What is Naturopathy?

Naturopathy is considered a non-invasive healthcare and health assessment in which neither surgery nor drugs are used. Education, counseling, natural modalities and substances are used such as, homeopathic preparations, foods, vitamins, minerals, enzymes, digestive aids, botanicals, herbs, air, water, heat, cold, sound, light, magnetic or frequency, and energy modalities such as acupuncture, homeopathy, bodywork, exercise, lymphatic therapy, and others to re-balance the system.

Historically, theories and philosophies of naturopathy was derived from a number of doctors, chemists, and priests in Europe which dates back from the 1500’s- to the early 1900’s. They combined osteopathy, diet and nutrition, and homeopathy with a holistic view of healing. Their philosophy was to treat the patient, not the disease. Regarding genetics, I would add, look at the person, not their genetics. Consider their genomics rather than their genetics.

In the early 1900’s, Lust brought the philosophy of naturopathy and homeopathy to United States and coined the term, Naturopath, to mean “the nature cure” since he could not use other words such as cure, healing, therapy, therapist, physician, or doctor. He opposed processing foods and pharmaceuticals because they were not natural and the human body could not assimilate them as they should.

Alternative medicine is the belief that there is more to treating a disease than managing its patho-physiology. After Louis Pasteur discovered the germ theory and penicillin, his predecessor, Antoine Béchamp, believed that the primary cause of disease was not the germ, but rather an internal environment out of balance. His theory was that everything begins within us. When our internal environment is clean and green, disease cannot exist.

An accumulation of toxicities and an acidic internal environment increases the risk for disease. The goal of holistic modalities is to relieve symptoms, clean up the person’s internal environment and remove or at least lessen other external factors stressing the body. Doing this will change the acid and alkaline balance in the body so the body pH is not acidic since an acidic environment increases the risk for micro-organisms and makes a person more susceptible to infections. Micro-organisms themselves produce waste products that make the body more acidic, which then contributes to symptoms of inflammation and pain.

I see chronic infection or other diseases as the symptom of an underlying problem, not the problem itself. It could be poor nutrition, an imbalanced micro-biome, toxicity, dental foci,