's a complicated situation and needs much explanation. I understand people being skeptical and judgmental on the process. I have just as much frustration with the medical community prescribing meds because they are pitched to them for the industry to make money off. A pharmaceutical sales rep is one of the highest paying sales rep jobs out there. Don't get me started on that.
I'm all for balance and seeing what works for each person. You'll see I said that system isn't regulated and you'll get many different styles and types of naturopaths. I'm not ignorant to what you are all saying, but what I am saying is there needs to be respect for something that has been around and used for thousands of years. The science isn't the same, the testing isn't the same, but in the differences you need to ask questions, find out what you can, and move forward. I'm just as cautious taking anything from my naturopath as I am from my doctor. The five sheets of warnings and details on my medication scares me just as much as no sheets on a herb. It's got to be put in perspective.
30 days without diary would not create your example: The body only has so many enzymes to digest dairy. The problem with people with a dairy allergy is that they don't have enough enzymes to digest the dairy protein. It is not a fluctuating situation. The body never creates or gets rid of the amount of enzymes in the lifetime. The only exception is pregnancy when a woman creates milk naturally, then, she can create more enzymes in her system. 30 days without would get rid of all the outstanding and unabsorbed proteins to let the person see what the enzyme level is at. By eating dairy at that point and seeing the reaction will be able to judge the level. Remember, this was 15 years ago, and it was the practice they used at the time. Now there is a simple blood test they can do that can see the enzymes, force a dairy protein and watch the reaction.
Weight loss: Dairy has a massive amount of fat in it. Without the proper digestive system to absorb the fat, it gets stored in the body as a foreign object of sorts. People without an allergy absorb and get rid of the excess fat from dairy because their body knows what to do with it. For me, dairy is a foreign and unnatural product that my body cannot process. Once I stopped taking it in, my body was able to get rid of the excess. I did not change my diet other than the dairy, eating, mayo, breads, pastas, burgers, you name it. There was no reason for the weight loss other than the dairy.
I was not overweight at all, in fact I was exactly where I should have been for my height. I absolutely kept the calories the same, noticing the lack of fat and calories from no dairy, I added with mayo and carbs, that I remember.
All that being said, it's a complicated situation and needs much explanation. I understand people being skeptical and judgmental on the process. I have just as much frustration with the medical community prescribing meds because they are pitched to them for the industry to make money off. A pharmaceutical sales rep is one of the highest paying sales rep jobs out there. Don't get me started on that.
I'm all for balance and seeing what works for each person. You'll see I said that system isn't regulated and you'll get many different styles and types of naturopaths. I'm not ignorant to what you are all saying, but what I am saying is there needs to be respect for something that has been around and used for thousands of years. The science isn't the same, the testing isn't the same, but in the differences you need to ask questions, find out what you can, and move forward. I'm just as cautious taking anything from my naturopath as I am from my doctor. The five sheets of warnings and details on my medication scares me just as much as no sheets on a herb. It's got to be put in perspective.
First of all the situation you are talking about is lactose intolerance which is totally different from a dairy allergy. The symptoms between the two are entirely different. The former being a digestive problem, the latter a reaction of the immune system. And yes the amount of lactase the body produces does fluctuate dramatically.
I suffer from fairly severe to moderate lactose intolerance. An condition I developed during puberty. I literally used to drink 2+ litres of milk a day. One day I could no longer drink any.
Trust me when I say this my lactose intolerance does not result in me storing anything...
As for the amount of lactase fluctuating on a day to day basis, yes it does. If I eat small amounts of dairy I can slowly train my body to handle small amounts. This of course disappears as soon as I stop eating dairy regularly.
Did a naturopath tell you this:
"Weight loss: Dairy has a massive amount of fat in it. Without the proper digestive system to absorb the fat, it gets stored in the body as a foreign object of sorts. People without an allergy absorb and get rid of the excess fat from dairy because their body knows what to do with it. For me, dairy is a foreign and unnatural product that my body cannot process. Once I stopped taking it in, my body was able to get rid of the excess. I did not change my diet other than the dairy, eating, mayo, breads, pastas, burgers, you name it. There was no reason for the weight loss other than the dairy."
