Welcome to Wellness!
I am honored and very excited to be WebMD's Wellness and Natural/Integrative Medicine expert. I have been doing this work for more than 35 years, first as a student, then as a clinician, educator, researcher, author, public policy expert and spokesman.
I believe we suffer from a huge amount of unnecessary ill health and disease today because a critically important body of healing wisdom is not understood or being used properly. We have created this blog to make this body of knowledge accessible, practically applicable and safe for you.
My basic beliefs:
I hate the term "alternative medicine." It requires either/or, one or the other. This is not the best medicine. The best medicine is that which integrates conventional and natural medicine in the best interests of the patient.
Conventional medicine is very good at diagnosis and treating serious injuries and life-threatening disease. At times it seems almost miraculous. In contrast, natural medicine is very good at understanding the underlying causes of disease and ways to use natural therapies to help the body heal and optimize health. Although results are rarely as dramatic as seen in some conventional interventions, the patient suffering for years from an "incurable" disease cured by a simple herb or nutrient considers this as miraculous. Integrative medicine, the collaborative merging of these parallel perspectives in healthcare, is the best medicine.
When starting Bastyr University in Seattle, WA, in 1978, I coined and implemented the concept of science-based natural medicine. I knew that for this medicine to be accepted, it had to have a strong scientific foundation. I also believed we had to do research -- not to prove ourselves but rather to get better.
While I am a true believer in the philosophical concepts of natural medicine (more on that another time), that does not mean that every therapy we use is necessarily safe and effective. The only way to truly know is to do research.
Many in the natural medicine community felt threatened by this perspective. I asked them how they knew their therapies worked. Their response, "Many of my patients get better." My response, "The placebo effect is very powerful and many patients will get better despite what you do. What if you are using a therapy that actually harms the patient, how would you know?" The only way to know is through research.
I realized that for this medicine to be taken seriously and fulfill its promise of health and healing, it had to grow up. It had to develop accredited education, engage in objective research, write modern textbooks (the most current natural medicine textbook when I was a student had been written in the year I was born), develop more consistent clinical standards and become more savvy politically and socially.
To accomplish this, I lead Bastyr to become the first accredited university of natural medicine (not just in the U.S., but in the English speaking world) and to become the first NIH-funded center for natural medicine research; coauthored the Textbook of Natural Medicine (the most widely read definitive work on science-based natural medicine); was appointed to the White House Commission on Complementary and Alternative Medicine Policy; and became founding editor of Integrative Medicine: A Clinician's Journal. I have been licensed as a naturopathic physician in the state of Washington since 1975.
In this blog, I and my special team will cover important topics in wellness and natural/integrative medicine. Every week we will write about new research on food and health, the natural/integrative medicine perspective on important health topics, and the health effects of environmental toxins, and we will answer questions you send us. Right away when you look at our short articles, you will see both our perspectives on an issue and the research we used to form our opinions. Whenever there is breaking news in integrative medicine or in conventional medicine that would benefit from our perspective, we intend to respond within 24 hours (hopefully sooner). Finally, we will periodically tell informative stories about our patients - both successful and unsuccessful.
I think you will find our philosophical approach, firmly based on strong science, refreshing and immediately useful. We hope you will find us a trusted health resource for you and your family.
Coming next week: The problem of "green drugs."
I believe we suffer from a huge amount of unnecessary ill health and disease today because a critically important body of healing wisdom is not understood or being used properly. We have created this blog to make this body of knowledge accessible, practically applicable and safe for you.
My basic beliefs:
- Each person is their own best doctor and should be in full control of their health and healthcare decisions.
- Our body has an incredible ability to heal, if we just give it a chance.
- Our modern diet, lifestyle and environment strongly promote disease and ill health.
- Health care decisions should be made on the basis of good scientific evidence.
I hate the term "alternative medicine." It requires either/or, one or the other. This is not the best medicine. The best medicine is that which integrates conventional and natural medicine in the best interests of the patient.
Conventional medicine is very good at diagnosis and treating serious injuries and life-threatening disease. At times it seems almost miraculous. In contrast, natural medicine is very good at understanding the underlying causes of disease and ways to use natural therapies to help the body heal and optimize health. Although results are rarely as dramatic as seen in some conventional interventions, the patient suffering for years from an "incurable" disease cured by a simple herb or nutrient considers this as miraculous. Integrative medicine, the collaborative merging of these parallel perspectives in healthcare, is the best medicine.
When starting Bastyr University in Seattle, WA, in 1978, I coined and implemented the concept of science-based natural medicine. I knew that for this medicine to be accepted, it had to have a strong scientific foundation. I also believed we had to do research -- not to prove ourselves but rather to get better.
While I am a true believer in the philosophical concepts of natural medicine (more on that another time), that does not mean that every therapy we use is necessarily safe and effective. The only way to truly know is to do research.
Many in the natural medicine community felt threatened by this perspective. I asked them how they knew their therapies worked. Their response, "Many of my patients get better." My response, "The placebo effect is very powerful and many patients will get better despite what you do. What if you are using a therapy that actually harms the patient, how would you know?" The only way to know is through research.
I realized that for this medicine to be taken seriously and fulfill its promise of health and healing, it had to grow up. It had to develop accredited education, engage in objective research, write modern textbooks (the most current natural medicine textbook when I was a student had been written in the year I was born), develop more consistent clinical standards and become more savvy politically and socially.
To accomplish this, I lead Bastyr to become the first accredited university of natural medicine (not just in the U.S., but in the English speaking world) and to become the first NIH-funded center for natural medicine research; coauthored the Textbook of Natural Medicine (the most widely read definitive work on science-based natural medicine); was appointed to the White House Commission on Complementary and Alternative Medicine Policy; and became founding editor of Integrative Medicine: A Clinician's Journal. I have been licensed as a naturopathic physician in the state of Washington since 1975.
In this blog, I and my special team will cover important topics in wellness and natural/integrative medicine. Every week we will write about new research on food and health, the natural/integrative medicine perspective on important health topics, and the health effects of environmental toxins, and we will answer questions you send us. Right away when you look at our short articles, you will see both our perspectives on an issue and the research we used to form our opinions. Whenever there is breaking news in integrative medicine or in conventional medicine that would benefit from our perspective, we intend to respond within 24 hours (hopefully sooner). Finally, we will periodically tell informative stories about our patients - both successful and unsuccessful.
I think you will find our philosophical approach, firmly based on strong science, refreshing and immediately useful. We hope you will find us a trusted health resource for you and your family.
Coming next week: The problem of "green drugs."
2 Comments:
Hi,
I have no comments. Only a heatlh question. I have been experiencing a problem that has seemed to baffle the physicians in my town. When I sit on my left cheek of my buttocks, my left shoulder burns continuously. I know it is hard to diagnose without doing an evaluation. But if you have any ideas as to what this could be I would greatly appreciate it. My e-mail address is nfelps@earthlink.net.
Thanks
Sorry for delay in responding. I was in Japan speaking on natural medicine and when I opened the blog response window, the prompts were all in Japanese!
I wish I had a good answer for you, but this not obvious. I suggest you see a competent chiropractor or old-school osteopath to evaluate your spinal health. A significant imbalance could produce the symtoms you describe.
Post a Comment