Sorry I haven’t been blogging as often as I had hoped. I’ve been very very busy with my book lately!
But anyway I recently came across a piece of research which I found to be fascinating: http://omicsgroup.org/journals/internal-medicine-abstract.php?abstract_id=51723
This paper is fascinating on several levels. Firstly it is stated many times by a number of people that Naturopathic Medicine “lacks evidence”. This statement is now able to be shown to be categorically untrue. Naturopathic medicine has evidence for efficacy in a wide variety of illnesses, such as Cardiovascular disease, Low Back pain, Anxiety, Menopause, and many other conditions.
Secondly this paper emphasizes that in some areas Naturopathic interventions appear to be superior to the standard treatments. Some of the research pieces highlighted (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19644905 , http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17878954 , http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19718255 ) show this clearly in Lower back pain, Rotator Cuff Tendonitis and Anxiety. Knowing several of the researchers who do this kind of work, I am also aware that there are several other similar trials ongoing which are likely to enlarge this list even further.
Thirdly, in addition to being a superior interventions, many time Naturopathic interventions were also more cost effective as well, even when used in addition to the standard of care. In the following study (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24451612 ) Naturopathic medicine reduced cardiovascular risk strongly, reducing the potential medical expenses later on to the extent that the cost of Naturopathic Care was offset. The average cost savings were $1138 in medical expenses and $1187 in employer expenses per year. In another study (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18383988) Naturopathic Medicine in the care of lower back pain resulted in average savings of $1096 per patient in medical and employment expenses.
With this evidence in mind, we need to examine the structure of Canada’s healthcare system. There is no justification for the provinces of Canada to spend increasingly large amounts of money on treatments created from a paradigm that focuses on disease, rather than preserving and increasing health. The evidence available suggests that Naturopathic methods, both on their own and adjunctively, can do a better and more cost effective job in managing and preventing an increasing number of illnesses.
Why then is Naturopathic Medicine so heavily excluded from the public health infrastructure and from research funding? With such potential for cost savings, why would research funding bodies not be pouring money into Naturopathic research? With such potential for cost savings, why has access to Naturopathic medicine not become a priority of public health bodies?.