Allopathic Medicine vs. Naturopathic Medicine
Allopathic Medicine (a term now considered archaic that’s largely been replaced by “Modern Medicine”) is for all intents and purposes, the current mainstream approach to health management. While, a polar opposite in its approach, Naturopathic Medicine is a distinct type of primary health care that concentrates on whole-patient wellness, and that emphasizes prevention, natural remedies, and the promotion of a person’s inherent ability to self-heal.
Let’s look over a hypothetical situation; “Doctor, I’m having these strange, uncomfortable, painful symptoms for the last couple of months, they come and go, but are impacting my quality of life. I haven't changed anything about the way I eat, sleep, or exercise – I haven’t gained or lost weight, I’m not stressed, and I’m really worried.”
With Allopathic medicine, your doctor proceeds to give you a physical, checks all your vitals, and promptly orders a bunch of blood work to give a better idea of what’s going on. You go back in for your follow-up the next week and your doctor tells you there’s nothing wrong with you, all the tests came back normal. Baffled, you ask him how that could be since clearly these symptoms aren’t just in your head. To which your doctor replies, “I’m sorry, but everything looks normal and there isn’t any indication that anything is wrong with you. You can take some Advil or Tylenol whenever the pain comes on and come back in 6 months, and we’ll see if anything has evolved, maybe we can run some more tests then.”
Many of us have been there before, not feeling like ourselves, but not getting answers when tests come back inconclusive. By relying on one form of medicine, we often miss the mark and don’t see the whole picture of our health.
What is Allopathic Medicine?
Allopathic Medicine, or Western Medicine, is a system of medicine that is characterized by growing specialization and ever-more complex diagnostic and therapeutic technology, that “treats the body as a biochemical machine and physicians as specialized technicians who can repair the machine.” We’ve all used this form of medicine before and it is practiced by an MD. Of course, it should be recognized that Modern Medicine does have it’s place and has seen the development of multiple groundbreaking prescription medicines and sophisticated advances in medical treatment that have helped many people avoid disability and death caused by disease, lowered overall treatment costs, and has lowered death rates for heart disease, stroke, cancer, and other deadly diseases for several decades.
Problems with Allopathic Medicine
Despite the many positives, the one big caveat of modern medicine is that it focuses squarely on symptoms, conditions, and diseases first, rather than the patient as a whole with interconnected parts. As a result, the approach is reliant almost to a fault on obtaining a diagnosis before deciding on the course of action, and so tends to wait until there is something detectable and diagnosable (i.e. severe enough to be picked up in blood work or via other diagnostic tools) to start treating the patient. The conventional medicine approach thus leaves little room for prevention. Another issue of modern medicine is that it focuses primarily on working with pharmaceutical medications to manage and quiet symptoms (often referred to as a “band-aid” approach), rather than on getting to the root cause of a symptom, discomfort, or illness.
What is Naturopathic Medicine?
Naturopathic Medicine uses both age-old healing traditions, as well as the latest scientific advances and research (including blood tests and other more conventional diagnostic tools when necessary). Naturopathic Medicine considers the body as an integrated whole, and so, considers the person in their entirety, starting with the symptoms and building on that to include a thorough examination of dietary habits, lifestyle hygiene (environment), exercise, stress levels, sleep habits, behaviours, beliefs, and so forth.
Why Naturopathic Medicine?
Their extensive and comprehensive case taking allows naturopaths not only to make a precise diagnosis but perhaps far more importantly, to address health problems holistically. A naturopathic’s first goal will not be symptom suppression, but rather addressing the root cause (or causes) of a symptom, discomfort, or illness. Because of this, naturopathic physicians are often compared to educators because not only do they help individuals on their health journey, but they also teach and guide them towards optimal health and wellness, as well as educate them on natural, safe, and effective disease management. However, let’s be clear, Naturopathic Physicians are just that, licensed physicians. In fact, just like MD’s, licensed ND’s must attend an accredited medical school for four years and must pass rigorous professional board examinations before being officially licensed to practice medicine.
Other Approaches That are Gaining Momentum
Beyond Modern Medicine and Naturopathic Medicine, some grey areas have been developing over the last decade or two. Indeed, various forms of natural medicine, such as functional medicine and integrative medicine have been steadily gaining in popularity as of late. Both of these disciplines are highly regarded by leading health care practitioners. Indeed, functional medicine and integrative medicine may well be the future of conventional medicine, as they both involve physicians taking on a more holistic approach; one that puts the focus squarely on the patient as opposed to the symptom, condition, or disease taking centre stage. Functional medicine and integrative medicine as approaches are also both less concerned with symptom management, and far more centred on all aspects of prevention. Though quite similar, there are some very distinct differences between the two approaches.
Basics of Functional Medicine
Much like naturopathic medicine, the functional medicine model is an individualized, patient-centered, science-based approach that empowers patients and practitioners to work together to address the underlying causes of symptoms, or illnesses. Practitioners of functional medicine have recourse to a range of modalities such as nutrigenomics, which looks at the effects of food and food constituents on gene expression, and how genetic variations affect the nutritional environment. This particular modality focuses on understanding the interaction between nutrients and the genome at the molecular level, to understand how specific nutrients or diets affect overall health and wellness. While conventional medicine is certainly quite effective at treating acute and emergency medical situations, functional medicine is ideally suited to addressing chronic illnesses, and ultimately guiding patients on how to safely and effectively manage chronic conditions long-term.
Basics of Functional Medicine
Much like naturopathic medicine, the functional medicine model is an individualized, patient-centred, science-based approach that empowers patients and practitioners to work together to address the underlying causes of symptoms or illnesses. Practitioners of functional medicine have recourse to a range of modalities such as nutrigenomics, which looks at the effects of food and food constituents on gene expression, and how genetic variations affect the nutritional environment. This particular approach focuses on understanding the interaction between nutrients and the genome at the molecular level, to understand how specific nutrients or diets affect overall health and wellness. While conventional medicine is certainly quite effective at treating acute and emergency medical situations, functional medicine is ideally suited to addressing chronic illnesses, and ultimately guiding patients on how to safely and effectively manage chronic conditions long-term.
Basics of Integrative Medicine
As previously mentioned, functional medicine and integrative medicine are similar in their approaches, which is why, like functional medicine, integrative medicine considers all factors that influence health, wellness, and disease, including mind, spirit, and community, as well as the body. Integrative medicine neither rejects allopathic (conventional) medicine nor accepts alternative therapies uncritically, but rather believes that good medicine is based on good science. As such, integrative medical practitioners are inquiry-driven and open to new ideas and models, and can make use of all of the treatment modalities that the practitioner sees fit, coming from all branches of medicine. Worth noting, is the fact that integrative medical physicians are licensed medical doctors who take an integrative approach to healthcare. This involves adopting both conventional treatments and complementary alternative medicine (CAM) modalities.
While each approach has it’s place, it’s important to see that when we rely solely on one practice for our health, we could be missing the underlying issue; therefore, not getting the full picture when it comes to our health. While modern medicine is a great approach for when something is already wrong, alternative approaches are excellent for preventing health concerns and increasing overall health and well-being. This proactive approach often leads to more energy, vitality, and graceful aging because underlying, root concerns are addressed and a natural, healthy lifestyle is implemented from the inside out.