If so I suggest you never go back to that person ever again. That explanation is faulty in so so so many ways. Your body does not store unprocessed milk fats in your body. Your body is only capable fo storing human fats.
My 3 year old son was scheduled for surgery for enlarged adenoids and had some pretty nasty breathing issues.
To try and avoid surgery my wife (an RN, and herself skeptical) took him to a naturopath a friend of hers with crohns (sp?) uses. I agreed only if we booked the surgery as well. If he didn't progress in time and get checked again by the surgeon I wasn't taking to naturopath's word for it.
Long story short we took him off dairy (to fortified almond milk with flax oil supplements) and he improved after 30-60 days so we stopped the medications. He stayed good (and still is). In the end, no surgery - with the full blessing of the surgeon.
We didn't have my son tested until after I'd seen the results, mostly because I don't trust the test and to field (are they ever going to say you're not allergic to anything?) He came back allergic to dairy, surprise surprise. I still don't trust them, but I can't argue with what I've seen and if it's good enough for the surgeon it's good enough for me.
Last edited by Bend it like Bourgeois; 09-19-2009 at 11:29 PM.
My good friend is currently studying to be an ND (Doctor of Naturopathy) in Toronto. His program is four years and based on what he tells me, is as rigorous as medical school. It also requires an undergraduate science degree and is extremely competitive to get into.
My view is that as long as one doesn't alienate regular medicine, naturopathy can, at best, help and at worst, do no harm.
__________________ “The fact is that censorship always defeats it's own purpose, for it creates, in the end, the kind of society that is incapable of exercising real discretion.”
My good friend is currently studying to be an ND (Doctor of Naturopathy) in Toronto. His program is four years and based on what he tells me, is as rigorous as medical school. It also requires an undergraduate science degree and is extremely competitive to get into.
My view is that as long as one doesn't alienate regular medicine, naturopathy can, at best, help and at worst, do no harm.
Why is this never taught at mainstream universities?
Naturopathic medicine is a distinct system of primary health care that addresses the root cause of illness or disease. Promoting wellness and prevention, naturopathic medicine harnesses science to unleash nature’s healing power. It uses natural techniques and therapies to diagnose and treat both acute and chronic conditions.
The therapies used in naturopathic practice include:
Naturopathy, sometimes referred to as "natural medicine," is a largely pseudoscientific approach said to "assist nature" [1], "support the body's own innate capacity to achieve optimal health" [2], and "facilitate the body's inherent healing mechanisms." [3] Naturopaths assert that diseases are the body's effort to purify itself, and that cures result from increasing the patient's "vital force." They claim to stimulate the body's natural healing processes by ridding it of waste products and "toxins." At first glance, this approach may appear sensible. However, a close look will show that naturopathy's philosophy is simplistic and that its practices are riddled with quackery.
The Bottom Line
In 1968, the U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (HEW) recommended against Medicare coverage of naturopathy. HEW's report concluded:
Naturopathic theory and practice are not based upon the body of basic knowledge related to health, disease, and health care which has been widely accepted by the scientific community. Moreover, irrespective of its theory, the scope and quality of naturopathic education do not prepare the practitioner to make an adequate diagnosis and provide appropriate treatment. [29]
Although some aspects of naturopathic education have improved in recent years, I believe this conclusion is still valid. I believe that the average naturopath is a muddlehead who combines commonsense health and nutrition measures and rational use of a few herbs with a huge variety of unscientific practices and anti-medical double-talk.
Naturopathy is the most eclectic of "alternative" practices. It has changed its methods in response to popular fads and beliefs. It practices no pool of consistent diagnostic or therapeutic methods. The most notable things that unite its practitioners are a penchant for magical thinking, a weak grasp of basic science, and a rejection of scientific biomedicine, which they refer to as "allopathy." Because naturopathy lacks a coherent rationale, patients can encounter anything from commonsense lifestyle advice -- eating a healthy diet, rest, exercise, and stress reduction -- to an array of scientifically implausible nostrums and gadgets [1].
