What is Naturopathic Medicine and Holistic Health ?

Naturopathic medicine is based on the belief that the human body has an innate healing ability. Naturopathic doctors (NDs) teach their patients to use diet, exercise, lifestyle changes and cutting edge natural therapies to enhance their bodies’ ability to ward off and combat disease. NDs view the patient as a complex, interrelated system (a whole person), not as a clogged artery or a tumor. Naturopathic physicians craft comprehensive treatment plans that blend the best of modern medical science and traditional natural medical approaches to not only treat disease, but to also restore health.

Naturopathic physicians base their practice on six timeless principles founded on medical tradition and scientific evidence.

• Let nature heal. Our bodies have such a powerful, innate instinct for self-healing. By finding and removing the barriers to this self-healing—such as poor diet or unhealthy habits—naturopathic physicians can nurture this process. 
• Identify and treat causes. Naturopathic physicians understand that symptoms will only return unless the root illness is addressed. Rather than cover up symptoms, they seek to find and treat the cause of these symptoms.
• First, do no harm. Naturopathic physicians follow three precepts to ensure   their patients’ safety: 
• • Use low-risk procedures and healing compounds—such as dietary supplements, herbal extracts and homeopathy—with few or no side effects.
  • When possible, do not suppress symptoms, which are the body’s efforts to self-heal. For example, the body may cook up a fever in reaction to a bacterial infection. Fever creates an inhospitable environment for the harmful bacteria, thereby destroying it. Of course, the naturopathic physician would not allow the fever to get dangerously high.
  • Customize each diagnosis and treatment plan to fit each patient. We all heal in different ways and the naturopathic physician respects our differences. 
• Educate patients. Naturopathic medicine believes that doctors must be educators, as well as physicians. That’s why naturopathic physicians teach their patients how to eat, exercise, relax and nurture themselves physically and emotionally. They also encourage self-responsibility and work closely with each patient.
• Treat the whole person. We each have a unique physical, mental, emotional, genetic, environmental, social, sexual and spiritual makeup. The naturopathic physician knows that all these factors affect our health. That’s why he or she includes them in a carefully tailored treatment strategy.
• Prevent illness. "An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure" has never been truer. Proactive medicine saves money, pain, misery and lives. That’s why naturopathic physicians evaluate risk factors, heredity and vulnerability to disease. By getting treatment for greater wellness, we’re less likely to need treatment for future illness.

                                                  
                                                               Holistic Health
 What is the definition of holistic health? It's a wellness approach that addresses the body, mind and spirit or the physical, emotional/mental and spiritual aspects of an individual. By spirit or spiritual, I am not making a reference to anything religious. We're talking about the essence of who you are -- the core self.
Traditional medical doctors treat the body and ignore the mind, conventional mental health professionals treat the mind and ignore the body. Neither one of them address the spiritual. Both of them treat symptoms with drugs or surgery rather than looking for what causes the symptom.
A holistic health approach doesn't view the body, mind and spirit as separate entities and promotes drugs and surgery only when absolutely essential and after other solutions have been sought. It looks for the underlying causes of symptoms, rather than just covering up the symptoms with a drug.
The body, mind and spirit are not independent of one another. They are intertwined. What affects one affects the others. A philosophy that focuses on only one aspect is an incomplete approach.
The definition of holistic health may encompass many different elements depending on which field of thought you're dealing with. It is sometimes referred to as complimentary health, alternative health or natural health. These terms are often, but not always interchangeable. A treatment approach can be complimentary, alternative or natural without necessarily being holistic. However, most holistic approaches are considered to be complimentary, alternative or natural.
Treatment approaches are highly individualized for the unique needs of each individual and the patient and their practitioner make decisions together as partners to develop the health care plan.
You'll find a variety of holistic self care strategies and alternative health advice intended to enlighten and empower. Being healthy does not necessarily mean the absence of disease or illness. It is about living as completely and optimally as possible with the hand you have been dealt and the limits that you face, while at the same time pursuing options that will deal you a better hand.