Conclusion
Our inquiry provided naturopaths and their professional associations ample opportunity to refute the conclusions of several major commissions of inquiry that deemed their therapeutic rationale lacking in scientific credibility. None of our informants was able to convince us that the field had taken these earlier critiques to heart; in fact, few seemed to recognize that a problem still exists. Throughout, we found underestimation of the power of the placebo. At the same time, our own bibliographic searches failed to discover any properly controlled clinical trials that supported claims of naturopathy, except in a few limited areas where naturopaths' advice concurs with that of orthodox medical science. Where naturopathy and biomedicine disagree, the evidence is uniformly to the detriment of the former. We therefore conclude that clients drawn to naturopaths are either unaware of the scientific deficiencies of naturopathic practice or choose to disregard them on ideological grounds. Naturopathy seems to appeal to magical thinking in people with nostalgia for a bygone "Golden Age" of simplicity when things moved at a more leisurely pace -- a halcyon world that probably never existed [28]. Despite the scientific shortcomings of the occupation, there continues to be considerable satisfaction among clients. In addition to benefiting from the placebo effect, many find their sociopolitical outlook nurtured by naturopaths' antiestablishment, antitechnology stance, and others find reinforcement for their faith in a benevolent, human-centered universe. Naturopaths also attract people who, for one reason or another, have been dissatisfied with their contacts with biomedicine. They appeal to people with illnesses with a strong psychosomatic component and those who have chronic conditions for which biomedicine, at present, can offer little. Naturopaths' elaborate history-taking and prolonged "hands-on" interactions provide the human contact and social support that, perhaps unknowingly, many of the so-called worried well are really seeking. They also cater to those with exaggerated fears of side effects of standard medical treatments.
To their credit, naturopaths emphasize the benefits of a healthy lifestyle, the value of prevention, and the desirability of using the least intrusive intervention that will do the job. However, their means of achieving these ideals leave much to be desired while fostering scientific illiteracy in the process. Like most pseudoscientific systems, naturopathy offers comfort to its adherents. But comfort afforded is not truth implied.
My mom and sister both work at the Calgary Center for Naturopathic Medicine, and over the offseason they consistently worked with both Rene Bourque and Wayne Primeau until he was traded. Rene needed to get clearance from one of their doctors before he could resume skating. Apparently the Flames see value in the services that Naturopathy offers.
My mom and sister both work at the Calgary Center for Naturopathic Medicine, and over the offseason they consistently worked with both Rene Bourque and Wayne Primeau until he was traded. Rene needed to get clearance from one of their doctors before he could resume skating. Apparently the Flames see value in the services that Naturopathy offers.
That would seem to be a breach of confidentiality that you know this.
We can't tell from your statement what kind of treatment they received. Some things that Naturos do might be legitimate, an awful lot of it is bunk.
That would seem to be a breach of confidentiality that you know this.
We can't tell from your statement what kind of treatment they received. Some things that Naturos do might be legitimate, an awful lot of it is bunk.
Well although it may seem like a breach of confidentiality that I know they were receiving care, if I knew specifically what transpired and posted in here that would certainly be a no-no. All I was saying was that the Flames organization sees a certain amount of legitimacy and effectiveness in having their players consult a naturopathic doctor.
May I ask if you are somehow involved in the medical field? I'm just trying to understand your disposition towards naturopathy.
Argument from authority
Stating that a claim is true because a person or group of perceived authority says it is true. Often this argument is implied by emphasizing the many years of experience, or the formal degrees held by the individual making a specific claim. It is reasonable to give more credence to the claims of those with the proper background, education, and credentials, or to be suspicious of the claims of someone making authoritative statements in an area for which they cannot demonstrate expertise. But the truth of a claim should ultimately rest on logic and evidence, not the authority of the person promoting it.
Naturopath
